How to Fall (8 page)

‘I could try.’ I could add it to the list of things I wanted to find out – the list that was getting longer, not shorter, the more I found out about Freya. It bothered me that no one knew what had happened to her. It didn’t seem right.

I looked back out at the garden, at the trees that half
screened
the house behind the studio so I could only see that it was painted white and was on the small side compared to the Leonards’ house. The studio squatted at the end of the garden, the windows dark, the door shut. It looked deserted. Untouched for many months. Forgotten.

I could stop, I thought. I could let Freya fade away into the past. Leave the door locked. Let the questions remain unanswered. Forget.

Yeah. There was never really any chance
that
was going to happen.

5

I MADE MY
way down the garden alone, the key to the studio clutched in one hand. It was starting to drizzle again, the sky dark with the promise of real rain, and soon. The ground was waterlogged already. My feet slid on the muddy path – more of a track, really – and I wished I had brought my anorak.

Tilly had been perfectly happy for me to go and look at her workplace.

Mum was more perplexed. ‘Why do you want to go there?’

‘Just curious, I suppose.’

She frowned. ‘It’s where your aunt works.’

‘You make it sound like an office. It’s a bit more interesting than that.’ I saw Mum wince and wished I’d put it differently. I knew she hated her job. She worked as a secretary for an elderly solicitor who was easing into retirement gradually and spent the
summer
at his holiday home in Florida. Working for him wasn’t difficult and having the summer off was a nice perk, but it was boring, and badly paid, and I knew she would have loved to try making a living as a photographer if she’d thought she was good enough. Dad had never encouraged her – quite the opposite – so she’d settled for second best. But it had to be hard on Mum to see her sister doing something creative for a living, something she loved.

Still, I
did
want to see the studio. I looked at Tilly. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’

‘No. Not at all.’

‘Don’t touch anything.’ Mum was using her extra-threatening tone of voice. ‘Don’t play with anything.’ Exactly as if I was three. To Petra, Mum said, ‘You can keep an eye on her.’

‘I’m not going. Seen it before.’ The break from the table seemed to have done Petra’s appetite a world of good; she was hoovering up the remaining sandwiches as if she was taking part in an eating contest.

‘I don’t think she’ll come to any harm in the studio,’ Jack said, smiling at me over Mum’s head. ‘The kids go down there unsupervised all the time. Or they used to.’

‘And I’m not working on anything at the moment.’ Tilly sounded matter-of-fact about it rather than
tragic
. ‘So there’s really no problem with Jess going wherever she likes.’

‘Freya’s stuff is on the right, in the corner. It’s all still there, Mum, isn’t it?’ Petra wasn’t looking at her mother when she asked, so she missed the way Tilly’s expression tightened, even though she answered calmly.

‘It’s all there. Almost as she left it.’ And she was smiling as she added, ‘Just a bit tidier.’

The grass had grown up in front of the studio door, tall and lush. Weeds and nettles were threaded through it. I trod it all down so I could get at the door, wondering how long it had been since anyone else had been there. The key turned at the first time of asking, much to my surprise, but it was a modern lock that was well oiled and the door was solid. Mum was right: it was where Tilly worked, and far more organized than the house was. It was immaculate, the floor swept clean, the art materials filed away, the paintings arranged in racks. There were several big plan chests and I slid open a few drawers, feeling highly self-conscious about snooping. They turned out to contain drawings – preparatory sketches mainly. I couldn’t help being impressed by the sketches Tilly did to prepare for the proper portraits – fast ones that were nothing more than a few lines but captured the
essence
of a basset hound’s humpy back, or more detailed ones that she had worked on, shading in the delicate feathering of a cat’s fur around its eyes. I could see she was good at what she did, professional and dedicated in equal measure, and it was a lot better than the greetings-card cutesiness I had been expecting. Tilly’s own artwork was interesting too, but not as appealing to me, basically because I wasn’t sure I got it. Darcy had been reverent about her watercolours but I didn’t really know why they were supposed to be good. Mum’s artiness was something else that had passed me by. I had inherited Dad’s logic instead, which seemed a fair trade.

