Hidden Hours Read online

  It was the drugs, she tells herself, over and over. You would never have climbed those railings if you weren’t intoxicated. But when she looks down she sees her hands are trembling. It seems that no matter how far or high she travels, there will be no escaping her fears.

  12

  nathan

  Ernie has been waiting impatiently for his wife to finish her phone call. ‘Nathan is asking to come home,’ Emily says when she hangs up, her eyes wet and pleading.

  Ernie grimaces. It’s a terrible thing, what happened to Arabella, but in truth all he can think about is making the fairway tomorrow. Three days without golf and he can feel the knots in his knees, his arms, his disposition.

  ‘No – it’ll only encourage the press. You go to him if you need to.’

  Emily walks off without a word. She’ll be angry with him, even though she knows their son is a reprobate, a perpetual disappointment to the Lane name.

  He can hear the chatter outside the window; they don’t even bother to keep their voices down. He’s been enjoying the anonymity of retirement, and now, thanks to Nathan, the press are at his door again. If they don’t fuck off before long he’ll take one of those bloody clubs and tee off on the doorstep, straight at their mithering heads.

  For a long time on Saturday night, Eleanor cannot sleep, staring at the pristine white ceiling above her, willing the room to stay still, trying to breathe through the panic, telling herself that she is in an airy room far away from water so there can be no rational reason for her lungs to insist that she is drowning.

  She cannot move without asking herself questions she doesn’t want to ask, telling herself things she doesn’t want to know. You are so lonely, she says, even as she insists that no, it cannot be that – she’d spent so much time in her own company as a teenager that she’d thought she was immune to loneliness. Sure, she has come here to distance herself from the slow-burning fuse of anger and despair that crawls and crackles a little further along whenever she thinks of her childhood. She has come here because if ever there were a place with a pulse, with a beating heart of its own, it had to be London. So, how could this place of her dreams have failed to reflect her desires and instead be mirroring her torments?

  When she does sleep it is fitful, and she doesn’t wake until almost nine. She puts off going downstairs until her stomach is rumbling, and as she makes her way quietly down she can already hear people in the kitchen.

  As she creeps closer, to her dismay she discerns Susan’s solemn tone, although she sounds somewhat milder than usual. And there is a man’s voice too, although she is at the doorway in her dressing gown before she realises it is not her uncle.

  Her aunt stands with her back to Eleanor, and, opposite her, sits Nathan Lane. He is wearing baggy jeans and a crumpled T-shirt. His face is blotchy and unshaven, his hair unbrushed. There is little to recognise from the Nathan Lane she has experienced at the office.

  ‘I just didn’t know where else to go,’ he is saying to Susan, rubbing his face.

  Eleanor is about to back out of the room, when he looks up and spots her. As their eyes lock, she sees his expression change to one of utter hostility. She has no chance to escape before he has sprung out of his chair, and in an instant he is shaking her, one of his hands locked tightly around her throat. ‘What the hell did you do to her?’ he hisses, his face purple with rage. ‘I saw you together – I saw you go after her. Tell me what happened, tell me right now.’

  Eleanor cannot speak. Instead she makes a horrible gurgling noise, clawing at him, trying to force air into her lungs.

  ‘Nathan!’ Susan is shouting. ‘Nathan, stop!’

  ‘Hey!’ someone yells behind her. Eleanor is suddenly free, jostled out of the way by her uncle, who has grabbed hold of Nathan, pushing him away. She collapses to the floor, holding her throat, tears streaming down her face. She looks up to see Ian, in his pyjamas, his face livid, still holding onto Nathan’s arms.

  Susan watches the scene with a hand to her forehead, but she doesn’t take a step towards any of them.

  ‘There is no excuse for that, Nathan!’ Ian shouts. ‘No excuse, do you hear? In any circumstances. We are deeply, deeply sorry for your loss, but I think you need to leave now.’ He pushes Nathan roughly away from him, towards the door.

  ‘Ian, I’m sorry—’ Nathan begins.

