Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
D id you need help with something? Esme replayed the words in utter fury. Okay, so you could argue that it was a reasonable question. But not in that tone. And not with that face. And not while standing behind the counter of Luke’s shop like she owned the place.
This is what you get for being so pathetic, Esme told herself severely. This is what happens when you sit around waiting for something to happen. And then running away like a frightened rabbit when it finally does. She had been scared, she knew that, but now that Luke was no longer a possibility, now that it was clear he was interested in someone else and she was in no danger of him making any kind of romantic move, she found she could admit to herself that that was what she wanted. Truly. Deeply. She wanted Luke to look at her in that soul-searching way he had, his full attention trained on her as if she was fascinating and funny. As if she mattered. She wanted him to lean across the space between them and to touch his lips to hers. She wanted to put her hands into his scruffy hair and pull his head close, so feel his hands on her waist, her neck, her face.
She was crying. That was annoying. The view of the beach was blurred.
Hammer was outside his boathouse, chopping wood with a small hand axe. She wiped at her eyes and tried to adjust her face into something normal.
He put down his axe and walked a few steps in her direction.
‘What’s wrong?’ Hammer was in front of her. He lifted a hand as if he was going to pat her, but let it drop. ‘What did he do?’
‘Nothing,’ Esme forced a wobbly smile. ‘I’m okay.’
‘You’re not,’ Hammer said. Then he turned abruptly and walked away. The door to his boat house swung shut and Esme concentrated on mopping up her face. She would go home. She would have some tea and snuggle with Jet if he was in a friendly mood. She would eat something very sweet and probably not enjoy it. I don’t eat much, honestly.
She pictured Kate Foster’s clear, smooth skin and her long slim legs. She looked like an Instagram filter in real life. Of course Luke would be interested. They matched.
The door opened again and Hammer was back. He was glowering and on any other man it would have sent her heart rate into the danger zone, but she knew that was just Hammer’s face. From the moment she had arrived on the island, he had represented safety and always would.
‘Kettle’s on,’ he said gruffly. ‘You need a sit down.’
She followed him into the boathouse. It smelled of wood smoke, linseed and cedar, with a tinge of engine oil. There was wood piled against one wall and a handmade shelf filled with his carved animals on the other.
There was only one proper chair and Hammer gestured for her to take it. He moved around the crowded space with surprising grace, filling two enamel mugs with tea and finding a stool to sit on while they drank.
Esme opened her mouth to lie to Hammer. She was going to say ‘it’s not Luke’ but, instead, a question popped out. ‘Are you ever lonely?’
He looked at his mug for a long moment before answering. ‘Sometimes.’
She nodded. ‘I wasn’t. Not for years. I’ve been perfectly content. Happier than I ever thought possible.’
‘But now?’
She felt the tears threaten again and took a sip of the hot tea.
Hammer drank from his own mug, not saying anything. It was something that Esme appreciated, the way that he could sit in silence and not feel the need to fill it. With some people it could feel manipulative, like they were making you do the work, or awkward, as if there was simply nothing to say, but with Hammer she never felt either of those things. From the first moment they had met, he had made her feel accepted. Flaws and all. She took a deep breath. ‘I don’t like her.’
‘Who?’
That was another thing about Hammer. He didn’t make assumptions or act like he knew what you were talking about if he didn’t. ‘Kate Foster. Our new resident. And I feel bad because she hasn’t done anything wrong. I’m a terrible person.’
Instead of reassuring her that she wasn’t a bad human being, Hammer simply said, ‘I don’t trust her.’
Grateful for the support, Esme managed a watery smile. ‘You don’t trust anyone.’
Hammer nodded. ‘That’s fair.’
‘But why don’t I trust her?’ Esme rubbed at her face with one hand. ‘I don’t know. I think I’m just being petty. Or it’s the patriarchy.’
Hammer, wisely, stayed quiet.
‘I’m threatened by her.’
He tensed.
