The Other People: A Novel(55)

“It almost worked,” Gabe said.

“But not quite.”

“It was the cat.”

“Sorry?”

“That morning, the cat scratched Izzy on her chin. I put a bandage on it. In the photo, there was no scratch. It had to have been taken later.”

Harry shook his head. “Perhaps it’s for the best. You don’t know how hard it’s been for me, keeping this secret, all this time.”

“Hard for you?” Gabe stared at him in disbelief. “You tried to convince me my daughter was dead. You let me torture myself, searching for her. You let another child be buried in her grave. How…how could you do that?”

“?‘Conscience doth make cowards of us all.’?” Harry’s expression was sharper. “When you have a child, you would do anything for them. Anything. Jenny was our only child—our world. Izzy was our universe.”

“That’s why you came to visit them so often.”

“Evelyn never liked you.”

“I’m shocked.”

“It caused friction between her and Jenny. When the truth came out—all those secrets you’d been keeping, Gabe—I realized Evelyn was right. You didn’t deserve Jenny or Izzy.”

Gabe clenched his fists. “That has nothing to do with this.”

“Are you sure?”

“I—” he faltered.

Harry smiled unpleasantly. “Didn’t you ever wonder? Why me? Why my family? Why did this happen?”

Of course he had. He had wondered if this was what he deserved. Karma, kismet, fate.

Or something else.

We share the pain…with those that deserve it.

Gabe’s mouth felt dry. “It wasn’t a random attack, was it?”

Harry regarded Gabe as though he were a slow child finally adding up two plus two. He shook his head. “No. It was because of what you did. To her. The other girl. The girl whose name you gave to your own daughter, like some kind of sick joke.”

Gabe stared at him. Dread crawled up into his throat.

“Isabella.”





She sleeps. A pale girl in a white room. She doesn’t hear the machines that beep and whirr around her. She doesn’t feel the touch of Miriam’s hand or notice as the nurse leaves the room. The pale girl doesn’t hear or see or feel a thing.

But she does dream.

She walks along the beach. Her alabaster skin is kissed golden by the sun and her flaxen hair streaked almost white. Now the butter-yellow orb is setting, melting slowly into the sea. There’s a faint breeze, and it casts shimmering ripples across the water, crusting the tops with foam.

Isabella loves the beach. But she isn’t supposed to be here. She is supposed to be at her violin lesson. Every Wednesday after dinner. On Monday it’s vocal coaching, and Friday it’s piano. Her mother tells her she has a special talent for music; she is helping her achieve her potential. But sometimes it feels to Isabella as though her mother is squeezing the joy out of the very thing she loves, like a lemon in a juicer.

At least the violin lessons are out of the house. In her teacher’s small seaside terrace. She plays better there. The only reason her mother agreed to it. Miriam, their housekeeper, drops her off and picks her up afterward. Yes, they have a housekeeper. And a cleaner and a gardener. Isabella knows that she is privileged.

Her father made a lot of money and, when he died when she was just a baby, he left it to her mother. They live in a big house with acres of gardens and her mother likes to believe that she gives her only daughter everything she could ever want, except, of course, the one thing that any fourteen-year-old really desires: freedom.

Isabella understands why her mother worries about her. Her father died unexpectedly. Her mother is afraid that she might be taken from her, too. So she tries to build walls around her daughter. To keep her safe. Beautiful walls, but that doesn’t stop them being a prison.

So, sometimes, Isabella seeks small moments of escape, like this one.

Mr. Webster, her violin teacher, is away for three weeks’ holiday. She hasn’t told her mother. After school she let Miriam drop her at the small terrace as normal. And then she came to the beach.

Isabella never feels lonely on the beach. Even as summer ebbs away there is always life here. Dog walkers, families packing up their picnics for the day, couples sauntering hand in hand. And the beach itself. Alive with the lapping waves, the restless pebbles and the impatient cawing of the seagulls.

Although the beach is mostly shingle, there’s sand right at the water’s edge. Isabella likes to take off her shoes and socks and walk along the shoreline, letting the waves lap over her feet, feeling the sand suck at her toes.

She can’t bring a towel, so she’ll sit on the wall at the edge of the promenade to let her feet dry. Sometimes she’ll make musical notes in the small pad she keeps in her violin case, melodies inspired by nature. Finally, she will walk along the beach and collect pebbles and pretty shells. She has to be careful to hide these when she gets home, in case her mother realizes she has been here.

At seven o’clock, Isabella knows her time is coming to an end. She glances up. She can just about see her house from here, perched high on the cliffs, in the distance. She knows her mother will be sitting, on her own, in the huge living room, waiting for her. She sighs and traipses slowly back up the beach, treasuring her last few moments of freedom. The seagulls caw goodbye. The waves whisper farewell. Sssssh. Sssssh. She spots something glinting white amidst the brown pebbles. A shell. She crouches down and picks it up.