The long driveway is eerily quiet, and the only light is coming from the crescent moon reflected in the glass-like water of the boating lake. I can’t even begin to imagine how different it will feel in just a few days’ time when the grounds will be teeming with thousands of people, who will all, no doubt, pretend to be Lord or Lady of the manor for the afternoon.
As the main house looms into view, its turrets shrouded in a soft light against the dark sky, I wonder what Earl Tatten is doing in there. With no family of his own, the silence among its fifty or so rooms, each more imposing than the last, must be deafening.
The word among the staff is that he only lives between two rooms in the attic, never coming down and rarely receiving visitors. Even Leon, who is employed directly by him, has only met him twice; once at the interview and again to discuss his intentions for the summer concert. Both of which were conducted in his surprisingly compact living room on the top floor.
By all accounts he’s a very pleasant man, and Leon hazards a guess that his frugal lifestyle is more about keeping the running costs under control in the rest of the house than a weird, reclusive personality. Because owning and maintaining a stately home is a very expensive business, and the Earl is either fast running out of cash, or he’s suddenly become aware of the commercial opportunities that he would do well to exploit. That’s why he’s opening up the grounds to the paying public for Tattenhall’s first concert on Saturday, and that’s why he has submitted architects’ plans to convert the stables on the far side of the estate into five cottages which, with the renovation of the tennis courts and the old swimming pool, will make for an incredible holiday rental. Leon has been brought in to oversee all of this.
I’m consumed by a sudden burst of pride and instead of following the drive round to the right toward the cottage, I take the left-hand fork, going around the back of the main house. There, down in the dip, toward the far perimeter of the estate, is the metal structure that is being erected to stage the twenty-five-piece orchestra that’ll be entertaining us on Saturday.
As I sit and watch the crew working under the floodlights, I feel terribly guilty and wonder if I’ve given Leon the credit he deserves. He’s had so much on his plate recently and there’s no doubt that this event, if it’s as successful as he hopes, will be the highlight of his career.
I should be working with him instead of against him, and as I pull away and drive to the cottage, I promise both him and myself that as soon as this weekend is out of the way, I’ll sit down and tell him everything.
I’m still thinking about how best to approach it, when I look up to see the dimmest of glows creeping out from around the closed curtains in our bedroom. I turn the engine off and sit unmoving with my heart in my mouth, knowing that I had neither drawn the curtains nor left a light on before leaving.
While admittedly I went out in a rush, it had still been light outside, and I don’t even think I’d gone upstairs. I look down to check I hadn’t changed between work and making dinner. No, I’m still wearing black trousers and my Paul Smith cherry-print blouse, though my sling-back heels have been replaced with a pair of ballerina flats. Were they upstairs or had they been lying by the front door on the hall floor? I’d bet everything I had on the latter, so why then is our bedroom light on?
I force myself to put one foot in front of the other, edging ever closer to the flint cottage with the blue front door. As much as I love this house, I suddenly wish I didn’t live here. I consider calling Leon, just for reassurance, but since when did I become the woman who calls her husband to ask if he left a light on?
I check the side gate as if it’s something I do every night, and I pretend not to look for unwelcome footprints on the black-and-white checkered porch tiles.
Nothing seems to be amiss, yet it still feels like I’m letting myself into someone else’s house, silently turning the key in the lock so as not to disturb whoever’s in here and then waiting, tense and rigid as I listen for movement. It occurs to me as I stand here on the parquet wooden floor whether it might be best to make as much noise as I can, giving anyone who might be in the house a chance to escape unchallenged. Because by the time I get to the top of the stairs, there’s going to be nowhere else for them to go apart from through me, and I’m assuming neither of us want that.
I walk down the hallway into the kitchen and clunk and clatter my way around the room, opening and closing cupboards, banging saucepans against each other and rattling the cutlery drawer. I eye the carving knife and find myself wrapping my fingers around the handle without even realizing what I’m doing. This is ridiculous. I’m allowing a whole load of nothing to turn my normally calm mind into a chaotic frenzy of suspicion and fear.
Leaning against the countertop, where I can still see the bottom of the stairs, I force myself to take a deep breath and get some perspective. I know, if I think about it logically, that what feels like a personal vendetta right now is just as likely to be a series of tenuous coincidences and absentmindedness on my part. I wish I could convince myself that I’d imagined Aunt Meryl’s phone call though.
The faintest creak comes from overhead and I instinctively look up to the ceiling, though what I’m expecting to see, I don’t know. My eyes follow what sounds like footfall as the wooden joists bow and sag under the weight.
An image of the woman I now know as Vanessa comes into sharp focus. Because it’s a lot easier to imagine that the intruder is her than my sister, who I last saw as a little girl in New York. But the glossy mane of golden hair I imagine Vanessa taking such care of when Jacob was under her control is now a dirty blonde, disheveled mess. Her perfectly made-up eyes are now red-rimmed and circled by the dark shadows of sleepless nights. And her normally manicured and polished Rouge Noir fingernails have been gnawed to the quick in a fit of pique.
Having gotten to know her via her browbeaten husband, I realize that Vanessa is not going to think for one minute that Jacob’s leaving is anything to do with her. She’s not the type to take the blame or accept responsibility for any part she may have played. This will all be Jacob’s fault and, if she knows about me, mine, for encouraging him to stand up for himself and leave the woman who’s made his life a misery for the past ten years.
Is that why she’s here? I wonder. To take me to task for giving Jacob a lifeline? Or is she here because she knows I know where he is? I shudder to think what she might do to make me confess.
My breath catches in my throat as I hear very definite footsteps coming down the stairs and I reach for the carving knife again. I don’t know whether to hide and hope that she just lets herself out, or confront her and deal with the consequences—whatever they may be.
I opt for somewhere between the two and move to stand behind the fridge, with my closed fist raised to chest level, ready to pounce with the blade if I need to. My lungs feel like the air is being forced in and out of them through a tiny pinprick of a hole, and my heart hammers through my chest, its deafening beat reverberating in my head.
I remember this feeling from when I was a child and my father would count to a hundred out loud as my sister and I scurried around the house, frantically searching for somewhere to hide, bumping into each other and arguing over the best place to take cover. I’d invariably end up lying down in the cold cast-iron bath, desperately trying to quell the tightening in my chest and the pounding in my ears. Yet despite my discomfort, I’d still beg to do it again. Though I can’t imagine I’ll be looking to repeat this grown-up version of hide and seek anytime soon.
The footsteps are getting nearer and I suck my breath in as I feel someone’s presence at the threshold to the kitchen. I push myself up against the fridge, desperately trying to make myself smaller and less visible.
“Naomi?” comes a voice, and I almost slide down to the floor with relief.
Leon.
He furrows his brow as he turns the corner to see me breathless and holding a knife at chest height.