скачать книгу бесплатно
Present Day
Fen caught the last train from London Paddington to Hungerford. Swindon station would have been much closer but there was a bus replacement service yet again for part of the journey and she did not relish walking through the centre of Reading at midnight for the privilege of being stuck on a coach for another hour.
She took a window seat in the first of the two carriages, only realising when a businessman in a striped shirt wheezed into the seat beside her that she was trapped. She felt a moment of panic, the old feeling of sickness in the pit of her stomach, her pulse racing. Then the man settled back onto the seat with a waft of stale sweat and a contented sigh and she almost laughed aloud. The train was packed and she was safer with this bulwark between her and the crowds.
She could feel the tide of friendship and laughter starting to wear off now, like champagne left open. Perhaps it was because she hadn’t actually had any champagne – knowing she was driving later had been her excuse but the truth was she did not trust herself after a few glasses. It was very easy to lose what small shreds of self she had left.
These days she didn’t go up to London often. She had lived there with Jake for eight years but oddly her old life felt, at the same time, both distant and dangerously near. Her old friends seemed such a long way away that even when she was sitting in the club with them it was as though they were on a far shore and she was an observer not a participant. She had tried so hard, laughed, danced, and chatted as much as she could above the pounding beat of the music. They had all known that something had changed. She had seen it in the puzzled smiles and the slight awkwardness. No one understood why they could not go back to how it had been before. No one mentioned it though, not even Kesia, who had been the person who had invited her in the first place.
‘We’ll go somewhere new,’ she had said when she had called Fen. ‘Somewhere you never went with Jake. Don’t worry,’ she had added, taking Fen’s silence for impending refusal. ‘I know you’re still a bit iffy about going out but we’ll all look after you.’
‘I know you will,’ Fen said. She had injected some warmth into her voice. ‘Thanks. You have all been fabulous.’
‘So you’ll come?’ Kesia sounded eager. ‘Please do, Fen. We miss you. Jessie’s gutted she can’t be there too but Dev is whisking her away somewhere for their anniversary.’
‘She told me,’ Fen said. Jessie was still her best friend, the one constant in a life that had changed almost out of recognition. Her schoolgirl friendship with Kesia had survived too although Kes had been abroad travelling a lot. She was back in London now and keen to meet up with everyone, hence the invitation.
‘You can’t keep hiding away,’ Kesia said now. ‘It’s been two years, Fen. Show that loser he can’t ruin your life.’
Fen appreciated the sentiment even if it was expressed somewhat insensitively. She no longer wanted to scream when people gave their opinion about her relationship with Jake. They had absolutely no idea what she had been through but she had accepted that now. She simply closed her ears to the words and accepted the clumsy kindness in the spirit it was meant.
‘Well…’ she said cautiously.
‘You’ll come!’ Kesia said instantly. ‘Fantastic!’
Of course Fen had agreed. She acknowledged now that refusal had been impossible. Kesia, Laura and the others were amongst her oldest friends and they loved her. They had all stuck together through thick and thin, through college and awful first jobs and slightly less awful second ones. There had been marriages, children, divorces, affairs, all the successes and disasters of life. They had celebrated and commiserated, fixed the problems with wine and conversation like old friends did.
Murder was different, though.
Murder was unfixable.
It had been an accident. Everyone said so, even the police. They had not pressed charges. Only she knew different.
‘Don’t leave me,’ Jake had pleaded. He had been very white. ‘I love you. Why would you walk out on me when we’ve been through so much together?’
She had withstood his emotional blackmail that final time and she had gone, as she should have done years before, changed her name back, changed her appearance, changed her job, her home, her life. Yet the old one dogged her footsteps like a nagging shadow. She understood now that no one ever escaped their past, no matter how hard or fast they ran. You took it with you; it was a part of you.
The train trundled into another station. It was stopping at every town and village between London and Newbury, or so it seemed. Fen glanced over her shoulder through habit but it was so dark outside and so brightly lit in the carriage that she could see nothing. It made her feel unpleasantly vulnerable, a sitting duck, even if there was no one out there, watching for her.
The businessman got off at Reading. Fen watched him heave himself out of the seat and take his briefcase down from the rack overhead. There were dark sweat patches under his arms. She wondered if she was stereotyping him; city worker, a banker perhaps, expense account dinners, high blood pressure. She wondered what people thought when they saw her. Normally she dressed to be invisible. Tonight she had tried to dress the way she had done in the old days, in her favourite sequin skirt and white crop top, nude heels. She had straightened her hair so that the haphazard blonde waves were tamed into a shiny fall. She had even worn make-up. It felt as though she was in disguise. She had changed her appearance so many times over the past two years that she did not really know what she looked like anymore: glasses or lenses, brunette or buttermilk blonde, heels or flats, smart or vintage, real or a total fake.
