Isabel had appeared in the doorway. 'I've brought you all some tea,' she said, edging round the door. Her hair was tied back, and she had changed into a pair of shorts, revealing long brown legs. 'Anthony, here's a cold drink. I know you don't like tea. Oh, and Byron, you left your keys on the kitchen table this morning. You'd better have them. I nearly threw them away with the leftovers.'
'Breakfast?' Matt said, his brain reeling with this new information. 'Breakfast with the Delanceys, eh? How cosy.'
Isabel put the tea tray on a crate.
'Got your feet right under the table, haven't you, Byron?' Matt went on.
'He's been helping me. Tea and toast was the least I could provide,' Isabel said.
Had she coloured? Or was that his imagination?
His son shoved past him contemptuously.
Matt felt giddy. 'I don't think you'd have been quite so hospitable if you'd known.'
That got him. Byron's eyes closed briefly and his shoulders slumped.
'Known what?'
'You mean he hasn't told you?'
'It's okay, I quit,' Byron said quietly. 'I can't do this any more.'
'What's going on?' Isabel demanded.
Byron reached for his keys, but Matt was too quick for him. 'Isabel - you know I've always looked out for you? Right?'
'Er, yes,' she said, cautiously.
'I would have told you before, but I wanted to give Byron a chance. But I don't feel it's fair for you to be the only one not to know the truth, especially as you seem to be spending time alone with him. Are you happy at the thought of a convict sitting down for breakfast with your little family or out in the woods alone with your son?'
He saw the flicker of doubt pass over her face. He always knew how to strike at someone's weak point.
'You didn't know Byron's been in prison? I thought he would have told you during one of your cosy little outings. What did you serve in the end, Byron? Nearly eighteen months, was it, for GBH? I seem to remember you did that bloke a fair bit of damage. Put him in a wheelchair, right?'
She didn't ask if it was true. She didn't have to: it was written all over Byron's face. Matt registered the sudden loss of trust, the instant re-evaluation of him, and felt the exultation of victory. 'I thought you'd have told Mrs Delancey . . .'
'It's all right,' Byron said. 'I'm going.' As he picked up his keys, he didn't look at Isabel. His face seemed cast in stone.
'Yes, off you go. And stay away from this house.' There was triumph in Matt's voice. He turned to Isabel in the empty room. Somewhere below them, the front door closed.
'There,' he said, as if that decided something.
Isabel looked at him as if clouds were falling from her eyes. 'It's not your house,' she said.
Eighteen
It was all pretty simple when you thought about it. A near-perfect solution. Matt placed the new pane carefully in its frame and started to work the putty with his thumb and fingers until it was warm and malleable. He pressed it carefully down the side of the glass with a precision born of long practice, the putty smooth, its edge clearly defined. The light bounced off the glass, and the woods were alive with the birds and other creatures. Sometimes you got so close to something you couldn't see the wood for the trees. He couldn't help smiling at his own joke.
While the putty was drying, Matt adjusted his tool-belt and took the specially moulded wood to the other window. This was going to be the most beautiful room he had ever built. He had never put so much of himself into anything. It was dual aspect, so that when they woke, their first view would be of the lake, mist rising from it in the early morning, birds taking flight across the trees. He had ordered the cornicing and plasterwork mouldings from a specialist Italian company, then cut and shaped each piece so that it fitted together like an intricate three-dimensional jigsaw. He had plastered the ceiling so expertly that there wasn't so much as a fingermark on its surface. It had been almost worth bringing the original ceiling down for the pleasure of creating something so beautiful for her. He had relaid the floor, board by board, so that her bare feet would never need to feel an uneven surface. He pictured her, pulling that red silk robe round her as she slid out of their huge, rumpled bed. He could see her so clearly, the dawn lighting her face as she opened the curtains. She would turn to smile at him, the light outlining her body through the silk.
