Minster Lovell, Present Day
Serena woke whilst it was still dark, the sound of a discordant peal of bells in her ears. She lay for a moment half-asleep, half-awake, pulled from a dream. Her mind, dazed by travel, stress and jet lag, took a few moments to catch up. She knew she was back in England and for one crazy second, she thought she was in her flat in Bristol, and that Jonah was in the bed beside her, his presence a constant and a comfort. Then she realised that this wasn’t her flat, and remembered that Jonah was long gone and their past together had been tidied away along with all the other emotional detritus she’d swept under the carpet, and that she was in Oxfordshire, at the Minster Lovell Inn. It felt unfamiliar and odd: the vast acreage of the four-poster bed spread around her, the old cotton sheets smooth and cool. Though the room was pitch-black she could hear the sounds of the ancient building settling around her, the creak of a floorboard and the sighing of the old beams. She felt anxiety skitter down her spine, wondering once again whether she had done the right thing in coming back here.
Curling up on her side, Serena thought that in some ways it was actually pleasant to have some peace. She’d spent the previous three days staying with her parents in Gloucestershire. It had been an excruciatingly difficult time. Her mother, never particularly resilient, had crumbled completely when confronted with the proof that Caitlin was dead. Her father was not resourceful in a crisis either. He meant well but that phrase in itself damned any pretence that he was capable of holding things together. It had been Serena who had spoken to the police, who were still in the earliest stages of the investigation and very reticent in disclosing any details. All they would say was that Caitlin’s body had been found not far from where she had disappeared at Minster Lovell, it was currently unclear how long ago she had died, and that they would like to discuss the case in more detail with all members of her family in due course. It all felt very cold and procedural.
Serena had kept Polly updated on progress each day and had rung her the previous afternoon before she’d left Gloucestershire. Their calls had been a lifeline, she thought, the only thing keeping her sane and grounded.
‘I’m going to Oxford to talk to the police tomorrow,’ she had told her aunt, visualising the early morning sunshine pouring into Polly’s penthouse as they spoke. ‘They want to give us the latest news on the investigation and also to go through the events of the original enquiry into Caitlin’s disappearance.’ She’d glanced towards the door of the sitting room, which was ajar, her parents pretending to watch a news programme whilst eavesdropping on her conversation. ‘We all agreed that it was probably best I handle that.’
‘You mean Jackie and Paul can’t cope with it,’ Polly had said bluntly. ‘I’m sorry, hon. This must be so hard for you.’
‘They’re both in shock,’ Serena had said, defending her parents, as she always did. ‘It’s unbelievably tough for them to face this after so many years of hoping for a miracle. They will have to be interviewed at some point but they just need a bit more time to come to terms with it all. Besides, I was there the night that Caitlin vanished. It might help jog my memory to talk it through again.’ She took a deep breath. ‘So I thought I’d stay in Minster Lovell for a few days whilst I talk to the police. I’m heading over there this evening.’
‘What?’ Polly’s incredulity came through loud and clear. ‘Is that really a good idea?’
Serena laughed. ‘You obviously don’t think so! Look, Aunt Pol, I do understand your concerns and I appreciate them.’ Her voice warmed. ‘I know you’re trying to look out for me. But if I’m going to go raking over the events of Caitlin’s disappearance, and let’s face it, I don’t have much choice as the police want to discuss it, I might as well do it properly.’ She dropped her voice further, aware that her mother’s ears were practically out on stalks. ‘I’ve thought for a while that if I went back now, as an adult, it might prompt me to remember what happened that night. The only reason I haven’t done it before was because I was scared. Too scared to face up to it.’
Polly gave a gusty sigh. ‘You’d moved on and now this has dragged you back.’
‘I hadn’t really,’ Serena said honestly. ‘I might have moved on in my life but in my head Caitlin’s disappearance is somewhere I just don’t go and that has affected everything – my relationships, my sense of who I am… It’s like a shadow over me all the time. It feels as though a part of my life is… not missing, but unfinished, somehow, and I owe it to myself as well as Caitlin to try one last time to recover those memories.’