The room smelled of paint and varnish – the classic artist’s studio – but there was a stale quality to the air. I was glad I had left the door open to allow the fresh green smell of damp earth and crushed grass to fill the space. The main thing that made it a bit different from the usual studio, at least in my eyes, was the collection of dog beds stacked up against one wall beside a basket full of toys of various shapes and sizes. On a high shelf, I spotted jars of Bonios and cat treats, and as I walked across the room I kicked a jangling ball that skittered away into the corner. Catering for the clientele, I supposed.

I was really there to see Freya’s paintings, I
reminded
myself, turning towards the right side of the studio where Petra had said I would find them. There was a stack of canvases leaning against the wall, wrapped in an old dustsheet. I pulled the sheet away carefully and saw I had guessed correctly – Freya’s signature was on the bottom of each painting. It was a scrawl, a confident F and a low, looping y the only identifiable bits, but it matched the signature on the pictures I had seen hanging in her bedroom. I wouldn’t have recognized the paintings as hers otherwise. Darcy had said she was trying out new things, experimenting with her style, but these were strikingly different from one another. I flicked through the canvases: abstract paintings where the paint was plastered on in layers, a still life of a bowl with cherries in it that was as realistic as a photograph, and right at the back some studies of a half-dressed girl that I identified after a moment’s confusion as Freya herself. Rationally, I knew I wasn’t the subject of the paintings but there was still something unsettling about them, something uncomfortably intimate about seeing my double posing with her naked back to the viewer, piling up the great weight of her hair on her head. The colours were muted, the tones of her flesh pale and ghostly, and I could understand why Tilly had hidden them at the back of the collection. The
Freya
they depicted was a wraith, otherworldly, and I wondered if she had had a premonition that she was going to die young. I wondered if she had planned her own death, despite what her sister thought. Dressing for the occasion would have drawn attention to her, and attention was presumably not what you wanted when you were planning to fling yourself off a cliff.

I was staring at one of the semi-nudes when I became aware of something – a disturbance in the air more than an actual sound. I glanced over my shoulder to see Will Henderson standing in the doorway, watching me. With a smothered exclamation I let go of the paintings I was holding so they fell back against the wall. The clatter sounded shockingly loud in the quiet studio, and my voice sounded too loud too.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’

‘I was just about to ask you the same thing.’

‘You first.’ I started to rearrange the paintings – more for something to do than because they needed it.

‘I saw you coming down the garden. I thought I’d drop in.’

‘Why?’

‘To say hello.’ I raised one eyebrow, not even trying to hide that I was sceptical, and he laughed. ‘OK, OK. To find out what you’re doing here.’

‘That sounds more like the truth.’

‘I was curious.’ He leaned against the doorframe and crossed his arms. ‘Are you looking for something?’

‘Not really. Just nosing around.’ I didn’t want to talk to him about what I was doing, I realized. I couldn’t have said why that was the case, but it was true. I went for a half-truth instead. ‘I hadn’t seen Tilly’s work before. I was curious.’

‘Those aren’t Tilly’s paintings.’

I looked down. ‘No. I know.’

‘Still wondering about Freya?’

There was no point in lying. ‘I still want to know what really happened last summer.’

He didn’t answer me straight away and I wished he wasn’t silhouetted against the light. I couldn’t see the expression on his face clearly enough to know what he was thinking.

‘And what have you found?’

I shrugged. ‘Different people remember different things. I haven’t put it all together yet.’

‘But you’re sure you will.’

There was a hint of mockery in his voice and I was instantly nettled. ‘Like your dad didn’t?’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘I gather he’s the top cop around here. It should
have
been his job to find out what happened to Freya.’

‘He looked into it. He didn’t find any evidence of foul play.’ Will’s voice was completely neutral.

‘Did you agree with that?’

‘There was no evidence.’

‘That’s not an answer. Did you agree with him?’

‘My opinion doesn’t matter a lot to him.’