The train started to move again. She reached into her bag for the book that Laura had given her, Black Sheep by Georgette Heyer, an old favourite from their college days.
Someone sat down beside her and she glanced up.
‘Evening.’ He nodded, smiled. It felt odd, courteous but ridiculously old-fashioned to be greeted formally by a complete stranger who had randomly chosen to sit next to her on a train. She almost smiled because it was so sweet.
‘Hi.’ She looked back down at her book. Then she looked up again. She couldn’t help herself. She might be single by choice but she wasn’t immune. Thirties, dark hair falling across his brow, deep brown eyes, good-looking without being devastating… There was something about him that drew her gaze. The hard line of his cheekbones and jaw made him look uncompromising in a way that might have intimidated her had it not been for his smile, which was dangerously disarming.
He yanked his tie off as though it constricted his breathing and undid his top button, resting his head against the seat back, closing his eyes. Fen realised that she was staring.
She went back to her book. The train was picking up speed. Brief flashes of streetlights, car headlights and isolated houses punctured the darkness outside. The interior of the train was so bright in contrast that it made her head ache. The familiar words on the page blurred before her eyes.
‘Haven’t we met before?’ The man had turned towards her and opened his eyes. They were a very dark hazel rather than brown. Nice.
Fen sighed. As a pick-up line it was extremely lame.
‘No, I don’t think we have,’ she said.
‘Sorry.’ He sounded crestfallen. ‘I know it’s a cliché.’
‘Yes, it is.’ Fen could feel herself warming to him against her will. It was disconcerting. That easy smile was too charming. She felt a surprise tug of attraction and thought that at another time, in another life, she might have liked him very much.
‘I’m too old to indulge in wretchedly poor chat-up lines,’ he said. ‘I really did think that there was a connection between us though.’
‘If you say so.’ Fen buried her nose back in her book. Time passed. She realised she had not read a line, nor turned a page.
‘Is it a good book?’
She wasn’t expecting further conversation. It startled her.
‘Sorry?’
‘I asked if it was a good book.’
‘Um… it’s okay.’ She felt a little off-balance and answered at random. ‘I used to love it when I was younger. But it was written a while ago and it feels a bit dated to me now.’
He tilted his head to read the title and author. ‘Georgette Heyer,’ he said. ‘I’ve never heard of her.’
‘Wow,’ Fen said blankly. She had never met anyone who hadn’t heard of Heyer.
He laughed. ‘Thanks for making me feel illiterate,’ he said dryly.
Fen realised she had been rude. She blushed with embarrassment. Then she met his eyes, saw the amusement there, and realised that probably very little, least of all her bluntness, could dent this man’s confidence. There was a core of steel beneath that easy manner.
‘Is she famous, Georgette Heyer?’ he said. ‘Have any of her books been made into films?’
Fen made an effort. ‘Uh… no, I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘She’s dead. Maybe they did a while ago.’ She smiled despite herself. ‘Though I don’t expect you would have come across them if they had. You don’t look like a fan of Forties and Fifties costume drama.’
‘Don’t judge,’ the man said mildly. ‘You never know.’ He looked cramped in the train seat, folded in, his legs too long for a comfortable fit. She could not look at him properly without turning sideways and that felt too blatant. She did not want to give the impression that she was interested. She wanted to go back to the book for the protection it gave her, but the archaic language seemed unappealing all of a sudden.
‘You’re right, as it happens,’ he said. ‘Thrillers, action films… That’s my sort of thing. Very conventional.’
Fen never read crime or thriller novels. There was enough darkness in real life.
‘Why pick it up if you don’t enjoy it?’ the man asked.
Fen gave up, putting the book away in her bag. ‘It was a present,’ she said.
‘Birthday?’
‘No, just…’ She let the sentence fade. What had it been: an attempt to recreate the past? An apology?
‘Just a gift from a friend,’ she said. ‘We hadn’t met up for a while. A few of us had dinner together.’
‘In London?’ Like her he must know this was the last train.
‘Yes.’ She made an effort and wondered why she was bothering. ‘You?’
‘I’ve been at work.’ He closed his eyes, massaging the back of his neck. ‘Nothing exciting. I’m hoping to be made redundant.’
‘Then you’re going about it the wrong way,’ Fen said, ‘working late.’
He opened his eyes and smiled at her. Wow again. She blinked.
‘I suppose so,’ he said. ‘Hadn’t thought of that.’
‘What would you do if you were made redundant?’ Fen asked.
He thought about it for a moment. There was nothing rushed about him, nothing that wasn’t thoughtful and considered.
‘I’d go travelling,’ he said, after a moment, ‘and write about it.’
