All Your Secrets: A taut psychological thriller with a NAILBITING finale Read online

  ‘Oh, Caitlin,’ she says, her voice barely audible.

  There’s a lost look on her face, almost childish in its bewilderment. But no anger or accusation. She’s wearing a soft silver gown of satin and lace, so long it reaches almost to her silver slippers. Like a fairy tale princess, I think. Her hair is dishevelled though, and when she moves back inside under the bright light of the chandeliers, I see that her make-up is tired, her cheeks more heavily lined than usual, dark bags under her eyes.

  A fairy tale princess in the wrong story.

  We embrace silently, and I feel her thin body shivering in the silver dress.

  ‘Come on, it’s late and it’s getting too chilly out here, Aunt Tamsin,’ I say, and usher her back inside the chateau.

  She does not argue, allowing me to steer her back towards the front room where she’s clearly been sitting in Lucille’s absence, since it’s the only room in the house with a light on. Just as I get her seated on the sofa again, there’s a noise behind me, and I turn to see Lucille in the doorway, studying her mistress with obvious concern.

  ‘May I fetch you a drink, Madame?’ Lucille hesitates, glancing into the front room where the mahogany drinks cabinet is standing open, several bottles already pulled out onto the mixing shelf, their lids still off. It’s an intimate little scene, making it clear Pierre and Tamsin have been drinking together while they waited. ‘Maybe a pot of coffee for you and Miss Caitlin?’

  ‘No, thank you,’ she says, a little tartly. ‘My niece will look after me now. You may go to bed.’

  Lucille glances from her to me, then shrugs. Her thin dark eyebrows are arched, but in disdain rather than surprise. No doubt she’s used to Tamsin’s rather ungrateful caprice.

  ‘Thank you for picking me up from the station,’ I tell her again.

  Lucille does not reply.

  When she’s left the room, I turn to find Tamsin looking agitated. The determined self-possession was an act, I realise. She’s perched on the edge of the sofa, her shoulders hunched, shredding a white paper tissue in her lap.

  ‘Gin,’ she whispers.

  I take the empty tumbler from beside the sofa and mix her a strong gin and tonic, popping in a slice of lemon. It does smell rather good, but I resist the temptation to drink. Right now, I need a clear head.

  ‘Here.’ I hand Tamsin the drink, then perch on the high-backed armchair opposite, watching her gulp at the drink. ‘I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you Dad was unwell. It must have been quite a shock. But honestly, it wasn’t my decision. He asked me not to tell you.’

  ‘Why didn’t you break your promise and tell me?’

  ‘I couldn’t break my promise. Not to Dad.’

  ‘I could have flown over there before Gerald died. Spent some time there, made my peace with him.’

  ‘I know, and I’m sorry.’ Pain makes my voice uneven. ‘Genuinely, I didn’t realise how little time he had left. He hid that even from me. Or I would never have stayed on after Emily’s funeral.’

  ‘What am I to do?’ Her voice becomes a wail. ‘There’s nobody left now. First Emily, then Gerald. Don’t you understand? He was my big brother. My only brother.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say again.

  He was my only father, I’m thinking, and I’ve lost him too. But she isn’t open to hearing that.

  Dad would have known exactly what to say to his sister, of course. He was always very good at soothing grief-stricken relatives. At listening and not judging. But I’ve never been that comfortable with strong emotion, and besides, Tamsin is too distraught to hear reason. She may take years to get over this, to understand why Dad asked me not to say anything about the cancer.

  Though she ought to understand, I think. Privacy is important to her. The maintenance of a façade for the outside world to admire. Tamsin, the film star. Tamsin, the celebrity. Tamsin, the alluring beauty.

  Even now, in her faded glory, her daughter gone, she’s still desperately hunting for ways to keep living the way she always has.

  ‘Now I suppose you’ll be leaving me too,’ she adds bitterly.

  I look at her intently. ‘Come home with me.’

  ‘Back to England?’

  ‘Why not? There’s the funeral to arrange, and I haven’t a clue where to start. I would really appreciate your advice, Aunt Tamsin. And I’m sure it’s what Dad would have wanted too. For you to be there when … when we bury him.’

  She drains her glass and holds it out to me silently.

  I get up and refill the tumbler.

