Chapter 27 Carla
Carla
NOW
Brayworthy is four or five miles away from Holtleigh.
It’s a much larger village with two churches – three, if you count the ruined one – playing fields, where they hold the occasional cricket match, and a village hall big enough to hold parties, albeit rather lame ones, if the events I’ve attended there are anything to go by.
My mobile rings a couple of times as I’m on my way home from running some errands, but it’s inside my handbag and hasn’t connected to the car speaker for some reason, so I ignore it for now.
I see the sign informing me I’m entering the village of Brayworthy and telling me to drive carefully.
I haven’t seen my partner or my stepdaughter for a week now.
It feels like much longer. I miss them. I’m being drawn to them like metal to a magnet.
It’s not the same at home without them, without Margo’s incessant chatter and Daniel’s tuneless humming.
I’ve exhausted the repertoire of edible meals I can concoct.
Ash has threatened to buy me an air fryer and Olly has offered to pick up a takeaway this evening, if I lend him my car. That says it all.
A thought jabs me, demanding attention. If Daniel and I split up, would I get to see Margo?
I call her my stepdaughter and think of her as my daughter, but technically she’s not either.
Daniel has repeatedly asked me to marry him, but I don’t want to get married again.
I don’t think my marital track record is promising, for a start, and also the logistics of it all scares me.
When I divorced Ash, I chose not to go back to my maiden name.
I thought that keeping Ash’s name would make things easier for Olly and Iris.
If I married Daniel, he would expect me to take his name.
Carla Duffy. Then I’d have the same surname as my stepdaughter, but a different surname to my son and daughter.
Unless I double-barrelled it: Ashford-Duffy.
Or Duffy-Ashford. But then I’d have a sort of compound of my husbands, not my own name at all.
I know, I know, it’s a pathetic reason not to get married, but it gives me a headache just thinking about it.
It hasn’t been a problem until now, not being married to Daniel. But I’d have no right to see Margo if Daniel left me for good, no claims whatsoever to custody. And what would it do to her, poor baby? She’s already lost one mother – to cancer.
Her voice echoes in my head as Daniel practically dragged her out to his car that day.
‘Mummeeeee,’ she’d screamed. Over and over. She was crying and so was I, although I was trying not to, doing my best to reassure her it would all be OK.
The narrow country lane meanders up the hill, past chocolate-box cottages with thatched roofs and fields.
I slow as I approach the Knolls’ house – Hilltop House – which is, unsurprisingly, right at the top, set back from the road.
Hilltop House is massive. I know because I’ve been in it, had the guided tour.
There’s both a sitting room and a den. The bedrooms have en-suite bathrooms – all five of them – and those at the back of the house have stunning views over Lower Buryknoll Wood, Exmoor and beyond – as far as the Bristol Channel, a thick blue brushstroke underlining the horizon.
Yvonne and Richard have an office each. Oh, and Richard has a man cave in the basement, next to his wine cellar.
They even have a boot room. I’m not kidding.
Yvonne and I don’t share the same ideas when it comes to home décor.
She goes for thick floor-to-ceiling drapes, shag pile carpets and old, dusty rugs, dark antique furniture, a chandelier in the hallway, William Morris wallpaper, hideous portraits of long-dead ancestors, that sort of thing.
I like bright, airy and practical; wooden floors and tiles; warm colours; painted walls; photos and magnets on the fridge.
The gate is open. There’s a white banner hanging across the front door.
It has large black capital letters on it, but I can’t make out the words from here.
The curtains are drawn in one of the windows on the first floor.
Yvonne and Richard’s bedroom? It’s the middle of the afternoon.
I picture Yvonne in bed, popping one Diazepam after another to ease the pain, refusing to face reality for a little longer.
I know she’s living every mother’s worst nightmare right now and I feel sorry for her, in spite of everything.
As I pull up against the pavement opposite, the front door opens and she comes out. If I drive away, I’ll attract attention to myself, so instead I slouch down in my seat, feeling very self-conscious. What am I doing here? I was on my way to see Daniel and Margo. I’ve made a detour.
After a second or two, I sit up a little, just enough to steal a peep at Yvonne.
She’s wearing a short skirt and a smart checked jacket.
The obligatory high heels – I’ve never seen her wear normal shoes.
Her back must give her gyp. Last time I saw her, standing on my doorstep, she looked bedraggled.
Broken. I can’t see her clearly from here, but she seems to be standing straighter, walking more purposefully.
She strides towards her Range Rover parked in the driveway.
I can’t help thinking that, a bit like her shoes, an SUV is a very impractical choice of car round here, where you can’t always squeeze past a car coming the other way along these country roads.