  ‘Don’t apologise to me,’ Ian cuts him off. ‘Apologise to her.’ He points at Eleanor.

  Nathan looks back at Eleanor. A muscle twitches in his jaw. ‘If you know what happened, you had better tell someone,’ he growls.

  ‘Nathan, you really should go now,’ Ian says firmly, going to help Eleanor up, putting an arm around her shoulder.

  ‘Nathan,’ Susan says, moving across to him, ‘I’ll meet you at the Aberdeen, give me fifteen minutes to get dressed, and we can keep talking.’

  Nathan glances between all of them as though trying to decide on his response. Then he looks back at Susan and nods. ‘All right.’ He turns around, and moments later the door bangs shut.

  Eleanor begins to sob, and Ian pulls her to him. ‘It’s okay,’ he murmurs, stroking her hair. ‘He was completely out of line.’

  Susan snaps her head towards her husband. ‘Ian—’

  ‘No, Susan, we cannot stand by and watch Eleanor be assaulted, not even to protect your job.’

  Eleanor sees Susan’s mouth drop open for a moment. Ian and Susan glare at each other, and with every second that no one speaks the room fills with such pressure that Eleanor is braced for an explosion.

  Then Susan swings around to face her, eyes narrowed. ‘Why did he go for you like that, Eleanor?’ she asks. ‘First the police, now Nathan. How the hell are you involved in all this?’ She looks at Ian. ‘Or is there even more to this story than I know?’ she spits.

  ‘I’m not involved!’ Eleanor cries, looking pleadingly at Ian. ‘I just talked to Arabella the night of the party, that’s all. It was pure chance – I met her in the bathroom and we had a drink together.’

  But Susan’s attention has shifted. Eleanor follows her gaze to see Naeve and Savannah standing in the doorway, their little faces clearly shocked and frightened. Savannah clutches Naeve’s arm with one hand and her toy unicorn with the other. ‘We heard shouting and the door slamming,’ she says in a small, shaky voice. ‘Who was that?’

  Ian lets go of Eleanor and hurries over to them. ‘No one – it doesn’t matter. Come on, let’s go and turn the TV on – you can watch whatever you like.’

  He ushers them away, leaving Susan alone with Eleanor.

  For a moment, no one speaks. All their unanswered questions hang in the air between them.

  ‘I don’t know what’s going on here,’ Susan says finally, ‘but if you are involved, then I will make sure I find out about it.’ Susan fixes Eleanor with one of her death stares, not waiting for a response before she turns and leaves the kitchen.

  As soon as everyone has gone, Eleanor bolts for her room. However, once she’s there, she paces from one side to the other like a trapped animal, trying to decide what to do next. At the back of her mind a little voice is muttering that Nathan should have pressed harder, it would have been a relief.

  She doesn’t want to be alone, listening to this voice – the one that scares her most of all. She is afraid she’s spinning out of control. She needs to get out of this room, but where can she go? She can’t bear to be alone, but she doesn’t have anyone to turn to. Her uncle will be occupied with the girls now. When is she ever going to get the chance to talk to him?

  Unless . . .

  She grabs her phone with trembling hands and searches for Will’s number from yesterday. When it rings she isn’t sure whether she is doing the right thing, but before she can hang up his voice is saying, ‘Hello? Eleanor?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she says, beginning to cry. ‘I didn’t know who else to call.’

  ‘Eleanor, what’s happened?’

  ‘It’s Nathan – he came to the house and attac
ked me.’

  ‘What?’ Will’s tone is incredulous.

  ‘He thinks I did something to Arabella. Oh god, what if I did? What happened to me after I left The Atlantic? Why can’t I remember anything?’

  ‘Eleanor, you could hardly walk on Thursday night, let alone overpower anyone.’

  That calms her a little. ‘I suppose . . . It’s just . . . just . . .’ Her hand strays to the mattress, aware that the ring lies beneath it. She can’t bear to divulge it over the phone but she can’t keep this to herself any longer. She has to tell someone. ‘Please can I meet you?’

