Chapter 57
Sadie
Sadie turned down Hendrik’s offer of Raven Hall.
There were too many arguments against it.
Not least, the horror on her mother’s face when Hendrik first suggested the idea.
But also, the awkwardness of accepting such an immense gift from a ninety-year-old great-grandfather she’d only just met; and the responsibilities and lifestyle changes that taking on a house like Raven Hall would entail . . .
“I still think you should have grabbed it with both hands,” Wendy says.
Sadie has met her former agent for coffee, and they’re weaving between tables in a café overlooking the high street, heading for their favorite seats.
“God, Sadie, you could have sold it straight on if you didn’t want it, kept the money. You’d be a millionaire by now.”
Sadie laughs. “It’s not like that, though. Hendrik would buy me a different house if I asked him—he even says he’ll find me a job in his company if I want it. But weirdly, it makes me realize—”
Wendy pulls a face as she sits down. “Oh, please. Don’t start with the Love is more powerful than money stuff.”
“No, honestly, it’s just a weird situation to be in. I want to take my time, that’s all. I actually quite like my life as it is . . .”
“How can you say that? You’ve already changed loads.”
“Yeah, but that was nothing to do with Hendrik,” Sadie says. “That was me.”
After their ordeal at Raven Hall, Beth finally opened up to Sadie about her past. As well as telling Sadie about her time at Raven Hall, Beth described the months she spent sleeping on the streets afterward, and the homeless charity that helped her—the same charity that she in turn has tried to support ever since.
When Sadie spotted the charity’s name on a job advert in the local newspaper a few weeks later, she drew a circle around it and rang the number straightaway.
“So, when do you start?” Wendy asks her.
“In three weeks.” Sadie can’t disguise her excitement. “They’ll be training me at first, of course, and I know it’ll be hard, but—I really can’t wait. To actually feel like I’m making a difference to people . . .”
Wendy sighs. “So no more mermaid auditions?”
“Nope,” Sadie says with a grin. “Not for the time being, anyway.”
“Oh well.” Wendy sips her coffee, then tips in a packet of sugar. “At least your mum sounds happier now. How’s her new man working out?”
“Pretty well, actually.” Sadie smiles. “I mean, he’s not that new, but . . . yeah, I think he’s good for her. I really like him.”
“Oh, it’s no good.” Wendy gets to her feet. “I’ve got to have some of that carrot cake. It’s calling me.”
Sadie watches Wendy weave between tables to reach the counter, and then she drops her gaze to the charm bracelet on her wrist. After years of hardly ever wearing it, she decided to put it on this morning.
She twists it slowly, admiring the charms and enjoying the sense of connection it gives her to her grandfather Markus.
Wendy returns with her cake. “So, fill me in, then. Is there a date for the trial? Have you seen any of the other guests? What’s the latest?”
Sadie sighs. She’s not supposed to talk about the case, but that doesn’t stop everyone asking her for details. There’s been plenty of information in the press, though, so she sticks to this and pretends it’s all she knows.
“They’re still collating evidence,” she says. “There’s no date yet.”
“And Nina Averell’s still locked up?”
“Yep.”
Wendy’s eyes are enormous. “I can’t believe your mum was friends with a murderer.”
“It was only attempted murder,” Sadie says weakly.
“I know, but—Nina was so devious, wasn’t she? Hiring those people to refurbish the house, and they all believed her when she said she was the owner . . . And knocking back the poisoned gin herself, to try to make the rest of you drink it . . .”
“It was whiskey, actually. And the active compound had broken down, so it didn’t have much effect anyway.”
“Still.” Wendy’s eyes shine with admiration. “You’re lucky to be alive. I was saying that to—actually, do you know what? You could step straight into that mermaid commercial now, if you still wanted it. I’d just need to make one call . . .”
Sadie laughs. “No, thanks—and listen. Don’t go around talking about this too much, will you?”
“Gosh no, don’t worry.” Wendy nods seriously. “My lips are sealed.”
They sip their coffees. Sadie closes her eyes for a moment, relishing the buzz of happy chatter all around them in the café. In fact, there have been two major developments in Nina’s case—neither of which Sadie can share with Wendy.
Shortly after Nina learned the truth, in jail, about Beth being Markus’s biological daughter, Beth was called back to the police station to be interviewed about a new accusation that Nina had leveled against Leonora.
Nina is now claiming that Leonora sent Markus out onto the ice deliberately, knowing it was likely that he would fall through.
“My mother knew I wouldn’t have carried on following Beth,” Nina had stated to her solicitor.
“She knew I’d have turned around and gone back to the house—I wasn’t allowed to leave Raven Hall, or go into the village.
So there was no need for her to send Dad out after me.
