Then She Vanishes(44)

It feels like she’s doing the same again, if under different circumstances this time.

Her breath fogs out in front of her and Margot thinks again of the young couple in the caravan, trying to get warm. At least Colin is now hardened to it.

‘Thank you for coming over,’ Margot says, opening the door wider to allow Jess over the threshold. She starts to take off her trainers, but Margot tells her not to. ‘The boards need re-sanding. This place is going to the dogs.’ It’s too much upkeep, now that it’s just her.

She ushers Jess into the kitchen. The Aga is on, and Jess stands next to it, warming her hands.

‘I don’t know if you’ve eaten already, but I’ve got some chicken soup,’ she offers, going to the pan simmering on the hob. ‘Do you want some?’

Jess grins. ‘I hardly ate my dinner. I’d love some. Thank you.’

She sits at the kitchen table while Margot dishes out soup for them both, and rummages in the bread bin. There’s a loaf Adam brought home a few days ago from the farm shop. A bit stale but it will be okay with soup. Margot hasn’t had the chance to go shopping since Heather’s been in hospital.

She sits opposite Jess, placing a plate of the stale bread between them. ‘Is everything okay?’

‘I should be asking you that,’ says Jess, her brown eyes full of concern. ‘How’s Heather?’

Margot swallows some soup. It’s too hot and scalds her mouth. ‘The same. I worry, sometimes, that she’ll be in a coma for years. The doctors assure me that’s rare. But they also say with head injuries everybody is different.’

Jess nods, then eats a few spoonfuls before adding, ‘And how’s Adam coping?’

Margot tears off a piece of bread and sinks it into the soup. She hasn’t got much appetite. She’s eating, sleeping, washing, feeding the horses, cleaning mechanically, like a robot. ‘Adam is … struggling, I think. He’s never been the most communicative of men, but now it’s like he’s gone into himself.’ He’d be furious if he knew she had Jess here.

‘I can understand that,’ she says. ‘And the fingerprints. The police think someone else held the gun that morning? Not just Heather?’

Margot hesitates, suddenly unsure if this was a good idea. She knows she’s agreed to an exclusive but this information is so new, so precious, that she feels she wants to nourish and protect it, like a seedling, giving it time to grow. But, on the other hand, if those fingerprints put doubt on the fact that Heather carried out the horrific shootings, well, she’d want everyone to know it.

Jess must notice her conflicting emotions because she sits back in her chair, putting the spoon down. ‘I’m here tonight as a friend. Not as a journalist,’ she says.

Can Margot believe her? She studies her face. She’s hardly changed, not really. Aged, of course, but underneath the new fine lines and the make-up and the heavy fringe she sees the same Jess who practically lived with them for two years. She was like a member of the family for a time.

‘In that case let me open a bottle of wine. I could do with a drink,’ says Margot, getting up and going over to the wine rack. She picks a Chablis and pours them both a glass. ‘I just wish I knew exactly what happened that morning,’ she says, passing a glass to Jess. ‘If only Heather had an alibi.’

Jess hesitates. ‘I’m not supposed to drink in the week and I’m driving.’

Margot wonders why Jess can’t drink in the week. Has she been forbidden to? Keith used to try to boss her about, telling her what she could and couldn’t do. Is that what’s happening with Jess? She can’t imagine it. It’s obviously a self-imposed rule. ‘Just one won’t hurt,’ she says, and Jess takes it, setting it down next to her bowl.

‘Was it normal for Heather and Adam to argue to such an extent that he’d walk out?’ she asks, surprising Margot.

‘I don’t know. I didn’t think so. But they live in the coach house, near the caravan site, so I wouldn’t always know.’

Jess frowns. ‘And you still don’t know what they argued about?’

‘I’ve never asked.’ She probably should, but Adam is so private and she’s worried about upsetting him. He has so much to deal with right now. He must feel guilty about leaving Heather alone like that, especially if she was feeling depressed and suicidal. ‘I don’t want to believe Heather would be capable of such a thing. She’s not trigger happy. She’s not particularly into guns. She’s never been interested in coming clay-pigeon shooting with me. But that neighbour of the Wilsons – he saw her. He saw her leaving the house with a gun. If it wasn’t Heather, how do you explain that?’

Jess pushes her fringe out of her face, her expression troubled.

‘And I know,’ Margot continues, desperate to get it all off her chest, now that someone is here to listen, ‘that Heather shot my husband. And I keep telling myself that it was an accident. But what if it wasn’t?’ It must be the wine talking. She’s drinking it too quickly and it’s going to her head. All her dark fears are spewing out of her mouth and she can’t control them. ‘He wasn’t always a good husband. Or father. He could be cruel.’

Jess raises her eyebrows. ‘Heather never said.’

‘It wasn’t anything abusive. He didn’t hit us. I would have left him if he had. He was ex-army and hard. A bully, I suppose, looking back, although I didn’t think so at the time. He instilled fear in the girls. If they put a foot wrong, he’d scream at them. They were nervous wrecks around him. It’s no wonder Heather shot him by accident – I can just imagine his rage when he found her fiddling with that gun. She would have been nervous and her finger would have slipped.’ She sighs heavily. ‘He wasn’t like that when I first met him, or when the girls were really little. But he changed. I think he suffered from mental-health problems. Depression, maybe PTSD, but twenty years ago we weren’t so aware of these things.’ She doesn’t know why she’s telling Jess all of this.