The Things You Didn't See(79)
‘Dawn gets that, she’s been supporting me,’ Victoria persists. ‘We’ll just stay here while you’re sorting everything, and do prep. Please, Mum. I’m so lonely, and it’s just so sad about Granny and everything else . . . If she comes, she’d cheer me up. I know Dad would say okay.’
‘Would he?’
‘He loves Dawn,’ she says, so simply there can be no doubt.
I think again of Dawn’s mother, Monica. Daniel seems so willing to believe I’m ill again: could he want me out of the way to be with her? Is he planning on having me sectioned, once the court case is over, so the farm will be all his? And Victoria’s right, Daniel does always seem keen to have Dawn to visit. His motivation, I see now, isn’t just to keep Victoria happy. He’s doing it for Monica, preparing the way for when they’ll be a happy family, without me.
It seems so drastic a conclusion. Maybe I am sick after all.
I need proof. I need to know for certain what the hell is going on, and this could be a way to get it. I need to know I’m not crazy.
‘Mum? Please?’
‘Okay,’ I say, though the word comes out reluctantly, ‘Dawn can come.’
Victoria jumps up, and throws herself at me, hugging me tight. ‘Thanks, Mum, you’re the best.’
‘But check that Dad agrees. He can collect her on his own. I want you here to help me.’
She’s already leaving, happy with the deal I’ve offered, running downstairs to ask him.
‘I love you,’ I say to her empty room.
I pretend to be asleep when Daniel finally slides into bed next to me, anger rising off me like heat. If I open my mouth, the accusations will boil over and spew out of me. We just have to stick to the story . . .
Daniel’s breathing deepens but my suspicions keep me awake, tangled up with the other feelings. Since the shooting, he’s lied to me about where he’s been, what he’s been doing, he’s been whispering to Monica on the phone, speaking to someone in the courthouse. As paramedics fought to save your life, he was instructing architects to move forward with his plan for Samphire Health Spa.
I sweat the night away, watch Daniel as he sleeps, thinking how much I love him and how easily I could shoot him dead.
DAY 12
WEDNESDAY 12 NOVEMBER
38
Holly
‘Morning, Holly, you’re up with the lark! Got me another scoop, kid?’ Alfie said. ‘I’d offer you a seat but . . .’
But there wasn’t another. He was in his cubicle, the desk piled high with notepads, a laptop and bitten pens, while the floor was a sea of photos and torn newspaper articles – a clutter that seemed to have some order, judging from the way he was studying it.
Around the room, in neater cubicles, some reporters chatted about the Netflix saga everyone was watching, others bemoaned ITV for showing Christmas adverts already. Alfie seemed oblivious to all of this, he too was obsessed with Innocence Lane.
Holly stepped gingerly into his space and saw that the surrounding partitions were layered with information. Alfie himself looked even more radioactive than usual: his flushed face toned with his ginger hair, not helped by the red shirt he had chosen. Holly wondered how the shop assistant had let him make this error of judgement.
‘How’s the reporting?’ she asked him.
‘I’m trying to find a new angle to please the punters, keep Innocence Lane on the front page, but my editor’s thinking it’s old news. If I don’t come up with something soon, it’ll be relegated to page five.’
‘Will you go to Maya’s funeral?’ she asked.
Alfie grinned. ‘It would be negligent not to. Though I doubt I’ll make it inside the crem’, not if The Samphire Man has anything to do with it. You?’
‘Cass has asked me to go,’ Holly said, ‘as her friend.’
‘And does she know you’re here?’ he asked, sickly sweet. ‘As her friend ?’
He grinned at her, and Holly was reminded of the red-crowned cockerel at Innocence Farm, lording it over the hens. But who was she to judge – at least his interest in the case was driven by something pure. Alfie’s wife had gone to Daniel for help, and turned her back on conventional treatment. He hadn’t said what had happened to her, but his obsession told her that the outcome hadn’t been good, and the only family photo on his wall looked at least a decade old, judging by the clothes. As for her, she was motivated by something far less wholesome. Twenty years ago, she’d watched her brother shoot a sleepwalker and she’d kept her mouth shut, letting Ash take the blame.
‘No, she doesn’t. Alfie, can I tell you something in confidence?’
He raised one bushy eyebrow. ‘You know this is like a confessional box – only without the hope of salvation. So go ahead.’
‘Yesterday, I found Cassandra at the farmhouse. She was curled up in her mother’s wardrobe, shouting, like she was in the middle of a nightmare. It was . . . strange.’ This wasn’t the best word to describe how unsettling it had been to see a grown woman so terrified while locked within her own dream. ‘I think she’d been sleepwalking.’
Alfie raised an eyebrow. ‘What are you telling me, Holly? That you think it was the daughter, not the husband?’