  ‘I can’t.’ She takes her glass and drains it again. ‘I don’t feel strong enough. Not for another family funeral. Not so soon after my darling Emily.’

  Lucille reappears, standing in the doorway in her belted dressing-gown. Tamsin barely looks at her. But she stiffens and puts her empty glass down with a snap. As though to suggest she did not really need the gin, it was just a night cap.

  ‘I thought I told you to go to bed,’ she says to Lucille. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘She was with him,’ Lucille tells her flatly in French, ‘up at Les Baux de Provence. They went there together.’

  Tamsin catches her breath. She does not ask what Lucille means but stands up, shaking her head as though dismissing the whole idea.

  ‘No.’

  ‘She’s been seeing him. Sleeping with him.’

  ‘Impossible.’

  But they’re both staring at me now. My aunt in disbelief, Lucille with cold accusation. My heart starts to beat erratically.

  ‘Is it true, Caitlin? Have you been with Robin Halifax?’ Tamsin demands, switching back to English. Her voice is shaky and high-pitched. ‘No more lies. You must tell me the truth at once.’

  There seems no point denying it. Besides, I want answers too, I realise. Answers about Robin and his past. And being entirely honest is the only way to get them.

  ‘Yes, I was with Robin.’

  ‘Oh my God.’ She puts a hand to her mouth, as though this is the worst news possible. ‘And is Lucille right? Are you sleeping with him?’

  I sit down in the armchair and cross my legs, feeling under attack for the second time in one day. Only this time by these two women.

  ‘Yes.’

  She buries her face in her hands. ‘Aïe, mon dieu, mon dieu.’ When she looks up again, it’s with despair. ‘How? How did he do this?’

  ‘He contacted me online after Emily died. He told me you two had fallen out, but not why. I agreed to meet up with him.’ I look away. ‘I couldn’t help it. I like Robin. I’ve always liked him.’

  She’s shaking her head. ‘He’s not the man you think he is. Not anymore.’

  ‘I know,’ I say simply. ‘What I don’t know is … why?’

  Tamsin staggers backwards, the backs of her legs coming up against the sofa. With a cry, she collapses onto it. Lucille follows, fussing over her, reassuring her in French. My aunt seems on the verge of total shutdown, but waves Lucille away nonetheless. Putting a trembling hand to her cheek, she whispers, ‘I can’t do this. I can’t …’

  ‘Why do you hate him so much, Aunt Tamsin? I need to know the truth.’ She and Lucille have been so closed-mouthed about Robin. To protect Emily’s memory, I assumed initially. But I’m no longer so sure. ‘What happened to him?’

  But Tamsin merely shakes her head.

  ‘Please,’ I press her. ‘When I told him about Dad and said I was going home, Robin lost his temper. He practically attacked me. I’ve never seen him like that before. He could be difficult at times when we were kids, but nothing like this. He was so violently angry, I got scared.’ I stand up, too restless to sit any longer. ‘What if he comes looking for me here?’

  ‘Robin won’t come here,’ she whispers.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because that’s not his modus operandi. Not how he operates. Robin likes to inflict damage and then walk away. He tried to hurt you. He failed. He won’t want to be reminded of that failure.’

  ‘How Robin op
erates?’ I repeat, bemused.

  The two women glance at each other in a sudden unnatural silence, making it clear they are unwilling to discuss the matter further.

  ‘Aunt Tamsin, what do you mean … how Robin operates?’ I demand, and hear my voice shake. ‘Has he done something like this before?’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Her stillness and refusal to answer make my skin creep. ‘Not … to Emily?’ I’m not sure I can bear this, but press on, my chest hurting. ‘Tell me he didn’t try to hurt Emily.’

  Lucille makes a distressed noise under her breath and turns abruptly away, leaving the room. I listen to her heels clicking down the hallway, then the slam of the kitchen door.

  ‘Aunt?’

  ‘There’s something I need to tell you,’ Tamsin says, with obvious reluctance. ‘Before I forget.’ She makes a face. ‘I forget so easily these days.’

