Chapter Six
The next week passes in a flurry of sleepless nights. Even with the bars on the windows, the alarm system now activated, every noise wakes Astrid up, her heart pounding, her body frozen with fear.
But the check clears for the party, and Zara did lend her the money. So she is okay . . . for now.
Mum. Are you home this afternoon? Can I come out?
Astrid is delighted. She had barely spoken to her daughter in months, and now, thanks to that podcast, she’s seeing her a second time in a week.
Zara never comes to Sussex, so Astrid bakes the orange-almond cake she knows her daughter adores, lights the fig-scented candles, makes her quaint cottage the kind of haven she knows Zara loves.
When the doorbell rings, it is a little early, but she is ready. Except it’s not Zara on the doorstep, but an unfamiliar man. A man with an air of menace, despite his attempt at a pleasant smile.
It was a mistake not to check the peephole, but it is supposed to be Zara standing here. Not a stranger, not after her home was just broken into.
“Don’t worry, Astrid,” says the stranger, as if they are friends, as if there is nothing to worry about, when in fact there is everything to worry about. “I’ve been sent by a friend to give you a message. ‘Don’t let a ghost ruin your final years.’”
A flush of anger washes through Astrid. “What friend?” she says, standing firm. “Who sent you?”
He continues smiling. “I couldn’t possibly reveal. Let’s just say we have a mutual friend who believes that secrets need to stay in the past. You have tapes that could be harmful. We want them.”
“I don’t have those tapes anymore,” Astrid lies. “I destroyed them years ago.”
“That’s exactly what he said you’d say. Our friend doesn’t believe it. Our friend wants the tapes.” With that, he tilts his head, smiles a smile that is threatening at best, and walks up the pathway, leaving Astrid shaking.
When the doorbell rings again a few minutes later, she uses the peephole, relieved to see Zara standing there.
She won’t tell Zara. It will worry her too much. But Zara takes one look at her mother and knows something is off. Within minutes, Astrid has told her what happened.
“Get the tapes,” she says to her mother. “I’ve got an app that will transcribe everything. Who was he referring to as ‘our friend’? Any ideas?”
“It could be a number of people,” says Astrid. “I don’t know. There was a crowd there the night Lily died.”
“I’ve cleared the decks. I’ve got nothing to do but sit on the sofa and listen to tapes. Can you make me hot chocolate?”
Astrid’s shaking subsides. Hot chocolate is what she always used to make Zara when she couldn’t sleep, when she was young, before Astrid lost herself in drink, trying to bury the pain.
She nods, and despite the menacing visitor, despite everything in life feeling uncertain right now, she has her daughter in her house, and all might be right with the world after all.
On day three, Zara phones. They have hit pay dirt. She plays the tapes.
Callum’s voice rings out, deep, sonorous, instantly recognizable.
“He was drunk, everyone was drunk, and he was horseplaying. Everyone was dunking everyone in the pool, and he held her down too long. I know Vic’s got a mean side, but I don’t think he meant to do it.
It was an accident. A terrible accident.
I don’t know, Astrid. I don’t know what to do.
He made me swear never to tell a soul. So I’m telling you, because I can’t carry the burden of this secret by myself. ”
“I can’t believe it. Can you, Mum? It was Vic Roth. The most powerful man in the music business. I need to find out everything I can about him. There’s a massive story here, and I’m going to tell it.”
Astrid nods to herself. She’s on a train, and it’s now unstoppable.
As terrifying as this journey may be, there is a part of her that senses that it may finally bring her, bring Callum, perhaps even bring Vic, some peace at long last. It’s time.
No one should carry the burden of this kind of secret for this long.
And perhaps it will honor Lily Morehouse, in the way she should always have been honored.
A week later, Zara is back at Astrid’s house. Astrid is busy chopping onions and prunes, making a Moroccan lamb tagine for clients holding a dinner party later that night. Zara is buzzing with excitement as she whirls in, clutching her computer, notebook in her other hand.
“Mum! You can’t believe what I’ve found out!
I’ve gone down the Vic Roth rabbit hole for the last week, and he is such a nasty piece of work.
He’s known for sending in the heavies, has had police warnings.
He’s connected to a group of real thugs in East London.
