Chapter 17 #2
Forstenmitre might be nearly deserted, but its – I loathe to use the word – aura was that of somewhere much more important. Because there are places like this. There are patches of England, so ancient, and so long settled by humans, that the energy is different.
It’s like a point that wants you to forget it, for you to avert your eyes. And when you try to look straight at it, your subconscious says no for reasons you don’t quite understand.
My mother believed in this stuff. Rural, paganist energy.
Magic.
Magic of fertility. Solstices and harvests. Countryside magic. Women’s magic. When we moved to England, the first village we’d lived in had been involved in a scandal in the 1950s of women holding bonfires and chanting. My mother had laughed and gone out looking for them.
“Who put Bella in the Wych Elm?” I muttered under my breath. Forstenmitre was silent. “You doing the talking again?” I asked as we got out of the car.
“It worked well last time,” he said. I frowned. “That came out wrong. I meant, me opening, you do the follow-up, it worked well with Suzy and Errol.”
As we crossed the road to the tumbledown – yet absolutely charming – cottage, the front door to it opened. A little girl with red hair stood shyly in the doorway, sucking on the ear of the stuffed toy rabbit that she held.
“Hello, Matilda,” Simon said in a voice I’d never heard him use before. “Do you remember me? Is your mummy in?”
“She’s in the garden,” the girl – Matilda – said.
Simon thanked her, and we went around the side – the lawn needed mowing, but the plants were thriving. All the plants in the village were thriving. Lush and green. Unlike the rest of the parched county.
Around the house, I could hear a man’s voice and the splashing of water.
We emerged into the back garden to see a little boy playing naked in a paddling pool, while a woman with her back to us was on her knees pulling weeds out from a flowerbed.
A small portable radio was next to her with Radio 4 playing.
“Hello, Marina,” Simon said to the woman’s back.
She froze, her hands staying encased in the dirt.
Slowly, ever so slowly, she stood and turned.
Marina Holt was actually younger than I previously pegged her for.
I had thought her mid-forties on our first meet, but she was closer to mine – well, maybe Simon’s – age.
She had her curly auburn hair, which, unfortunately for her, fell naturally like it had been freshly crimped, in a severe ponytail.
She must usually straighten it, I realised, which was probably why it always looked darker.
Her face was make-up free, and her plucked eyebrows were hunched together in a frown.
She had a thin mouth and a square jaw. She wasn’t unpretty, but nor was she conventionally attractive. Her face was interesting, one might say, rather than beautiful.
The three of us stood there in silence. “What a charming house you have,” I said eventually. The little boy had stopped splashing in the pool and was staring at us.
“I’m not here to cause any problems, Marina,” Simon said. “I need answers.”
She huffed. “Don’t we all?”
Matilda came out of the house, still sucking on that rabbit’s ear, and walked to her mum. She hid behind her legs and peeked out at us.
“It isn’t appropriate for you to turn up at my house like this,” she said.
“And it wasn’t appropriate for you to do it to me all those times,” Simon replied without any feeling.
She inhaled sharply. “Fine.”
She gestured to a table and chairs, which had seen better days, on the small patio by the French doors that led inside. “I’ll bring us some tea. Tilly, Matty, come with me.”
The two children did as they were told. “Oh, no, it’s fine, we can watch them,” I said without thinking. Little Matty seemed most annoyed at having to get out of his paddling pool. I didn’t blame him; it was scorching.
She narrowed her eyes but eventually nodded. “Fine, kids, stay with Mr Anson and his … friend.”
I beamed. She went inside, and Tilly came over to me and held out her rabbit. “Oh,” I said, as Simon looked at me like I’d grown an extra head. I got down on my knees to be at Tilly’s level. “Nice to meet you,” I said, shaking the rabbit’s paw. “I’m Arden, how do you do?”
Tilly giggled. “This is Mr Bunny,” she told me. I gave a mock bow in solemnity.
“Mr Bunny, an honour, indeed. I have heard about you on my travels.” This made Tilly laugh again, and out the corner of my eye, I could see Matty coming towards me. He was holding a toy truck. When he reached us, it was presented for my inspection.
“Goodness, this is a fine vehicle. Do you partake in Formula One with it?” I asked. Both children descended into giggles.
Simon was still staring as if he’d never seen a creature such as me before. I heard the rattle of a tea tray and looked up to see Marina staring at me, too.
“Do you want to see me race my trucks?” Matty asked me, jumping with excitement.