‘Not like that.’ Esme gripped her warm mug more tightly and found that she couldn’t meet Hammer’s gaze. ‘It’s more… she is here to take my place.’ With Luke. And, she realised, without having to say the words out loud, on the island. Which was daft. Kate Foster wasn’t a witch.
Hammer was frowning, deep in thought. Eventually he mumbled something about not understanding how the island stuff worked, but that Esme would always have a place. ‘This is your home.’
Esme wanted that to be true more than anything, but she had realised that she wanted something more… for Luke to make Unholy Island his home, too.
Having got rid of Kate Foster as quickly and politely as possible, Luke turned the sign to ‘closed’ and locked the front door. His mood had plummeted and he didn’t feel up to any more visitors. The lights in the shop stayed steady, which he assumed meant that the shop didn’t mind his taking the rest of the afternoon off. He picked at the food he had in the fridge and tried not to think about how things must have looked to Esme. He would explain later, he told himself, it would be better done in person.
But Esme didn’t show up to the pub for dinner that evening. His heart leapt every time the door opened, but The Rising Moon remained stubbornly Esme-free.
Hammer called in briefly and picked up a takeaway order from the bar, and Tobias was sitting with Bee at one of the smaller tables. There was no sign of Fiona, and he guessed she must be at home with the baby. He was very relieved that there was no Kate Foster, either. He didn’t know if she was staying at the cottage or whether she had headed back over the causeway. The last thing he wanted was for Esme to arrive at the pub and to assume he had invited Kate out for dinner.
Matteo joined Luke halfway through his venison casserole and asked him whether he had seen the ‘ weirdo in black ’. Luke tried to stop watching the door to focus on the conversation. Matteo was tapping his written question and had his eyebrows raised.
‘No. Not today. You get hassle?’
Matteo shook his head. Then wrote his reply: Nerdy. Goth? Very intense.
Luke understood why Matteo was surprised. At this time of year, Tobias had told him that there were few visitors and they tended to be the outdoorsy hiking type. Then the description struck him. The guy from Edinburgh, Iain, had worn a long black coat. He had probably come to visit the bookshop again, and had found it closed.
Once he had finished eating, he stretched out his single pint. Still no Esme and Seren would be closing the kitchen at any moment. She really wasn’t coming in for dinner. He tapped a text message letting her know he was at the pub and asking if she was okay. They had spent so much time together recently, he was hoping she would respond with an invitation to swing by Strand House.
Twenty minutes later, his pint long-since-drained, his mobile finally pinged with a response from Esme.
Fine, thanks.
His heart sank at the brief politeness of the message, and he went back to sleep at the bookshop with a heaviness pressing down across his shoulders.
The next afternoon, Luke locked the bookshop with a feeling of guilt. Not just for leaving it closed another day, but for walking down to the car park alone and driving away from the island without Esme. She would come with him, he knew. At least, she would have. He wasn’t sure where they stood now, and part of him didn’t want to find out for sure. Coward . Yes, he knew it was fear. But he told himself that he was just giving Esme space. Letting her come to him so that he wasn’t in danger of hassling her. Of going too fast. Coward , his wise-ass inner voice said again, but he ignored it.
The causeway was passable from one o’clock and, as he made his way to the car park, Luke wondered whether Hammer would stop him from leaving the island on his own, as he had before. If he saw Luke leaving, he might assume that Luke was going to pick up his search for his brother, to speak to Dean Fisher or one of his dangerous associates. The nagging guilt that he felt since the WhatsApp message was still present, but he had grown used to it in a way. It was no longer the loudest song in the soundtrack of his life.
Driving away from Unholy Island felt like a physical wrench, as if the place had a magnetic pull. He had felt it driving to Edinburgh with Esme, but it was worse when he was alone in the car without a companion to distract him. That thought led to Esme and the way her expression had shut down when she had seen Kate Foster in the bookshop. He forced his mind away from that particular path and focused on his plan for the day.
Graham Townsend had run the Shambles Book Emporium for ten years. Having found two hexed books that had been sent from the shop before it had burned down, Luke had renewed his research into the place. What had seemed like a literal dead end had opened up with the funeral notice going into the local paper. It had listed the names of Graham Townsend’s surviving relatives. After that, it hadn’t been too difficult to find the right Valerie Townsend and her Facebook profile. He sent a friend request and was surprised when it was accepted.