  ‘I need the whole story.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sorry I tried to hide the truth from you. But … Well, you’ll see why.’ Wearily, she sips at her gin and tonic. ‘This goes back a few years, so bear with me while I try to remember. When Robin started college in California, he met a girl, a pretty little thing, a sophomore. Her name was … Oh, it was Diane. I was glad when I heard about her. I never thought he was a good influence on Emily.’ She shakes her head. ‘They’d only been together a few months when she got pregnant. Most college girls would have got rid of it. But not Diane. She was a Catholic, you see. She decided to keep the baby, and somehow persuaded Robin to marry her.’

  I’m shocked. ‘You’re telling me he’s married?’

  ‘Not anymore, no,’ she says flatly.

  There’s something in her tone that makes the hairs rise on the back of my neck. This is obviously going to be a long story. I sink back onto the armchair, watching her.

  ‘David was furious,’ she says, staring into her drink. ‘He’d worked so hard to get Robin into a good school, to set him up with a chance at a lucrative career in Hollywood. But what could he do? Robin and Diane were only kids themselves, and now they had a child. A gorgeous little boy, he was. They named him Charlie.’ Her smile is sad. ‘I met them one Christmas in LA, at one of David’s parties, and they did seem a happy family. For a while.’

  ‘Robin got bored playing house?’

  ‘Diane, actually. She’d given up college, you see, and … Well, Robin has always liked to play hard.’ She takes a gulp of her gin. ‘Don’t we all? Only he took it further than a few drinks at weekend parties. Robin’s too much like Emily in that respect. They both always have to take things one step further.’

  ‘Drugs, you mean?’

  ‘The hard stuff. He couldn’t seem to stop. David still kept the villa next door for holidays and … Well, to visit me.’ She looks across at me quickly. ‘David and I were still seeing each other right up to the end. Not very nice for his wife, I admit. But we were so deeply in love, and I knew he’d never leave her. He tried to be loyal to both of us, you see.’

  I nod, waiting.

  ‘Anyway, somehow he persuaded Robin to bring Diane and Charlie here for the summer. He thought it would be a good chance for his son to detox for a few months, away from the lures of Hollywood. And Robin was enchanted by the idea. He always loved this place.’ She sighs. ‘It was the worst possible thing, of course. Within a few days, he came round to visit us, and met Emily again. She was overjoyed to see Robin again, of course. It was like watching a flower opening to the sunlight. She’d missed out on a film role she’d wanted, and the man she’d been seeing had left her for a younger woman.’ Tamsin glances at me shrewdly. ‘You can imagine how that made Emily feel.’

  ‘God, yes.’

  ‘She was bored and depressed. Having Robin back in her life seemed to lift her mood miraculously. I don’t think Emily was ever in love with him. She was too selfish for that, poor darling. But there was such a deep bond between those two …’

  ‘I know,’ I say softly.

  ‘Well, I warned her. I said, you can’t get involved with Robin, he’s a married man now. A married man with a child, for God’s sake. But the temptation was too great. Robin adored her, and Emily loved to be adored.’ She shrugs, apparently unaware of the irony that she might as well be describing herself. ‘Besides, I was the last person on earth she was going to listen to. Not when Robin’s father had been cheating on his wife with me for years.’

  Tamsin finishes her drink, and shakes her head sadly. ‘It was never about sex. They made each other happy. And Emily hadn’t been happy in years. Not perfectly happy. Not the way she had been as a girl, the summer you came to stay here.’

  I hear Lucille moving about upstairs. A door slams somewhere. Then quick footsteps on the floor above our heads. Turning down Tamsin’s bedcovers, no doubt.

  My aunt looks tired, I realise. More tired than I’ve ever seen her.

  And she’s shivering.

  I’m being so selfish, keeping her up to talk about Robin, of all people. The news about my dad has knocked her about. She looks distraught, her nerves shattered. And there’ll be plenty of time to talk more in the morning. I decide not to tell her yet how soon I’m heading home. But I rang from the bus to book a flight for late tomorrow afternoon.

  There’s a window behind her, slightly ajar. I go round the back of the sofa to close it, but find the catch is broken. It won’t quite shut. Something else that needs to be fixed round here.

  ‘Why did you dismiss Jacques?’ I ask, wondering again about the handyman’s absence, and she starts guiltily at his name, gazing round at me. ‘Lucille told me he’d gone. I thought the wonderful Jacques could do no wrong.’