‘Nice.’
‘Nothing exotic,’ he continued. ‘Just local. It’s beautiful around here, you know?’ He waved a hand towards the blank train windows. ‘The river and the landscape, the water meadows, the hills…’
‘I’m not familiar with the countryside around here,’ Fen said. She remembered the view from the window earlier as she had travelled up; fields of honey-coloured corn in the sunlight, pale green hills, the curl of the river in the lazy haze. ‘I can see it can be beautiful,’ she said, ‘but what about all the bits in between – the railway sidings and industrial units and shopping parks?’
‘There’s always bits in between,’ he said. ‘Anyway,’ he settled his shoulders back against the seat, ‘it’s just a dream.’
There was silence again, the rattle of the train, the hum of the wheels on the line. They were slowing down into another station.
‘What about you?’ he asked.
She wanted to tell him that she didn’t want to talk about herself but it seemed too much effort. What about her? What was she now? Who was she? Fenella Brightwell, twenty-seven years old and starting her life over again…
‘I’m a writer.’ She chose a job at random, perhaps because she could still see the corner of the book sticking out of her bag. It didn’t matter what she said when she wasn’t going to see him again. Licence to lie was how she thought of it. Her past, her new beginning, gave her the right to pretend.
His eyes gleamed. She wasn’t sure whether he believed her but it didn’t matter.
‘That’s exciting. What sort of books do you write?’
‘Science fiction.’
‘Are you published?’
‘Yes.’
‘Does anyone beyond your family and friends actually buy your books?’
Fen smothered a laugh. Suddenly she was enjoying this.
‘Yes. Quite a few people.’
‘Are you a bestseller, then?’
This time she laughed aloud. ‘No, of course not.’
He raised his brows. ‘Lots of authors are.’
‘Proportionally few.’ She knew that; the world was flooded with books. Very few of them were by people anyone had heard of.
She noticed for the first time his crumpled but elegant suit and the expensive watch on his wrist. How awkward if he were a rich and successful author. He’d said something about writing about his travels. But he had also said he was hoping to be made redundant so he couldn’t be self-employed. He probably worked in IT. A lot of big companies were based in Reading. IT, or insurance or banking. Something boring. Something normal.
‘I’ll look out for your books,’ he said. ‘Do you write under your own name?’
‘No,’ Fen said. She hesitated, enough to give herself away. ‘My pen name is Julie Butler.’ Where the hell had that come from?
‘And your latest book?’ The gleam was back in his eyes. He knew she was making this up. ‘What’s that called?’
‘It’s called…’ She saw a hoarding flash past with an advertisement for moisturiser. ‘The Dove Flies Out.’
‘Intriguing.’ He smiled at her. ‘What’s it about?’
‘It’s set on a spaceship,’ Fen said. ‘A spaceship like an ark. They send the dove out when they get near a new planet, to see if it’s suitable for landing.’
‘Imaginative.’
More like imaginary, Fen thought. ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘People usually say that when they think something sounds awful.’
‘I’ll look out for it when I’m next in town.’ He stood up and for one moment she thought he was going to shake hands but he didn’t. ‘This is my stop,’ he said. ‘It was nice to meet you, Julie Butler.’
‘You too,’ Fen said. She thought of the old days, the days before Jake. She would have asked for his number, or given him hers. They might have met up and had a drink. It would have been good to see him again. There was a connection there, a spark. But perhaps she had read too much into it. She wasn’t good at relationships.
The signs for Newbury slid past the train window. She watched him stroll down the carriage to the door, waiting with the cyclists, the late shoppers and the suits, standing back to let an elderly couple get to their feet. He turned and looked at her. Her gaze met his and she felt the connection between them again like a physical jolt. He walked back to where she sat.
‘In case we meet again,’ he said, ‘or in case we don’t, my name’s Hamish. Hamish Ross.’
‘Hamish,’ she repeated. ‘Well, it was good to talk to you.’
He smiled a last smile and raised a hand, and in that minute Fen realised where she had seen him before. He had been right when he had said that he thought he knew her. It hadn’t been a line.
He was Jessie’s older brother.
She opened her mouth to tell him but it was too late. The doors hissed shut behind him. She did not see him on the platform. There weren’t many people left in the carriage now and the night air from the open windows was making her feel cold. Ten minutes to Hungerford, then she had a half hour’s drive on empty country roads and then home. Not that the flat in Swindon Old Town was home yet. It was too recent and too impersonal.
The car park was deserted. She’d deliberately parked right under one of the huge, bright lights. She walked straight over to the car looking neither left nor right, feeling the cold night air on her face and blinking in the harsh light. Her keys were already in her hand; she slid into the driver’s seat, slammed the door, locked it and took a deep steadying breath. Safe.
