A bee’s age dictates what job it does within the hive, whether that’s feeding the larvae, building the honeycomb, acting as an undertaker or a guard at the hive entrance, scouting locations, or foraging for pollen.
There’s something haunting about walking into a hospital. Knowing that somewhere within these walls, people are facing the worst moments of their lives. Trauma. Injuries. Pain. Surgery. Death. No wonder people don’t like hospitals.
I phoned last night, but I’m not family, and all a sympathetic nurse would tell me was that Carey was stable. Whatever that means. Maybe he’s going to be housing horses shortly?
The hospital corridors are a maze and I have to ask for directions three times before I eventually find a lift and end up on the right floor, following signs to his ward number. The same kindly nurse checks he’s awake and then sends me in.
I intend to go in full throttle. I want to yell at him for lying to me. I want to plead with him to tell me he didn’t start that fire.
What I actually do is take one look at him sitting up in the hospital bed and burst into tears. There’s an IV in the back of his hand and oxygen cannulas up his nose, and he looks small and pale, the complete opposite of strong and capable Carey.
He looks momentarily alarmed, and then his face breaks into a smile and he shifts further upright on the bed. ‘I didn’t think you’d come. Or if you did, that you’d have Gracie’s beating stick with you.’
I should have thought of that. A hospital is the right place to do it. ‘Nah, it wouldn’t be fair to beat an injured man. I’ll let you recover first, then we’ll see.’
He laughs, and I sniff and turn away to wipe my eyes and try to compose myself. I came here to get to the bottom of this, not sob all over him, but seeing him brings the terror of yesterday flooding back, and nothing seems to matter other than him being okay.
‘Hey.’ I walk across the room on unsteady legs and dump my bag on the visitor’s chair. It’s a small ward, meant for four people, but Carey is currently the only occupant, which is just as well considering my teary entrance.
I stand beside the bed and run my hand over the back of his, the one without the IV line going into it. ‘How are you?’
His fingers close around mine. ‘I’m okay. I’m pumped full of god knows what. Epinephrine, steroids, antihistamines. They’re waiting for the drugs to wear off to make sure the reaction doesn’t start again.’
‘You look better.’ I should yank my hand away. I should start shouting at him. I practised an angry conversation in my head on the way over, but all I want to do is hug him. Hold him. Prove to myself that he’s okay. That he’s not what Gracie says he is. That there’s no way I’ve fallen for an untrustworthy man again and this is all a crossed-wires misunderstanding.
‘I don’t think the bar is set very high. That decomposing frog down the well looked better than I must have yesterday.’
It makes me snort-laugh and brings up the memory of him lying on the floor yesterday and my eyes fill up again. ‘Is there any way I can hug you without hurting you?’
He smiles. ‘Probably not, but I’ll give it a go.’
There are too many wires, too many things monitoring his vitals, but he pushes himself further upright and leans forward, and I bend down and get my arms around his torso, burying my face in the back of his neck.
‘Oh my god, Kayl.’ His voice sounds thick and emotional, and his arms tighten around me so much that I’m not sure he’ll ever let go. I let one hand reach up and pull his hair back, stroking through it until his lips find my shoulder, and I kiss the back of his neck.
He’s wearing thin hospital-issue pyjamas, and he has a hospital smell of disinfectant and cleanliness, and lingering smoke from the fire, nothing like his usual gorgeous aftershave, but nothing matters except having him in my arms, okay and alive.
I can feel his breathing getting tighter, every breath still isn’t deep enough, and I force myself to pull away and disentangle my arms carefully, avoiding the wires, and his noise of disappointment makes me smile despite myself.
I step back and look him over. The rash is fading and the swelling has gone down, but he still looks puffy in places, his eyes are sunken and surrounded by dark circles, and the red volcanoes from the bee stings are throbbing lumps on his arms and neck.
The atmosphere is awkward. He knows I know, and we both know we’re avoiding the elephant in the room, and the elephant is the size of at least three whale sharks.
‘How are you feeling?’ I pull the chair nearer and perch on the edge of it, my bag digging into my back.
‘I’ve had better days, to be fair.’ He grins at the understatement. ‘Feel like I’ve had a good squashing by a steamroller that reversed back over me at least fifteen times, but grateful mainly. Glad you were there. Thank you for saving my life.’
