Chapter Thirteen
CATH WAS SITTING IN A WHITE wooden chair next to the hotel pool.
She’d propped it upright so she could watch the boys playing in the water.
Most of the loungers were flat with towels rolled on each one, waiting for guests who wanted to relax, but now they were all empty.
Cath and her children were the only people there and she supposed most of the visitors would want to be outside, to enjoy the weather.
This place had no natural light and was airless and gloomy.
There were statues, pretending to be Greek or Roman, in alcoves in the walls.
Some had no limbs and made her think of violence and torture, and by association of Hannah’s body lying cold and still, waiting for a pathologist to attack her with a knife.
Cath would have welcomed some background chat, a sense of the real world continuing. Only the boys’ shrieks and laughter echoed from the gothic vaulted ceilings.
Cath heard footsteps and turned to see who was coming in. She was hoping for another family, kids for the boys to play with, to distract them, and her, but it was Jen Rafferty, the woman with the red hair who’d been with her when Hannah’s body had been found.
‘Hello.’ Cath found that she was relieved to see the woman. There was something solid about her. She’d be straight. Tell the truth. ‘Have you caught the person who did this?’
‘Not yet. But we will.’ And Cath believed that too.
Jen pulled one of the heavy white loungers next to Cath and propped it up so that she was upright too. She nodded towards the boys. ‘How are they doing?’
‘They slept in the end last night,’ Cath said. ‘I don’t think it’s real for them, though, and the water has always calmed them. They can forget for a bit.’
‘I’ve got some more questions if you’re up for it?’ A pause. ‘I’ll be your contact throughout the investigation. If you have any questions, call me at any time.’
Cath found the idea surprisingly reassuring.
‘Thanks. And of course I’m happy to answer questions. Anything to help.’
‘It’s about a family called Kinzalow.’
‘Oh?’
Cath hoped she’d kept her voice even, but she’d felt a sudden jolt, a shock at the name.
She was back in their house in north London, opening the door to find Karen Kinzalow in floods of tears, screaming, her face so close to Cath’s that she’d felt specks of spittle on her cheeks.
It had been horrendous. The worst day of her life, she’d thought. Until she’d found her daughter dead.
‘You do know them? Your husband thought that you might.’
So, Paul was leaving it up to her to come up with a story. To make a decision about how much to tell.
Thanks, Paul!
If it were left to her, she would have told it all.
What did it matter now? But since it had become clear that Paul would be the one most likely to succeed in politics – after all, he had the charm and the ambition – she’d led the support team.
He’d often told her he would never have made minister without her, and she thought that was probably true.
Loyalty had become a habit. So, she told the detective what she would find out anyway.
‘Their younger daughter Elizabeth was friends with Hannah and Lottie for a while. In the same little group that hung out together.’
‘They all went to the same school?’
Cath could tell that the detective was surprised by that information.
She nodded. ‘Elizabeth didn’t stay for A levels.
I think the Kinzalows moved back to the US then.
Geoff stopped being a journalist and had decided to write a book.
Something about an American’s perspective of Britain.
I’m not sure that he ever finished it. It might be a work in progress.
Or perhaps it was never published here.’ Cath realized that she was saying more than was necessary and stopped.
It made it seem as if the families were close, and that wasn’t the impression she’d intended.
‘Did you know that they’d be in Millscombe this week?’ Jen asked. ‘The parents, not the whole family.’
‘No!’ The surprise at least was genuine. What could Geoff and Karen be doing there? They’d know about Tide House of course. The girls would have discussed the place. Hannah loved it so much.
‘Would Hannah have known they were planning a trip to North Devon? If she and Elizabeth were friends?’
‘I wouldn’t have thought so. I don’t even know if the girls were still in touch with each other. Perhaps through social media. She moved back to the US with her parents a couple of years ago.’
Cath didn’t mention the accident, the reason that Elizabeth had moved home. There was no reason to go into details. Best to keep things simple. ‘She didn’t stay on to do A levels.’
