The Stranger in Our Home Read online

  ‘Miss Crowther, thank you for coming in. I’m Sergeant Mansfield. This is my colleague Susan Nowak. We’d like to run through exactly what happened yesterday. Any little detail can be really helpful.’

  I began by describing my walk, the weather, the time of day, arriving at the hill. They asked me why I decided to go up there. Just because, I said. It’s a nice view. I didn’t want to go into my memories of the past. It wasn’t relevant. When I got to the moment I saw McCready’s helmet, I had to stop. My eyes dropped to my hands. I found myself clutching and unclutching them like a small child in the headmaster’s office.

  ‘I’m sorry, it was just so …’

  There had been something almost inhuman about that helmet, the way it hid the face, the visor glinting rainbow colours.

  ‘It’s alright, Miss Crowther. Take your time. We know this isn’t easy.’

  Nowak had leaned forward and touched me on the arm. I looked up. Her eyes were soft and sympathetic.

  ‘I didn’t know what to do. I thought he might still be alive. What if I could have helped him? What if I made things worse?’

  ‘He was dead long before you arrived, Miss Crowther. Few people ever experience what you’ve seen, you did exactly what anyone else would have done. You did nothing wrong.’

  I didn’t reply. The sergeant nodded in agreement.

  ‘Tell me, Miss Crowther, is there anything else you remember about the site, anything you noticed, any other objects or clothing or whatever, even rubbish?’

  I tried to think – there was the litter in the car park, the motorbike tipped on its side, the debris down in the quarry. Nothing out of the ordinary. I described them all, then shook my head.

  ‘I’m sorry, I can’t think of anything else.’

  ‘And you say you recognised the deceased?’

  ‘Yes. Angus McCready. He’s a builder. I didn’t know him, but he’s known in the village and I met him once in Ashbourne. I bumped into him outside a shop. No twice, I think – he was there at the Wassail last week, but I didn’t speak to him.’

  Not then at least. I told myself it wasn’t a lie, I just hadn’t told them the full details of exactly what had happened in Ashbourne.

  Fucking bitch … the words resonated in my head.

  I’d answered every question truthfully, hadn’t I? They hadn’t asked me about Ashbourne or Craig, or if I knew anything else. Why would they? I needed time to think.

  ‘I see. Thank you, Miss Crowther.’

  As I left the police station, guiding the car back into the traffic, I chewed on my thumb. I hadn’t told them about McCready being rude to me, or the scratch on my car, the latter was entirely my supposition. And I hadn’t told them about McCready knowing Craig or the fight at the village hall. Or the money Mary Beth said Angus owed Craig. I couldn’t put Craig under suspicion.

  But there were so many questions in my head. I couldn’t forget that fight, Craig and Angus squaring off, Angus’s head shooting forward onto Craig’s, Craig’s anger and aggression, the unexpected power behind his punch.

  I didn’t see Craig for the rest of that day, or the next. Didn’t he know what had happened? Wouldn’t a boyfriend have rushed to my side? Had something happened to him? I tried to ring but there was no reply. I didn’t want to leave a message; how would that look?

  Besides, what would I say to him: Did you have anything at all to do with Angus McCready’s death?

  CHAPTER 35

  On the Monday, I phoned Mary Beth. I didn’t know who else to ring. I didn’t tell her about the nightmares or what I was thinking – no, fearing – about Craig. But she got the gist that I was upset. My voice was tremulous and even to my own ears I sounded a wreck.

  ‘Oh, you poor dear, let me come over.’

  She already knew about Angus; the village grapevine was well ahead of me. Everyone, it seemed, knew it was me who’d found his body.

  ‘I’ll cook us some lunch and you can talk to me, tell me all about it.’

  She didn’t wait for my reply.

  I replaced the phone on its cradle feeling only marginally better.

  I went to the sink in the downstairs cloakroom to splash water on my tearstained cheeks. I stared at my reflection in the mirror. I pulled the hood of my old jersey top over my head. But it didn’t hide the shadows under my eyes, the haggard expression on my face, the pale skin and the built-in scowl that pushed my lips downwards.