  ‘Er . . . sure. I have to talk to an illustrator this morning, we’re installing some of his artwork at the Museum of London for a big promotion we’re doing – can you make your way there, and we can grab some coffee while I’m on a break?’

  ‘Yes, thank you.’

  ‘It’s all right, Eleanor. Don’t do anything st— I mean, you’re doing the right thing, we’ll talk it all through again, okay?’

  As soon as she ends the call she gets dressed and grabs her jacket – hesitates, then pulls the ring from underneath the mattress and slips it into her purse.

  13

  the museum of london

  ‘Why haven’t you arrested Nathan?’ Tilly Blythe demands as soon as she is introduced to detectives Prashad and Kirby. ‘We’ve been waiting for this day ever since he married her. He drove her to drink first, and then to drugs, and now he’s finally, inevitably driven her to her death. I’m sorry, Mum,’ Tilly says, her voice softening as she puts an arm around her keening mother, ‘but we all know it’s the truth, don’t we?’

  And she watches her mother lift her head long enough to nod.

  No one notices Eleanor leave the house. She glances around as she heads to the Tube station, wondering if Nathan might be waiting for her somewhere in the shadows, debating if he could be the person who stalked her the previous night. Her nervousness doesn’t dissipate on the train. She sits in the corner of the carriage and watches everyone carefully, unable to stop her foot from beating out a frantic rhythm.

  As soon as she’s at the museum she calls Will, but he doesn’t pick up. Moments later there’s a text: Still in meeting – might be a while, will let you know as soon as I’m finished. With nothing else to do she wanders aimlessly around the exhibits. After a while she goes back to the clay head of the Shepperton woman, reconstructed from a neolithic skeleton found crouched in a ritual burial site. There is something particularly unnerving about the woman’s masculine face, blankly staring across five-and-a-half thousand years into the future. She sits down and pulls out her sketchbook, but as always the features distort and her drawing ends up more male than female, and before she knows it she has sketched a noose cutting into the disembodied neck.

  She tears the picture out and screws it into a ball. She should be used to the way her mind works by now, but she isn’t. She stares at the Shepperton woman, trying to figure out what is so compelling about her. Perhaps it was because if you stared long enough, the living would avert their gazes sooner or later – but when you were caught in the stare of the dead, they never looked away.

  She shivers, moving through the gallery quickly, wanting to find something less troubling to look at until Will is free. As she studies the map, her phone buzzes in her pocket with another message.

  Heading for the café. See you in 5.

  She follows the signs to the café, to find Will waiting for her. He jumps up as soon as he sees her. ‘Coffee or tea?’

  ‘Just water, please.’

  ‘Right.’ He heads for the counter, and she watches him place their order, the confident way he jokes with the barista, who is wearing a Santa hat and a tinsel scarf. Will comes back smiling, but when he catches her eye he turns solemn again, and as soon as he sets their drinks down he starts talking.

  ‘So, what happened with Nathan?’

  ‘He was in our kitchen when I got up this morning. He – he just went for me.’ Her eyes begin to sting. ‘I thought he was going to strangle me right there.’

  Will brushes her hair back from her neck. ‘Jeez, you still have a red mark.’

  As his fingers lightly touch her neck, she catches his eye and starts to blush. Will’s hand returns to his drink, but his eyes don’t leave hers. He sits back. ‘You should go to the police – that’s assault. Your aunt and uncle would back you up, surely.’

  She considers it. ‘I’m not sure. He’s just lost his wife – he must be crazy with grief. Besides, I’m not sure Susan would back me up about anything, actually.’

  Will looks uncertain. ‘Really? I know she can be a cold fish, but I doubt she’d condone assault.’

  Eleanor grimaces. ‘I don’t know, it’s the way she looks at me. I don’t think she likes me very much.’

  ‘I’m sure that’s not true – her manner can be a bit off, but you’re her niece.’