‘Did the Kinzalows hold on to their flat in London, do you know?’
‘I believe that they did,’ Cath said. ‘They were real anglophiles.’
‘Just a strange coincidence them turning up here then.’
From the tone of her voice, Cath could tell that the detective didn’t really believe in coincidence.
‘I understand Hannah went missing one evening,’ Jen said. ‘Can you tell me what happened? You must have been anxious because you called the police. Your son mentioned it to my colleague and your husband said that you’d reported her missing.’
Cath felt her thoughts scrambling. It was hard to think of a response. Once again, she thought of Paul, and what he would want her to say.
When did I turn into a woman who tries to second guess what her husband wants of her?
She tried to give a little laugh. ‘I overreacted. She was out with a friend.’ Because that was what she’d told the police at the time and Jen might have checked that too. ‘If you’re in the public eye, it’s easy to let your imagination run away with you.’
‘Who was she out with?’ Jen asked. ‘With Lottie Cauldwell? Elizabeth Kinzalow?’
‘Oh no,’ Cath said, a moment of panic, because if they were sufficiently interested, the police would surely check.
But she didn’t think she could reel back now.
‘Neither of those. In fact, Hannah wouldn’t tell us who she’d been with.
She said we shouldn’t treat her like a child.
’ A pause. ‘I wondered if she was with a boy.’
She looked out at the pool. Alex and Gilbert were quieter and seemed a little listless.
‘Look, I have to get the kids out. They’ve been in for so long that they’ll be wrinkled as prunes. If that’s all I can help with …’
‘Sure!’ Jen’s voice was unnaturally cheerful.
Did that mean she didn’t believe Cath? Or was it how she spoke to all newly bereaved relatives of victims of crime?
Cath stood up and found two of the towels. She called to the boys. ‘Time to get out, guys!’ Her voice sounded as strangely bright as Jen’s had been.
The kids made a token attempt to stay longer, but really, she thought, they’d had enough.
Perhaps their laughter had been as forced as Jen Rafferty’s voice.
They clambered up the nearest steps and stood before her, shaking like dogs.
She handed Alex a towel and wrapped Gil up and held him on her knee as she had when he was a baby.
She rubbed him dry. ‘Let’s get you dressed. ’
Jen was still there, watching them, when she walked with them to the changing room.
In the hotel room, Paul was on the phone.
Of course. He usually was on the phone. He mouthed, ‘The PM,’ and she swept the boys into their own room so he wouldn’t be disturbed.
Sometimes, she thought her whole life these days was about preventing her husband from being disturbed.
It hadn’t been like that in the early days, before Hannah was born.
Then she’d been seen as the activist, the person most likely to reach the top in politics.
He’d been her second in command. But in those days, looks had mattered.
Perhaps they still did. And Paul had always been more beautiful than her.
He’d been more ambitious too. More ruthless. Fighting his way onto the council and then into parliament, using tactics that she’d have been too cowardly to contemplate. But always, she thought, on the side of the angels, just as he was now.
From the boys’ room, Cath heard Paul end the call and she went to join him.
They’d been given a large suite, at the top of the hotel, with a living space at one end, separated strangely from the bedroom by a stand-alone bath, a clawed monster with copper taps.
The boys had their own bedroom through a connecting door.
Paul had opened the French door and was standing on the narrow balcony looking out.
‘Elaine Cauldwell was looking for you,’ he said. ‘Did she find you?’
‘No. The woman detective did, though.’
‘Perhaps Elaine saw the two of you talking and chickened out.’
‘Should I go and find her?’ Really, Cath thought, it was the last thing she wanted – Elaine was always trouble – but it was probably the right thing to do.
‘I think you should,’ he said. ‘We need to know how she’ll hold up to all this.’
‘She’ll hold up. You know she’s much tougher than she looks.’ Cath didn’t join her husband on the balcony. There was a giddy view all the way across the garden and down to the harbour. She’d never been good at heights. ‘Jen Rafferty, the detective, was asking about the Kinzalows.’
