Dark Heart Surrender (25 page)

‘Here.’ A hand held out a tissue in front of my face and I blinked, shaking my head. ‘Thanks but I’m fine,’ I said, concentrating on staring straight ahead.

‘Take it,’ said the owner of the hand. And at the sound of his voice I turned, disbelievingly.

Ade’s smile was kind – and a little sad too. I wasn’t going to let that sway me though. Apart from his sister, he was the last person I wanted to see.

‘I’m sorry about your granddad,’ I said flatly. ‘But please leave me alone.’

‘Sure,’ he said, putting the tissue back in his pocket. ‘Sorry I bothered you. I can see you want to be alone.’ He looked up, just as a fresh bout of rain pelted down from the sky. All around us people were taking shelter where they could. It looked like I was stuck with him for a few minutes at least.

To say there was an awkward silence was a massive understatement. I prayed for the rain to stop.

‘I know you hate me,’ Ade said eventually, as we watched two of the tutors rushing around with clipboards. ‘And I don’t blame you. I’m a jerk. I’ve always been like that. I just can’t seem to behave myself.’ He laughed shortly. ‘You should hear my mother on the subject.’

I said nothing, but sneaked a sideways look at him. There was no supercilious smile there. His face looked closed off – like he was genuinely upset. I frowned, annoyed that I might be feeling sorry for him, and looked away.

‘And Polly’s always been this wilful, fiery girl. My parents let her get away with murder. Trying to compensate, I suppose.’

And what about Olivia?
I thought.
How does she fit into your happy little family?
I wasn’t going to get into that now. I wanted to find out more about this poor girl before I said anything to Ade. Odd that he hadn’t mentioned it though.

‘Yeah, well. That’s no excuse,’ I said eventually. ‘Whatever pain you’re going through – you have to abide by some kind of basic principles, you know. It’s called being a member of the human race.’ I bit my lip, wishing I hadn’t said so much; I was certain he was sneering at me now, whether he showed it or not.

‘You’re a breath of fresh air, you know that?’ he said softly. ‘So strong. Moral. Smart.’ He paused. ‘And really beautiful.’

‘Yes,’ I sighed, irritated. ‘I’ve heard this routine before, Ade. This flattery bullshit.’ I turned to him. ‘And it’s not going to work. I know you and your sister are trying to come between me and Luca. After Saturday night, I am sure of it.’

‘Is it working?’ he said, one eyebrow raised, and he looked so comical it threw me.

‘What?’

‘Are you single yet? Can I have you?’

I shook my head at the sheer gall of him. ‘No.’ I crossed my arms resolutely over my chest. ‘I am very much not single.’ I looked away then and a shadow seemed to cross over my heart. I couldn’t be certain of anything any more.

The rain had stopped and so had the fire bell. The fire engines that had parked outside were pulling away. It was a false alarm and the tutors were herding students back inside.

‘You going back in?’ said Ade.

I wrinkled my nose. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him to mind his own business. But something made me respond. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do,’ I said. ‘I just want to be alone, if you don’t mind.’

He stared at me for a few seconds. ‘Of course,’ he said, and I glimpsed a genuine sadness in his eyes. ‘I’ll see you around then – I hope.’

I barely nodded. All of a sudden I wanted Ade to make me feel better. Even if it was fake – and he was totally bad news. The truth was I didn’t know who to believe, who to trust any more. If Ade really was part of the Vulpecula, then he and Luca were deadly enemies, and I knew whose side I was on. But what if Luca was wrong? What if Ade and Polly were just two ordinary mortals?

If they were, then there really would be nothing standing in the way of Luca’s and my happiness – our life together. And maybe Luca found that prospect more frightening than anything else …

I opened my mouth to tell Ade to stay, but instead I lifted up my coat collar and shifted my bag on my shoulder. ‘See you around,’ I said, turning to the college gates.

L
uca wanted Polly out. When he’d first seen her trudging up the track towards the house, he’d been tempted to hide. But something about her demeanour had made him soften. She looked crestfallen, vulnerable.