‘OK,’ Polly said cautiously, ‘but do you really need to stay there? I mean, it’s only an hour and a half from where you live. Surely you could stay in Bristol and just go over if you feel the need to tramp around the manor and the ruins?’ Her tone suggested that she thought this was a particularly bad idea.
‘I thought of that,’ Serena said, ‘but I want to be as close to the manor as possible. There’s something about being on the spot where it all happened… I think it might help me.’
There was a long silence at the other end of the phone. ‘Well, you’ve clearly made up your mind,’ Polly said, ‘so I won’t waste my breath. Where will you be staying?’
‘There’s a few nice places,’ Serena said, ‘but the Minster Inn is closest to the manor and the ruins of the Old Hall.’
‘You’re really going for this, huh?’ Polly sighed again. ‘Then all I can do is wish you luck. Make sure you ring me every day, OK? And if anything happens – if you start recovering your lost memories – get the hell out of there and call a therapist. This feels dangerous to me.’
‘I will,’ Serena promised. She had had plenty of therapy eleven years before and it had helped hugely with the shock and the grief of Caitlin’s loss, but nothing had stirred the lost memories. She wasn’t sure that anything ever would now, not so long after the event. Yet she owed it to herself, and her sister, to try.
Sleep had gone for good now. Her mind was too active. Serena yawned, fumbling for her phone on the nightstand to check the time. The bright light from the screen made her squint and showed that it was ten minutes past six. The glow from the phone cast the rest of the bedroom in shades of light and dark, outlining the bulk of the huge wooden wardrobe, an armchair, and the table that held various well-thumbed old copies of local magazines describing the glories of the Cotswolds. The table also held a rickety lamp and a more efficient-looking torch. When she had arrived at the Minster Inn the previous night, Serena had discovered that the torch came as standard.
‘There’s no street lighting and we get power cuts sometimes,’ Eve, the landlady, had said cheerfully. ‘There’s a hot-water bottle and an extra blanket in the wardrobe if you need them. After all, it is only March.’
Serena could hear the ancient plumbing cranking itself into action as she flicked off the phone and lay back in the big double bed. Six fifteen on a chilly March morning. She started to run through the plan of the day in her head. She had an appointment in Oxford at twelve thirty with Inspector Litton of the Thames Valley CID and after that she planned to visit her grandfather at his care home in Witney. Until then, her time was her own.
Time to think, time to explore, time to remember.
Serena lay for a moment staring up at the faded canopy of the four-poster bed. Even if Polly had not been happy with her decision to stay at Minster Lovell – and neither had her parents – she knew that she was right to follow her instinct. They wanted to protect her and she understood that. They had been trying to do that ever since that July night. But she was an adult and had to make her own decisions and live her own life. When Caitlin vanished, her whole existence had shattered. She had only been seventeen and the machinery of investigation had swept her up and caused her to feel even more isolated and grief-stricken. It was hardly surprising that once the police enquiries had finished, she had never wanted to talk about Caitlin again. The problem was that it was not so easy. Her twin could not simply be ignored or forgotten. Caitlin’s bright spirit shadowed her wherever she went and whatever she did.
Serena sat up and slipped out of the bed, her feet sinking into the thick bedside rug. She padded barefoot to the window. Last night she had arrived in twilight, eaten scampi in a basket and gone to bed with indigestion. This morning, before she headed into Oxford, she would explore the village and the ruins of the hall for the first time in over a decade.
A little shiver tickled down her spine. She pulled back the heavy velvet curtain and peered outside. It was just starting to get light, a tiny sliver of gold on the eastern horizon breaking through a bank of pewter cloud. Night still clung close, however, and in its shadows the ruins of the old Minster Lovell Hall looked unfriendly. When she had been a child, Serena had loved the romantic tumbled towers and moss-covered walls in the meadows beside the pretty little River Windrush. She and Caitlin had stayed as often as they could with their grandparents, in the old Manor House that had been built within the ruins of the medieval hall.
