Tell Me No Secrets (35 page)

Ella has just come out of her bedroom and jumps as I drop the box of photos close to her feet. She looks into it, her nose wrinkling at the cobwebs and dust. ‘You're just so random,' she says.

I pick up the box and go downstairs.

She follows me. ‘Where's Dad, anyway?'

‘Fishing with Grandad. They told you already.'

‘I'm not putting all that stuff back under the stairs.' She points a plum-coloured fingernail in the direction of the emptied-out cupboard. The hallway is now almost impassable: tennis rackets, raincoats, old shoes, a broken fax machine, a dozen boxes full of the twins' old school books and jotters and that's not even the half of it.

‘I'm not expecting you to,' I tell her.

I climb over everything, feel a long thin something-or-other bend and then snap under my foot, keep walking and sit down on the couch. I turn out the box on the floor and take my time looking at each photo until at last I come to it. It's a professional one, about six inches long and four inches wide. Paul and Marcia grinning in front of the registry office. I position the bracelet on the table next to the photo and examine them carefully. Both are silver, both chains have a distinctive herringbone weave and the two visible charms on Marcia's wrist are the Viking boat and the gondola, side by side, just as they are on the real bracelet.

It's what I expect but still I find it hard to believe and it sets up questions that, for the moment, have no answers. How did Monica get the bracelet? Why didn't she hand it to the police? Why has she never in all these years given it back to Paul? When I went back to the tent after the argument, Monica was still up. What if Rose went to bed after I pushed her? I may even have unconsciously registered that all the girls were there. She may have got up later, just like Euan has always said.

Could it be that I wasn't the last person to see Rose alive?

The doorbell rings and Ella answers it. ‘I have to warn you,' I hear her say. ‘She's in a strange mood today.'

The living room door opens. It's Euan. I slip the bracelet into the back pocket of my jeans. He looks around at the mess. ‘What's going on?'

‘Just tidying.'

‘Tidying?' He closes the door behind him. ‘Looks like a tornado's passed through.'

‘I wanted to sort out some photos and . . .' I give him a breezy smile. ‘No time like the present.'

He's staring at me. He looks tired. I want to touch him.

‘Are you okay?' he says.

‘Yeah.' I shrug, aim for nonchalance.

‘What are you hiding?'

‘What do you mean?'

He points to my hands. I still have them behind my back. I bring them forward and show him they're empty. He looks around at the closed door then leads me into the alcove of the room so that we won't immediately be seen if one of the girls walks in. ‘Has Paul been in touch?'

‘No. I've left messages but he hasn't answered them.'

He puts his hands in his pockets and blows out a breath.

‘At least he's out of Orla's reach,' I say, trying to see the upside. ‘But I'm not sure what he'll do when he does come back home; maybe he'll come to see you.'

I expect him to look worried but he doesn't. He gives me a half-smile, resigned, sympathetic. ‘It was bound to come out sooner or later.'

‘Are you going to tell Monica?'

He rubs the back of his hand over my cheek. ‘One thing at a time. Are you still okay about the alibi?'

‘Yes.' I can't pretend that I haven't had some second thoughts.
What if Euan hurts Orla? What if I have to lie in court? Under oath? What then?
But bottom line: Orla has to be stopped and Euan and I have known each other since before either of us had language. Our selves are imprinted on the other. We are close enough to have absorbed each other's moods and morals. I trust him completely.

‘I'll text you.'

‘Euan.' I pause. The bracelet is burning a hole in my back pocket. ‘Has Monica ever said anything about Rose's death?'

‘Why would she?' He's whispering. We both are.

‘It's nothing really.' I shake my head. ‘Just a thought.'

He puts his right hand on my neck, under my ear, starts to massage it with his fingers. ‘Tell me.'

‘Well . . .' I'm afraid that if I say it out loud it will sound like nothing – scraps of information that I've pieced together to form a shape that is more imagination than truth. ‘I'm not telling you this to make trouble, but Monica was out of bed that night too. I saw her when I was going back to my tent.'

