Chapter 56

Lou-Lou and I are on our way to Woolley Wood. We’re on an emotional mission to leave a plaque at the site where Electra drowned. And our shared excitement about getting out into the landscape is palpable.

We’re in the Skoda because Lou-Lou’s not ready to drive on the left, and Raider is with us even though she wanted to leave him behind.

“I’m more a cat person,” she’s told me, to explain why they ignore each other.

The last couple of weeks navigating our new-found cousinhood have been awkward and uncomfortable as we’ve shared the Lympstone cottage. We’ve learned that a DNA connection doesn’t make an instant family, in spite of how much we’ve both craved a cousin all our lives. Or perhaps our craving has created unrealistic expectations of how naturally we’d slip into our roles.

For a start, I’m eight years older and Lou-Lou has never lived away from home. I’ve kept catching myself playing ‘mother’ in response to her tendency to play ‘child’. We also grew up in cultures that aren’t as similar as you’d expect and now we’re living in a country that’s new to both of us, with all the bewildering quirks of its local ways.

But today the wilds of Woolley Wood are calling us. And the plaque we’ve ordered online has been a joint effort after Helena told Lou-Lou she never got around to leaving a memorial for Electra. It was near Halloween so we’re close to the anniversary of two family deaths, one real and one contrived.

We’ve talked endlessly about the history and repercussions of that momentous date and now we’re silent in the car. I’ve chosen to avoid Barnstaple, instead taking the route north from Exeter to Tiverton then along ever-narrowing roads through rural vistas until we finally turn into Woolley Wood.

I follow the directions to the small lake where we’ll lay the stone with its plaque:

To Electra

We lost you before we had the chance to know you.

The Two of Us

Hearing Electra’s interview with the bully journalist has created a longing in me for the cousin I’ll never know. A cousin more like me. But that’s not fair to the more challenging cousin beside me.

We get out of the car and the beauty of the still water, layered with fallen leaves and circled by almost-bare trees, embraces us.

“This is where they faked my grave,” Lou-Lou says, looking around the wide stretches of grass. “Is that why she came here to die?”

I won’t tell her about the interview. “They’re not sure if she drowned by accident or suicide. But I’ve heard she blamed herself for your fall from the balcony. And she was confused by the whole abduction and murder story because it didn’t match what she knew was true. The family never talked about what happened so it could have eaten away at her from the inside.”

“My mum died. Electra died. All because I was so precious, my father and step-mother had to abduct me. Then I grew up into someone they didn’t like.”

“Is that what they told you?” I ask. “How do you feel about that now?”

“Angry. I’d seen things in Dad’s desk and found more things in Helena’s filing cabinet. I knew something wasn’t right about Alex and me. That’s why the woman in the park heard us arguing.”

“The police thought that was me because I went to meet you at Number 24. Then you cancelled and on my way out I saw the secret door. I touched the wall and they found my fingerprints there.”

“I didn’t know that,” she says. “Helena told me Paul found the secret doors and kept going in and out when he was working for her. He stole things from Dad, her too. That’s why she knew he’d take the knife.”

“He must have thought he could just walk in while Ambrose was away. Why did your father come back from France so soon after leaving?”

“I thought he’d come back to tell me the truth. But he’d decided to tell me about his will. He said he’d left the house to me as his only daughter but he could always change it if I didn’t want to behave like his daughter and stop causing trouble for him and Clemence.”

“A threat to disinherit you.”

“I was in such a rage, I had to run next door to Helena’s house.”

Is that when she sent me the text message? The house was silent when I was there and I can’t work out the chronology. But it doesn’t matter now. It’s time to focus on our mission.

We walk along the path beside the lake and find a large stone covered in moss. Together we put our stone under its overhang. A quiet secret place to leave our message. We stand there for several minutes with our private thoughts.

Then we part company for a while, me to run with Raider and Lou-Lou to be alone in this momentous place.

Hayden tracks down Alex Loxton’s birth certificate. Her mother’s name is listed: Simone Hart.

“Simone is such a pretty name,” Lou-Lou says, getting tearful at the relief of knowing at last.

She could change her name back to Alex Loxton by deed poll, then still inherit Number 24 from her father as Louise Gagner. Hayden says it’s not illegal to have more than one name, unless you use them for illegal purposes.

But my cousin has other ideas.

“I don’t want to be Louise or Lou-Lou anymore,” she tells me. “Or Alex or Alexandra. Not after everything they did to my two identities. I’m going to be Lexxie Hart from now on. Hayden will arrange the deed poll. What do you think, Tiggy?”

I give her a hug. “Welcome to your new life, Lexxie Hart.”

It also preserves Helena’s reputation because Alex Loxton remains ‘dead’ to the public and his sudden resurrection and sex change won’t catch the attention of the press. I wonder if Lexxie realises how generous this is to Helena after her actions turned Lexxie’s life upside down.

“And another good thing about changing it,” she says. “Clemence Gagner will have trouble finding me.”

The newly minted Lexxie Hart travels to Australia and meets Simone Hart’s family. She has a lot more cousins there and one of them offers her a job at his resort in the Australian Alps. She decides to stay.

“Do you mind, Tiggy?” she says during a rare call. “It means we’ll be distant cousins.”

I say the right thing. “You need to be happy with your real family. And after what’s happened, the Loxton’s weren’t going to do that for you. I can visit you when I’m down under.”

But I won’t. And we both know it. Because I’m sure she knows I’ve guessed.

It’s been with me since I saw the look on her face after Tim told us Helena planned the hostage situation. The same look she used when she changed her story at the police station. Guarded.

Thinking about it afterwards, I wondered why Helena would share her plan to catch Paul with Lou-Lou, and then ignore her when she was released. This was her niece who had lost her parent. Just like Electra.

Maybe Lou-Lou lied to me about their relationship to get support from someone she hardly knew. But she kept lying.

And then there’s what she said about Paul when we were in Woolley Wood. A slip of the tongue. When I repeated it afterwards, I was sure. ‘He stole things from Dad, her too. That’s why Helena knew he’d take the knife.’

She didn’t want me to know the deal they made when she was in custody. I think Helena told her the whole truth about her origins in exchange for knowing the hostage plan and dropping all contact with me. Tremayne had warned Helena that I was digging deep. And they couldn’t be sure I wouldn’t take any evidence straight to the police.

Then when we started unravelling it all as cousins, Lou-Lou played along pretending she didn’t know the truth.

Why not tell me even then?

The reason is a strong one. It lies in Helena’s character and her track record of protecting her family.

Twenty years ago, she used her forensic wizardry to help Ambrose kidnap Alex by faking her death. But this led to three deaths: Alex’s mother, Electra and Ambrose. Now, confronted with her own culpability, Helena came up with one last forensic scam, disguised as solving another: take a thief hostage and alert police to the stained knife he stole.

An elaborate scheme to save Lou-Lou, now Lexxie, from going down for her father’s murder.