Greg and I spent Christmas with my family. I was touched by how keen he was to make a good impression on them all but he needn't have worried. My parents took to him immediately and both my brothers thought he was great, especially Ant, with whom he spoke for hours about artificial intelligence, the subject of his doctorate. In fact, the visit went so well that we ended up staying an extra two days. We went for long walks out on the common, where the sky was a searing blue and the frost seemed not only to cover the gorse and the crisp grass but to permeate the air, which tasted fresh on the tongue and full of the promise of a new year.
At the end of the first week in January, the weather changed and a thick layer of cloud swallowed London. The sky turned sullen and the cold was no longer refreshing but malicious: it scoured one's face as soon as one stepped out of doors. The forecasts promised the same for the rest of the week and then a further drop in temperature, after which the periodic biting sleet would be followed by a heavy snowfall across the country. I was looking forward to that, to the transformation, however momentary, of a grey London with a Christmas hangover into a picturesque, old-fashioned winter scene.
The flat was beginning to take shape. We spent the Saturday of that week unpacking the last boxes and making a list of the things that neither of us owned. I'd lived with Martha for so long that it was a shock to discover that what was hers hadn't been mine. I particularly missed her yellow toaster. On Sunday we caught the tube into town, planning to find a warm pub afterwards to compensate for the nightmare of shopping at sale time. We were struggling down the Tottenham Court Road with our haul - the toaster, a wok and three saucepans - when my mobile started ringing. Greg took the things I'd been carrying while I looked for it in my handbag. It was a number I didn't know and it was a second or two before I recognised Diana's voice.
'I'm sorry for calling you like this,' she said. 'I got your number from Lucas's phone.' The wind wherever she was made a tearing sound as it reached me.
'Is everything OK?'
'Are you in London? Would you mind if I came and met you?'
We found a pub not far from the British Museum and texted Diana with the details. We were only a few streets away from Lucas's old flat; I wondered who had it now. My memories of it were so vivid that they might have been made only the previous day but again, the time we'd spent together there seemed to belong to a different life. It was hard to believe that Lucas had moved out less than a year previously.
Diana took half an hour to reach us. I saw the two men at the table next to us look up as she appeared in the doorway and scanned the room to find us. She was wearing tight fitting jeans with boots and a black leather jacket over a cream polo-neck. Her long hair was tied back in a ponytail. We stood to greet her and Greg went to buy her a drink. At close range, she looked far more tired than her initial impression had suggested.
'I'm sorry to foist myself on you like this,' she said, looking in her large leather shoulder bag for her cigarettes. 'I needed to see you.'
'Is Lucas in town, too?'
'No. He's in the country.' She flicked the lighter and the small flame showed me the circles under her eyes. 'I'm staying at my mother's place. She's got a flat in Netting Hill.' She crossed her legs and I registered a pang of envy at the long, slim legs in their expensive denim.
'Are you working here now?' I was surprised Lucas hadn't told me.
'Since three weeks before Christmas. I couldn't put it off any longer. I'd tried to wait until the New Year so that I could have a bit more uninterrupted time with Lucas but Trevor's old assistant had to leave and he'd been really patient already, for a number of reasons.' She looked up gratefully as Greg returned with her wine. 'So I've been commuting, or sort of. I've been here in the week, sleeping over at Mum's flat, and then back at Stoneborough for weekends and a night in the week, too, if I could.' She fixed her gaze on her glass. 'Look, what I wanted to tell you is that Lucas and I aren't together any more. I thought you should know.'
A wave of fear swept over me. 'What happened?' I asked. She looked up and her face was empty. 'I loved him - I still do. But I can't stay now.' She hesitated again. 'I feel so disloyal even telling you this. But if anyone's going to understand, it's you, Jo. You know how much he was drinking even before his father came back. He's on the edge. But I never thought that he would get violent.'
'Violent?' said Greg.