  I tugged the hood back down again. Had I always looked like that?

  ‘I’d love to see your paintings, if you’ll let me?’ Mary Beth’s cheeriness filled the hall.

  She seemed to understand. That I couldn’t launch straight into what had happened, and how protective I would be of my work.

  ‘Sure,’ I said.

  The word stuck in my throat. At the sight of her kind face, I didn’t trust myself. I led her to the kitchen and gestured awkwardly to a large folder on the table.

  ‘What’s your current project, if I’m allowed to ask?’ Mary Beth had already divested herself of her oversized coat and a fringed shawl.

  ‘It’s a collection of fairy tales. All traditional stuff, not made up. You know, Brothers Grimm, the Pentamerone …’

  ‘Now Grimm I know about, but what’s the Pentamerone?’

  ‘Oh, sorry, it’s a collection of Italian folk tales from the seventeenth century, tales within tales,’ I said. ‘A bit like the Arabian Nights.’

  I perked up, smiling. Mary Beth knew how to make me feel at ease.

  ‘They’re great stories,’ I continued, ‘if a bit gruesome in places. People wrongly assume that fairy tales are for children. Many of them are far too grown up. You know, abusive parents, incest, cannibalism – it’s all in there!’

  The darker, the better, from a visual point of view.

  ‘They’re all connected, the same stories told again and again all over the world, growing like Chinese whispers. The Grimm brothers based a lot of their stories on the Pentamerone.’

  I paused, thinking that was probably enough detail.

  Mary Beth leafed through the pictures: the black-winged deformity of my swan prince, the stubborn child pleading from his grave, the singing bones from The Juniper Tree.

  ‘These are amazing! You have a very distinctive style.’

  Was she being genuine or diplomatic? Mary Beth had laid the sheets out side by side. I stood beside her. I could see what she meant. This particular collection had a consistency and morbidity beyond my usual fashion – bold lines slashed across the page, the faces angular and haunted. The colours too were of a limited palette, variations on perylene green and black with the odd splash of purple and cadmium red, each picture crawling with insect detail, like a decaying corpse, exoskeletal bodies, iridescent armour, a multitude of eyes blazing out from the peacock dead. I blushed, wondering what Mary Beth made of it all.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘No, really. I love this. It’s so raw.’ She gave me a fleeting look. ‘Like you’ve been there. You’re very talented, Caro.’

  She smiled, reaching towards her bag on the table.

  ‘I’ve brought us some lunch.’

  She began to unpack, salad, pastrami, bagels and homemade soup. Craig would have approved. She busied herself in the kitchen heating up the soup in the microwave and setting out two plates with the food. Did everyone think I needed feeding up?

  We sat down to eat. She tapped her fingers against her bowl, ‘mmm’ing as she swallowed the hot liquid. When she next spoke, her voice was quieter.

  ‘So, my dear. Are you alright?’

  I was not.

  ‘I haven’t slept very well.’ My voice faded away.

  ‘I’m not surprised. Most of us see dead animals at some point in our lives, but a dead person? That’s quite another thing.’ Mary Beth closed her eyes momentarily as if imagining it for herself.

  ‘I keep seeing his face, his …’ My voice wobbled.

  I was in imminent danger of bursting into tears. Already t
he image was there again in my head – Angus McCready’s body, the helmet. I dipped my head, hot tears pricking at the corner of my eyes.

  ‘It’s alright, love, you don’t need to tell me, not unless you want to.’

  ‘No, it’s okay, the police have been asking me too.’

  I shook my head, pressing my eyelids shut. Oh God, the police. What if they found out Craig had reason to hate Angus? What if the police asked me to go back in, asked me if I knew of anyone who had a grudge against him? Would I tell them I’d seen Angus and Craig in a fight last week? I swallowed.

  ‘I don’t suppose they get many dead bodies around here,’ said Mary Beth. ‘It’s a nasty drop on that hill. I’ve seen the place, fabulous views, but dangerous. He could so easily have slipped, there’s nothing to stop you going over. Perhaps now they’ll put up some kind of safety barrier.’