‘It’s all so messed up,’ she said, looking small as she sat in the kitchen. ‘Grandpa Pete was the only sane person in our family. And now he’s gone. My mum’s going to fall apart.’ She looked up at Luca, her blue eyes damp and tearful. She’d scraped her red hair back into a severe ponytail and her face looked scrubbed and free of makeup. It was hard to see her as anything other than a lost child when she looked like this. And Luca had been trained to be kind to those in distress.

But there was something else, of course. Whenever Polly was near him, she rendered him incapable of clear thought, she seemed to blunt any sharp edges he had, any sharp thoughts.

‘I know I shouldn’t be here,’ Polly went on, looking down at the table. ‘Jane doesn’t trust me. And nor do you.’ She raised her face to him then, as though daring him to deny it.

He crossed his arms over his chest and saw Polly’s eyes flicker over his strong slim arms for a second. ‘I’m so sorry about Pete,’ he said eventually. ‘I can’t imagine …’ He checked himself. ‘I mean, I have not lost anyone yet. I don’t know how I’d feel if anything happened to someone in my family.’

She nodded. ‘It’s strange about families, isn’t it? Even if you don’t like or understand them sometimes, they’re yours. And you’d stand by them, whatever. Loyalty –’ she sighed ‘– loyalty is the most important thing of all.’

Luca half smiled. He would have agreed with that once, but now … Now he knew that loyalty could be misplaced. He thought for a second before replying.

‘It can make you do things you don’t really want to do.’ He looked at her. ‘It can be destructive.’

Polly stared at him, a hardness coming to her expression, and he wondered whether he’d gone too far. She couldn’t know that he knew. He had to play it more innocent than that.

‘You’ve heard about that girl turning up?’ she said, almost casually after a pause.

Luca frowned. ‘I don’t know …’

‘Olivia – the girl they found nearly buried alive,’ she said, shifting in her seat. ‘She’s claiming to be our cousin.’

‘And she isn’t?’ he said stupidly. His mind was turning this over rapidly.

Polly’s lip curled. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I feel sorry for the kid. But she’s obviously gone mad. Hardly surprising considering she’s been starved of food and fresh air for so long.’

Luca willed his beating heart not to be audible, because it sounded deafening to him.

‘She had some kind of epiphany apparently.’ Polly’s tone was dry. ‘Talking to the police, she said that her family were called Henshaw and they lived near where she was found.’

‘But you’ve never seen her before?’ he asked. ‘Or heard of her?’

‘Well, of course not,’ she said edgily, casting him a hostile look. ‘My mother went straight to bed as soon as she arrived.’

‘The poor girl is traumatized,’ Luca said. ‘If she really is related to you or your mum, then a DNA test will prove it, surely?’

To his horror, Polly started to cry.

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you,’ he said awkwardly, moving towards her and hovering by her chair. ‘I just meant it will rule it out, that’s all.’

Polly’s head snapped up angrily. ‘You think my mum should go through all that? My grandfather’s just died and this girl has the audacity to muscle in on our family. It’s disgusting.’ She rubbed at her eyes, then put her head in her hands. ‘Everything is so awful,’ she sobbed. ‘Everyone hates us, Grandpa Pete’s dead and we have to deal with this now.’

Luca put his hand tentatively on her shoulder. He was torn, he realized, between wanting to comfort her and feeling distinctly troubled by what she was telling him. If this girl thought she was related to the Ellis/Henshaw family, then Ade and Polly couldn’t have been responsible for trying to kill her, could they? But then if only some of her memory had returned, perhaps that explained it. As he looked down at Polly, crying into her hands, he wondered whether her anger was actually due to what Olivia knew, even if she didn’t realize it yet. Whatever the truth was, Olivia was in trouble too.

Polly stopped crying, pulling up her shoulders.

‘You think I’m a drama queen, I know,’ she said sniffing. ‘And I guess I don’t blame you. But when you’ve had to fight for attention all your life, it kind of makes you act up on a regular basis. You know?’