‘I nearly got you killed. The first rule of beekeeping is never to approach a hive without a bee suit on, and I let you.’
‘You didn’t have yours on.’
‘I’m not allergic to bee stings.’
He does a nonchalant shrug. ‘That does help, yeah.’
I squeeze his hand, holding it up and resting my chin on it. ‘Why didn’t you tell me? God, Care, I wouldn’t have let you anywhere near the roof. Why tell me you’re scared of bees but not say you’re allergic to them?’
‘Because it’s a weakness. You can control a fear. You can face a fear. You can push yourself through something you’re scared of. You can’t face an allergy. You can’t fight an allergy. If people know, it’s a weakness for them to pick on and use against you.’
‘Who would use a deadly reaction to bee stings against you? And if there are people like that in your life, you need to get them out of your life sharpish.’
‘Tell me about it,’ he mutters.
‘And why did you do that yesterday? You literally could have died, do you realise that? I thought you were going to, and you can put on the macho face now, but you thought you were going to as well. I was coming to get the carpet from you. You didn’t need to put yourself in danger like that. I know you’re reckless, but flipping heck, you don’t walk into a cloud of angry, stinging bees when you know you could die from a bee sting.’
‘I wasn’t thinking about myself in that moment. I was thinking of you and the bees.’ His eyes meet mine, still bloodshot and puffy around the edges. ‘You needed help and I didn’t want to be useless in that situation.’
‘I’d rather have you useless and alive than helpful and dead!’
He doesn’t respond, and I kiss his inner wrist where I’m still holding his hand against my chin. ‘Do you remember much of yesterday?’
‘Some. Not all.’ His thumb nudges my chin up until I’m looking at him again. ‘I remember you. You’re stern when someone’s dying in front of you.’
I give his hand a gentle tap, which would’ve been a light smack if he didn’t look like a strong breeze would tip him over. ‘It’s not funny.’
‘I know that.’ He swallows hard. ‘You gave me something to hold on to. I have never wanted to live as much as when you mentioned love. Kayl, I’m falli—’
I cut him off because I can’t hear this now. ‘And why the heck haven’t you replaced your EpiPens? 2017, Carey!’
‘Because for the past few years, I haven’t cared if I lived or died.’
Tears blur my vision again and when the nurses check on him later, they’re going to wonder where all the extra bruising on his hand has come from.
‘What was the damage?’
‘Four hives destroyed. And the other two closest to the flames …’ The tears spill over and I’m crying again.
‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’ With Herculean effort, he pushes himself up far enough that he can bend over and kiss the top of my head, and then sits back, panting for breath.
‘It would have been worse if you hadn’t done what you did. So thank you, even though you are more important than the bees. No matter how important they are, they’re just bees. You are irreplaceable.’
Colour brightens his pallid cheeks. I need to ask him about the fire. I came here to confront him, but I don’t want to lose him yet. I want to sit here and appreciate him being okay and pretend he’s still who I thought he was yesterday afternoon, and remember the best kiss I’ve ever had in my life and not anything that came after it.
‘Your lady friend missed you last night.’
‘You kept our date?’ His eyes light up. ‘And yeah, that’s creepy. I’m going to stop calling her that.’
I laugh, but it’s a false titter, and he hears it just like I do.
He knows I know. If nothing else, he must realise the EpiPen was in the same bag as the bank statements. Maybe he wonders why I’m just sitting here, pretending our bubble hasn’t burst when it clearly has.
Eventually, he clonks his head back against the metal headrest. ‘Which one of us is going to bring it up first?’
He’s always been braver than me.
‘In my hazy, questionable state, I saw Gracie last night … Well, I wasn’t really seeing much, so maybe I heard Gracie, and quite frankly, the dead could hear Gracie. She must’ve told you …’
And in that one sentence, he answers all my questions. ‘She’s right, then?’
‘I should’ve told you, but I didn’t know we were going to get as close as we did, and by the time I realised how big the lie had become, it was too late and I knew I’d lose you.’
‘I don’t understand what you’re doing there. How can you do so much good for Elderflower Grove but still be the person who’s going out under the cover of darkness, cutting down important wildflowers and injecting weedkiller into ancient, beautiful trees?’