'Last night I told him that I needed a more permanent base in London and that I was going to rent a place of my own here, instead of using Mum's all the time. He went crazy. He was shouting all these horrible things at me. In the end I made a run for it but he came after me and caught me by the neck of my T-shirt. I couldn't breathe. I was struggling and he picked up a bottle from the table and pressed it against my cheek. He was staring at me like a madman, saying that he was going to smash it in my face. I kept eye contact with him, hoping that he would come round and realise what he was doing. He did in the end, but it was the worst minute of my life. I really thought he was going to do it. Then he started crying and crunched up in a ball on the floor and I went.' My guilt was instant. If I hadn't kept Lucas's near-attack on me a secret, maybe it would have saved the same thing happening to her. She looked so wretched now I wanted to put my arms around her but her self-containment held me off.
'It must be the drink, mustn't it?' she said, her eyes imploring me. 'Obviously none of us can even start to imagine what he's gone through in the past eighteen months and he's finding it so hard with Justin, but I don't think that's the real Lucas. I won't believe it.'
'Why do you think he reacted like that?' asked Greg.
'He thinks everyone leaves him,' she said. 'I knew it would be hard to come here and work. I couldn't even mention it without him losing his temper. I caught him with my mobile once. I thought he was going through my messages and that was bad enough but it turned out he was looking for Trevor's number. A couple of days afterwards I got a call from him asking me to change my mind. Lucas had told him I didn't want the job after all.' She pulled a face. 'You can imagine the argument we had.'
'He was scared of losing you,' said Greg.
She lit another cigarette, a slight tremor in her hands. 'I don't know. I mean, we'd become close friends again. But I don't think things were right between us. I don't think he likes me as much as he wants everyone to believe.'
I said nothing but there was an uneasy stirring in my stomach.
'I don't think he's over you, Jo.'
'It's old history,' I said.
'Yes, and on one level I think he knows that, too. Don't take this the wrong way but I think he's in love with the idea of you, not the reality. He's romanticised you and your time together and woven it all into this great
thing
that nothing else can ever rival. Sometimes I even wonder whether Danny suggested he go out with me just to try and make you jealous.'
I frowned. 'No, Lucas wouldn't. Why do you think that?'
'It's nothing concrete. I don't know. Just, you remember how Danny always went on about how great I was, when I first met you all? I thought he was going to come on to me, maybe, but then I noticed he didn't do it when Lucas wasn't there. It was like he was trying to advertise me or something. If he and I were ever in a room on our own, he dropped it completely.' She shook her head. 'I don't know, perhaps that's just in my mind because of the way Patrick used my mother.'
'I'm sure Lucas wouldn't do that,' said Greg, reaching over for her hand. 'Look at the way he reacted when you tried to go.'
'Thanks.' She smiled weakly. 'I just feel really lost. I love him and I want to help him but I can't stay now, can I, after last night? I was so frightened. And even if I did stay, I can't help him.' A fierce light came into her eyes. 'I'd do it, if I thought it would make any difference. But even if last night hadn't happened, I can't get near him. You know Lucas is giving Danny a lot of money? And Danny's dropped my mother.'
'Has he?' Lucas hadn't told me that, either.
'He just went cold. It started after the party, when he wanted to spend more time with Lucas, and now he doesn't bother to see her at all. She's so upset about it, poor Mum. And he's like a sort of force field; I can't get close to Lucas because Danny's repelling me all the time.' She looked up.
'He hates you, doesn't he?'
I grinned. 'Yes, he does.'
'It's because Lucas loves you and there's nothing he can do about it.'
'Although he likes everyone to think that he doesn't give a toss about anything,' I said, 'it isn't true. The money's part of it; Danny must loathe having to rely on him. But it's not the main reason. He loves Lucas and he hates himself for it because it makes him weak.'
'It has to be wrong to leave them there together when Lucas is like this.'
'Diana, if he has threatened you, you can't go back.' Greg's voice was firm. 'He and Danny will have to sort themselves out, however long it takes.'
Lucas's attack on Diana put me in a dilemma. I knew how terrifying it was to be the focus of his anger and of course I could never excuse what he'd done. Nonetheless, that it had happened told me that he must be in a very poor emotional state: he would never behave like that unless under extreme duress. I agreed with Greg that I should telephone him. I rang for the first time the following evening, both on the landline and his mobile, but neither was answered. I left messages, too, but got no response.
