The Things You Didn't See(43)

After you’ve made me empty my stomach of the foaming tablets, you tell me again that there will be no more Samphire Health Spa, and Victoria won’t be coming home.

You saved me, Mum. I’m not sure I wanted you to.

Holly breathes deeply, taking in everything I’m saying to her. She’s started making notes.

‘You tried to kill yourself, Cass?’

‘I panicked, don’t you see? I’m not strong, I have a history of illness. It’s why no one believes me about the shooting. It’s why I need you to help me.

‘After Mum had made me sick, she went to the barn and told the men she was selling the farm. Godwin was livid, of course. Dad was angry, and Ash cried. He could see his life, everything in it, being ripped away by Mum’s decision. I believe that on Saturday morning her attacker was searching for that contract, but Mum wouldn’t say where she’d hidden it. Don’t you see, her hiding it means she was afraid of someone close to her?’

Holly says slowly, ‘Then that contract is what we need to find.’

I kneel on the floor, and realise how crazy I must look, with my bare feet and bedraggled appearance, like a mad Alice trying to get into Wonderland. The place you were crouched, that afternoon, when I disturbed you.

I look around for the heaviest thing I can see, and there you are, staring back at me in your wedding dress. I grab the wedding photo in its heavy oak frame, praying this will work. Holding it like a hammer, frame against the panelling, I begin to bash, hard and repetitive, until the frame cracks and the panelling falls away. There’s a hollow space inside the clever mock cupboard you had made years ago. I pull out a white folder containing a thin but official-looking document with a company logo on the cover.

I pass it to Holly, and wait, your crumpled wedding picture clasped in my lap.





DAY 5

WEDNESDAY 5 NOVEMBER





20

Holly

When she arrived at his office, the door was open and Jon was at his desk, bent over some notes. She tapped lightly on the door and waited for him to look up.

‘Hi, Holly,’ he said, smiling. ‘Everything okay? You’re not on shift until this evening, are you?’

‘That’s right. I just wanted to have a word, if it’s okay? Something’s bugging me.’

‘Of course, take a pew.’ He put down his pen and leaned back, waiting for her to take the seat on the other side of his desk. ‘So what’s the problem?’

Jon had been on the interview panel when she got accepted as a trainee. He was her supervisor, and she moved into the room, his presence enveloping her in a powerful sensation of calm and safety. Jon wasn’t much older than her, maybe in his mid-thirties, but he was steady in a way that made him seem of a different generation. Married, with kids, the photos tacked to his noticeboard showed a family growing together, travelling a bit, enjoying life. As his children grew into teenagers, Jon’s brown hair had got sparser and the glasses appeared more frequently, but the smile was the same. She had seen, with every patient, how he always took such care. That was why she was here: because he was a good man, with good sense. And she needed some perspective.

‘It’s about that call-out we had on 1 November.’

‘The suicide attempt?’

She hesitated. ‘Well, I suppose you’ve just cut to the crux of it. I told you that the daughter, Cass, has doubts about that. Do you know if the police have found anything conclusive?’

Jon scratched his scalp and leaned back in his chair, his fingers lightly tapping the edge of the desk. ‘Since I submitted my report, and passed on what Cassandra said to you, I haven’t heard anything. Maya’s stable, that’s all I know.’

Holly had seen Jon’s report. It detailed the time they had attended the scene, the medical attention they’d given Maya. It didn’t give any opinion, just facts. She wanted to tell him that she’d been at the farm with Cass, that at that very moment she had the contract Maya signed in the glove box of her car and she didn’t know what to do with it. No, she couldn’t tell him the full extent of her involvement.

‘I told you that I used to live near the farm, that I went to school with the victim’s daughter? Well, since the shooting I’ve sort of become friends with her again. I’ve been supporting her.’

Jon removed his glasses, wiped them on his green tunic. ‘Okay, and how is she?’

‘She’s troubled, convinced that her mum was shot and that the police aren’t taking it seriously.’

‘Well, I doubt that’s true,’ he said reasonably. ‘The police are trained to be thorough with this kind of thing, and they cordoned off the farm straight after we took Maya to hospital.’

Holly knew he was right. Leif had been the officer guarding the place. And the police were certainly investigating – they’d interviewed Ash. Away from Cassandra, things seemed so much clearer: the police were doing their job, Cassandra was being paranoid. But then there was her own belief that the gun was too long. More than that, there was the contract. Maya was signing away the farm and several people would have been very angry indeed about that. Both of them had understood this, and there had been an intense discussion about where to keep it while they decided what to do. Cassandra was adamant she couldn’t take it, and though neither explicitly acknowledged it, Holly knew this was because Daniel and Hector were two of those people, hence it being in her glove box. She was in deep, and she knew it.