‘I never did that.’ He raises the hand with the IV line in and winces. ‘I sprayed the orange cross on the trunks to make it look like it was done, but I never did it. I bought them time. It’ll be a couple of months before Kingsley Munroe realises they’re not dying and orders it done again. The strimming I can’t get out of. He didn’t fire me after I messed up with that garden. He put me on menial jobs for the rest of the year, and if I’d behaved myself, I’d have had a chance of getting my old job back.’
‘And haven’t you?’
He snorts. ‘I told everyone about his plans for the theme park. My job is gone because of that. I was trying to be a better person, Kayl. Trying to make up for the horrible things I’ve had to do.’
‘You didn’t have to lie about it.’
‘I don’t have anywhere to live. I couldn’t lose my job as well. Elderflower Grove was somewhere to stay when I needed it most, and a summer there is giving me the chance to save up enough of a deposit to rent somewhere. The job cut came with a huge drop in income too. I had to do what he told me to. Please understand that. I expected him to sack me, but he gave me a lifeline – his assistant had just left and he needed someone to step into the role of general dogsbody. I do all the things he can’t bully anyone else into doing. If it wasn’t me, it would be someone else.’
‘That doesn’t make it better. Someone else hasn’t been lying since the day I met him. Someone else hasn’t been staying out of sight and hiding when anyone’s around, acting like a ghost because if anyone had seen him, they’d have recognised him instantly. You have.’
He thunks his head back again. ‘I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to tell you, and I knew it would be worse if you found out from someone else, and I was still trying to keep my job. None of the villagers could know I was there or they’d have suspected Kingsley Munroe was up to something.’
I’m not even sure that makes sense. Somewhere I’ve let go of his hand and now my fingers are twisting around each other where they’re resting on the edge of the hospital mattress. ‘What was your real job at Elderflower Grove?’
‘We expected trouble this year. Kingsley thought the Nectar Inspectors would realise seven years passing was significant. He thought they might break in and try to uncover something to prevent him taking ownership, or chain themselves to the gates, or get the building listed status or something, anything, he didn’t know, but he wanted someone to keep watch on the place at all times. He’d made a big investment in the property and he wanted to make sure nothing untoward happened.’
‘He is the untoward happening. And so are you.’ I drop my head down on my arms. ‘Why have you worked so hard on something that you wanted to destroy?’
‘I never wanted that. Everything I’ve said to you has been true. What he’s doing is abhorrent. All I wanted for Elderflower Grove is what we’ve given it – to be loved again and appreciated by people who visit those beautiful grounds.’
‘I’m sure you’ll understand why I find that difficult to believe.’ I stare at him until his eyes meet mine and then I look away sharply. ‘And what about Josie? All of that about being her grandson was just a cover story, right?’
‘What? No. No, of course not. As soon as my dad told me what he knew of his birth mother, I thought of her – the eccentric beekeeper from Hampshire. It was a twist of fate when Kingsley gave me this assignment. A legitimate reason to go inside Elderflower Grove and find out if my hunch was right. I thought if I could find evidence, proof in some way that she really was my father’s birth mother, then I could stop what he was doing. I could save it.’ He lets out a long sigh and his little finger twitches like he wants to reach out for my hand. ‘You have to trust me.’
‘How could I ever trust a word you say again?’ I didn’t intend to snap at him, but being told I have to trust him when everything has been a lie makes me bristle.
‘And you’ve always been completely honest with me, have you?’
Instinctively, I want to bark out a ‘yes!’ and storm off, but I can’t. His question leaves a charged silence. I can’t deny it, can I?
‘Well, I …’ I start but stutter to a halt.
‘Kayleigh, on the day we met, you tried to brain me with a copy of A Complete Idiot’s Guide to Beekeeping. I’m not so much of an idiot that I didn’t recognise it as a brand-new book and not some good-luck charm that had been carted around from job to job for years. It was bright and shiny without a crease in sight. Do you think I haven’t noticed that you’ve had to read it every time anything to do with the bees comes up? You’ve got the hang of things now, but you couldn’t hide how hesitant you were at first, and it was definitely more than being “a bit rusty”.’
‘I needed the job,’ I mutter.
‘So did I.’