Minster Lovell had seemed an impossibly magical place in those days, atmospheric and steeped in history. It had inspired Serena to study for a history degree at university and when Caitlin had disappeared, she had thrown herself into the past as a way to escape the intolerable nature of the present. A series of jobs in the heritage industry had followed before she and Ella had struck out on their own with the bespoke tour company. Now, though, as she looked at the place that had shaped so much of her life, the lowering bulk of the ruined hall in the morning light seemed threatening rather than inspiring. The shadows of the past pressed near. Caitlin’s body had been found somewhere close to here. She felt a shudder rack her.
Deliberately she remained standing by the window, her gaze fixed on the ruins, until she felt the flutter of fear that was inside her subside. The past could not hurt her now. It was over. And she couldn’t afford to be scared if she wanted to remember.
She allowed the curtain to fall back across the window and climbed into the nest of sheets, blanket and eiderdown, drawing her knees up to her chin and hugging them close. The jet lag that had added another layer of stress to her return home had eased slightly over the past three days but she still felt simultaneously exhausted and wide awake, her head aching with tension. With a sigh she lay down again and fell into the sort of light doze that only seemed to make her feel more sluggish when she woke up again two hours later.
A shower helped her and she went down for breakfast. There was a scent of bacon fat and stale beer in the air, the staple background of the country pub. Piped music played, too faintly for Serena to identify the song. She had a day-old copy of the Guardian to read but Eve, the landlady, seemed keen to chat.
‘I heard the church bells chime last night,’ Serena mentioned when Eve brought her the plate of bacon, eggs, sausage, toast and all the other elements that made up the Minster Inn’s full English breakfast. She was the only occupant of the breakfast room and wondered if she was the only guest. She’d never been in the pub before; at seventeen she and Caitlin had been underage although she suspected that Caitlin, who had been going out with the barman, had slipped in now and then for a drink.
‘There haven’t been any church bells since 2012,’ Eve said briskly. She was about fifty, small, with short dark hair and dark eyes, neat and quick of movement, efficient as she unstacked Serena’s breakfast from her tray. ‘They were banned for being too noisy. Some of the villagers didn’t like them.’ Her sharp gaze appraised Serena thoughtfully. ‘You must have imagined hearing them. Either that or you’re fey. They say that only those who are haunted can hear the ringing of the church bells.’
Only those who are haunted… Serena repressed a shiver. It was an odd turn of phrase and she didn’t like it. If anyone in Minster Lovell was haunted, she definitely was. She remembered again that Caitlin’s body had been discovered somewhere nearby and pushed the thought away almost violently.
‘I probably dreamed it,’ she said, deliberately light. ‘I’ve still got jet lag.’
‘Lucky you.’ Eve’s eyes sparkled. ‘Have you been away on holiday?’
‘California,’ Serena said, ‘just visiting family.’
‘And now you’re here…’ Eve paused, inviting more conversation. Evidently, she thought a bit of personal information on her guests was fair exchange for the cooked breakfast.
‘My grandfather lives near here,’ Serena said. ‘I’m calling in to see him later.’
‘Are you from hereabouts, then?’ Eve put her hands on her hips. ‘I don’t recognise you and I’ve lived here for ever. Been behind this bar for years.’
‘My grandparents owned the manor before it was sold to the Heritage Trust,’ Serena said. She didn’t recognise Eve either. ‘They lived here for about twenty years and my sister and I used to come and stay for our holidays. It was a while ago.’ She smiled at Eve, deciding to change the subject. ‘I don’t remember the pub looking as good as this, though. I only ever saw the outside. You’ve made it really nice. It’s a classic country pub, very charming.’
It was certainly the case that Eve had gone to town on the whole traditional old English image. There were horse brasses tacked on to the beams, a post horn and a chamber pot nestling together rather incongruously on the window sill, whilst through into the bar Serena could see a motley collection of china toby jugs, a pair of duelling pistols, antique candleholders and a rather tarnished sword hanging on the wall.
