Chapter 25 Ash
Ash
NOW
Carla has something on her mind, Ash can tell.
She’s sitting next to him, in the passenger’s seat, biting her lower lip and picking at the skin around her thumb.
She’s unusually quiet. Iris, who’s in the back – she didn’t want to drive – isn’t particularly talkative either, but he puts that down to her driving test. They’re on their way to the driving centre.
He took the morning off work and offered to take Iris in to Barnstaple.
He thought he’d better show willing – Carla often complains, quite rightly, that she’s expected to do all the taxiing around simply because she works at home and is on hand – but when he arrived at Crooked Oak Cottage, only a few minutes late, she announced she was coming too.
‘Feeling confident, honey?’ he asks, to break the silence, looking at Iris in the rear-view mirror. He can’t think of anything better to say.
‘Hmm,’ comes the reply, which Ash doesn’t know how to decode.
They drop off Iris and wish her luck.
‘I’m going into town afterwards,’ she says. ‘I want to buy some clothes. Either to celebrate or commiserate, whatever.’
‘You’ll smash it, Iris,’ Ash says.
‘I’m not sure “smash” is the right word,’ Carla says seriously, which makes Ash and Iris laugh.
‘I’ll slay it,’ Iris amends for Ash. He laughs a little more at this, but he sees Carla shudder at Iris’s choice of words.
‘Give us a ring afterwards and we’ll come and pick you up,’ Ash says. ‘Take your time.’
Ash wants to go to a car dealership. He’s spotted a second-hand Renault Twingo that would be perfect for Iris if she passes her test. Manual, petrol, forty-five thousand miles on the clock, five and a half grand, powder blue – Iris will love it.
It would be an early eighteenth birthday present.
When Olly passed his driving test earlier this year, Ash bought a car, too, also as an early eighteenth birthday present, with the money left to him by his father when he died a few years ago.
It was intended for the kids’ studies, but Ash has that covered.
Just about. As long as they don’t both do more than three years in further education.
Olly totalled his car – a second-hand Civic Honda – within a month, weeks before he actually turned eighteen.
Took a bend way too fast and ended up overturned – and unhurt, fortunately – in the ditch.
Ash decided not to bail him out of that one.
Since then, Carla has driven Olly wherever he needs to go, although it looks like Olivia might now take on that role.
Ash has promised to buy Iris a car on one condition – that she puts up ‘P’ plates for a few months so that other road users will take her inexperience into consideration.
He insisted for Olly, too. Not that it did much good.
Ash is very safety-conscious when it comes to cars.
Has been ever since Roly ran over Tracey.
When Ash suggests going to see the car together, Carla is unenthusiastic. ‘You’ll jinx it,’ she says. ‘Wait until she’s taken the test.’
He’s never known Carla to be superstitious, although she believes in her own form of karma – what goes around comes around, or some such nonsense. But she’s got a point. Don’t jump the gun, Ash.
‘You’re right,’ he concedes. ‘Bad idea.’
He suggests going for a coffee, but Carla’s response is lukewarm.
‘Well, what do you want to do?’ he asks. He can tell she wants to talk to him.
‘Let’s go for a walk,’ she says.
It’s a blustery day, not one he would have chosen for a stroll.
Plus, he’s not wearing the right shoes. Or clothes.
Once he has taken Carla and Iris home, he has to come back into Barnstaple and go in to the office.
But he dutifully parks his car near the Old Bridge, and they start out along the Tarka Trail, following the river Taw upstream, towards Rock Park.
It’s an easy, flat walk, along a footpath.
Ash’s feet will kill him after this, but his expensive brogues should remain unscathed.
‘Come on,’ he says to Carla after a few minutes. ‘Out with it.’
His phone beeps in his pocket. He barely hears it over the wind. It can’t be Iris, not yet, and if it was someone at the bank, they would call him, but he pulls out his mobile and looks at the screen. He can feel Carla’s suspicious gaze on him as he reads the text.
‘Work,’ he says by way of an explanation, firing off a quick reply.
She’ll know he’s lying. She can read him like a book.
She’ll assume it’s a woman. Once a cheat, and all that.
Ash made one mistake – admittedly, a monumental one – years ago and Carla has branded him a womanizer and a cheat for the rest of his life.
She’s right to be mad at him – he wrecked everything – but the words ‘monogamous’ and ‘commitment’ no longer scare him, as they once did when he was stupid and immature.
Quite the opposite. He wants nothing more than to settle down.
He just can’t seem to find the right woman.
He can’t help but compare them all to Carla, and none of them comes close.
‘It’s about the shoes,’ Carla begins as he activates the silent mode on his mobile and slides it back into his pocket.
He looks down at his brogues, frowning. Did he mention that thought out loud before?
‘Iris’s shoes,’ Carla clarifies, impatience seeping into her voice.
‘Oh.’ And then he gets it. ‘Oh, I see. What about them?’
‘She threw them out. She must have overheard our conversation. I found her Vans in the kitchen bin.’
‘A precaution, maybe?’
