‘You just need to rip the plaster off,’ Gareth had said that morning. ‘You can’t keep it from her. It’s not fair. She has a right to know.’
Gareth, her lovely, even-tempered and kind husband. Primary-school teacher and voice of reason. With his large, welcoming family and bantering siblings, it’s hard for him to understand the fractured dynamics of the Cookes. When Alison first met him she didn’t tell him for months about her dad, worried he’d see her differently, think she was weird or damaged or dark. How could this man, from a family of cockapoos, ever relate to her family of wolves?
Alison pulls at her blunt bob, momentarily regretting cutting off her long hair when she sees how lovely Imogen looks. She strides across the square towards the abbey, weaving in and out of people who are standing around listening to a busker – a woman in her twenties – singing ‘Hallelujah’ sweetly into a microphone.
Imogen looks up when she arrives and adjusts her expression from one of mild anxiety into a welcoming smile. ‘Ali, hi,’ she says. ‘Thanks for coming to meet me.’
‘I asked you to meet me,’ replies Alison curtly, and then inwardly berates herself for sounding so abrupt.
‘Oh, yes. Of course. Sorry.’
‘You don’t need to say sorry.’
‘No. Sorry.’ Imogen laughs and it breaks the ice. Are they always this awkward around each other? They fall into step as they head towards the restaurant Imogen has booked. Imogen asks about Lila and the school play, but every now and again, when Imogen thinks she’s not being watched, her expression floods with anxiety.
‘Okay, what’s up?’ Alison says eventually once they’ve been shown to their table by the window and sat down,menus in hand. She moves a small vessel of fake carnations to the side so that she can see her sister clearly.
‘I have something to tell you, something totally mad,’ Imogen blurts out. ‘I’ve inherited a house.’
Alison is thrown. ‘What? Which house?’
‘Dorothea’s. The villa.’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about. Who the hell is Dorothea?’ And then it clicks. The boho arty woman their mum had worked for. ‘Do you mean the artist?’
‘That’s right.’ Imogen rests her elbows on the table and leans forward. ‘That’s not why you’re here? You haven’t heard from the police?’
Alison shakes her head, confused. ‘No. But now that I am, you better tell me what’s going on.’
The waitress arrives to take their order. Alison hasn’t even had a chance to glance at the menu, and it doesn’t look like Imogen has either, but her sister orders the avocado on sourdough and Alison follows suit. Once the waitress has gone, Alison leans in to meet her sister’s gaze. ‘Come on, spill.’
Imogen sighs, something she often does when she is putting off telling the truth, but those sighs speak volumes.
‘Remember when Mum and I went to stay with Dorothea after Mum had left Dad that … that last time?’
Alison nods, biting her lip. She remembers how relieved she’d been that her mum and little sister had left at last and how excited that she could just concentrate on being a twenty-one-year-old girl, dancing and flirting and drinking, without the weight of her family on hershoulders, and how gut-wrenchingly disappointed she’d been when she found out that her mother had gone back to him.
‘Your dad’s changed, love. He’s given up drinking and he’s so sorry for everything,’ her mum had said during that last phone call. Her words still so fresh in Alison’s mind that even now, all these years later, just thinking about them can bring tears to her eyes. ‘He’s going to get counselling for his anger. He’s promised. No more flare-ups.’
And hehadappeared to have changed. He did go to counselling. He did stop drinking.
‘Well, she left me her house! It’s mad, Ali, totally mad! I still don’t fully understand why – although actually I might just be beginning to – but …’
‘Wait.’ Alison sits up straighter. ‘Let’s get this straight. A woman you haven’t seen for years left you her house? Her actual house? Her whole house?’
Alison can feel a white-hot flame of envy ignite in her belly as Imogen explains about wills and Regency villas in Bath worth millions and antique furniture and bluebell woods and burnt-out studios, and, as she speaks, an image comes back to Alison, one she thought she’d forgotten, of an attractive older woman in a sombre black dress, her face drawn as she spoke to her at their mother’s wake. She remembers she had beautiful grey eyes that had seemed both watchful and full of sadness that day. Dorothea Roe. She’d met the woman twice. The first time had been the day they found out their mother was dead. Dorothea had been waiting at their family home inKeynsham with Imogen when Alison had arrived from Cardiff. But they’d barely spoken then. Dorothea had tried, but all Alison had wanted to do was be with her sister so had ushered the older woman out, assuring her that the two of them would be fine by themselves.
Alison doesn’t want to be jealous. She wants the best for Imogen, of course she does, especially after everything that has happened to their parents. And there is some part of her that is pleased for her sister, but another part of her can’t stop thinking about the mounting bills and the extra hours she has to put in at the salon to make ends meet when she’d much rather be spending time with Lila.
Imogen falls silent as the waitress reappears with their food and Diet Cokes.
‘And I’m not allowed to sell it – at least for a year,’ Imogen continues when the waitress has gone. ‘I still don’t know why Dorothea put that stipulation in her will.’ She looks up at Alison with a guilty expression on her face. ‘But I also get royalties too – from Dorothea’s artwork – which I can use to keep up the villa and also … to help … you.’
‘I don’t need help,’ Alison finds herself saying even though this isn’t true. But how can she accept anything from her little sister? She picks up her knife and fork. ‘So, you’re saying that this woman has left you everything? Why?’
Imogen launches into – what sounds like – a well-rehearsed speech about her job as an investigativejournalist and how she believes Dorothea knew her life was in danger.
‘Christ, murdered!’ Alison can feel the knot of worry in her chest. Why do dark things seem to follow them around? Isn’t it enough that their father is in prison for killing their mother, for crying out loud? And now this. More drama. More crime and heartache and darkness. All Alison wants to do in this moment is hotfoot it back to Cardiff to be with Gareth, kind, cuddly Gareth who always makes her feel better. She wants to be curled up on Lila’s bed, amongst Lila’s teddies, in her lovely pink bedroom with the fairy wallpaper, listening to her daughter talking about her friends and the school play. Not this. Not murder and death.