And it makes sense. He’s the only person who would be invested in this. ”
“Have you told your father?” Astrid worries about Callum’s reaction, Callum who has always had a love-hate relationship with Vic.
How would he feel at the prospect of his daughter exposing him?
How would he feel at losing this manager who has always ensured Callum came out on top in every situation—including his marriage?
Zara shakes her head. “God, no! Mum, I love Dad, but I’ve barely spoken to him since he married the ingenue.”
They both shudder. “Let’s not talk about her,” says Astrid, staggered that her husband has now gotten married, for the fourth time in the intervening years since their nonmarriage ended, this time to a girl—and yes, she truly is a girl—forty years his junior.
Forty years! She is younger than Zara, for God’s sake.
“I will tell him, though,” says Zara. “I’m going to write this.
I’ve already spoken to my agent, and we’re putting together an exposé.
He’s thinking New York Times or Sunday Times.
Maybe the Daily Mail. He thinks there’ll be a bidding war.
This is a huge story. He’s seeing a book, maybe even a movie. ”
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Astrid worries about Zara. Vic is a particularly nasty man. What if he does something? What if Zara is at risk?
“I know what you’re thinking, Mum, but Vic Roth won’t touch me. Once the authorities are involved, it’s done. He’s done. I do this for a living. I’m very well versed in dealing with the bad guys, and I’ve never been frightened for a second. Trust me.”
“I do trust you, darling, but I don’t trust Vic. I never did. He’s a wrong ’un if ever there was one. Used to be friends with the Krays, and quite a few nasty things happened to people who got on the wrong side of him. I’ve always felt it best to just steer well clear of him.”
“But that was years ago. He’s an old man now. And”—she laughs wryly—“the Krays are long dead, as are, I imagine, all Vic Roth’s criminal connections.”
Maybe not all, thinks Astrid with a shudder of fear as she remembers the sinister man on her doorstep.
“What about your dad? This might not be good for him, stirring this up.”
“What about him? He doesn’t need Vic Roth anymore.
He’s as rich as Croesus. If he never toured again—and frankly, I can’t believe he’s still touring at his age—or if he was canceled for not telling the truth years ago, he’d be fine.
The important thing is that the truth will set you both free.
Living with secrets is terrible. The very fact that you’ve had someone break in, that you’re living in fear, that you’re hiding something that doesn’t need to be hidden. ”
Astrid shakes her head. “This has nothing to do with me, Zara. I would be happier to let sleeping dogs lie.”
Zara reaches out and takes her mother’s hand.
“I know, Mum. But do this for me.” She looks down for a second, before taking a deep breath.
“I realized, listening to these tapes, that Lily’s death is when everything changed.
We went from being the perfect family, the three of us, to a life that was suddenly frightening, and wrong.
“I remember snippets of a happy childhood, of you showing me how to plant radish seeds, of me picking fresh cobs of corn and eating them straight from the stalk, as sweet as sugar, while you took pictures.
I felt so loved . . . until a moment when everything changed.
When suddenly I lost both my parents. And I have spent a lifetime wondering why.
Why my father suddenly dived into drugs and disappeared for months at a time.
Why you were always in bed by midafternoon, slurring your words.
Why you and Dad suddenly seemed to hate each other.
“I have spent my whole life telling people that I was raised by wolves. I had Dad, unpredictable, absent, angry or nodding off, and I had you, disinterested and drunk . . .”
“Zara!” Astrid can’t hide her pain.
Zara leans forward and grasps her mother’s arm.
“I’m not blaming you. I’m saying that I suffered too.
I always thought I had done something wrong, something that broke our happy family, but now I believe the fracture was related to Lily’s death and the pain Vic’s secret wrought.
I need to tell this story for me, as much as for anyone else.
It’s the first time I’ve been able to make sense of my childhood. ”
Astrid tries to blink back the tears in her eyes, unsuccessfully. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers. “I never realized the impact. I’m sorry I wasn’t a good mother.”
“It’s okay, Mum.” Zara’s voice is gentle. “You were doing the best you could. But now we can fix it. Now we can heal it. And maybe we can start to have a proper mother-daughter relationship again.”
Astrid looks up at her daughter through blurry eyes. “I would like that.”
Zara smiles. “So would I.”