Eve gave a snort of laughter. ‘It’s falling apart really but it’s been in my family for years and I feel I sort of owe it to them to keep it going. The place is a money pit, though, and with so many people doing private rentals these days, times are tough for pubs like this. Still,’ her tone softened, ‘there’s always the food service. That does well. And I’m glad you like it here.’
She bustled away with the tray, leaving Serena with her coffee; good, strong cafetière-brewed coffee she wanted to drink slowly. She picked up the paper but didn’t start to read; instead she gazed out of the diamond-paned window and thought about the holidays that she and Caitlin had spent with their grandparents at the manor. The best times had been Christmas and February half-terms, when there had been frost on the rushes down by the river. She could remember the crunch of it beneath the soles of her boots and later, the pleasure of thawing out in front of the huge roaring fire in the parlour, having crumpets and hot milk. In the autumn there had been tumbling leaves and pale blue windswept skies, and in the summer, they had swum in the river and played hide and seek amongst the fallen stones of the ruined hall.
In those days Minster Lovell had been enchanted. Now it was spring – a damp and chill spring – yet to burst into new life. A placed haunted by Caitlin’s death.
A series of cars crawled past the window, taking the twisting road over the little stone bridge in a queue. A minibus drew up outside and disgorged a group of teenagers with huge rucksacks. They looked miserable.
‘Duke of Edinburgh Awards.’ Eve had reappeared. ‘Poor little sods. Or perhaps they’re helping out at the archaeological dig at the church. Either way, I’m sure they’d rather be inside on their games consoles.’ She tilted her head at Serena. ‘I forgot to ask, did you sleep OK, apart from hearing the bells?’
‘Yes, thanks,’ Serena said. ‘It was very cosy.’
‘I didn’t put you in the haunted bedroom, just in case.’ Eve looked wistful, as though she would prefer to terrify her guests so that there was a good story to tell in the morning.
‘Thanks,’ Serena said. ‘I appreciate that. I imagine the place is stiff with ghosts.’
Eve sat down edgeways on the chair opposite, perching in a rather determined fashion. Serena put the newspaper down and poured herself another cup of coffee. She already knew most of the local legends from her childhood, though she suspected she was about to hear them all again. She and Caitlin had scared each other sleepless telling ghost stories on dark nights in the creaky old manor.
‘The pub’s ancient,’ Eve said, ‘although we only have the one ghost here in the building. But the village’ – she made a gesture that implied Minster Lovell was the paranormal centre of the universe – ‘well, there’s a lot of supernatural activity around here. The place attracts dark energies.’
‘Does it?’ Serena said, noncommittal. She wasn’t a great believer in the supernatural. The family had been targeted by plenty of people who had claimed they had special powers to find or communicate with Caitlin’s spirit; Serena had been so repelled by this that she had shied away from anything remotely paranormal ever since. Eve, however, was not deterred.
‘Yes! There’s a ghost of a knight on horseback, who challenges people to race him to the bridge, and a grey lady, and a monk who wanders the ruins of the Old Hall and another ghostly lady – this one’s green – and a ghost dog.’
‘I love dogs,’ Serena said. ‘I wouldn’t mind seeing a ghostly one. What sort of breed is it?’
‘No one’s asked that before,’ Eve said. She sounded annoyed that she didn’t know the answer. ‘It’s some sort of hound, I think, long and lean rather than big and shaggy. It belonged to Lord Lovell, the guy who disappeared during the Wars of the Roses.’
A bell rang, away down the passage. Eve jumped up. ‘That’ll be Ross come to change the barrels over. Don’t rush to finish up here,’ she added.
The guy who disappeared during the Wars of the Roses…
The words struck a discordant note with Serena, reminding her again of Caitlin. It was a curious coincidence that this was a place where more than one person had vanished over the years. She remembered her grandfather telling her about Francis Lovell, who had owned the Old Hall in the fifteenth century. He had been the closest friend of King Richard III and he had disappeared after the Battle of Stoke in 1487. Serena smiled as she drained her coffee cup. Her grandfather had always said she got her love of history from him and certainly she had been obsessed with Francis Lovell’s story when she had been in her early teens. She had been obsessed with Richard III for that matter; he had been one of her first historical crushes along with King Arthur, Robin Hood and Anne Boleyn.