‘So?'

‘When Orla turned up at the girls' party last week, Monica saw me arguing with her and was pretty freaked out about it. And then when I met Monica on the beach the other day she was—'

‘Grace.' He takes hold of my shoulders. ‘This is a bad situation and I can see why you're clutching at straws.'

‘I'm not.'

‘Have you eaten anything recently?'

‘Well, no, but—'

‘This has got nothing to do with Monica and everything to do with us.' He shakes me gently. ‘You have to stick to the point. Leave Monica out of it. I mean it. No one will ever find out what really happened to Rose. It's a dead-end.' He leads me through to the kitchen. ‘You should eat something and then you should rest.' He takes cheese and ham, butter and pickle from the fridge, slices some bread then puts his arms around me and makes the sandwich with me standing in between.

I shut my eyes and lean into his neck. I could show him the bracelet but I don't want him to come up with a rational explan ation. I want to hang on to what I know: Monica had a bracelet that belonged to Rose. She has been on the edge of her nerves since Orla came back to the village. It does add up to something. I can feel it in my bones.

Euan hands me a bulging sandwich and I offer him half back. He shakes his head. ‘I'm meeting Callum in the Anchor for a pub lunch.'

‘That's nice.' I take a bite.

‘He's thinking of buying the disused fish store down at the harbour. It could be developed into apartments. He wants me to go halfers.'

‘Right.'

‘Grace?'

‘What?'

‘Monica had nothing to do with Rose's death.'

I take another bite and keep chewing, look down at my feet.

‘Why don't you come along to the pub?'

‘My stomach will be full in a minute.'

‘You can just have an orange juice. Keep a couple of old men company.'

‘No, you're right.' I smile, pour a glass of water and take a drink. ‘I need to have a lie down.' I drink the water and hold the glass into my stomach.

Euan is pacing, thoughtful. Then he comes to stand in front of me. ‘You're going to break it, squeezing so hard like that.' He takes the glass from my hand and puts his mouth close to my ear. ‘Just remember who's the enemy here.' His teeth tug my earlobe. ‘I'll text you late afternoon.'

I follow him into the hallway and watch from the window. When his car turns the corner, I start up my own car and drive off in the other direction. I should be able to have it out with Monica before Euan gets back from the pub. I am driving towards their house and am almost there when, just for a second, my resolve wavers. I slow the car right down to a stop. Perhaps I shouldn't do it. Perhaps I've dug around enough. Rose is dead. Twenty-four years dead. Do the details really matter?

Yes. To me the details are everything. They are the foundation on which I have built my life. Maybe the bracelet means nothing, maybe Monica will have a reasonable explanation for how she came to have it but I'm not missing the chance to find out. Angeline said that the past doesn't matter but it's the past that I'm wrestling with and this might be a chance to make sense of it. I won't let this moment pass. Not even for Euan.

I park, lock the car, take a deep breath and ring the bell.

Monica opens the door and stares at me. She looks as if she's been crying, as if she's suddenly aged ten years. ‘You'd better come in,' she says.

The house smells of burned toast. I follow her through into the kitchen and sit down on one of the stools. The kitchen is a mess, an ordinary family mess, piled-up plates, bottles of ketchup and relish, sticky knives and forks. I have never seen it like this before.

I want to blurt out,
What's going on, Monica? What happened to Rose? What, Monica? What?
But something inside me says to slow it down, slow it right down. I am in finger-touching distance and I don't want Monica to clam up on me. ‘Is everything okay?'

She stares at me. Her eyebrows are raised as if it's a stupid question and she's waiting for the next one. She might just deign to answer that.

‘Is this about what happened when we were all sixteen?'

Nothing. Just that look.

‘That year, 1984?' She still doesn't answer so I answer with another question. ‘This?'

I bring the bracelet out of my pocket and lay it on the breakfast bar.