Now, Graham’s mother agreed to meet Graham’s ‘old friend’ in a Costa in York centre as he ‘happened to be passing and wanted to pay his respects, being sadly unable to attend the funeral due to being out of the country’. Luke didn’t dwell on how easy he found the deception. He had learned plenty from his father and brother. He comforted himself that, at least, he wasn’t crashing the funeral itself.
He wasn’t looking forward to meeting a bereaved and grieving mother, but he thought that the greater good justified the intrusion. At least two people were dead and he should have made a third. Something was killing bookshop owners and he had a duty to try and stop it. It wasn’t as if he could go to the police with a tale of a hexed book and how he suspected it caused spontaneous combustion.
Valerie Townsend arrived bang on time. Luke stood up when she walked into the coffee shop, recognising her distinctive black bobbed hair from her Facebook profile picture, and waved her over to the table he had acquired. ‘What can I get for you?’
‘Uh, a latte. Thanks.’
‘Anything to eat?’
She shook her head, gaze taking him in with frank assessment.
He didn’t know what he had been expecting, but Valerie’s sharp eyes and well-cut grey suit both spoke of somebody successful and pulled together. The poor woman may well be a puddle of grief inside, but she was presenting an excellent front to the world. He admired her fortitude and was selfishly grateful that she appeared strong enough for the conversation ahead.
Once they had drinks and had dispensed with a little small talk, the coldness of the day, Luke’s journey, Valerie got to the point. ‘What is it you want?’
Luke began to say something about paying his respects, but he caught understanding in Valerie’s eyes. Knowing he might be making a mistake, he decided to be honest. ‘I’m looking into the circumstances of your son’s death.’
Valerie tilted her head. ‘You’re not an old friend of Graham’s?’
‘No,’ Luke said. ‘I apologise for lying to you.’
‘And you’re not police.’ It wasn’t a question.
‘I run a bookshop,’ Luke said. ‘And there have been a few fires in bookshops. Including the one in which Graham…’
‘Died. Yes. They say it was suicide.’
‘The police?’
She nodded, lips compressed so hard they disappeared. ‘Graham didn’t kill himself.’
Luke kept quiet.
‘I’m not saying it’s impossible that he was suicidal. He didn’t seem depressed, but I know these things aren’t always apparent from the outside. I’m not in denial.’ A pointed look as if daring Luke to disagree. He kept silent, not wanting to say the wrong thing or to derail her thoughts.
‘But he wouldn’t have done it that way. Setting fire to himself? Not exactly a painless way to go. He wasn’t a fool. He wasn’t deranged. If he was going to kill himself, he would have done it differently.’ She nodded as if having won an argument, and he wondered how many times she had said the same words. Who had she been trying to convince? He realised how she was getting through each moment in her fresh grief. She was furious.
‘Have the police found the accelerant?’ The newspaper article had said not, but Luke didn’t know how much information was being shared with the press.
‘No. They have decided suicide. Officially. I got the impression that they thought…’ She trailed off.
‘What?’
Her lips thinned again. ‘That he botched an insurance job, but couldn’t prove it so went with the suicide angle. Death by misadventure.’
‘Burning the place down for a pay-out?’
‘It was insured and they acted like that was suspicious. Everyone has buildings insurance. It’s ridiculous.’
‘And there’s nothing else that leads them in that direction?’
‘Just that they don’t see how it would have happened accidentally and they haven’t found any suspects. It’s like a diagnosis by elimination, but they don’t have actual proof that he did it himself. It’s just easier for them if he did.’
Luke didn’t know how justified Valerie’s cynicism was, but he knew the police were stretched thin and if the case didn’t have any obvious leads, then he could imagine it falling to the bottom of the pile. It made him feel a little better about asking his next question. ‘Do you have any ideas about what happened? Did Graham have any enemies?’