But Francis Lovell had been special, not least because she and Caitlin had been friends with a boy called Jack Lovell who had lived in the village. Serena had often wondered secretly whether Jack was Francis’ descendent but she had never asked because she hadn’t wanted to appear uncool. She had cherished a number of adolescent dreams about Jack, maybe because she was so obsessed with Francis and had somehow conflated the two of them. It was a little embarrassing to remember it now, as teenage crushes so often were years later, but it had been very intense and real at the time. Even now she could remember that the infatuation she had had with Jack had felt so real it had been physically painful.
Serena turned the empty coffee cup around in her hands, feeling a surprisingly strong pang of loss. It was just nostalgia for the golden days before Caitlin’s disappearance, of course, but she regretted now the way that she had dropped Jack so ruthlessly along with all her other friends at Minster Lovell, in the aftermath of losing her sister. She hadn’t been able to begin to deal with her own emotions in that devastating time, let alone cope with anyone else’s, but looking back it felt harsh.
She set down the coffee cup and got to her feet, dusting the toast crumbs off her jeans. She wasn’t sure she would ever be hungry again after that breakfast. In a funny sort of way, it felt as though it had helped fortify her for what was ahead of her. The day was certainly going to be a challenging and stressful one.
The pale sun was gilding the ruins of the Old Hall now, softening the harsh grey stone to shades of cream. The shadows of bare branches danced against the walls, the early morning light glinting on the river. Serena hesitated. The manor house where her grandparents had once lived was owned by the Heritage Trust now and open to the public to visit from 9.30 a.m. during the winter season. Her plan had been to take a tour that morning before heading into Oxford, but suddenly it seemed impossible to move, impossible to take that final step over the threshold of her past. Suppose she did start to remember what had happened the last time she and Caitlin had stayed there? Suppose she did not?
Fear gripped her. For a second it had a stranglehold on her throat and she could hear nothing but the thud of her heart. The minutiae of other people’s lives going on around her faded away, the distant voices of the students as they set out on their hike, Eve talking to Ross down the corridor, a clank of barrels being unloaded, a constant faint drone of traffic from the main road at the top of the hill.
‘All finished now?’ Eve, like a jack-in-a-box, popped up in the doorway, making her jump. It broke the spell. Serena rubbed the damp palms of her hands down her jeans. Everything would be fine. If she remembered any details of the night Caitlin disappeared then that would be helpful, to her and to the police. If she remembered nothing then she was no worse off than she was now.
‘Yes, thank you,’ she said. She could see that Eve had the vacuum cleaner in tow and was keen to get on. ‘I think I’ll go for a walk.’
Up in her room she pulled a padded jacket from the heavy mahogany wardrobe and slipped it on over her jeans and striped navy-and-white jumper. The wardrobe, and a massive, carved wooden chest that took up almost all of the opposite wall, gave the room a dark and oppressive feel. Serena pulled the coat close, taking some sort of comfort from its warmth. She’d paid a flying visit home to the flat to grab a few clothes on her way to Minster Lovell; her packing for her US trip hadn’t been remotely appropriate for England in March.
She fumbled her phone into her coat pocket and zipped it up, changed her trainers for hiking boots and went back downstairs. The sound of the droning vacuum cleaner reached her from the breakfast room. There was no one else about.
Serena stepped out of the pub door and into a puddle. It must have rained overnight although the ragged grey dawn had now given way to something brighter and more hopeful. The wind was chilly and made her eyes smart. She wished she had thought to bring a scarf, hat and gloves as well. She’d have to pick them up later. Her hair, long, fine and mouse brown, darker than Caitlin’s had been, was already tangling and blinding her. She brushed it away from her face impatiently and pulled up the hood of the jacket.