  ‘Jacques?’ she repeats vaguely, and looks away. ‘Yes, he had to go, I’m afraid.’

  ‘You mean it was his decision?’

  She makes a face, then says bluntly, ‘I couldn’t afford him anymore. The funeral was so expensive. All those costs, the additional security … Jacques wasn’t happy about it. But he understood.’

  ‘That’s a shame. You need someone like him around the house. This place is too big for you, really. And it’s getting run-down.’

  ‘Now you sound like Lucille. She’s always nagging at me to sell the chateau and move somewhere smaller. Downsize, for God’s sake. Can you imagine what the paparazzi would make of that?’ She sounds horrified. ‘This is my home. It’s Chateau Tamsin. I belong here, and I don’t intend to leave. Not until I die.’

  I smile at her defiance. ‘Well, you must do what you think best. But you should also go to bed now,’ I say, coming round to help her up, ‘since I’m safely back.’

  ‘Oh no, darling, not yet. I haven’t finished explaining.’

  ‘You’re exhausted.’

  ‘Maybe, but this has to be done. And tonight. You need to know what he’s like.’ Her voice becomes urgent. ‘What he’s capable of.’

  ‘We can talk while you walk,’ I say firmly, and hold out a hand. ‘Come on. There’s a nasty draught from that broken window, and you look dead on your feet. Let me help you upstairs.’

  Reluctantly, she gets up and leaves the room beside me, still grumbling that she’s not tired. She leans on my arm though, I notice. My good arm, thankfully.

  ‘You’ve grown up to be a very kind and thoughtful person, Caitlin. Nothing like you were as a child.’ Tamsin excels at this kind of backhanded compliment. ‘I’m only sorry I didn’t tell you any of this before. Or maybe what happened with Robin could have been avoided.’

  ‘No, it’s my fault,’ I say. ‘I knew you had reservations about him. But I misunderstood why.’

  Out in the hall, the vast chandeliers are no longer shining as they were when I arrived, flooding the downstairs with light. Lucille must have switched them off in the interests of economy, and the hall is lit instead by the lacklustre glow of a single table lamp. It looks a very different place now, almost sinister, with that thin pool of light barely making an impact on the deep shadows around us.

  ‘Careful.’<
br />
  I steady Tamsin as she stumbles over a loose piece of flooring. She seems so fragile tonight, pale as a lily, almost as white as her fairy-tale dress.

  ‘Thank you, darling,’ she whispers, clutching at my arm.

  ‘So Emily was perfectly happy, you implied just now,’ I say, prompting her to continue, ‘having an affair with Robin. I doubt Robin’s wife was pleased though.’

  ‘Diane was incensed. Deeply hurt too, poor girl. She came here one day with Charlie, told me rehab had failed. That Robin was still drinking, still taking whatever drugs he could get his hands on. But that wasn’t the worst of it.’

  She halts, staring blindly at the floor. ‘After Diane’s visit, I asked Emily not to see him anymore. It seemed like the best solution. A clean break.’

  ‘But she refused?’

  ‘Oh no, Emily agreed at once. Because she loved me.’ Tamsin starts walking towards the staircase again, still clutching my arm. I wonder rather cynically if Emily went along with this plan to avoid being disinherited, rather than through excessive love for her mother. ‘But the decision seemed to precipitate some kind of crisis in Robin. Diane complained that he was drinking more, becoming almost … obsessed.’

  ‘With Emily?’

  ‘Of course.’ We reach the staircase and I reach for the gilt switch. Light comes on above us, on the landing. ‘He would phone and not say anything. Just heavy breathing, you know. But it had to be him. And he used to sit outside the gate some nights, in his car, just staring up at Emily’s bedroom window from the road. It was terrifying.’

  Tamsin shrugs off my arm when I start to help her up the stairs. ‘I’m not in my dotage,’ she says, a little sharply. ‘One too many G&Ts tonight, that’s all.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I say, but keep a hand ready in case she stumbles again. ‘What about David? If his son was terrorising you both, why didn’t he intervene?’

  ‘David was still in Los Angeles. He spoke to Robin on the phone, but the boy was beyond anyone’s reach by then.’

  Hardly a boy, I think drily, but say nothing. Above, I catch a brief glimpse of a face watching us through the banisters above. ‘Lucille?’