‘Really? I’d like to know what you thought about it.’ It was my turn to fold my arms. I hoped I looked self-possessed. Determined. Not how I felt, anyway. ‘I’d like to know why you warned me to mind my own business when I asked you about Freya. Why would you bother with that if her death was an accident?’

‘I didn’t say it was.’

‘So you think it wasn’t? Where’s your money – suicide or murder?’ I was meanly pleased to see him flinch, glad that I could get a reaction from him. ‘I don’t know why she’d have wanted to kill herself, but you might have a better idea.’

It was almost reluctant, the way he moved away from the door. His stride was slow and measured as he came towards me. The look in his eyes was anything but friendly. ‘What makes you say that?’

‘A shot in the dark?’ I could have left it there. I probably should have left it there. ‘Look, I don’t know you but you seem awfully tense about what happened
to
Freya. And you keep turning up. You really want to find out what I know, don’t you? That just sounds like guilt to me.’

He seemed to consider it for a moment. ‘Why would I be guilty?’

‘You tell me.’

He was still coming towards me and I took a step back, wanting to put some distance between us. The house was a long way from the studio. Too far to expect anyone to notice that I was no longer alone.

Too far for anyone to rescue me.

What had I got myself into now?

Panic was just starting to flutter beneath my ribs when Will stopped a metre away from me and squatted down to flip through the canvases. He paused on a swirling painting in apricot and yellow tones. I turned my head sideways to look at it. The painting was an abstract but I couldn’t help trying to make it into something real, literal-minded as I was. It could have been a sunrise, or a sunset. Or leftover mustard on a plate.

‘Not my favourites, these, but she was pleased with them,’ Will remarked. Art criticism. I was grateful enough for a neutral topic of conversation to join in.

‘Darcy said Freya was trying new things out.’

‘Darcy? When did you meet her?’

‘Yesterday. She was really helpful.’
In a way that you aren’t
.

He frowned. ‘Look, I’m not saying you should stay away from her, but don’t trust her.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Just what I said.’

‘You can’t say something like that and not explain it.’

He shook his head decisively. ‘I’m not saying anything else about her. But don’t believe everything she says.’

‘About Freya?’

‘About anything.’

‘You’re not her biggest fan, are you?’

‘It’s completely mutual.’ He turned back to the paintings and something about the set of his jaw told me I’d heard as much as I was going to about Darcy. I would ask her what she thought of him, I decided. Darcy was unlikely to be discreet.

While Will concentrated on the paintings I was free to stare at him, and stare I did. Up close, I could see that spots of water dappled the shoulders of his grey T-shirt and clung to his hair. I had that slightly giddy feeling you get from standing too close to someone really, truly handsome – I could appreciate that, even if I didn’t like him as a person. After all, I reminded myself, Conrad had taught me a lesson. He’d been
good
-looking too, but the pretty face was hiding a dismal personality.
Look, but don’t even think about touching
 . . .

Aware that I had allowed a silence to develop, I tried to think of something sensible to say. ‘Did Freya talk to you about her painting?’

‘Sometimes. It was important to her.’

It had been important to her so she had talked to Will about it. I wondered again about how close they had been. ‘Do you know anything about art?’

‘A little.’ He shrugged without looking round at me. ‘I’ve grown up beside the Leonards. I’ve picked up bits and pieces over the years.’

‘From what I gather, you’re usually here a lot.’

‘Been asking about me?’

‘Of course not,’ I snapped, feeling my face flame. I really hoped he wouldn’t turn round – at least not until I had de-lobstered. ‘You just happened to be the answer to a question Mum asked.’

‘Your mother was asking about me.’ He sounded sceptical, as well he might.

‘Not directly.’ One of these days I would stop blushing and saying stupid things. It was just a shame that it was unlikely to happen when Will Henderson was around. I took a deep breath before I went on. ‘Tilly laid a place for you at the table and
Mum
wanted to know who was supposed to sit there.’

‘Oh, right.’

‘You don’t sound surprised.’

‘That Tilly had made sure there was room for me at the table in case I turned up?’ He twisted round to grin at me with a sudden charm that was as dazzling as sunlight on water. ‘She always does.’