But she sent him anyway, because she knew the ice was weakening, and she was desperate to silence him.
She wanted to protect my fraudulent inheritance of Raven Hall. ”
Sadie and Beth can’t agree on whether they think this is even remotely possible.
“Leonora loved Markus,” Beth said to Sadie afterward. “He meant everything to her. He was the love of her life.”
“Was he?” Sadie replied. “Or did he always come second to Raven Hall?”
Beth had frowned. “Well, there’s no way she could have known he’d fall through, anyway . . . No. Much as I’m happy to believe a lot of bad things about Leonora, I can’t believe she’d stoop that low.”
Sadie wants to believe her mum is right, but she still finds the very suggestion unsettling.
While Nina awaits her trial in a cell, Leonora is out on bail for the historic poisoning of her daughter; she’s still, as far as Sadie’s aware, holed up in her little seaside cottage, brooding on the loss of her ancestral home.
And in an ironic twist, Leonora is providing evidence for the other major development in the far-reaching investigation.
When the police collected the game cards that the dinner guests had been given, they noticed that the comments on them were uniquely personal. Sadie can still remember the gist of hers: You must have been a great disappointment to your mother, unable to hold down a job . . .
But in among the other sly, mean-spirited jibes, one guest’s card—its gravy-stained quarters carefully pieced back together—stood out for the specific and serious nature of its accusations.
Nina’s attempt to unsettle her guests and prick their consciences has resulted in a fierce spotlight being turned onto Roy Everett.
At the same time that the police began investigating the thinly veiled accusations on Roy Everett’s card, several women who’d seen him on news footage of the incident at Raven Hall came forward to put on record that he’d behaved inappropriately toward them.
Some of the allegations are worse, but Sadie and Beth aren’t privy to the details.
However, Roy Everett will be facing his own trial in due course, and Sadie trusts that justice will be served.
“Okay,” Wendy says, dabbing crumbs from around her mouth. “I can see your mind’s on other things. Have a brilliant time in America, won’t you? Give me a ring when you get back.”
Sadie gives her a quick hug good-bye. Hendrik has bought tickets for Sadie and Beth to fly out tomorrow, to visit him for a couple of weeks.
Beth nearly declined the offer—not least, Sadie suspects, because she doesn’t like the idea of being away from Joe for that long.
But Sadie talked her into accepting it; the timing is perfect—they’ll be back just before Sadie starts her new job.
And she’s looking forward to seeing her great-grandfather again in person.
They Skype every few days, but it isn’t the same.
But before they fly out, there’s one more invitation that Sadie has talked Beth into accepting.
The new owner of Raven Hall—a Mr. El Daly, former investment banker and inventor of an encryption process that made him a fortune—has offered to show them around the newly repaired and refurbished Raven Hall.
Beth was hesitant at first, but she surprised Sadie by warming to the idea.
“I think it might help, actually,” Beth had said, once she’d thought about it. “I’m done with trying to block out the past. This might make it easier to move on.”
Sadie knows that Joe—or Jonas, as Beth still insists on calling him—has played a large role in Beth’s newfound positivity.
Beth has been staying with Sadie in Sadie’s flat for the last few months, but the arrangement will come to an end soon, because Beth and Jonas are going traveling.
They’ve planned a six-month round-the-world trip together, making up for the years they lost. It makes Sadie smile every time she thinks of it.
As Sadie climbs into her car, her mind drifts back to Wendy’s other question: “Have you seen any of the other guests?”
She did, in fact, meet up with Nazleen and her wife for drinks a couple of months ago. They skirted around the subject of Raven Hall, and they made vague promises to meet again, but she’s not convinced they’ll follow through.
Genevieve, she saw in the distance at the police station a few weeks ago, when she and Beth went in to discuss their statements. Sadie pointed Genevieve out to Beth, but the young woman was too far away for them to attract her attention and say hello.
Zach, Sadie hasn’t seen at all. Even Jonas commented that the doctor’s son has been lying low since the accusations against his father began to rumble around the village.
Sadie finds it sad that, after those intense few hours they spent together at Raven Hall, Nina’s seven intended victims have been scattered apart.
Of course, Sadie and Jonas are connected now, by Beth, so they have each other to talk to when they need to off-load about the events of that night.
But Sadie worries about the other innocent guests—Nazleen, Genevieve, and Zach.
The police told her about Nina’s daisy notebook, filled with observations Nina had made when she was spying on Beth’s house and, it transpires, on the homes of Sadie, Everett, and Jonas too.
Is it worse to be a targeted victim, like they were, or to be collateral damage, like the others?
Sadie puts all such questions out of her mind as she arrives at her flat to pick up Beth. It’s time to return to Raven Hall.