And as she looked up at him, an expression of pure sorrow on her face, it tested all his willpower not to hold her. Or was it that fragile, needy look she was giving him that was zapping all rational thought? He pulled away, subtly, and felt enormous relief when the phone rang.

When he heard Jane’s voice, he felt glad to be drawn back to reality. To a real girl he loved. Though a headache was starting up and he found it hard to focus on what she was saying.

By the time he hung up he knew only that he had let her down. Glancing back through to the kitchen, he saw that Polly was applying make-up to her face using a small compact mirror, looking for all the world like a girl without a care.

I
 found my own way home. Slowly. I was in no hurry to listen to Luca’s explanation for how exactly he had come to be entertaining Polly in my house.

When I got to the back door, I heard the sound of my family gathered in the kitchen, my mum getting dinner ready, my little sister getting Dad to help with her homework. I opened the door carefully and then crept along the hall and up the stairs, relieved to reach my bedroom.

I threw myself on the bed and sank my head into the pillow. I had this feeling that I’d never had before with Luca, that something had changed between us. Something subtle, but it had altered the dynamic. Like a kind of power imbalance. Luca was no longer the benign and devoted boyfriend. He’d turned into someone I felt wary of – someone I could no longer trust completely. It was only a feeling, but it felt like an instinct. And instincts are so often right. I was pretty sure of that.

It was still raining, but more softly now. I heard the dog whimpering outside my bedroom door. His animal sense told him I was inside and it was seriously tempting to let him and take comfort from his lumbering, warm body.

But I just lay there instead, anger and sadness swirling around in my head.

A car pulled up outside the house and I shut my eyes. Luca was home. I levered myself up on my elbows and I caught sight of Polly’s dress, still lying in a heap on the floor. I took a deep intake of breath, a fresh surge of anger preparing to come over me. But anger wouldn’t help. It would only drive Luca away.

I got up and checked myself in the mirror, stripping off the shirt I’d been wearing all day and changing into a clean striped T-shirt. The little burst of activity brought some colour to my cheeks, and though my hair was still damp, it would do. Berating myself for bothering to make an effort, I unlocked the door and found Bobby panting patiently in front of it.

‘All right, boy.’ I scratched his head and he pushed his head affectionately through the bottom of my legs. At least someone still loved me.

‘I’m not sure if she’s back,’ I heard Mum saying. ‘If she is, she must have crept in.’ She laughed. ‘You two haven’t fallen out, have you?’

Luca said something indistinct and then I heard his footsteps on the stairs. I had half a mind to go back into my bedroom and slam the door.

But he was in front of me before I could move, his face set in an exaggerated contrite expression.

‘This is getting to be a habit,’ he said, biting his lip.

‘What is?’ I sighed, passive-aggressively crossing my arms over my chest.

Luca gave Bobby a wary look as the dog stood guarding me, before he replied.

‘Me disappointing you.’ Luca rubbed at his hair. ‘I’m totally messing up here, aren’t I?’

I shrugged. ‘Go and tell it to Polly,’ I told him sulkily.

‘Jane, you know there’s nothing between Polly and me,’ he said, holding out a hand, which I ignored. ‘But you also know that there’s something about Ade and Polly that strips a person of strength.’ He stopped, staring at me.

I thought about Ade and how only an hour or so before I had been on the brink of hugging him. It was crazy but Luca was right. One minute we suspected them of murder, the next we were drawn to them, as though they really were just a couple of troubled kids.

‘I know.’ I gave a heavy sigh. ‘It’s totally distracting us from our investigation, too. When I heard that Olivia is saying she’s related to the Ellis family, my first thought was that she was telling the truth and they were lying. That the two of them did something to her, but didn’t succeed in wiping all of her memory.’ I gave him a half-smile. ‘They must be so angry.’

‘You could say that,’ Luca said archly. ‘I’ve had to deal with her full spectrum of emotions this afternoon. Sad … angry …’

‘She came on to you, too, didn’t she?’ I eyed him beadily. ‘Don’t try and lie, Luca. I know what she’s capable of.’