I gave my finest Shakespearean gasp. “Could I? What do you think, Tilly? I think we should, don’t you?”
They both seemed to enjoy that, and before I knew it, I was being led to the French doors where a large number of toy vehicles were laid out for my assessment.
“Ah, yes, the red fire truck, a classic,” I said, stroking my chin.
“And this wooden police car on a string. A fine vehicle for apprehending criminals.”
“Children, why don’t you go and watch TV? I need to talk to these men for a moment,” Marina’s voice was tight. Both kids looked annoyed and gave me beseeching stares. I pouted as hard as I could.
“Adults are no fun,” I whispered to Tilly and set her off giggling again.
“Kids,” Marina said in a warning tone, and both Matty and Tilly ran inside.
I took a seat at the patio table beside Simon. Both he and Marina were eyeing me strangely.
Eventually, Simon turned to Marina. “We’ve been to see Suzy Rabbit.”
Marina’s hands were shaking as she poured the tea. “That bitch,” she said with more than a little intensity.
“She told us a number of interesting things,” Simon said. Had she? “About you,” he continued. “About what you and Riz were up to.”
“We weren’t up to anything. I was trying to stop Riz!” she said, clearly without thinking.
She pursed her lips together and put the teapot down. “Milk? Sugar?”
“Yes, please,” I said at the same time Simon said “No.”
“She doesn’t much like you either,” I said to Marina. “Why is that?”
“Because she’s a snake. She spread rumours about me.” Marina rubbed at her neck. She was pink from the sun, but this seemed to be more of a nervous habit.
“Were these rumours that you and Riz had been up to something?” I asked.
Simon was quiet, watching.
“No! Yes, well, look, I told the police all this. That she wasn’t to be trusted. They laughed at me.”
“Do you think she leaked the pictures of Guy?”
Marina went quiet for a long time after I asked her that. “No, I know she didn’t. Because Riz did.”
Oh.
“How do you know that?” I asked Marina. She was staring at the ground. I could see Simon’s hand on the armrest of his chair; he was gripping it so hard his knuckles were white. As subtly as I could, I rested my hand on his. Lest he do something stupid.
I could feel his weight shift as I did so, his arm losing some of its tension.
“After Riz’s death” – Marina was looking in our direction as she spoke, but not at us exactly, more somewhere off in the distance, over the fields – “Suzy came to me a few days later, she said Riz had told her everything, that the pictures had fallen into his lap, that he … he felt he had no choice to do it. She accused me of getting them. I had no idea where she thought I got them from! I didn’t know Guy Frobisher from Adam before the campaign.
And I’ve only heard about this Tarquin Scott chap from the news. ”
“So why did Suzy think that you had provided them?”
“Your husband,” Simon said.
Marina looked away. Eventually, she mumbled, “Ex-husband.”
“Currently serving eighteen months for blackmail and extortion,” Simon said to no one in particular. “All very hush-hush, what with who it was that he’d been blackmailing. Using his position in the party to gain access to senior figures and then threatening to spill their secrets.”
“I had nothing to do with it!” Marina snapped.
Her eyes were wet. “I was disgusted when I found out what Peter had done. He said he did it for us, for the children, but it was all for him. I should never have married him. And now …” Her voice broke as she stifled a sob.
“Now, I’m stuck in this house that I can’t afford to sell and I can’t afford to make liveable, drowning in his lawyer’s bills, and this was my last shot. ”
She shook her head. “The moment I met Riz, I could see it in his eyes, the same hunger that Peter had. The desire to win no matter what the cost, no matter what it did to you or anyone else. I could see it like a freight train coming towards us all, and I couldn’t do anything to stop it.”
“Instead, you let him carry on.”
“No, I tried, again and again, to warn him off. I tried everything.”
“Where did he get the pictures?” Simon asked tersely.
“I don’t know. He didn’t give me any warning. I only found out afterwards, and he wouldn’t tell me.”
“You could have stopped him!” Simon snarled. “You could have told me that he’d leaked the photos, you could have done anything apart from the route you took!”
“I know!” she cried. “Don’t you think I know that?
But Riz, he had, I don’t know, there was someone he was working with.
I don’t know where he was getting all this information from, but someone was helping him.
Someone who had intel, money, I don’t know.
I thought it was someone from within the party, or a Tory who wanted to sabotage Guy.
That’s why I reached out to Suzy; in case she knows someone from Macauley Sheridan’s inner cabal who might be against him. ”
“Inner cabal?” I scoffed.