It was three days before he called me back and, when he did, it was gone eleven and I could hear the drink in his voice again. He wasn't angry: the tone of his voice was new. He sounded worn out now, and desperate. I tried to talk to him about Diana but he was moving the conversation in a different direction. He seemed to be edging around something, leading me up to it, then backing away as if he'd changed his mind. If I hadn't known better, I would have questioned whether he was on drugs, his thought seemed so fractured. Eventually I asked him outright whether there was something he wanted to talk about. He ignored me at first and started asking questions about me: how my job was, the new flat. Then suddenly the dam seemed to give way. 'I don't know who I can trust any more,' he said, and his voice was rushed and paranoid. 'Can I trust you?'
'What's happened?'
'I found something out.'
'What, Lucas?' I asked.
'Everything's fucked up. It's so fucked up.' His voice was getting louder, as if he couldn't express how he felt except in volume.
'Tell me. I might be able to help.' I tried to sound calm but my heart was beginning to beat faster.
'I can't. I can't.'
'Lucas, anything - and I do mean anything - you tell me stays secret. Whatever it is. If you need to talk to someone, you can talk to me.'
'Promise me.'
'I promise,' I said.
He still havered. I heard him open his mouth as if to speak and then bite back the words again, as though they had tried to escape him and he had caught them at the last possible moment.
'Anything, Lucas.'
Then he spat it at me, as if he couldn't bear to have it in his mouth a second longer. 'My father killed him.'
Now I really began to worry about his mental state. We had all heard what Justin had said about that day and it had been obvious that he was telling the truth. Clearly Lucas was very confused.
'Don't you understand, Joanna?' he said, frustrated at my lack of response. 'He killed Patrick.'
'Lucas, Patrick committed suicide,' I said.
'Stop talking to me like I'm mad,' he shouted at me. 'I'm not mad. I'm telling you, my father killed Patrick. He made it look like suicide. The night he came back, he had a gun. He sat upstairs with Patrick and watched while he swallowed the pills. He made him do it. He said unless he did it, he'd shoot him.'
I closed my eyes, his words beginning to make horrible sense. 'How do you know this?' I said at last.
'My father told me.'
'Where is he now?'
'Gone.'
'Why did he tell you, Lucas?'
'We've been trying to get to know each other, you know that. Patrick was all we talked about - he was our common enemy. He was about all we had in common, actually.' He laughed bitterly and the sound of it brought the hairs up on my arms. 'And then yesterday he told me. Like he was proud of it. He thought I'd congratulate him. I told you - it's fucked up. When he found out about Mum, he went back to Morocco to think about what he was going to do. He wasn't working out a way to see me at all. He was making a plan. Then he came here and did it. He murdered him. My uncle left some poor bastard to die and my dad's a murderer. Jesus Christ.'
'Do you know where he's gone?' I said, concentrating on facts to try and still the ground, which was again shifting beneath me.
There was a long pause before he spoke again. I realised that he was crying. 'No, and I don't want to know. He's gone and that's it. I never want to see him again. I might have hated Patrick when I found out what he did but now I hate them both. What Patrick did was ... but killing him ...'
'Are you going to tell anyone? The police?'
'No. It's time to bury it. Forget my whole sick family. Forget they ever existed. I just want it all to be over.' His voice changed again, the paranoia returning. 'You're not going to tell anyone, are you? You promised.'
'No, I'm not going to tell anyone. What happens is entirely up to you.'
'Nothing's going to happen. It's finished.'
I didn't sleep that night. What he had told me about his father was shocking, of course, but I had developed a sort of immunity when it came to stories about his family, as if I had been exposed to so many that I'd built up a natural internal defence. If I'd heard the same about anyone else's father, it would have been overwhelming but the Heath fields had lost their power to horrify me now. The real shock had been Lucas, his disturbance, the paranoia that seemed to verge on the pathological. He needed help but I couldn't work out how I could give it to him. He was like an animal so badly beaten that it had lost the ability to let people show it kindness.