Why hadn't he worked it out sooner? It had solved everything. He would move in with her and continue the work he had started. She wouldn't have to pay for any of it, once they were together. Her money worries would be over. It was plain she couldn't cope by herself. Since he had begun here, she had deferred to his judgement, been reassured by him. The house would be theirs. He would be master of his dream home. Possessor of Isabel Delancey. Laura would be fine in the coach house, with her coffee mornings and complaints. She was as fed up as he was. It was astonishing - he barely thought about her now. It was as if she had become an irrelevance. Isabel had pushed everything else away. She was everything. Everything he had ever worked for, everything he had been told he couldn't have. Everything he had had to leave when his father was cast out of this estate. Sometimes he found it hard to work out where she ended and the house began.
With renewed purpose, Matt tapped in the piece of moulding, moving to some new internal rhythm. It was possible he could have cut part of it away, saved the main bit, but he had learned long ago that sometimes the only way was to cut out the dead wood entirely.
Byron woke to the sound of banging and registered brightness sliding under the door. It took him a second or two to grasp the significance of this, and then he checked his watch. It was half past seven. Matt was already at work.
Beside him, the dogs sat silent and expectant, their eyes trained on him. He pushed himself upright, rubbing at his face, his hair. Outside, the birdsong had lost the boisterous enthusiasm of the dawn chorus and mellowed.
'You could have told me,' he murmured to Meg and Elsie. 'How the hell are we meant to get out now?'
He had barely slept, walking the woods until almost midnight and then, when he returned to the boiler room, lying awake for hours as he tried to work out what to do next. He thought of ringing Jan, but he had seen how things were for them in that little cottage and didn't feel he could intrude. He still didn't have enough money for the deposit on the farm cottage. He had wondered whether he had been too hasty in quitting the job, but he couldn't have continued to go along with that man's deception. He couldn't have guaranteed that under Matt's constant taunts he wouldn't eventually have behaved in a way he would regret.
He thought again of Isabel's face as his past had been revealed to her. Her surprise, followed by uncertainty. But he seemed so nice, so ordinary. Byron had seen it many times before.
'Christ.' He scrambled into the corner as the door opened, then closed behind Thierry and the puppy, which ran to Byron and leaped on to him.
'Ssh - ssh!' He was trying desperately to stop it yapping.
When he looked up again, Thierry was balancing on one leg. Byron pushed himself half upright. 'Jesus, Thierry. You gave me . . . How did you know I was here?'
Thierry nodded at Pepper, the puppy, who was sniffing at its mother.
'Did - did you tell anyone?' He got out of his sleeping-bag, peering behind the boy to the door.
Thierry shook his head.
'Christ. I thought it was . . .' He ran a palm over his face, trying to steady his breathing. Thierry appeared oblivious to the fright he had caused. He knelt down with the dogs now, hugging them, letting them lick his face.
'I - I was sleeping here for a couple of nights until my new place is ready. Please don't say anything, okay? It might . . . look odd.'
He wasn't sure that Thierry had heard him. 'I didn't want to leave Meg and Elsie. You understand that, don't you?'
Thierry nodded. A moment later, he reached into the neck of his shirt and brought out a small square parcel, wrapped in a white napkin, which he handed to Byron. Byron opened it and f
ound two pieces of lukewarm toast made into a sandwich. Then Thierry pulled a squashed carton of juice out of his pocket and handed that over too. Then he knelt down again with the dogs to tickle Meg's belly.
Byron hadn't eaten since lunchtime yesterday. He bit into the sandwich, which was filled with jam and butter. Then he laid a hand on the boy's shoulder, moved by the unexpected act of kindness. 'Thanks,' he said, and the boy grinned. 'Thanks, T.'
'Why aren't you here yet? You said you'd be with me at three.' Kitty was lying on a blanket by the edge of the lake, listening to the crickets and staring into the infinite blue above her. Occasionally a bumblebee would hum past her ear, but she didn't flinch even when one landed on her T-shirt. It was too hot to move. Besides, she was trying to get a sun tan. She had read in a magazine that your legs looked better brown. In London their tiny garden had faced north and never got any sun.
'My mum's being really weird,' Anthony said.
She chewed a blade of grass. 'They're all weird. It's their job.'
'No. She's . . . I think there's something weird going on between our folks.'
Kitty dropped the grass and waited, listening to her mother hammering at skirting-boards downstairs. The noise echoed across the water, splintering the peace of the lake. She thought she had probably preferred it when her mother had played music. 'Weird in what way?' she asked.
