I am about to start to explain why I’m here when I notice the way he’s staring at me. As if there’s no way he’s going to take his eyes off me in case I disappear. He can’t believe I’m standing in front of him… A dizzy, nauseous feeling spreads through me as I realise the harm I might be doing to this man. How could I not have anticipated his reaction? I didn’t even think about it. What’s wrong with my brain?
‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘This must be a shock for you. I know I look a lot like your wife. I was shocked too, when I saw on the news… when I heard what had happened. That’s why I’m here, kind of. I hope… oh, God, I feel awful now.’
‘Did you know Geraldine?’ His voice shakes. He moves closer, his eyes taking me apart. I know one thing straight away: I am not at all afraid of him. If anyone’s frightened, it’s him. ‘Why… why do you look so much like her? Are you…?’
‘I’m nothing to do with her. I didn’t know her at all. I happen to look like her, that’s all. And actually, that’s not why I’m here. I don’t know why I said that.’
‘You look so like her. So like her.’
I am certain that this man is looking at my face for the first time. He hasn’t a clue who I am. Which means he hasn’t been following me in a red Alfa Romeo; he didn’t push me in front of a bus yesterday.
‘Are you okay?’ he asks eventually. He has dropped the trowel on the drive and taken off his gloves. I didn’t even notice.
I realise I’ve been standing like a statue, saying nothing. ‘What’s your name?’ I ask him. ‘It said on the news your name was Mark Bretherick.’
‘What do you mean, “it said on the news”?’
‘So you are Mark Bretherick?’
‘Yes.’ His eyes are glued to me. This is what a person in a trance would look like.
What am I supposed to say next? That I don’t believe him? I want him to prove it? ‘Can I come in? I need to talk to you about something and it’s complicated.’
‘You look so like Geraldine,’ he says again. ‘It’s unbelievable.’ He makes no move towards the house.
Five seconds pass. Six, seven, eight. If I don’t take the initiative, he might stand here studying my face until day turns to night.
‘What happened to you?’ He points at the cuts on my cheek.
‘We need to go inside,’ I say. ‘Come on. Give me your key.’ It’s odd, but I don’t feel presumptuous, or even awkward any more. For now, he is aware of nothing but my face.
He searches his pockets, still staring at me. It’s a relief when finally he hands me the key and I can turn away from him.
I unlock the front door and walk into a large, dark room, nearly as tall as it is wide, with polished wooden floorboards and wood-panelled walls. An elaborate design of blue stucco covers the ceiling, makes me think of a stately home. There are two big windows, both largely uncovered by whatever plant is growing up the walls outside, and the front door is wide open, yet the room seems as dark as if it were underground. The low-hanging chandelier light is on but seems to make no difference. It’s as if the dark walls and floor are sucking up the light.
In front of me is a log-burning stove that’s been lit and is blazing, even though it’s August. Still, the hall is cool. Side by side in the middle of the room, directly in front of the stove, are two matching chairs that look like antiques: slim, armless, S-shaped to follow the curve of a person’s back, upholstered in a cream, silky fabric. To my right, a staircase protrudes into the hall, with solid wooden banisters on both sides. Eight steep steps lead to a small square landing, after which further steps lead off to the left and to the right. One of the windows is a bay with a window-seat, a half-hexagon that has a faded burgundy velvet cushion going all the way round it. Against the wall behind me there is a large fish-tank and a chaise-longue.
Mark Bretherick-how else can I think of him?-walks past me and sits in one of the two chairs in front of the fire. ‘The lounge is full of bin-bags,’ he says.
I lower myself into the chair next to his. He’s not looking at me any more. He’s staring at the glowing coals and logs through the stove door. I’m still chilly, even now that I can feel the warmth on my face. I look at the window nearest to me and see a drop of water on the stone beneath the glass, like a single tear trickling into the room.
‘Cold,’ he says. ‘The old ruin. This room’s always freezing.’
‘It’s cooler today than it was yesterday,’ I say. ‘Yesterday it was sweltering.’ I fill the air between us with pointless words to make the occasion of our meeting appear less bizarre.
‘That was Geraldine’s nickname for it-the old ruin. We did our bedroom and the bathrooms when we first bought it, but nothing else. Everything else could wait, Geraldine said.’
‘It’s a beautiful house.’
‘Plenty of time, she said. Thirty thousand pounds each bathroom cost me. Geraldine thought they were the most important rooms in the house. I had to take her word for it. I was never in the house.’
‘What do you mean?’
He turns to face me. ‘I almost can’t stand the sight of you,’ he says.
‘I’m sorry.’
He shakes his head. Every time he moves, the hard, sharp smell of dirt wafts towards me. ‘That’s where I found their bodies. Did you know that?’
‘Where?’
‘In the baths upstairs. Geraldine was in one and Lucy was in the other. You didn’t know that?’
‘No. All I know is what I saw on the news last night.’
‘Do you know what GHB is?’
‘You mean GBH? Grievous bodily harm?’
His mouth laughs, though his eyes are remote, empty. ‘You hear about things like this, things that are so far… beyond… and you wonder how people can carry on living after they happen. How can they be hungry or thirsty? How can they tie their shoe-laces or comb their hair?’
‘I know. I’ve thought that.’
‘When you rang the bell I was sorting out the flowerbeds.’
I am sitting beside him, but I am light years away from his grief. I can feel it like an iron barrier between us.
He looks at me again. ‘Wait here. I want to show you something. ’ He springs out of his chair. It’s enough to make me leap up too. Unpredictable; I don’t like unpredictable. I know I wouldn’t be able to stand it if he showed me anything to do with Geraldine or Lucy’s deaths. What if he’s gone up to one of the bathrooms? What’s he going to have in his hands when he returns? I picture a knife, a gun, an empty pill bottle.
I don’t know how Geraldine killed her daughter or herself. It’s a question I don’t think I can bring myself to ask.
I run my hands through my hair. What the hell am I doing here? What am I hoping to achieve? It can’t be helping him to have me here. I should open the door and run.
My phone rings and I jump. I answer it quickly, to stop its mundane trill from polluting the mournful silence. Too late, I realise I could have switched it off; that would have had the same effect. It’s Owen Mellish from work. ‘Naughty girl,’ he says. ‘Where’ve you disappeared to?’
‘I can’t talk now,’ I tell him. ‘Is there a problem?’
‘Not for me. But I thought I should let you know that Madam Snoot’s phoned twice since you left the office. She wasn’t pleased to hear you’d decided to take the day off. I told her you’d probably gone shopping.’
‘I’ll ring her. Thanks for letting me know.’ I cut him off before he has a chance to enrage me further. I can hear ominous creaks above my head. I don’t know if I’ve got time to phone Natasha Prentice-Nash before Mark Bretherick reappears, or whether I can do it without him hearing me, but I’m not sure I can stay here unless I do something ordinary. I need to take my mind off the man upstairs and his dead family, the souvenirs he might be about to show me.