A horn blared and Serena took a hasty step back. The pub was right on the corner where the road narrowed to cross the medieval humpbacked bridge over the river. Standing here on the edge of the tarmac was asking to be mown down by commuters who were in too much of a hurry to appreciate either the view or the tourists, so instead she slipped around the side of the building into the car park. Her small blue hire car was the only vehicle there, tucked away in a corner beneath a sprawling ivy-clad fence, and for a moment Serena experienced an almost overwhelming urge to jump in it and simply drive away, running from the past yet again.
Instead she crossed the car park to a wooden gate that opened directly onto the water meadow and set off, not towards the village, but across the fields towards the ruined hall. The River Windrush, a small and picturesque tributary of the Thames, was narrow here, and slow, winding lazily in a series of loops amongst the dead stalks of bulrushes, bugle and ragged robin. A path cut through the grass. It was dry immediately underfoot although Serena sensed the mud below. She walked slowly, listening to the splash of the river and the quacking of the ducks beneath the bridge.
The edge of Minster Lovell Hall land was marked by a clump of tall trees: poplar and sycamore and plane. There were also some ancient oak trees garlanded with mistletoe in their high branches. Serena remembered her grandmother, who had died when they were in their early teens, warning her and Caitlin not to eat the berries because they were poisonous. Serena’s mother had thrown a fit when she had heard and suggested the mistletoe should be cut down, whereupon their grandmother had retorted that the plant had been sacred to the druids and that they had no right to destroy something that possessed mystical powers. Serena’s mother wasn’t remotely mystical but she had recognised defeat when she saw it and the mistletoe stayed. Serena felt a rush of pleasure to see that it was still here.
The poplar and oak trees encircled a large square, shallow pond overgrown with weed and grasses that Serena remembered well. In the summer holidays she and Caitlin had played here, hunting for shards of pots and the slivers of tesserae from the mosaic floors of the Roman villa that was said to be hidden beneath the pool. Now Serena could see nothing in the murky green waters. Rooks and jackdaws rose in a cacophony from the treetops as she passed. There was no path as such any more; her footsteps led her between the pond and the river and right into the ruined hall itself, all fallen stone and jagged ledges.
Serena stopped, took a deep breath, and tested her reaction. This was where she had been found on the night that Caitlin disappeared, huddled semi-conscious in the corner of the tower. Apparently when someone had touched her shoulder to rouse her, she had screamed hysterically but she remembered nothing of that. She remembered nothing at all before the moment she had come round in hospital in Oxford, asking what had happened.
She walked slowly over the grassed courtyard towards the range of buildings on the other side. These had been the kitchens and stables – there was a sign board in front of her that the Trust had installed to give visitors an image of how the now-crumbling buildings had once appeared – and to her left soared the high walls of the great hall and the chambers beyond. Serena had half-expected to feel a rush of panic by now and some recognition that something so traumatic had taken place here that her mind had blanked it out. She waited for her heartbeat to accelerate and her chest to tighten as it had done in the past when she had experienced panic attacks. Nothing happened. Both her mind and body seemed indifferent to this place, recognising nothing strange nor familiar about it.
Then she saw the manor house. It was sheltering in the western corner of the ruins, next to the church, small and square, grey, with lichened stone and a slate roof and diamond paned windows. A shaft of sunlight cut through the trees like a blade. Immediately the green of lawn and hedge lit up as though illuminated, displaying a neat box parterre and sculpted yew trees.
Home.
Serena felt the visceral pull of it, the roots that anchored her to this place and to her past. It was a shock to feel it so strongly. This she recognised. She had turned her back on the place and had run from family tragedy and the horror of Caitlin’s loss, but the ties connecting her to Minster Lovell Hall were too strong to be broken. Instead of fighting the sensation of inevitability she relaxed into it and let the sense of coming home wash through her. It felt incredibly comforting. Tears stung her eyes. She had not been expecting that at all.
