The Things You Didn't See(46)
That was where this all led back to, that Halloween night when she was eight years old. She’d avoided it for too long. She logged on to her laptop, and loaded Skype. There was her brother’s name, Jamie Redwood, and the tiny picture in which he and Kaitlin pressed their faces close together, but the icon was closed: he wasn’t online. She looked at her watch and worked out that Jamie would be at work. Instead, she typed a message: Jamie, can you make sure you have Skype open when you’re home, please? We need to talk.
Frustrated, she stared at her laptop screen for answers.
There was only one other person she could think of who was as obsessed with Innocence Lane as she was: Alfie Avon. And he had been at the farm last Friday, so he’d seen Maya just hours before the shooting. Did he think it was an attempted suicide? If he too had doubts, then maybe her senses weren’t misleading her after all. But she couldn’t just rely on Cassandra’s version any more, not without seeking some other perspective. She needed clarity, and she wouldn’t get it from anyone in the Hawke family.
Finding Alfie online wasn’t difficult – he had Facebook and Twitter, as well as his own website. She sent a message via the latter: I’d like to talk to you, in confidence, about Innocence Farm. She left her mobile number, but no name. Even as she pressed ‘send’, she wondered what the hell she was doing, delving deeper rather than backing away.
A tapping on the front door interrupted her thoughts. It could only be Leif – no one else called on her unannounced. When she opened the door, he acted bashful, his head lowered, blond hair over his sea-blue eyes, grinning cheekily and cradling a massive flan dish.
‘I’m sorry, Leif, but I’m due at work later.’
‘But you need to eat first! And I have here a taste of my homeland for you: V?sterbottensostpaj.’
She saw he was wearing police uniform: he’d been working today. Immediately, her reluctance to see him vanished. ‘Visitors bearing gifts are always welcome,’ she said, standing aside so he could enter, catching a waft of warm pastry and cheese, so delicious she almost groaned. How could she be hungry, when only minutes ago she’d felt sick? Her body was different to her brain: it functioned normally and needed sustenance.
Leif went straight through to the kitchen, where her laptop was still open at Alfie Avon’s website. He began to find plates and cutlery, making himself at home in a way that made her heart soften. This is what it would be like to live with someone, something she hadn’t done since she’d left her parents’ home in California to return to Suffolk, drawn by echoes of long ago. She envied Jamie for having settled into American life without a backward glance, and for the first time wondered how he managed this.
‘Bonfire night,’ Holly said, after she heard the crack of a rocket coming from a garden nearby. ‘We’ll probably see a few burns this evening.’
Leif frowned. ‘This is a tradition I do not understand, the celebrations of burning this man, Guy Fawkes. When I came home from work some children were pushing a man-doll in a pram and asking for money. Why is this?’
Holly shook her head. ‘Remember, I’m not a native. It’s a mystery to me too, all I know is we’ll be hearing fireworks all night.’
Seated side by side at the breakfast bar, they ate in appreciative silence. A light tapping of rain began to fall at the kitchen window.
‘Rain again,’ Leif said, pleasantly. ‘Always it rains in this country.’
Together they watched the drops patter on the glass, and she realised that she was feeling much better than earlier.
‘So, here’s what I know about Sweden: Abba, snow, and lovely cheese pie. Why on earth did you leave?’
He finished his mouthful and raised his eyebrows. ‘Ja, being lovely is important, but so is being exciting. And England is that for me.’ He slid a hand onto her thigh. ‘My mother was in love with the idea of Hollywood, but for me it was always London.’
‘Ipswich isn’t London. Did you get lost?’
‘Ha! No, I submitted my Bergman thesis idea to several universities in the big city, but Ipswich liked it best. And for that I am most happy, because I like my colleagues, I like this town and now I have met a woman I like very, very much.’
He leaned over and kissed her, forcing her to swallow her mouthful of cheese pie quickly.
‘What about you, Holly? If you think Ipswich is so unlovely, why are you here?’
She shrugged. ‘I think loveliness is a bit overrated too. I moved back to California with the rest of my family when I was eighteen, but I couldn’t settle. Too much sun.’
‘They’re a long way off,’ he said, glancing at the computer screen, where Alfie’s red face gazed out. ‘What brought them to Ipswich?’
She stood to clear away the plates, and closed the lid of her laptop. She pointed to a small photo attached to the fridge, which showed her father at a Giants baseball match, wearing an oversized T-shirt and holding a huge beer. ‘My dad was an Air Force man. He arrived here in the eighties and met my mum in a local nightclub. She said it was love at first sight, and my dad would have made an impression. A black American in Ipswich is going to stand out.’
‘You must miss them?’
‘Yeah, but I visit every summer. And we have Skype.’
It did pain her to be away from her parents and Jamie, but the arrangement worked for her too. The solitude suited her and through the new job, she was learning to manage her synaesthesia. If it hadn’t been for the shooting at Innocence Lane, life would feel very good indeed. She wanted to ask Leif about his day, what he’d been doing with the police, although a voice in her head told her to let it be. Jon’s voice, warning her she was overstepping her remit. Clive’s warning her not to be taken in by Cassandra’s delusions. ‘Tell me more about Sweden,’ she said, wanting to be transported away from all these nagging thoughts. ‘What about your family?’