Chapter 23 Imogen
Imogen
Josh’s mood lasts all of the next day. It’s like I’m invisible, and if I try and make conversation he just leaves the room. We shared a bed, but his back was to me all night, and we eat separately, whatever we can find in the fridge: mostly cheese on toast for me.
He’s working from home and he spends most of the day dealing with the security team on an issue with one of the cameras, like the house belongs to him and not me.
It feels as though he’s deliberately keeping me out of the loop and it’s grating on me.
He hasn’t even shown me how to use the app to access the camera footage yet, even though I keep asking.
I can see him now in the garden, laughing with one of the men from the security firm.
I turn away to find my trainers, tugging them on, so I can go out there and demand to know what’s going on, but when I open the patio door they’re nowhere to be seen.
Josh’s words from last night play over in my mind.
Had I been flirting with Harry? It’s true that I still found him attractive.
That I still liked his sensitive nature.
That I was impressed when he told me he’d pursued his dream and was writing a book.
Talking to him reminded me of the past, before everything changed.
But that’s all. Despite Josh’s occasional moods, and I suppose you could call it over-possessiveness, he’s insecure.
His dad walking out when he was a kid really made it hard for him to trust people and he’s terrified of losing the ones he loves – not that he would admit that to me, but I just know, because I know him. Better than he thinks I do.
The quote from the alarm company has been left on the kitchen table for me to see. The money Dorothea left me hasn’t been transferred yet so I use our joint account to pay it.
I’m in Dorothea’s study, arranging some of my books on her shelf, when I hear Josh go back into the room he’s using as his home office and slam the door behind him.
He obviously wants me to know he’s still in a mood and I’m filled with indignation.
How dare he. I need to get out of the house.
I hate not having my own car, but I’m insured on Josh’s.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I’m flinging open Josh’s door and storming into his room.
‘I need to go out so I’m going to have to use your car,’ I announce to a startled-looking Josh. I don’t wait for an answer before closing the door again. I hear him calling me from the top of the stairs as I grab the keys from the dish by the front door and leave before he can stop me.
My hands are shaking as I turn on the ignition, but relief floods through me as I back out of the driveway and away from Villa Oiseau and Josh.
I park up outside Rosemary Farrington’s Gothic mansion.
I’ve been here once before. Dorothea had taken me and Mum when we were staying at her villa that summer.
It was only a few weeks before Mum decided to go back to my dad, and I’d been blissfully unaware that our new charmed life was about to come to a grinding halt.
I’d thought Rosemary a little odd, eccentric with a voice as posh as the royals.
She was very tall, even taller than Dorothea, and she had thick copper hair cut in a blunt bob that highlighted her pointy chin.
She hadn’t been able to keep still. She’d kept jumping up, asking if I wanted some squash, or a biscuit, or if my mum wanted more tea.
Her living room was cavernous and smelt of lavender perfume.
She had these cotton doilies on every polished wood surface, and despite its size the room felt small and claustrophobic with all the clutter.
Even as a teenager the exterior of Rosemary’s house had seemed spooky, like something Edgar Allan Poe would write about with its grey walls and stone gargoyles peering down from the rooftops.
I didn’t believe in ghosts, but if I did I’d have expected them to be lurking in here.
I’ve parked on the kerb but there are no gates to keep people out, just a vehicle-sized gap between two stone pillars.
There is no car in the driveway, but I decide to knock anyway, hoping that if she’s in then she’ll remember me.
I wonder if DI Shirley has already spoken to Rosemary about the lighter and if so, whether Rosemary might be guarded.
When nobody answers I knock again. Eventually I hear footsteps in the hallway, and the door opens slowly, a man peering through the gap.
He’s around my age, maybe a bit older, with tawny hair scraped back into a ponytail and a bony face.
I wonder if this is the Peter Bryce that was on the electoral roll, and who he might be to Rosemary.
His dark eyes narrow suspiciously. ‘Yes?’
‘Hi. I was wondering if Rosemary was in, I’m …’
‘She’s not here.’
‘Oh, okay. Do you know when she’ll be back?’
‘In a few days. Sorry.’ He closes the door on me before I can ask any more questions.
I step back and assess the house, wondering if he’s telling the truth about Rosemary being away.
As I walk back through the stone pillars, it hits me that this was one of the last things my mum did the night she died.
I try to imagine what she was thinking as she left Rosemary’s Halloween party all those years ago.
Did she know my dad was waiting for her on this very street, ready to follow her home after he was chucked out of the party?
Why hadn’t she just stayed the night with Dorothea or Rosemary?
I think again of Alison and her doubts surrounding our father’s conviction.
How could she go and see him? After everything he put us through.
And then I remember what Harry told me about Alison keeping Dorothea from me and a fresh wave of betrayal washes over me.
When I get back to the car I type Alison an angry text.
Why did you tell Dorothea to keep away from me?
My finger hovers over the send button, imagining Alison’s reaction when she gets the message. I’ve never sent a confrontational text to her before. We’ve never really fallen out – we’ve never been close enough for that. I press send before I can change my mind.
Frustrated that I can’t get hold of Rosemary, I try calling Annette.
Her number was easy to find as it’s still on the art therapy centre’s website.
But it goes straight through to voicemail.
I leave a message stating who I am and that I’d like to talk to her about Dorothea and then I toss the phone onto the passenger seat.