He sounded uncomfortable. 'Don't say anything, okay? But I think my dad's been overcharging your mum.'
'Overcharging?' She squinted at a cloud, pulling at a strand of her hair. 'He's a builder, Ant. I thought that came with the territory.'
'No, I mean by a lot. Serious amounts.'
Anthony lowered his voice. 'I went into the office this morning and my mum was there, going through all the receipts to do with your house. She looked really odd . . .'
'Are you and Dad still not talking?'
'We don't seem to have much to talk about at the moment,' she had replied calmly. She glanced at the copy invoices, all of which were made out to Mrs Isabel Delancey.' She had picked one up. 'It seems your father and I have very different ideas about the right way to treat people.'
'What do you mean, Mum?'
She looked up, and it was as if she had only just seen him. 'Nothing, darling. Just talking to myself.' She stood up, brushed down her trousers, fixed on that bright smile. 'Tell you what, I'm going to make some iced tea. Would you like some?'
Anthony's voice was low and hurried. 'I think she's worked out Dad's been overcharging. She's quite old-fashioned, my mum. She wouldn't like that kind of thing. When she went downstairs, I had a look at a couple of the invoices. That hot-water tank - I'm pretty sure he charged your mum twice what it cost him.'
'Wouldn't that be the labour cost, though?' Her mother was always going on about that. 'I mean, my mum doesn't seem to think there's much wrong. She says it's costing a fortune, but when you look at what he's done . . .'
'You don't understand.'
'The house is falling apart.'
Anthony was impatient now. 'Look, Kitty, my dad's an arsehole. He does what he wants and he doesn't care. He wanted your house for years, and I reckon that's why he's been overcharging your mum. To try to force her out.'
Kitty sat up. She drew her knees to her chin. She felt suddenly cold, despite the balmy air. 'He wanted our house?'
'Before you came, yes. Him and Mum. Once you'd moved in I thought they'd got over it. It's just a house, right?'
'Right,' said Kitty, uncertainly.
'Besides, I don't usually pay much attention to what my dad does. You learn to keep your head down in this family. But there was that invoice, and Mum, and I don't think the work he's doing is right. And I overheard some weird stuff Asad was saying to him the other day.'
'Asad?'
It was as if he guessed he'd said too much. 'Look - don't say anything to your mum. Not yet. I reckon mine might get him to pay some of it back, put it right. He owes her at the moment--' She heard him call a muffled response. 'I've got to go. Listen - do you want to meet me at the pub later on? They're doing an outdoor barbecue tonight and anyone can go.' He added, 'My treat.'
The water was opaque at the edges, a sludgy film leaching on to the shore. 'Okay,' she said.
Isabel was kneeling on the floor, daubing the boards in the hallway with pungent pale grey paint. 'Don't come too close,' she said, as Kitty ran up the steps from the kitchen. 'I haven't accounted for footprints.' She sat up and surveyed what she had done. There was a spot of grey paint on her cheekbone, and her white shirt hung limply from her shoulders. 'What do you think?' she said.
'It's nice,' Kitty told her.
'I wouldn't have painted them, but they were such a horrible mismatch of colours, and so grimy. I thought this would brighten things up a bit.'
'I'm going out,' Kitty said. 'There's a barbecue at the pub and I'm meeting Anthony.'
'That's nice, lovey. Have you seen Thierry?'
'He was in with the chickens.' He had been talking to them, telling off the larger ones for bullying, but when he had seen her he had shut up.
'I'll be stuck here for a while yet,' Isabel said. 'I need this side to dry before I start on the other. Do you think paint dries faster in the heat?'
They heard footsteps on the stairs and Matt appeared, his tool-belt round his waist and his T-shirt sticking to his upper body. He halted at the bottom. 'I'm done. I thought we might go for a drink if-- He started when he saw Kitty, then recovered himself. 'If either of you ladies fancied it.'
'No, thanks,' said Isabel. 'I have a few things to do. Is the bathroom working now?'
'I've been doing the master bedroom. You should take a look.'
Her mother looked up at him. 'But I asked you to do the bathroom. We need a bathroom, Matt. We agreed you would focus on that.'
