The Things You Didn't See(25)

Janet’s face was pink with emotion, and she leaned back to catch her breath.

‘Now, these scones need to bake. Why don’t you come back in twenty minutes and I’ll have ’em wrapped and ready for you to take to the hospital?’

Holly knew she had hit exposed nerves with her questions and Janet needed to be alone.

‘I’ll come back later, Miss Cley. Thank you for your help.’

Holly had time to kill, and speaking with Janet had reawakened her own memories and her curiosity. If Maya didn’t shoot herself, chances were whoever did was someone close to her.

Next to a fenced-off clump of woodland, where maybe the game birds were reared, Ash Cley was working in a field littered with half-domed huts and muddy pigs. The stench of them, rotten and sweet, had been present since she first drove down the lane, but now it hit her nose with force. Beyond the wood lay more farmland, the motorway taking lorries to the Port of Felixstowe, a distant point of civilisation. It seemed a world away from this grim and desolate spot. He was hammering a nail into the side of a hut in the corner, using more force than seemed necessary. Holly had almost reached him when he finally saw her, though he did not stop his angry hammering.

‘Hi,’ she said.

He gave a final bash with the hammer and stood upright, wiping his sweaty brow with his forearm, his face flushed. He didn’t move from his position, the heavy hammer dangling from his hand like a prosthetic. Ash still bore the traces of the boy he’d once been, enhanced by the straggly hair that hung around his face and his intensely blue eyes, which combined to make him seem younger than his thirty-one years.

‘You look busy.’

‘I’ve got all these huts to check afore dark. The sows need protectin’ from the wind now the weather’s turned.’

A cold gust caught Holly’s jacket and whipped it against her, forcing her to hold it close to her body.

‘I’ve just been to see your mum.’

Ash threw the hammer into the soil. It landed just a foot in front of Holly, making her step back. His face was twisted and he spoke with barely suppressed anger. ‘My mum’s upset. You shouldn’t have gone there.’

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t go to cause any distress. It’s for Maya. Cass told me what she loves smelling best is your mum’s baking. I’m just killing time while the scones are in the oven.’

His face changed, and relief bloomed across his features now he realised she wasn’t here to interrogate him. ‘Is Maya awake then?’

It struck Holly that this should have been the first thing Ash said. ‘Still unconscious. Cassandra and Hector are by her side.’

He dug his hands into the pockets of his worn jeans and tucked his chin to his chest, leaning back on the hut. A young pig came snouting up to him and he pushed its flank with his boot, sending it scurrying away. Then he ran his hands over his face, as if to remove any pain that might be lodged there. ‘God, what a mess. I still can’t believe she did this.’

Ash’s mask of anger dropped completely. She felt his emotions, mirrored in her gut: anxiety twinned with hurt as he struggled to grasp what had happened.

‘Your mum showed me the pheasant you cooked for her, from your shoot on Friday.’

‘I’m tryin’ to get her to eat more. Unless I remind her, she just forgets about food. But she’s tough – stronger than all of us.’

Janet didn’t look strong, and Holly had sensed she was sick. ‘Has she seen a doctor?’

He blew a long breath into the cold air. ‘She’s not seen a doctor in years – never had a day off. Me and Mum are workers. Doctors are for folk who have time to be sick.’

There it was again, the idea that to be tough meant not seeking help. Holly realised that both of them thought this was a good thing, but how did it serve him when he was a young boy, bullied at school by pupils and teachers? How did it serve Janet, when she discovered she was pregnant after a one-night stand, and the villagers said she wouldn’t cope?

‘It’s none of my business, but I think she really needs to see a doctor . . .’

Ash’s face contorted with anger. ‘You’re right, it’s none of your bloody business. It’s, what, twenty years since you was here? And now you come snoopin’ about, when we’ve got this stress on us. Why you askin’ about Mum anyway? Maya tried to off herself, and thank God she failed, but it ain’t that unusual in farmin’ circles. This ain’t anythin’ for you to get involved with.’

His voice suddenly broke, anger giving way to softer feelings, and he rubbed his sleeve over his face. Holly remembered Janet saying she’d heard him crying in the night. As the wind whipped around her, Holly felt herself fighting just to keep upright. The icy blast didn’t bother Ash, who huddled into it as if it was a comfort. His weather fitted him like a second skin; he belonged here, and she didn’t.

‘I’m just trying to help,’ Holly said weakly. But even as she said it, she knew there was something else, another motive, pressing forward. Ash had been there that Halloween, she and Jamie had left him to face the fallout when they ran. She wanted, more than anything, to know what had really happened that night. What was that ghostly figure? But Ash had turned from her, and she knew she didn’t yet have the strength to hear the answer, in case it was the one she feared most: that it was a human cry. That her brother had shot someone, and they had ran away.