‘Ash, she wasn’t wearing her Vans that day at your place when Ian and his colleague came round. She was wearing her Chelsea boots. How did she know which shoes to throw out? Ian didn’t specifically mention which make of shoe, did he? You didn’t mention a make when you told me.’
‘No, he didn’t. I didn’t. Good point. Did you ask her about it?’
‘Yes.’ Carla pushes her sleek, dark hair out of her face, but the wind blows it back. ‘She got really upset and then changed her story. She’s now saying she was at the scene of the crime, but Josh was already dead. He’d been dead a few days, according to Iris.’
That throws him. ‘Really? She said that?’ He thinks for a moment. ‘Well, we’ve got nothing to worry about then.’ He turns to face Carla. This is not what she expected him to say – he can tell by the look she gives him. ‘What I mean is, if it was her footprint in the woods, that explains it.’
‘I suppose so, but—’
‘You think she did it, don’t you?’ he says. ‘You think she killed Josh.’
She doesn’t answer, which Ash takes as a yes. He sighs. Carla has often said that Iris can do no wrong in his eyes, but how can she seriously believe their daughter is capable of murder?
They’ve reached the entrance to the park.
There are a few people, wearing high-vis jackets or running clothes milling around, and Ash realizes there was a parkrun here this morning.
Ash has only ever done one – in the Lake District one summer on holiday with the kids.
Iris and Olly persuaded him to do the Whinlatter Forest parkrun, without telling him how hilly it was.
His legs were sore for a couple of days afterwards.
The stunning view over Derwentwater, though, almost made up for it.
Ash keeps fit – he goes to the gym and the swimming pool regularly, hikes and goes mountain biking – but he’s not much of a runner.
Perhaps one of these days he’ll do another parkrun even so.
‘Daniel has left me,’ Carla says, jolting him back to the present.
‘What? Why?’
‘Basically, he said he couldn’t allow his daughter to live in the same house as Iris and me. He thinks Iris is a murderer and that I’m “harbouring a criminal”.’ Carla does the air quotes with her fingers.
Ash swears under his breath. He’s annoyed at Carla.
She’s obviously told Dandruff something that she should have kept a secret.
About the shoes or the necklace. Or both.
But his irritation is nothing compared to the fury he feels towards Dan himself.
Christ, the man needs to grow a pair and zip up the man suit.
He should be looking after Carla and Iris, looking out for them, not running away. The bastard.
‘I’m more upset about losing Margo, to tell you the truth,’ Carla says.
‘Jesus. What a mess.’ He wants to reach out and put his arm around Carla, to comfort her, but he’s worried she might misinterpret his gesture. ‘Where has he gone?’
‘To his mum’s in Brayworthy, I imagine.’
Ash had forgotten Dandruff’s mother lived in Brayworthy.
It’s a ten-minute drive from Shallowcott, the hamlet in which he lives.
The Knolls also live in Brayworthy, in what has to be the biggest house in the village, perched on top of the hill.
Unbidden, an image of the place enters his head now.
He used to drop off Iris there sometimes.
‘What are we going to do?’ Carla asks him. She sounds desperate.
‘Not much we can do,’ Ash says. He stops walking, takes Carla by the shoulders and turns her so that she’s facing him. ‘Iris didn’t do this. So there will be nothing to prove she did. And if they find anything of hers at the crime scene, well, the fact she was there explains how it got there.’
‘Are you going to tell Ian?’
Ash thinks about that. He’s seeing Roly later.
At The Grove. That’s what the text message was about.
Ash didn’t tell Carla because he’s worried.
Why does Roly want to see him? They often meet up at the pub for a swift pint or two, especially at weekends, so he doesn’t really need a reason.
But he senses Roly has something he needs to get off his chest. Is he about to arrest Iris?
Or bring her in for questioning? Or is that a euphemism for the same thing?
Perhaps Roly just wants to meet up for a pint between mates and Ash is reading a subtext into the message that isn’t there.
‘No,’ he says eventually, as much to himself as to Carla.
‘No, I don’t think so. We’ll only tell Roly if it becomes necessary.
’ He’s looking ahead, at the obelisk, but out of the corner of his eyes he sees Carla nod.
‘And, Carla? You can’t tell anyone.’ Anyone else.
He doesn’t criticize her for telling Dandruff whatever it is she has told him.
He just hopes the prick will keep his mouth shut. ‘Perhaps we should go back,’ he says.
He ponders his words. He wishes they really could go back.
Back in time. Change the course of events.
Alter the outcome. Make sure Iris never went out with Joshua in the first place and save her from everything that happened afterwards and anything that might still happen because this particular chain of events was put into motion.
Carla is looking out over the water at a brown-feathered, long-billed wader.
A curlew, perhaps. It’s standing by the water’s edge, puffing out its chest and looking self-important.
He pulls out his phone and checks it discreetly while she’s distracted.
Ian has to confirm a time for this evening.
Ash has received a text message, but it’s from Iris, not Roly.
He reads it and smiles, his trepidation dissipating slightly for a moment.
‘She’s passed,’ he says to Carla. ‘Let’s go and see that car.’