Chapter 6
Sadie and I sit on the floor, eating a pizza I found in the freezer (as Frances had promised). Neither of us wants to risk tomato sauce on the cream sofas, and the bar stools in the kitchen, although stylish, aren’t exactly comfortable.
Principal Lockhart was understanding when I called to cancel dinner: ‘Oh, my goodness. Of course. What a terrible thing. And on your first day here. I do hope this doesn’t taint your impression of Serenity.’
‘Well, it wasn’t the best welcome.’
But I’m pretty sure Frankie’s family are having a worse day, I think.
‘I shall endeavour to make it up to you. Why don’t we meet up tomorrow? I can take you on a guided tour of the town, and then for lunch at Serenity Falls Hotel. Their deck has beautiful views out over the lake.’
I hesitated. ‘That sounds great, but I don’t really want to leave my daughter on her own right now.’
‘Of course. Understandable. How about my daughter, Ellis, shows Sadie around? She’s the same age so she can give her the unauthorized teenagers’ tour – then they can both meet us for some food. What do you say?’
What could I say? It was impossible to refuse. Why is it that other people’s hospitality can sometimes feel so fucking irritating?
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘That sounds great.’
‘Perfect. I’ll see you at eleven thirty.’
I haven’t broken the news about the guided tour to Sadie yet. She’s been worryingly calm about everything so far, but I know my daughter. The calm before the storm, and when it breaks, it’ll rip the roof off.
She pushes away the remains of her pizza. She’s only eaten a couple of slices and normally she has the appetite of a ravenous Labrador.
‘Not hungry?’
‘Not so much. Probably the heat – oh, and the dead body in the swimming pool.’
‘Look, I know this hasn’t been the best start—’
‘That’s like saying the Titanic didn’t have the best start, Dad.’
‘Right. But we can’t let it cloud everything. We’ll get the pool cleaned; the rest of our stuff should be arriving in a couple of days, and we can make this place feel more like home.’
‘You’re joking, right?’
‘What?’
‘You’re not actually considering staying here?’
‘Well, yes.’
‘Dad, we found a corpse in our swimming pool today. Bad omens don’t get much more frigging ominous.’
‘Sadie, it was a freak accident. And there’s no such thing as a bad omen.’
She snorts. ‘Says the man who won’t book row 13 on an aeroplane.’
‘That’s superstition, not an omen. It’s also not the point – this isn’t the first house we’ve lived in where someone has died. An old lady died in our last house.’
‘Years before we moved in, not minutes before we arrived.’
‘Okay, it’s horrible. I know. But we need to move past it.’
She rolls her eyes with such ferocity I’m amazed she doesn’t give her herself a friction burn. ‘We need to leave.’
I understand the calmness now. She thought that this would derail our plans to stay here.
‘And go where, exactly?’ I ask her. ‘In case you hadn’t noticed, we sold our house in the UK.’
‘Yeah, but we must have had some money from that? You said it was better to sell because it wouldn’t rent for much.’
I shake my head. I’ve been trying to avoid dumping this on Sadie, but it seems tonight is a night for cold, hard truths.
‘Once we paid the solicitors and agent’s fees we didn’t make a lot of money on the house. I bought when prices were high, and prices have fallen.’
‘What about Grandma’s money?’
‘I didn’t realize how much had already been eaten up by the care-home fees. There’s some money set aside for you to go to college or uni, but that’s about it.’ I look at her. ‘I guess Grandma thought that this was her gift to us. The golden egg.’
‘Well, it’s a fucking rotten golden egg.’ Tears well in her eyes. ‘Can’t we just pretend to live here and rent somewhere else?’
‘How will we do that, Sadie? Be realistic.’
‘I don’t want to.’ She shoves the pizza to one side, knocking over her Diet Coke. The brown liquid hisses and oozes over the pristine floor. Neither of us makes a move to clear it up.
‘I don’t know why we couldn’t just stay where we were and say, “Fuck it,” to this place?’
And here it comes. ‘Because I lost my job, Sadie. Okay? I couldn’t pay the mortgage any more. If this hadn’t come up, I don’t know how we would have survived.’
She stares at me, face ashen. ‘You lost your job? How?’ And then I see the realization dawn. I never wanted her to know. But I was probably stupid to think I could hide it from her.
‘You said you were just taking some leave until it all blew over?’ she says.
‘Yeah, they gave me some time off and then told me not to come back. I was given the chance to resign rather than be sacked.’ I sigh. ‘It’s not your fault.’
‘I know it’s not my fault,’ she spits. ‘It’s that twat, Decker. But you should have told me.’
‘Sadie—’
‘No. I don’t want to hear it. I’m going to bed. Hopefully, I won’t find a dead body dressed as Daffy the fucking Dolphin lying in it.’
‘Daphne,’ I say.
‘What?’
‘It’s Daphne the Dolphin.’
Her glare could cut diamonds. She stands and storms off towards the kitchen.
‘Wrong way,’ I mutter.
She whirls around. ‘I hate this fucking house, this fucking town and this fucking country.’
And with that she is gone, a blizzard of hurt and fury in a Nightmare before Christmas T-shirt and shorts.
I sit for a moment, staring at the puddle of Diet Coke. I should probably clean it up before it attracts ants or cockroaches or those tiny lizards that are (actually) quite cute.
Still, I sit there. The aroma of the cooling pizza is making me feel slightly sick. Decker, I think. Fucking James Decker.
‘We understand you’re upset about the alleged incident with your daughter, Mr Barker, but your actions were not professional.’
Story of my life, I think.
‘You’ve given us no option. We’re lucky his parents aren’t suing the school.’
Still, I sit there.
I may well have stayed there till morning if my phone hadn’t suddenly beeped. I pick it up.
Motion detected in back yard.
I frown. What? I downloaded the security app while the pizza was cooking but I hadn’t got round to setting up an account.
The phone beeps again.
Motion detected in back yard.
Sometimes I miss the days when technology didn’t nag you.
I tap the message. A slightly fuzzy video image fills the screen.
It’s gone 10 p.m. and pretty dark out, but I can just see the back yard, the pool … and a figure standing in front of it. A figure dressed in a furry Armadillo costume, holding a bunch of balloons.
I swallow. I imagine the costume is still wet. Dripping wet.
There’s something else.
A sign has been hung around the figure’s neck:
No accident.