Chapter 55 #2
‘I spoke to Petras briefly, yes. He said he had come back to pick up something he had forgotten and Mila accompanied him. There was no sign that they were sleeping there. They must have hidden their stuff in the bushes out of sight and gained access to the building somehow after nightfall. But neither of them were inside the house, just on the grounds so I didn’t see anything suspicious in it.
And let’s be honest, it was hardly a high security site.
Anyone could have walked in or out of that garden at any point. ’
‘Riiight. Not ’spicious at all. Very trusting of you, Marcus, I must say. Easy to be when it’s not your property.’
Her husband is starting to slur his words, Olivia notices — has he already been drinking earlier? — his eyes taking on that glassy look she knows well.
‘Tobias …’ she begins, a point of warning in her voice.
‘What’s more interesting,’ he declares ‘is that the police say the footage also shows someone matching your description, Belle.’
Their daughter blanches for a moment.
‘What?’
‘Yes, I was surprised too. Now the police have put out an appeal for more information, wanting to know if anyone saw a female that night with long red hair matching your height and figure. You can imagine what everyone round here will be making of that, including that witch Lottie Jenkins. Rather gets her off the hook, doesn’t it? ’
‘Well, it wasn’t me. I was with Drew all evening,’ she says falteringly. Olivia has never seen Bella less sure of herself, all of her cool aloofness evaporated.
‘Is that right, Drew? Can you vouch for your sister all night?’ asks Tobias, with more than a hint of interrogation now.
‘Hey, take it easy,’ says Marcus.
‘Yes, do calm down everyone,’ says Olivia, although her interest is somewhat piqued by this new information.
‘Well, Drew?’ prompts Tobias.
Their son raises his eyes from the tablecloth, a look on his face that would suggest he’d like to be anywhere but here.
‘She came to find me later, down by the beach,’ he stutters, turning to Bella with an expression of apology.
‘Before, during or after the fireworks display?’ asks Tobias, his voice now thick and menacing.
‘I don’t know,’ says Drew. ‘I couldn’t be sure. We were losing track of time by then. I mean, I guess the fireworks were still going on. I really don’t remember a lot from that night …’ He trails off woefully.
‘Leave him alone,’ says Olivia.
‘Yeah, back off would you, father?’ adds Bella, the colour rising in her cheeks.
‘Belle, I know you’ve been hanging around down at the building site,’ says Tobias.
‘I found one of your fag butts there earlier in the week. Yes, I am well aware that you smoke. For all I know, it could have been your stupid carelessness that started the bloody fire in the first place,’ he adds with a hiss.
‘Now why don’t you tell me what you were really up to before I hand you over to the police for questioning? ’
Olivia gasps at this, the thought that it could be one of her own under suspicion.
‘Stop it, Tobias, right now,’ she demands. ‘You’re frightening me and upsetting everyone.’
‘Oh, heaven forfend,’ says Tobias, raising his hands in mock alarm.
‘Please, all of you, stop arguing,’ says Drew, close to tears. ‘I’m going back to my room,’ he adds, making to stand.
‘Sit down and stay where you are,’ roars Tobias. ‘All of you. Until we get to the bottom of this.’
Olivia sees a few of the other diners look across at their table and she blushes with shame.
What a spectacle they must be making of themselves.
The whole town must be discussing the fire at the renovation, theorising over what caused it, how her son very nearly drowned and his parents were nowhere to be found.
‘Lower your voice, for heaven’s sake, Tobias. Or we’ll be asked to leave.’
‘Fine,’ he says in a more composed manner. ‘I’ll ask again. What were you doing at the property on Saturday night, Bella?’
Their daughter swallows, tears lancing at her eyes, her face young without her usual layer of make-up and bravado.
‘I told you, Dad. I wasn’t there. Not on Saturday night. I’m telling the truth. You have to believe me.’ Her voice cracks a fraction and she looks away, batting away a strand of the long red hair which appears to have incriminated her.
‘Right, that’s it. I gave you fair warning, young lady …’
‘Dad, please, don’t,’ wails Drew.
‘Yes, Tobias, stop it,’ pleads Olivia.
Finally, one other voice, cool and commanding, cuts across the cacophony at the table, silencing them all.
‘She was with me,’ says Marcus. ‘In my car. Briefly anyway.’
Olivia’s hands fly to her mouth and she gives a small strangled moan.
‘What?’ says Tobias.
‘She was with me,’ repeats Marcus with a casual roll of his shoulders as he slowly takes a sip of his mineral water and replaces the glass carefully on the table. ‘There’s your alibi,’ he says to Bella and she closes her eyes despondently.
‘What are you saying?’ asks Olivia.
‘She came to find me. Before you and I met up later on the cliff,’ says Marcus.