  I pushed my hand into my pocket, feeling with my fingers. How could I tell her? How could I explain how uncomfortable I felt, as if wherever I went, I was always followed by grief and death and tragedy.

  Later, when Mary Beth had gone, I sat down in the kitchen, reaching into my pocket. I was checking that it was still there, my house key.

  It had fallen out of my pocket when I’d found Angus. Or so I’d thought. Like all the other keys at Larkstone Farm, it was carefully identified by its yellow plastic tab. Except this wasn’t my house key.

  It fit the house, sure enough – the front door. But my key was still on my key ring, along with the car keys, clean and safe on the hall table. This one was covered with mud, the little tag window wet beneath. It must have been a spare.

  Why would it have been at Alton Heights, lying next to Angus McCready’s body? Could Angus have had a key to Elizabeth’s house?

  CHAPTER 36

  Tuesday morning and Larkstone Farm had a dreary post-holiday feel about it. There wasn’t even any snow left to make it feel cosier. The sky was grey, the lane was grey and the dark hedgerows and bare trees just seemed to accentuate the grey by their contrast.

  As I trailed through the house, I began to notice all the little frayed corners on the sofas and chairs, the tattered hems on the curtains, the once smart fabrics that had faded in the sun. Only the sitting room and Elizabeth’s bedroom had been kept relatively smart. It was as if the neglect of the house reflected my own childhood and Elizabeth’s treatment of me. More likely Elizabeth had been reluctant to spend money on a house I now knew she hadn’t owned. How she must have resented me on so many counts. Wouldn’t I myself have felt like that? I tried but failed to shake the thoughts from my head. I didn’t want to understand Elizabeth, to admit that she’d been human.

  After Steph had left, that day when I was nine, Elizabeth changed. In subtle ways she was different. She still told me the story of the pear drum, she still taunted me with those words, making me stand for hours in the study. But it was as if there was something missing – a detachment, a hollowness to her words, a lack of satisfaction in the punishment. She wanted me to suffer, but she no longer felt anything. Perhaps her loneliness, the passing of time, growing older, had dulled her senses. I didn’t understand. Only later did I realise that her feelings had simply been driven even deeper.

  As the years progressed, things changed. I grew into a young woman, too old for stories, so it was a different game that we played. Now it was all about control. The household jobs that I did were never good enough – I had to re-do them the ‘right’ way. I couldn’t use the phone, I couldn’t go out, I had no money. Everything to restrict my contact with people. Even my clothes isolated me – dated and ill-fitting, she bought them without me being present, the minimum required to dress me. Secondary school was ten times worse than the village primary. They laughed at me and my clothes with the viciousness of a pack of hyenas and at home I hid from any visitors.

  Only once had I tried to leave. At fourteen, I’d sneaked out of the back door in the early hours of the morning and walked to the village. The houses on the street surrounded me, each door closed, each window blank and brooding. At that time in the night even the orange lights from the lampposts were switched off. I was overwhelmed by the dark and the cold. I had nowhere to go, no money and no home. I knew what happened to girls with no home.

  So I went back. I slipped into the house and up the stairs to my room and I went back to bed as if nothing had happened. If Elizabeth knew that I’d left for a while, she never said. I felt a failure. Except this time, I knew I had to wait. Till I was old enough.

  I studied even harder and painted whenever I could. It seemed I had a talent of sorts. My first prize-winning picture was of the lamppost in the village, the old-fashioned glass lamp near the Co-op, partially obscured by rolling mist. The glass was cracked and the lamp infested with beetles, like the ones in the summerhouse. The teacher had looked at me with astonishment in her eyes.

  Then, when I was sixteen, I plucked up the courage to defy Elizabeth. She’d told me to clean the downstairs cloakroom. I had scrubbed and mopped but the toilet had an old rusty stain in the bowl and, no matter how hard I rubbed at it, it wouldn’t budge. She came to inspect as I left the room.

  ‘Caroline! Come back.’

  She was standing by the toilet, staring down at the stain. I knew what was coming next. I placed the bucket and mop on the floor and turned back towards her. I planted my feet firmly apart and looked at her straight. Her eyes had narrowed and her face looked pinched, I could see she was working up to another dressing-down. Before she could open her mouth, I launched in there first.