'I'll do it tomorrow,' he said. 'You should take a look at that bedroom.' It was as if he'd not heard her. 'You'll love it. It's beautiful. Go on - go and take a look.'
Kitty watched her mother's jaw tighten. She wanted to say something, but she had told Anthony she wouldn't. 'I'm so sick of that tin bath,' she said instead. 'Shouldn't be that hard to plumb in a bathroom.'
Matt didn't seem to notice. 'You'd never know that ceiling had come down. In fact, I'd say the cornicing in that room is better than when it was originally built. Go on - I want you to see it.'
Her mother sighed and pushed a sweaty strand of hair off her face. She was obviously struggling to contain her frustration. 'Matt, could you go past so that I can finish painting this floor? Kitty darling, I want you home before it gets dark.'
'Okay,' Kitty said, staring at Matt.
'Anthony will walk back with you, will he?'
'Yes.'
'You going to the barbecue, are you? Do you want a lift to the road?' said Matt.
'No.' She glared at him, then added, under her mother's pointed stare, 'Thank you.'
'Suit yourself,' he said. 'You sure I can't tempt you, Isabel?'
Kitty waited until Matt's brake-lights had disappeared, then walked briskly through the woods to the road, the shade offering welcome respite from the heat, which even in the early evening hung low and sticky over the valley. She no longer saw imaginary spooks behind trees, or mad axemen in the distance. She knew now the real threat lay far closer to home. She thought of Matt, his jokes and chat, his bags of croissants, the way he had pretended to be their friend. How they had all pretended to be their friends. How many people had known what he was doing?
When she came out of the woods, her head was spinning. She had promised to meet Anthony at six, but the light was on in the shop and she could see people inside. At the last minute, Kitty Delancey changed direction.
'So he says, "How dare you?"' said Henry, trying to keep a straight face. '"My name is Hucker. Rudolph Hucker."' He slapped his hand on the counter and roared with laughter.
'Don't make me laugh,' gasped Asad, who was bagging up change in the till. 'I'll wheeze.'
'I
still don't get it,' said Mrs Linnet. 'Tell me again.'
'Perhaps you should have introduced him to Tansy Hyde.'
Mrs Linnet put down her cup of tea. 'What? Is she one of the Warburton Hydes?'
The door opened and Kitty came in, bringing with her a gust of warm air from outside, and a blast of music from the pub garden across the road.
'Our very favourite teenager,' said Henry. 'Oh, I'd love to be young again.'
'No, you wouldn't,' said Asad. 'You told me it was the unhappiest time of your life.'
'Then I'd love to have my teenage body back. If I'd known then how handsome and unlined I was, instead of fretting over non-existent blemishes, I'd have spent the entire time in a pair of Speedos.'
'When you get to my age,' said Mrs Linnet, 'you're just grateful if it still works.'
'You could wear your Speedos now,' said Asad. 'We could make it a regular theme. Put a sign up: "Thursday is Speedos day."'
Henry wagged a finger. 'I've never thought it classy for a shopkeeper to put his damsons on display.'
'Prunes, surely?' Asad was giggling again.
Henry struggled to keep a straight face. 'I suppose I should be grateful you didn't start with raisins.'
'Mrs Linnet, you're a bad influence,' Asad said. 'Do stop now.'
'Yes, do stop, Mrs Linnet. We have an impressionable young girl in our midst. What can I get you, Kitty? Or have you brought us some more eggs? We're nearly out of the last lot.' Henry leaned over the counter.
'How long have you known that Matt McCarthy is trying to get us out of our home?'
The shop fell silent. Henry shot a glance at Asad.
Kitty intercepted it. 'Shall I take that as "a lot longer than just now"?' she asked bitterly.
'Trying to get you out of your house?' queried Mrs Linnet.
'By overcharging us, apparently,' Kitty said matter-of-factly. 'It seems we were the last to know.'
Asad opened the counter and came into the shop. 'Sit down, Kitty,' he said. 'Let's have a cup of tea and talk.'
'No, thank you.' She folded her arms. 'I've got to meet someone. I just wanted to know how many people have been laughing at us behind our backs. Silly townies, eh, thinking they could do up that big old house?'
'It wasn't like that,' Asad said. 'I had a suspicion that something wasn't right, but I had no proof.'