Chapter Ten
The twenty-three-year-old mother of two young children had been missing for exactly eleven months and three weeks before her body was found in the woods, following an anonymous tip-off to the police.
According to the postmortem, Olivia Benlow had only been dead for five days. So where had she been all that time?
Cassie was driving home after spending a girls-only day with her mother and sister.
She was listening to a new true crime podcast, and thinking as she often did that she would make an excellent investigator as she had a regular nose for a mystery.
Which was why she was going to investigate their new neighbour’s late-night and early-morning wanderings.
It would be almost dark when Cassie arrived home, and she planned to go up to the roof terrace and wait for Venetia to appear.
Then she would run downstairs and, hiding in the shadows, she would follow their new neighbour and discover what she was really up to.
A week had passed since the evening of the welcome party for Venetia, and it was only a few days later that it struck Cassie as odd that the woman had revealed nothing of herself to them.
Almost every question had been neatly side-stepped.
Ben was of the opinion that the woman was simply naturally private and liked to keep herself to herself.
‘Not everyone likes to share personal details,’ he’d said.
In contrast Cassie was a world-class sharer; she was probably guilty of over-sharing.
But that was how she was, and she was unlikely to change.
Yet change, she feared, was something she would have to force herself to do when it came to her feelings towards her ex-husband.
She had to change for her daughter’s sake, because how else would she be able to offer genuine comfort to Emily if Drew died?
For now though, and from what Emily had told her yesterday, Drew was still in a coma, his life ebbing away.
It was a weird sensation, willing him to live if it meant it would protect Emily.
Cassie tried to believe that wanting to save her daughter any heartache made her a better person than she really was.
That was another of her failings, always trying to ease her conscience.
It would be a lot simpler if she could just be a better person.
The truth, and only she really knew the extent of this truth, was that beneath the outward happy-go-lucky exterior she presented to the world, there was a black-hearted, grudge-holding vindictive person who had repeatedly wished her ex-husband dead.
She’d wished too that his last dying wish was to beg her forgiveness, only for her to refuse to give it. That’s how irredeemably vile she was!
But now that he really did seem to be on the verge of dying, would she give him her forgiveness? She knew what the answer should be, but she didn’t think she could make the necessary leap.
While with her mother and sister, Jodie, they had been reminiscing about their children when they’d been babies.
Mum had always claimed that both Cassie and Jodie had been model babies up until the age of two and then each in turn had turned into mini-monsters, their tantrums having become part of family lore.
Jodie had two daughters, ten-year-old Isla and eight-year-old Sienna, and an abundance of amusing stories about them.
For Cassie, all this talk had brought back a host of memories, not all of them good, but foremost was the memory of the fierce protective love she’d had for Emily and how so often it had felt like it was the two of them against the world.
She had vowed always to keep her daughter safe, to protect her against the evils of the world.
The knowledge that she might not be able to keep that promise did not sit well with Cassie.
During their reminiscing, Jodie had joked that it wasn’t too late for Cassie to have another child. ‘Last chance saloon and all that,’ her sister had said, ‘have one while you still can.’
‘Thanks a bunch for reminding me that I’m living on borrowed time,’ Cassie had fired back. ‘You’re only four years younger than me, so you’d better make the most of things too!’
Watching her speed as she entered the village of Grantchester, Cassie thought of the choice Nina had to make, whether or not to try one more time with IVF to have the child she and her husband had wanted.
Cassie couldn’t help but think that if Nina really wanted a child, she would have tried again by now.
When Nina had told her about her mother-in-law’s assertion that Nina owed it to Hugh’s memory to produce a grandchild, she had gone on to say that she had wanted to make the life-changing decision when she wasn’t so consumed with grief, when she felt the time was right and she was better able to cope with having a child on her own.
‘Trust me,’ Cassie had told her, ‘no time is right. But somehow, we women all muddle through and I reckon if anyone could take motherhood in their stride, you could. You’re always so organised and calm.’
Nina had disputed this, saying Cassie only saw her on her good days.
There might well be some truth in what her friend had said, because most people were like that, they kept the worst aspects of their character hidden.
