The Family Game(41)

I wonder how best to answer, fingers poised over the keys. I’m guessing it will not help my case in any way to explain I’m about to marry one of them.


I am not involved yet. That really depends on you, and what you might be able to tell me.



I stare at my inbox and wait. After half an hour I consider giving up for the night and checking in again tomorrow. And then it comes.


It is me, in the photo. I’ll meet with you. I will pick the venue and time. Come alone.

If I feel unsafe, I will leave.



I bark out a triumphant whoop at the empty apartment. The woman in Robert’s confession is alive; he did not kill her. Whatever this tape is, it’s a game, nothing more, and I’ve won the first round.

A new thought surfaces and my smile withers: I have no way of knowing if that was Samantha Belson messaging me, or if I’ve just made a plan to meet someone else entirely.

I open her Facebook profile and scroll through her photographs. The account looks real, and while she might not have quite the same soft blonde hair she had as a young woman, I see the same curve in her smile, the same crinkle around her eyes. This is Samantha Belson, aged sixty. Whatever happened, she didn’t die in 2002.

I type back a quick reply.


Thank you, Samantha. I have lots of questions.





21 Krampusnacht




Friday 16 December

And just like that, it’s Krampusnacht.



* * *



We’re standing on a Brooklyn curb in front of the glowing windows of Fiona and Oliver’s five-floored brownstone as it looms over us, its door festooned with foreboding Christmas decorations.

I look at Edward beside me. ‘This is weird,’ I say. ‘Your family is weird.’ Somehow the weight of everything I can’t tell him is in those words, as well as the weight of my fear at having to see Robert again. I will feign ignorance tonight, but I know he will be watching me carefully. The truth is I’m scared of what could happen next, of what Robert might do.

Edward nods in solemn acknowledgment. ‘Oh, I know they are. Believe me.’ His expression softens as he looks down at me with a smile. ‘Remember, tonight is just an Austro-Hungarian version of Halloween. Nothing to worry about, right?’

‘Got it,’ I agree, allowing only a sliver of the vulnerability I actually feel to surface.

He offers me his hand and I take it, letting him lead me briskly up the brownstone steps to the elaborately carved dark wood and glass front door.

Edward pushes the doorbell and through the glass I just about make out its ghostly tinkling. In the hallway beyond I can make out rows of shoes already lined up against the thick eighteenth-century skirting board, shoes lined up for Krampus. It looks like there’s quite a crowd in there already. I note that there are adult shoes mixed among the children’s and my stomach tightens. We all have to take part in the Krampusnacht games it seems.

Edward looks at his watch, then back into the dim hallway, light and movement visible at the end of the corridor. ‘We’re late,’ he mumbles. ‘They probably just can’t hear us.’

It’s my fault we’re late. I had no idea what to wear, and I don’t mean in the usual sense. I mean I genuinely had no idea what to wear to a Krampusnacht.

After another minute, the front door flies open in front of us revealing a beaming Fiona.

‘Hello, hello, hello,’ she cheers merrily, and through another doorway along the hall Oliver appears, a bottle of red in hand and a smile on his face.

‘Hello, strangers,’ Oliver bellows, clearly making an extra effort. It seems to settle Edward. In all of my own, very particular terror about tonight, I had forgotten that Edward is the prodigal son. Oliver pulls him into a hug before bending to plant a quick peck on my cheek. ‘Shoes off, both of you,’ he orders us merrily. ‘You definitely know the rules by now, Ed. No excuses.’

I look between the brothers, an easy filiality beginning to settle in alongside both parties’ hypervigilance. Fiona places a reassuring hand on my arm.

‘You told Harry about the shoes, right, Ed?’ Fiona asks, half teasing, half concerned.

‘He did,’ I say, answering for him as I slip mine off, as instructed, and into the immaculate row. ‘Yeah, we have to leave them out for Krampus,’ I say with a smile, as if Krampus were the milkman and not a seven-foot-tall deformed goat-demon. ‘Right?’

‘She’s got it,’ Oliver replies, winking in such a mock-theatrical way I can’t help but laugh.

‘That’s the spirit,’ Fiona tells me, and there’s a hint of apology in her voice as she takes me conspiratorially by the arm and pulls me towards the kitchen.

‘I know you’re not drinking,’ Fiona whispers, with a level of knowing that slightly concerns me, ‘but I have something you might be interested in seeing in the kitchen.’ She raises an impish eyebrow that suggests to me there is food involved and I follow gladly, looking back just in time to see a relaxed Edward follow Oliver into the party.

My appetite has sky-rocketed over the past week, but whether this is eating for two or I’m just making up for the nausea and loss of appetite of the preceding weeks, I do not know.

‘How much has Edward told you about tonight?’ Fiona asks.