All right, he’s got a point there. ‘What you said yesterday – about you being the bee? How is that possible, Care?’
This time he lets out such a pained groan that I start wondering if I should call for a nurse.
‘I didn’t want to die without you hearing it from me.’
Even after all this, I still expected him to say that was a mistake, his fevered mind playing tricks on him. ‘I don’t get it. You set up the Nectar Inspectors?’
‘No. It hasn’t always been me. Just this year.’
‘Wait, so …’ Of course. The computerised voice. The bee filter. Anyone could be behind it. It hasn’t always been the same person. ‘This year’ needles at my brain and my skin prickles at the implication. ‘If you haven’t always been behind it … who has?’
‘You have to promise not to tell Gracie. I sincerely fear she’ll end up in prison for her reaction.’ He doesn’t even need to say the name.
‘Kingsley Munroe?’ I ask and he nods in response. ‘Flipping hell, Carey. Why?’
‘A diversion. A decoy. He’s getting his hands on Elderflower Grove through dodgy, underhanded tactics. He has no real right to it, you know that. He knew the villagers were uppity and he didn’t want them digging too deep. He thought if he set up the group to “save the bees” and convince the villagers that they were doing something good, it wouldn’t matter how much good they did in the end, because he was in charge of it.’
‘Wow.’ It’s so horrible that my brain can’t process what my ears are hearing. ‘Do you have any idea how devastated they’ll be? They’ve been working for the enemy all along. They’ve been helping him to steal Elderflower Grove. That really is the lowest of the low. And you’ve supported that.’
‘I had no choice. I needed my job.’
‘You’ve made them look stupid. You’ve made us all look stupid. I work for Gracie’s most-hated man without even knowing it.’ I’m such an idiot. It’s all smoke and mirrors. I have no idea who my employer is. ‘And the money in the Elderflower Grove fund? Every penny they raise from the sales of honey and the other fundraising they do? That’s just going to line his pockets, is it?’
His eyes close like he can’t bear to open them. ‘If I could change things, I would.’
I suddenly realise why Gracie must never know this. She will, literally, kill Kingsley Munroe. And it’s not just that. They think Josie is the bee. For as long as they don’t know the truth, Gracie’s best friend is still alive, and this is the final proof that she isn’t. I can’t comprehend how heartbroken she will be.
This is so nasty. Tangled and twisted and wrong, and Carey’s right in the middle of it, and has been since the moment I saw the job advert. He must’ve come out from Elderflower Grove and stuck it to the gate. He must’ve conducted my interview from inside Elderflower Grove, and I never even had an inkling. The signs I missed that seem so obvious now. The ‘baptism of fire’ comment they both made. The first time he mentioned something about me making candles and I was sure I hadn’t told him. ‘So that Zoom meeting … that was you?’
He cringes. ‘I’m sorry. This wasn’t supposed to go the way it has. I didn’t think I’d ever meet you. I certainly didn’t think I’d fall in lo— Well, you were supposed to stay outside and I didn’t think I’d be unlucky enough to get two beekeepers in a row who’d come poking around inside.’
‘Why the hell did you give me the job? That interview was terrible. You couldn’t have been that desperate.’
‘Because of what you said. That feeling of needing to take back control and having no agency over your own life. You voiced what I’d been trying to put into words for months. My life had spiralled out of my control since I screwed up on that job. My time wasn’t my own. I am a minion. My life is dictated by other people. You worded that. You felt the same as me, and I’d never met anyone who felt like that. I connected with you. It felt right, and then you mentioned Madonna’s “Dear Jessie”. It’s how I’ve always felt about Elderflower Grove, like it would be walking into a lullaby, and I thought it was a sign.’
‘If you’ve known I’m not a beekeeper since day one, why didn’t you fire me?’
‘Because it didn’t change anything. That job was meant to be yours.’
‘But now it changes everything. Even you helping me with that honey harvest. The way you said it was an oversight on someone’s part. That’s why you helped me – because it was an oversight on your part. Because you didn’t fully explain the job expectation. Not because you’re a lovely guy who wanted to help.’
‘Oh, come on, it wasn’t just that. I couldn’t help with the hives, but you looked out of your depth and I saw a way I could help.’ His hand moves towards mine again, but I pull mine back. ‘And honestly, I liked you. You made me smile just as much in person as you had on the video call, and that had been a pretty difficult task up ’til then. I wanted to spend more time with you.’