I’m just about to pull away when the phone rings, making me jump. I grab it, expecting it to be Alison or Annette, but it’s DI Shirley.
‘It’s Dennis,’ she says without any preamble as soon as I answer. My heart plunges. Has he died? ‘He’s out of intensive care and he would like to see you. He’s very insistent and won’t talk to the police until he’s spoken to you.’
I exhale in relief. Thank goodness he’s okay. She tells me he’s at the Royal United Hospital in Bath and I say I’ll head straight there.
Dennis is asleep when I arrive on the ward.
‘Sit down, lovely, and wait for him to wake up,’ says a nurse, pulling out a chair by his bed. ‘He didn’t get much sleep last night. It’s all comings and goings in here.’ She gives my shoulder a reassuring squeeze and then wanders off to help a man calling from the other end of the ward.
I take a seat, wishing I’d had time to get something to bring in, but I have no idea what Dennis likes. I sit awkwardly, waiting for him to wake up, thinking how strangely intimate it is, me being here when he’s dressed in his pyjamas and in a vulnerable state when I hardly know him.
Eventually he opens his eyes and takes a few seconds to register me before his face breaks out into a smile. ‘Imogen. Thank you so much for coming.’ He’s propped up on a mass of pillows and I ask him if I can get him anything. ‘Oh, no. I’m fine. Thank you. I’m lucky to be alive.’
‘You are,’ I say. ‘I’m so sorry this happened to you. I’m looking after Cady and she’s doing really well, but she’s missing you.’
‘That’s kind, thank you, dear.’
‘What happened? Did you fall?’ I ask, already knowing there’s more to it otherwise why would he ask to see me?
His expression clouds over. ‘It was very odd. I received a knock at the door and it was this delivery guy. At least, I assumed it was a delivery guy. He was holding a small package which he asked me to sign for but he didn’t have one of those electronic thingies that the postmen have – it was a piece of paper and he didn’t have a pen.
So I asked him to hold on for a second while I went to get one and he followed me into the kitchen.
And that’s the last thing I remember. Because when I woke up I was here. ’
‘So he attacked you.’
‘I’m assuming so, dear, because I woke up with a crack to my skull and a doctor hovering over me telling me how lucky I am to be alive.’
‘God, Dennis.’ My lungs feel like they are being squeezed. ‘Do you think it might be the same person that locked us in the bunker? This has to be all to do with Dorothea, doesn’t it?’
He pats my arm which rests on his bed. He has a cannula in his hand and I’m taken aback by how old and frail he looks, his skin paper-thin with purplish bruises staining his wrists.
‘Be careful, my dear. I don’t understand what’s going on, but yes, I think this is the same person who hurt Dorothea.
I haven’t told the police that yet because I wanted to speak to you first. I noticed you didn’t tell that detective lady about the sculpture.
Do you still want me to keep quiet about it even if it’s probably linked? ’
I hesitate, unsure of what to do.
He pats my arm again. ‘I won’t say anything about it for now. But please, be careful. Don’t go in the bunker again.’
I nod. ‘Thanks, Dennis. I will tell DI Shirley soon. I just want to see if I can figure out what the sculpture means first.’ I don’t say it, but I can’t help but feel I’d have betrayed Dorothea somehow if I told the police about the sculpture.
She left it for me to find. She wanted it kept a secret.
‘The man who attacked you. Did you see his face?’
‘Well, no, that’s the thing.’ And his next words give me goosepimples. ‘He was wearing full-on biking gear. And a helmet, with the visor down.’
I can’t stop thinking about Dennis’s words all the way home. Was his attacker the man who’d shoved into me when I was in Bristol – and also the person who’d locked us in the bunker? But why? And why attack Dennis of all people? It doesn’t make any sense.
The security team have left by the time I pull up on the driveway. As soon as I step out of Josh’s car, he appears at the front door, his face contorted in anger.
‘I can’t believe you just took my car,’ he says as I walk towards him. ‘I might have needed it.’
‘Why? You’re working from home,’ I say calmly even though my heart is beating fast. I dump the car keys in his hand as I walk past and he follows me down into the kitchen.
‘Where did you go that was so urgent?’
‘I went to see Dennis in hospital,’ I say without missing a beat. I bend down to stroke the dogs who have rushed up to greet me. ‘I should take them out for a walk.’
‘You’re going out? Again?’
I turn to face Josh. ‘If that’s all right with you?
’ His eyes widen at my sarcasm and for a moment he looks confused.
Usually when Josh is annoyed I keep out of his way until his bad mood has passed.
But not this time. Being here in Dorothea’s house – in my house – has empowered me.
I clip the leads onto the dogs’ collars.
Josh opens his mouth to say something but then thinks better of it.
He storms out of the room, his footsteps heavy on the stairs, and then a slam of a door.
‘Come on then,’ I say to the dogs. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
I take them through the newly secured side gate, breathing deeply to steady my nerves.
Despite my bravado with Josh, I hate it when we’re not speaking.
At least I don’t have to worry about feeling unsafe now the security system is up and running.
The villa now feels like the kind of prison Dorothea surely never envisioned for her home but that might have kept her alive.
I step onto the pavement and it all happens in a flash. The roar of the gears, the squeal of tyres on tarmac, the smell of petrol, the glint of metal as the motorbike veers onto the pavement and drives straight for me.