I watch as she opens the door, folds herself into the car, closes the door and pulls out of her driveway.
I slouch again, holding my breath, as though I might give myself away if she hears me as much as sees me.
She drives right past me without registering me and I only start breathing again when she rounds the bend and disappears from view.
I do a U-turn in the road and as I swing the car round to the Knolls’ side of the street, I can make out the wording on the banner.
JUSTICE FOR JOSH. I stop the car for a moment and scan the house and its front garden.
I wonder if there were journalists in front of the house, standing on the lawn, trampling on the flower beds, hounding the family for interviews.
Locals were curious about this case – not at first, when Josh went missing at the end of the summer – but after his body was found, it became a story.
Murders don’t happen often in this neck of the woods – oops, bad choice of words – so it made for good headlines.
I remember one of those headlines, from the North Devon Echo – STABBING SHOCKS SLEEPY VILLAGE.
It made me picture the inhabitants of Brayworthy walking around with their hands outstretched like zombies or somnambulists, completely unaware of any danger.
It was as if it took a brutal murder to wake them up.
Briefly, parents were afraid for their children, fearing that the murderer might strike again.
But it seems to me that the interest in the case dwindled rapidly and life soon resumed as normal.
Perhaps the death of an eighteen-year-old boy isn’t deemed newsworthy enough.
I imagine the banner, like the reward the Knolls are offering, is part of an ongoing effort on their part to keep people talking about Josh’s murder.
The Knolls have no doubt been dealing with their problems since his death, as we have been dealing with ours.
A lot of fallout for everyone concerned.
I drive to the bottom of the hill, and pull up in front of Mrs Duffy’s house. Daniel’s mother has always been perfectly civil to me, but she and I have never been close, not the way Ash’s mum and I are. Mrs Duffy has never even invited me to call her by her first name.
Ash once joked about this. ‘You wouldn’t either,’ he’d said, ‘if your name was Fanny.’
My mother-in-law’s name is actually Theophania, which arguably isn’t much better.
Her mother was Greek. But her father called her ‘Fanny’, apparently.
Needless to say, Ash found his own quip hilarious.
I laughed, too, when he made it, feeling treacherous towards Daniel at the same time.
Thinking about this now, I manage a small smile, but it’s accompanied by a pang of guilt.
My mother-in-law’s house is a small, slightly run-down, perfectly symmetrical cottage, in the dip of a valley, next to a stream.
It doesn’t get much sun and as Mrs Duffy feels the cold, she keeps the radiators on full blast. We come here sometimes for Sunday lunch – like Daniel, my mother-in-law’s a great cook – and when we do, I wear a T-shirt in all seasons and weather.
It’s Sunday today. And almost lunchtime.
Perhaps they’re gearing up to eat their Sunday roast. Without me. Will I be welcome here again one day?
There’s no room in Mrs Duffy’s driveway for one vehicle, let alone two. I’ve parked behind her car in the road, but I can’t see Daniel’s car anywhere. Did I get it wrong? Has Daniel gone somewhere else? Where would he go?
I get out of my car and walk up the short pathway to the front door.
Nearly everyone I know has a doorbell – the Knolls even have one of those video doorbells – but my mother-in-law has a stainless-steel door knocker in the shape of a hand.
I’m about to lift it and rap on the door, but I decide to go home and text Daniel instead.
I berate myself for bottling out, but I can’t face him just yet. Clearly, he’s not here anyway.
But just then, my mother-in-law opens the front door and envelops me in her arms. She’s not one for displays of affection and I instantly realize something is wrong. She gushes something into my shoulder. I can’t make it out, but she sounds distressed.
‘Mrs Duffy, what on earth’s the matter?’ I say.
‘Is Margo with you?’
‘No. I thought she’d be with you.’ I gently disengage myself from her embrace. ‘What’s going on?’
I turn my head as I hear a car pull up on the road behind me.
It’s Daniel. He gets out of the car and rushes towards me.
Something in the way he does this alarms me.
His face is pallid, his body sagging as he runs, as if his legs are struggling to keep him upright.
And then my heart somersaults. Margo is not with him.
He stops beside me, seemingly puffed out, even after the four or five metres he has run from the car to the front door.
‘Where’s Margo?’ My voice is about an octave higher than it should be.
‘I don’t know,’ he says, leaning forwards, his hands on his thighs, as he tries to catch his breath. ‘I’ve been trying … to call you.’ I remember my mobile ringing a couple of times from inside my handbag while I was driving. ‘I thought she might be with you … I hoped—’
My mother-in-law cuts him off. ‘Margo has been missing since yesterday evening,’ she tells me.