  ‘We’re not related – only by marriage,’ Eleanor reminds him. ‘She’d never even met me until a few weeks ago. She probably thinks I brought all this trouble to her door.’

  She stops.

  Has she?

  Will is watching her carefully. ‘Eleanor, you have to stop blaming yourself. Your involvement is just unfortunate, that’s all. I don’t for one second believe you could have harmed Arabella.’ He sits back and for a moment his face clouds with an anger that takes her by surprise. ‘However, Nathan is a different story. There have been rumours about him for a long time. Arabella once came to work with an awful bruise on her neck that she’d tried to hide under a scarf. Another time, she got drunk at a party and told me she was terrified of Nathan, but the next day she wouldn’t admit she had said it. Even so, we’ve all seen how volatile he can be. As soon as Arabella slapped him at the party, I was frightened for her. That’s why I went after her, because I knew Nathan wouldn’t let that go – but she refused my help. I’m sure he killed her. That’s probably why he’s so mad at you, he’s just looking for somewhere to deflect his guilt.’

  ‘Do you really think so?’

  ‘I do. He’s an awful human being, Eleanor. I have no idea why Arabella stayed married to him. He always treated her like shit – and when he’s that cruel in public I can only imagine what he would have been like behind closed doors.’

  ‘Why would she stay with him, then? She didn’t seem afraid of him – she went and slapped his face in front of everyone.’

  ‘Yes, she did, didn’t she.’ Will leans forward. ‘Look, this is probably an awful thing to say, considering the circumstances, because I saw for myself how upset Arabella was at the party, and she was a friend – but there were plenty of times when Arabella was anything but the damsel in distress. She could be very cutting to people, she adored being the centre of attention, and her love of cocaine was no secret around the office either. If she shone her light on you, you couldn’t help but bask in the glow – and yet the next day you might find her giving you the cold shoulder. When her back was turned, people would whisper, and it wasn’t always kind. But when she was there, everyone fawned over her. Of course they did – for most of them, she was either their boss or the boss’s wife. Who knows what happened in the end, but I can imagine Arabella would have built up quite a few frenemies during her time at Parker & Lane. Let’s face it, half the time even her own husband seemed to despise her.’

  When Eleanor stays quiet, Will touches her hand. ‘None of this is making you feel better, is it?’

  She shakes her head. ‘It’s not that, it’s . . .’

  She hesitates. The tension hangs between them. She studies his face. Can she trust him? She has no choice; she cannot carry this burden alone any longer.

  She reaches into her bag, unzips her purse and pulls out the ring, laying it on the table between them.

  ‘What’s this?’ Will seems bemused at first, picking up the ring and studying it closely. As Eleanor watches, he appears to realise who owns it – or owned it. He suddenly puts it down on the table and covers it
with his hand, looking around them, ducking low as though someone might come over at any moment. His face has gone red. ‘What the fuck . . . I hope that isn’t what I think it is. Bloody hell, Eleanor, please don’t tell me this is Arabella’s?’

  Eleanor’s face is burning too. She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t need to.

  Will leans closer. ‘Why have you got it?’ he hisses.

  Eleanor meets his gaze. ‘I don’t know – it was in my purse when I woke up on Friday, but I can’t remember how it got there.’

  ‘Seriously?’ Will searches her face, as though trying to decide whether she can possibly be telling the truth. ‘Shit, Eleanor, this is . . . this is—’ He pushes it towards her. ‘Put it back in your bag, it shouldn’t be out on the table. And you shouldn’t have shown it to me – what the hell were you thinking? Why haven’t you given it to the police?’ His face is still red and he seems furious with her.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she pleads, returning it quickly to her purse. ‘I’m trying to figure out why I have it. Maybe Arabella gave it to me when she came back to the party – you said she was with me when I was out of it – but why would she do that? And if she didn’t, what if someone is setting me up? I’m afraid Will. I know I shouldn’t have involved you – I just don’t know who else to turn to.’