‘She wanted to watch the fireworks together. Suggested we sit up on the scaffolding. I told her that it wasn’t a good idea and sent her on her way, which is when she went to join Drew and his friends down by the beach, I expect. ’
Tobias doesn’t seem to know what to say, who to speak to first, his head swinging wildly from each face and back again.
‘Is this true?’ he splutters.
‘No,’ says Olivia just as Bella answers, ‘Yes.’
‘So let me get this straight. You’ve been messing around with both my daughter and my wife? Behind my back?’
Marcus shrugs, sending a helpless look her way as Olivia senses the game is up.
‘I didn’t lay a finger on your daughter,’ he says matter-of-factly.
‘And my wife?’
Silence stretches out a beat. The remains of the pizza sits on plates around the table, cheese coagulating, as everyone’s appetites evaporate.
‘Yes, Marcus and I are in a relationship,’ confirms Olivia with as much dignity as she can muster.
‘Holy fuck!’ says Bella, a look of naked disgust on her face. ‘How could you?’
It is unclear who she is directing this last question to but she looks as though she might retch. Drew stands, shoves back his chair mutely, and this time no one stops him from leaving. Bella shakes her head miserably.
‘I thought you liked me,’ she says, turning to Marcus.
‘I do,’ he says softly. ‘You’re great, it’s just …’
‘God, I think I’m going to puke. You and her.’ Bella casts a furious look at Olivia. ‘Seriously? She’s old enough to be your mother.’
‘Yes, I suppose she could be,’ says Marcus after a brief pause.
‘If she’d been young enough at the time.
Young and foolish and easily taken advantage of.
’ He stares at the tablecloth but continues to address the rest of the table.
‘The type of shy, unworldly person who has come from a modest background. Who finds herself working in a male-dominated environment, peopled with upper-class bully boys. Alone one night, made to stay late in the office, with a man who should know better but assumes he has the right to do whatever he pleases.’
The mood around the table has shifted imperceptibly. A waitress approaches but instinctively senses this is a bad moment and veers away. The dull background hum of conversation in the dining room continues but Olivia can’t help feeling that everyone is listening.
Bella looks around the table, confusion rippling across her features, clearly aware that she is out of her depth again, a child among adults. She gives another tut of revulsion, pushes back her chair and leaves, following in Drew’s wake.
Marcus and Tobias are now silently eyeing each other across the table.
Marcus’s hands rest languidly in his lap but a muscle pulses in his cheekbone while Tobias sprawls back in his chair.
But Olivia can see a slick of moisture across his forehead and on his upper lip.
He holds his glass tightly in his fist, knuckles white, and drains it.
She looks between them and it is so obvious now, laughably so.
As plain as day for anyone to see; anyone who had a care to look closely and notice such things.
The hair is different, of course, and Marcus has a more swarthy look to his complexion as opposed to Tobias’s pale yet hectic skin colouring.
But the strength in the jawline is the same, the same sharp directness in the eyes.
‘Look, I don’t know what’s going on here anymore,’ she says quietly into the awful hush that has befallen the table. ‘But my priority is my children. I’m going upstairs to see if they’re all right.’
Olivia takes a deep steadying breath to compose herself before standing.
Her legs feel jelly-like despite the fact she has only drunk water.
Ironically, she would gladly accept a stiff drink right now.
Tobias seems to have the same thought as he flags down a waiter and orders a neat double whiskey, calling, ‘make that two’ as he looks again to Marcus.
Whatever it is these two have to discuss, she no longer wants to be here to witness it.
And as she attempts to make her way through the tables, head held high with as much decorum as she can summon, she feels a terrible sense of inevitability shrouding her, settling on her shoulders like a cloak.
Somewhere, deep down, she always knew that Tobias was capable of cruelty, callousness.
Bad deeds swept under the carpet and hastily forgotten.
He has passed through life with the cavalier attitude of one who makes mistakes easily and expects everyone else to clear up after him.
Not surprising when he grew up with staff, spent years abroad living in foreign locations with his parents, where servants were the norm.
Often viewing people, especially women, as merely in service to him.
As she finds her way to the central atrium and begins to climb the stairs, she stops.
This is it, she acknowledges. The defining moment in her life, or one of them at least. The point at which her life will be divided into the ‘before’ and ‘after’.
She is alone. She cannot rely on Marcus, does not want to stay with Tobias.
She has sullied herself in the eyes of her children.
Bella and Drew, who always used to look at her with such trusting adulation when they were babies.
Will she ever win back their love and respect?
Possibly not. But then, perhaps it is time they both grew up to see her as a person, not just a mother.
She raises her chin up at this, straightens her spine, and continues to climb, ready to face the music.