  ‘No! I won’t do it again! It’s rust and it won’t come off. Perhaps you could have a go?’ I felt my heart thudding in my chest, heat rising up my neck as the temerity of my words dawned on me.

  Fury flooded her face and I could see her hand itching to slap me as she had when I was younger. I was already taller than her and the last time she’d tried it I’d ducked and run away. She wasn’t going to let me get away with that this time.

  ‘How dare you speak to me like that,’ she said.

  ‘How dare you speak to me like that!’ I flung back.

  She took a step forward.

  ‘Careful, Caroline! You know, the school have told me that you have a talent for art, that you’re hoping to go to college after your A levels. Would that be so?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Manchester University, that was where I wanted to go – I’d heard they had a vibrant Art department and I couldn’t wait. Just two more years, that’s what I kept telling myself. I swallowed. Where was she going with this?

  ‘And how do you think you’re going to pay for it?’

  ‘I … I don’t understand.’

  ‘The fees are three times as much as they used to be. And where are you going to live, how are you going to eat – how are you going to pay for all that?’

  ‘There are student loans for the fees and I’ll get a maintenance loan.’

  ‘But it’s not enough. Believe me, accommodation and subsistence in Manchester is expensive.’

  She knew about my ambition to go to Manchester? My art teacher must have been talking. I felt betrayed.

  ‘Then I’ll get a job,’ I said.

  ‘You and a thousand other students – it’s not so easy out there on your own with no money.’

  ‘I’ll find one! Even if it’s cleaning loos!’

  She laughed then, a shrill, decadent laugh that pierced my ears.

  ‘Well, you’ll have to get a lot better at it then! There’s a bit of money your father set aside for your education, did you know that?’

  It was a shock to hear her say that.

  ‘What? I … How much?’

  ‘Oh, I can’t remember the exact sum, not a lot, but it’s under my control. I have to sign if you’re to get a penny of it, so I suggest you mind your manners, young woman, and do exactly as you’re told!’

  ‘Why do you hate me?’ My voice had dropped. I heard a pathetic plea creep into my words. ‘Ever since I can remember, yo
u’ve always hated me!’

  I thought I saw her hesitate. As if her emotions were so strong they had momentarily overwhelmed her. She hated me that much. Her eyes slid to the study door, and I felt the familiar leap of apprehension. She smiled.

  ‘You don’t belong in my house!’ she hissed.

  My house. That’s what she’d said. It reminded me of Steph’s words, all those years ago. I felt even more alienated.

  I turned back to the toilet with my scrubber and my rubber gloves, and I started cleaning it again. I felt my shame. I’d never been very good at rebellion. I was conditioned to respond exactly as she wanted. And perhaps, even then, I had still wanted to mend things, to somehow fix the relationship between us. Who else did I have?

  In a weird sort of way, money aside, I thought I needed her.

  So I waited. And with the grudging help of the school, I applied for funding and got myself to uni. The money Elizabeth had promised me was never forthcoming. And by then I didn’t want it, it was tainted and I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of asking for it. I was an adult now: I didn’t need Elizabeth.

  Instead, I got myself a job in a bar, serving customers too drunk to know better, mopping floors slick with vomit and cleaning toilets.

  That night my dreams were even more intense. Angus McCready lying at the bottom of the cliff, Elizabeth sprawled at the base of the stairs, the Power Rangers boy in his red suit soaked in blood. I thrashed in the bed, I could hear moaning, like a wild animal. I awoke realising that was me, my heart pumping in my chest, my eyes wide open in the dark.

  I lay there trying to focus on the ceiling, to relax. Before coming here, I hadn’t had these dreams for a long time, the night terrors that beset me as a child. It must have been seeing McCready like that, stirring up childhood fears. I tried to block it out. I thought of the key instead. I’d picked it up without thinking, assuming it was mine. Such an innocent thing. But now I realised I’d unintentionally taken evidence from the scene. I rolled onto my side, drawing my knees in, hugging myself. I could hardly admit to it now, could I?