It sounds nice, but the problem is that, no matter what he says, I don’t believe a word of it. ‘I need to ask you something, and this time, I need you to be honest with me.’ I swallow hard. I can’t believe I’m asking him this. ‘Did you start the fire yesterday?’
I don’t expect his eyes to well up, and I feel ridiculously guilty.
‘Are you serious?’
‘Yes. No. I don’t know.’ I risk a glance over at him and he looks so broken that I want to wrap my arms around him and squeeze tight enough to make him forget I said it.
‘Do you honestly think I could do that?’ Instead of waiting for an answer, he chews his lip and looks upwards, blinking fast. ‘Wow. I must’ve become an absolute horror show of a person for you to even consider that …’
‘I don’t. I don’t, Carey.’ I go to touch his hand but pull back before I make contact. The rest of the words hang in my mouth, taking a long while for me to spit them out. ‘But it was deliberate and you were the only one there.’
‘Fair enough.’ He gives one sharp, resigned nod, and I can almost see him shutting down. His body stiffens and I get the feeling that, if he was capable of it, he’d have got up and walked out at those words, but he pulls away instead, shifting minutely on the bed, moving as far away from me as poss— ‘No, I wasn’t.’
‘What?’
‘Kingsley Munroe was there yesterday. I ran into him on the third floor. I thought he was coming to see me and poking around on the way, but I didn’t know how he’d got in. The main door was locked and the windows are boarded, so I figured he’d come down from the roof and one of us must’ve accidentally left the gate open.’
‘I didn’t. I had to unlock it to get to the fire.’
‘I didn’t eith— That padlock I put on the gate … I got it from work. It’s a standard-issue council one. Anyone who works there would have a key that would open it.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I escorted him out the back way so you wouldn’t see him. You were seeing off the last of the visitors, and I went back inside and grabbed the drink and came down to meet you. I didn’t go onto the roof. I didn’t know he’d done anything.’
‘It was him. It has to be. There’s no other explanation.’
The silence is awkward and difficult. I thought Gracie was exaggerating how awful Kingsley Munroe is, but she clearly wasn’t. How could he stoop so low to do something like this? And why? He got what he wanted when he paid off Josie’s debt – a claim to Elderflower Grove. What did he think he was going to get out of harming the bees, other than petty revenge?
‘So now we’ve established that I’m not a bee-murdering arsonist …’
‘You can’t blame me for thinking the worst.’
‘No.’ He sighs. ‘I can’t.’
He sounds so dejected and looks crestfallen, and I fight the urge to give him a hug. Relief has washed over me at the realisation he didn’t set the fire, but it doesn’t change all the other things he’s lied about. ‘Even yesterday, even right before that incredible kiss, you were lying, hiding, sneaking him away so I wouldn’t find out.’
‘I’ve been stuck in my job. I couldn’t lose the only income I’ve got. It’s the only place I’ve worked since I was in my twenties – he’s my only reference, and he’s not exactly going to give me a glowing recommendation for getting other jobs. I’ve been trying to help, Kayleigh. Trying to make things better at Elderflower Grove to make up for the things I had to make worse.’
‘But you should have told me.’
Neither of us can argue with that point.
‘There’s nothing else to say then, is there?’ he says when the silence has grown heavy.
He’s right on that one too. And he can’t get up and walk away, so it’s my turn to be brave.
I shove the chair back so hard that it scrapes across the floor, the noise making us both wince. I pat his knee clumsily through the blue hospital blanket. ‘I’m glad you’re okay.’
I want to say goodbye, something to acknowledge that whatever we had is over, but I’m biting the inside of my cheek to stop myself crying, and I’m going to dissolve into a sobbing wreck if I try to speak again.
I walk across the room on stiff legs.
‘Kayleigh …’
I don’t turn around and look back. I can’t. It would be so easy to hug him, to think of him yesterday and how scared I was of losing him, to convince myself that the good things he’s done outweigh the bad because I do believe he’s genuine in what he says, but none of it alters the fact that I can’t trust him.
The ward door clicks shut behind me, closing on a summer I’ll never forget for all the wrong reasons.