She glances at it and then walks over to the kettle. ‘Coffee?'

‘If you like.' I look around the room. There is a picture on the wall that I drew four years ago. It's a simple pencil drawing of Murphy and Muffin when they were both puppies. Sarah loved it and stuck it up there between the door and the window. It's always surprised me that Monica hasn't taken it down again. I know she doesn't think much of my drawing – a hobby – not real work like doctoring. In most ways we are opposites: Monica is disciplined, driven, ambitious and controlling. My ambition is limited, I'm more laissez-faire than driven and I don't have her issues of control. But something is upsetting her and I'm determined to find out what.

She puts a cup of coffee down in front of me. ‘We never really escape our pasts, do we?'

I stretch my hand across the breakfast bar, don't quite reach her but leave it there anyway and say, ‘What's troubling you?'

‘It's not me so much . . .' She drifts off, sips her coffee and sighs.

‘We all have regrets. Things we would change.'

She laughs. ‘What regrets can you have, Grace? You always seem so perfectly well-adjusted, perfectly happy with Paul and your girls and your painting.'

‘We all have our dark times.' I tap my finger next to the bracelet. ‘This bracelet. I've come about this.'

She looks at it again. ‘I don't know anything about that.'

‘Pick it up. Look at it closely.'

She does. She lets it dangle on the end of her fingers, holds it up to the light and watches it move. ‘It's tarnished but still very pretty.' She puts it down next to my hand. ‘However, there are much more pressing matters on my mind.'

‘It was in your loft,' I say lightly. ‘Ella said you let her have it.'

‘Did I?'

‘Yes, you did.'

She shrugs. ‘So?'

‘It belonged to Rose.'

‘Paul's Rose?'

I nod.

She gives it another cursory glance. ‘Well, I have no idea how it came to be with my stuff.'

‘She had it on the camp.'

‘Well, there you go then. It must have got mixed up in my camping gear.'

‘But you weren't even in her tent.'

She looks exasperated. ‘What do you want me to say? That I took it?'

‘Paul always wondered what had happened to it. She was never without it. It belonged to her mother. When her mum died, she kept it on her at all times.'

‘Well, I will go and see Paul and apologise to him.' Her tone is impatient. ‘But in the meantime can we please talk about Orla?'

‘I have spent the last twenty-four years thinking that I was the last person to see Rose alive,' I say quietly. ‘Thinking that if I'd only listened to what she was saying I might have been able to prevent her death, thinking, Monica,
thinking
, that when I pushed her away, she fell into the water and drowned.'

She goes over to the sink and looks back at me. ‘What are you talking about?'

I stand up and come alongside her. ‘Orla and I had an argument that night. Rose came to me for help. I pushed her away. The next day I found her in the water exactly where I had pushed her.'

Monica's arms are folded and she is tapping her foot. ‘Have you been drinking?'

‘No!'

‘You think you killed Rose?'

‘Yes.'

We stare at each other.

‘This is what Orla has on you?'

I nod.

‘Christ!' She topples backward, catches hold of the worktop and looks at me as if I'm mad.

‘I know.' I hold up my hands in acknowledgement. ‘It's horrendous. But just recently, well, something isn't adding up and I need to get it clear in my head. The sequence of events. Did you see Rose that night? Did she come to you?' I point to the bracelet. ‘Why did you have her bracelet?'

Monica's eyes look past me as she winds back the clock. ‘So around midnight when I was putting away the supplies and you came back to the tent—'

‘I had already pushed her.'

She gives a perfunctory shake of her head. ‘Then you didn't do it. Rose came back to the tent about ten minutes before you did.'

For a second I am completely still and then I grab Monica by the shoulders and say loudly, ‘You're absolutely sure about this?'

‘Yes! Otherwise I would have told you that one of your patrol was out of bed.'

Ever practical Monica. Of course she would have made sure the girls were in their tents before she settled down for the night. She took her role seriously. While Orla and I were off fighting over Euan, Monica was being responsible.