He turned, so his back was to the view. ‘I know. What did you tell her?’
‘That Elizabeth had been part of Hannah’s group at school, but that she’d left before they took their A levels.
I didn’t give a reason. I said I didn’t know if they’d still be in touch through social media, but I didn’t think they’d met up in person.
I wasn’t sure how much they’d check. The accident can’t be relevant now, can it? ’
‘I can’t see how.’ Paul was going to say something more, but a phone rang. This time it was her mobile.
‘Elaine,’ she said, looking down at it and seeing the woman’s name on the screen. ‘I suppose I’d better arrange to meet her.’
The women sat on the terrace looking out at the garden that sloped steeply down to a road, which was hidden by a high laurel hedge.
There were uncomfortable wrought-iron chairs and matching tables.
Elaine was already there, drinking what she claimed was lemonade, but which Cath guessed was gin.
Maybe with a splash of tonic. A waiter appeared at her shoulder, and she asked for sparkling water.
‘I can’t believe any of this,’ Elaine said. ‘I’m falling apart. How can you be so calm?’
It was an accusation, not in any sense a compliment. She was saying, Don’t you care that our daughters have been murdered?
‘You should have seen me yesterday.’ Cath paused while the waiter delivered her water. She thought that Elaine was just saying what was expected of her. ‘I was howling for hours. Now, I think I’m just numb. Exhausted. And of course, I have the boys to worry about.’
‘Of course.’ A pause. ‘At least you have them. At least you’re not alone.’
Cath wanted to stand up and walk away. She’d forgotten how much she disliked the woman.
‘Have you managed to tell Keith?’ Keith was Elaine’s ex, Lottie’s father.
Former actor, now director of well-reviewed and reasonably successful films, and based in LA.
He’d run off with a woman much less beautiful but rather less flaky than Elaine.
Perhaps it was bitchy to mention him, but it made Cath feel slightly less wretched.
‘Yes, I finally got through to him.’
‘Is he coming over?’
‘Not yet. He’s in the middle of a shoot.
He’ll wait for the funeral. Classic. Work will always come first.’ Elaine looked up at Cath.
Despite her distress, the woman’s make-up was flawless.
If she’d been crying, the mascara must have been expensive and waterproof.
‘Do we have any idea when that will be?’
Cath hadn’t thought as far as a funeral.
The idea made her feel faint. A funeral made death real and final.
She had a sudden image of flames licking a coffin and then of a grave, the coffin buried by feet of black soil.
Which would be worse? She breathed deeply and tried to push away the panic. Perhaps she needed alcohol too.
‘I suppose we’ll have to wait for the police to release the bodies.’
Elaine twisted her glass in her fingers. ‘They are sure, are they, that it wasn’t some terrible accident?’
Cath thought of her daughter, lying next to the millstone below Tide House, the blood and the shards of bone mixed with dead leaves. ‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘Quite sure.’
‘Hannah must have been the target, surely.’ Elaine’s voice was petulant, once again accusing. ‘Nobody would know that Lottie would be there. Everyone knows about Tide House, Paul’s idyllic bolthole on the coast.’
‘We can’t make any assumptions. The police are working on it.’ In some attempt to fight back, Cath added, ‘The Kinzalows were there. In the village. They were camping at a farm less than a mile away.’
Elaine’s eyes widened. ‘You think they had something to do with this?’
The fight had already gone out of Cath. She couldn’t summon the energy. She shrugged. ‘The police found out about them. Who knows? It might be a coincidence.’
‘Really?’ Elaine’s voice was shrill. ‘Do you really think so? I don’t!’
Cath was sitting with her back to the view.
Even here, on solid ground, the slope made her feel giddy and unsafe.
She saw Jen Rafferty walking towards them.
Elaine was about to continue talking, but Cath stood up and made a little gesture with her hand to silence her.
After all, she supposed, in the end they were on the same side. And Hannah and Lottie had been friends.