Cassie might wear her emotions on her sleeve – they swung chaotically like a weathervane in a high wind for all to see – but that dark shameful side of her, the side that for years had fantasised about Drew dying was not something she had ever wanted anyone else to see.
When she let herself in at the apartment, all was quiet and there was no sign of Ben.
Dropping her bag on the sofa and putting her mobile to charge, she then heard Ben’s voice coming from upstairs.
He was probably in his office. It was next door to hers and was larger but didn’t have the benefit of the whimsical turret.
She liked it on the few occasions he worked from home, as they could call through to one another, quoting silly stuff they’d just seen online. She went to let him know she was back.
She was halfway up the stairs when she heard him say, ‘Look, I have to go now, Cassie’s home.’
There was something in his hushed tone – something furtive – that made her pause. Ben was never furtive. He didn’t do furtive. He was as open as they come.
Remaining where she was, she listened to what he said next.
‘Yes, of course. I’ll speak to you again when I can. But remem-ber, she mustn’t find out. No, I’ll invent something. Something convincing.’
Knowing that she’d just overhead something she wasn’t meant to hear, Cassie crept back down the stairs to the kitchen.
Don’t even think it, she warned herself as her mind began replaying a host of painful memories from the past. It’s nothing suspicious.
You made that mistake once before. You imagined the worst – an affair – and you put yourself through unnecessary hell.
Ben is nothing like Drew. Repeat after me, Ben is nothing like Drew!
He’s probably just planning a lovely surprise for your birthday.
Filling the kettle at the tap, she shuddered at the appalling memory from the early stages of their relationship, when she’d found it so difficult to lower her guard and be vulnerable with Ben, to allow herself to believe that he genuinely cared about her.
Back then she had sooner believed the worst of him than the best.
‘Hi sweetheart,’ Ben said, appearing just as she’d plugged in the kettle and effectively plugging the dangerous flow of her thoughts. ‘Good time with your mum and Jodie?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ she answered, trying to sound as normal as possible, ‘they sent their love. Who was that you were speaking to upstairs?’
‘Just someone from work,’ he replied with an easy shrug.
It was exactly the kind of thing Drew had said. ‘At this time of night?’ she queried, despite the voice in her head yelling at her to stop it. He’s planning a surprise, so leave well alone!
‘You know what it’s like,’ he said, ‘some people never switch off.’
And some people just can’t help themselves, she thought miserably. Would she never fully trust Ben’s love for her? What the hell was wrong with her?
‘You know what,’ she said, needing a moment to settle her emotions, ‘I think I’ll go for a walk.’
He turned to look out of the window. ‘But it’s almost dark.’
‘I won’t be long. I just need to stretch my legs; I’ve been sitting down for most of the day, and I could do with some fresh air.’
‘I’ll come with you.’
She raised her hands as if to physically stop him. ‘No, it’s okay, you stay here. I’ll be back before you’ve even missed me.’
She felt badly leaving him standing there in the kitchen looking so baffled, but she really did need a moment to reset herself.
It was ridiculous how easily she had been unnerved by overhearing a perfectly innocent snatch of conversation.
Of course Ben wasn’t cheating on her! She knew that in her heart.
All he was doing, because he loved her, was planning a surprise for her birthday.
Without realising the direction in which she had wandered, she found herself entering the gloom of the woods, and with her eyes adjusting to the darkness, she slowed her pace before coming to a stop.
Ahead of her, she saw the horizontal trunk of a fallen tree.
Thinking it would be a good place to sit and think, she went over and sat down on it.
She’d only been there for a few minutes when she heard noises coming from behind her, the crackle and rustle of twigs and dried leaves.
Suddenly thinking of the podcast she’d been listening to in the car – The Disappearance of Olivia Benlow – and how the woman’s body had been found in a shallow grave in the woods, her stomach clenched, and her mouth went dry.
Holding her breath, she then heard a low murmuring voice followed by a scampering sound.
Then out of the darkness came the faint glow of a beam of light and the figure of a woman and a small dog.