The house looked very different to the way she remembered it. When she had visited in her childhood and teens, the gardens had been wild and tangled, an adventure playground of overgrown pathways and ponds and hidden sunny corners. The house too had had a more tumbledown air about it but everything looked so much better cared for now that it belonged to a heritage charity. Her grandfather had sold it about a year after Caitlin’s disappearance, when hope of her return had died and his health was fading with it. Serena’s grandmother had already died five years before that. There had been nothing to keep him there.
Ten years of renovation and conservation had wrought a huge difference. The place sparkled, beckoning the visitors in. Serena felt a pang of loss, as though the changes that had swept away the dust and decay had also brushed aside something precious – those golden sunlit hours with Caitlin, lying on the lawns reading, playing hide and seek between the trees, so many other memories… Until that last summer when both she and Caitlin had been moody teens in their different ways and for a little while it felt as though the whole structure of their twin-ship had become frighteningly fragile.
There was a small sign by the gate with an arrow pointing around to the side of the building and the words ESTATE OFFICE AND INFORMATION CENTRE printed neatly below. That, Serena assumed, was where she would find the ticket office and possibly a guide book. It would be interesting to see how Minster Heritage had interpreted the history of the site.
‘Serena? Serena Warren?’
Serena froze. For a moment she thought she had imagined the sound of her name, that it was no more than an illusion conjured by the past. Then a shadow drifted across her and she realised she was not alone.
She turned slowly back to the ruins of the hall.
A man was standing beneath an arched doorway at a right angle to her. The sunlight was behind him so that he appeared no more than a silhouette. Above him soared the remaining wall of the great hall with its huge pointed window and weathered stone tracery. He took a step towards her, out of the shadow of the door, and the light fell on his face. Immediately she recognised him. It was Jack Lovell.
Serena’s heart did a little flip but before she could start to analyse her feelings, something shifted in her mind, like brightly coloured kaleidoscope pieces breaking up, to reform in a new pattern. The scene – Jack Lovell walking towards her through the ruins – was so familiar that she was sure it must have happened before, and yet she couldn’t quite grasp it… And before she could see what the pattern was, the images had gone.
She watched as he approached her. He’d certainly changed. Gone was the lanky boy she remembered, who had always been absorbed in his books. He had grown up tall and broad-shouldered, wearing the same sort of outdoor gear she was dressed in: boots, jeans and padded jacket. He had a lean, intelligent face and when the wind ruffled his thick dark hair, he raised a hand to smooth it down again. Serena recognised the gesture and again felt that tiny skip of the heart. How odd that she had been thinking of him only that morning, and here he was.
‘Jack,’ she said. She felt dumbfounded, too surprised to pick her words. ‘My God, what are you doing here?’
Jack looked amused and immediately Serena felt as self-conscious as she had been around him eleven years before when she had had her crush on him.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I mean… How are you? It’s been such a long time…’ She could feel the colour crawling into her cheeks. Could she sound more gauche?
‘I’m very well, thank you,’ Jack said. ‘I didn’t expect to see you here either.’ He held out a hand formally to shake hers and Serena felt the warmth of his smile. She might not have kept in touch with Jack but she knew that these days he worked as an investigative journalist, specialising in high-profile cases of corruption and miscarriages of justice. This easy charm, cloaking an authoritative manner, was part of his professional armoury. She’d caught a few of his programmes on TV and he’d been very compelling on screen. She could see that the camera would love him.
She realised her hand was still in his and pulled it away hastily.
‘I come to Witney to visit my grandfather as often as I can,’ she said, a little at random. ‘He’s in a care home there. But I don’t come to Minster Lovell usually because of Caitlin – the memories, you know – it’s too hard…’ She stopped, hot and embarrassed, conscious that she was talking too much because she wanted to smooth over the awkwardness of their meeting. Why couldn’t she just shrug it off; say that it was nice to see him again and simply walk away? She’d mentioned Caitlin now but she really didn’t want to talk about her sister. Jack was as good as a stranger, not someone to confide in and her feelings about being back in Minster Lovell were too personal to share.
‘I saw in the news that Caitlin’s body had been found,’ Jack said. ‘I’m very sorry.’