‘No.’ A shake of the head. ‘He wasn’t the kind of man who inspired hatred. I love him, he’s my son, but he wasn’t… exciting. He didn’t have grand passions in his life or relationships. The closest thing to him was his shop. He was obsessive about that. He’d always loved collections. He was that stereotypical little boy who had collections of gaming cards, and fossils, and toys. All sorts. But he really focused down onto books in his teens and stayed there. Graphic novels, first editions, out-of-print ephemera.’
None of this was shocking. Or helpful. The picture of Graham was beginning to sound reclusive and obsessive and maybe a little lonely. Not exactly the image to steer the police away from their suicide verdict. ‘It doesn’t sound as if he would willingly damage a shop full of books.’
‘No. Definitely not. And that’s not all. He had just taken somebody new on, to help out in the shop, give him more time for reading and research. Why would he do that if he was planning to end it all?’
Thinking about the conversation on his way back to his car, Luke wished that Valerie had asked her son more questions when he had been alive. It wasn’t fair, of course, and if Lewis showed up dead, everyone would no doubt be shocked by how little he knew about his own brother, but it would have made things easier now. Valerie hadn’t known who Graham had hired as an assistant, and hadn’t even been completely sure of their gender, although she ‘thought female’. It wasn’t enough. He had thoroughly Googled Graham’s life, and Valerie had been his only way in. He stopped walking and fought the urge to smack himself in the forehead. The bookshop had been described as ‘an institution’. And it was situated on a busy street in a popular city.
‘Why should I care?’ Esme asked Jet, and not for the first time. He jumped onto the kitchen table and eyeballed her disdainfully.
‘It was just lunch. Could be just a shared meal between friends. Nothing to it.’ No reason to jump to conclusions. Just because Luke and Kate looked unfathomably right standing together behind the counter of the bookshop, both winners in the genetic lottery, didn’t mean they were going to fall in love.
Jet meowed in a tone that suggested he thought Esme was being pathetic. Or he was hungry.
After feeding Jet some shredded cold chicken, Esme distracted herself by scrubbing the house from top to bottom. She started in the bedrooms, opening the windows to the freezing day to change the air, and vacuuming the carpets, wiping down the skirting boards and doors with a bucket of hot soapy water and a clean cloth, and changing her bed linen. The letting rooms hadn’t been slept in since she last changed them and they were covered in counterpanes, so she left them be.
She took a handheld brush and swept the stairs, before vacuuming them for good measure, wiped the wooden banisters and spindles, and went through the downstairs rooms in a similar fashion. By the time she had reached the kitchen, she had been working for two hours and felt she deserved a cup of tea and a sit down. But ended up sipping at her tea and taking bites of fruit cake in between cleaning the sink and stove, tidying and dusting the open shelves and watering her plants.
Sylvie, the art nouveau-style French stove, squatted in the living room with a hurt air of neglect and fury, so she swept the ash and re-laid kindling, before giving the blue enamel exterior a gentle polish with a chamois until it gleamed.
Then, still fired up with an energy that she couldn’t seem to discharge, she wax-polished the dented pine coffee table and dusted the bookcase.
With the whole house gleaming and scented with fresh air, beeswax, and the amber candle she had lit in the living room, Esme felt a little of her tension ease. But, as was always the case with cleaning, the more she did, the more corners she noticed to clean. One bright sweep of dusted wood simply highlighted the grubbiness of the piece next to it. Her mood dipped as she contemplated the futility of her actions. There was always more to do. It was then that she realised that cleaning wasn’t going to cut it. This was a problem that required direct action. She would go to see Luke. Clear the air. Apologise for running away when he had kissed her and see if he was interested in another go at the whole thing. And if not, if he had turned his attention to Kate Foster, she would, at least, know where she stood.
Esme stared at the closed sign on the bookshop door and knocked for the third time. The shop remained quiet and dark, no lights showing. After waiting for a few more minutes, Esme walked to the car park. Luke’s car wasn’t there. He had gone to the mainland without her. Maybe he had found a new investigative partner. The thought burned all the way down to her stomach.