‘Thank you,’ Serena said. She could feel him watching her, his dark gaze steady and rather too insightful for comfort. She didn’t want to get drawn into a discussion. ‘It’s been a difficult time,’ she said carefully.
‘I imagine it must be exceptionally hard for your whole family,’ Jack said. He shifted a little. ‘Now we’ve met up,’ he said, ‘I wonder whether you could spare me a moment? There’s something I wanted to ask—’
‘Jack!’ A woman scrambled through the ruined doorway and hurried towards them. She had a bulging rucksack and an air of preoccupation. ‘I thought we were meeting at the church,’ she said, ignoring Serena completely as she swung the rucksack off her shoulders and dumped it on the ground. It had a logo with MINSTER ARCHAEOLOGY written on it in bright blue letters. ‘Do you want to see the dig site or not?’ she went on. ‘We need to get in there before the rest of the forensics team arrive.’
Serena saw a flash of what looked like impatience in Jack’s eyes, swiftly gone. ‘Yes of course,’ he said. Then: ‘Zoe, you remember Serena Warren?’ He stressed her name slightly. ‘Serena, my sister Zoe. She was a few years younger than us so you may not have seen much of her back in the days when we all hung out together.’
‘Hi,’ Zoe said, barely looking up from fiddling with her rucksack to give Serena a quick nod. ‘I’m sorry to be blunt, Jack, but since this is – strictly speaking – a police investigation as well as an archaeological dig, and you’re not meant to be here, you don’t really have time to chat with your fans right now.’
‘Zoe,’ Jack said, and there was steel in his tone this time. ‘Serena is Caitlin Warren’s sister.’
Zoe’s mouth fell open. She straightened up slowly, her face suddenly scarlet. ‘Shit,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry. I hadn’t realised that the police had invited you to attend today. They told me they hadn’t spoken to Caitlin’s family yet about her burial site—’
Serena felt Jack shift beside her. ‘I think we’re at cross purposes,’ he started to say, but it was too late. Serena was remembering the conversation she had had back in Surrey with the local police constable, a bashful young trainee fresh from college who had turned his hat round and round in his hands whilst talking to her:
‘They located your sister’s body not far from where she disappeared in Minster Lovell, Miss Warren. I’m sorry that at present we can’t give you any further details yet about her burial…’
Serena felt coldness seep through her. Her sense of shock was visceral. She started to shake. Jack was saying something else but she cut right across him, surprised to discover that her voice was quite steady.
‘Do I have this correct?’ she said to him. ‘You’re here to see my sister’s grave, for some reason before we, her family, have been given any details about her death and burial?’
Zoe made a strangled sound. ‘It’s my fault, not Jack’s,’ she said, scrabbling the windblown dark hair away from her hot face. ‘I invited him because I knew he’d been Caitlin’s friend and there were some odd circumstances about the whole thing that I thought he might be interested in from a professional perspective—’
Serena swung around on her. ‘You make it sound as though this is some sort of amateur investigation,’ she said coldly, ‘instead of a police enquiry.’ She turned back to Jack. ‘My God, Jack,’ she said, ‘is this even legal, let alone ethical? I…’ Her voice cracked. ‘I can’t believe this.’
‘Serena,’ Jack said. ‘It’s not how it seems. I’m very sorry. Look’ – he ran a hand through his hair – ‘can we go and get a coffee and talk this through? Please let me explain.’
‘No,’ Serena said. She knew she had to get away. She could feel her self-control held on the thinnest of threads, all the tension and emotion of the past few days suddenly piling in on her. She didn’t want to break down in front of Jack or Zoe, but particularly not Jack. The contrast between his calmness and the dangerous anger she felt inside was too stark and was fed by the knowledge that everyone, it seemed, knew more about Caitlin’s death and burial than her family did.
The hurt filled her chest and she felt as though she couldn’t breathe. ‘I’d rather not talk about Caitlin,’ she said. ‘Not to you. Not now, not ever. Goodbye, Jack.’