After She Fell: A haunting psychological thriller with a shocking twist

Catriona nodded and went out of Elena’s bedroom, coming back with a photo frame. ‘This is the most recent one I have of her.’ Her voice broke. ‘It was taken during the summer holidays. We managed a couple of days in Dorset. Lovely little village called Kimmeridge. She seemed relaxed for the first time in ages.’

Elena had been strikingly beautiful. Long blonde hair framing a heart-shaped face with angular cheekbones. Dark brown eyes. A slight smile curved a rosebud mouth.

‘That’s odd,’ said Cat, peering at the picture. ‘I hadn’t thought about that before.’

‘What’s that?’

She pointed at the photo. ‘See? The ring?’

Alex looked. Elena was holding one hand up to the camera. She might have been waving or telling her mother not to take the picture. On the fourth finger of her right hand was an oddly shaped silver ring. ‘Looks like one of those his and hers eternity rings. Seems as though there should be a partner to it, doesn’t it?’

‘That’s what I said to Elena when I saw it. I think she was given it by somebody for her birthday. She gave me one of her mysterious smiles so I backed off. Didn’t want to interfere. I wish I’d asked her more.’

Oh, Alex knew all about not interfering. Sometimes, though, you had to. ‘And?’

‘She was wearing it all summer holidays, wouldn’t take it off. And she kept stroking it when she thought I wasn’t looking. It was obviously very important to her. The thing is …’ she paused, ‘there was no sign of it in any of her stuff they gave back to me.’

‘Maybe she lost it.’ Or perhaps it had come off her finger as her body was battered by the sea.

‘Maybe.’ Cat was thoughtful. She traced the outline of her daughter’s face. ‘I had the impression it was something she would keep through thick and thin. As I say, something really important.’ She shrugged. ‘Oh well, maybe it’s nothing. Maybe she did lose it.’

The traffic was heavy now as she passed through some of The Broads villages before arriving at the real flatlands of Norfolk and she knew she wasn’t too far away from Hallow’s Edge. She could feel the lightness of air, the big sky above, the space around her, and she remembered why she loved East Anglia so.

After saying goodbye to Cat and Mark, Alex made a call and then went to Streatham, to an ordinary residential road. The house she was looking for was halfway up and part of a row of terraces with each tiny front garden having at least two wheelie bins. Number 102 had a decrepit armchair as a garden feature as well. A blanket hung across the ground floor window in place of curtains. She walked up the path and knocked.

A tall thin woman of about twenty-five whose pallor indicated she hardly ever saw daylight opened the door. She was wearing faded jeans and a tee-shirt with the dates of a long-gone music tour inscribed on it.

‘Hey, Honey,’ said Alex.

‘Yeah. It’s early, y’know?’

Alex grimaced. ‘Sorry, I do know. But I wanted to get it to you as soon as.’

Honey rubbed the top of her head making her ginger crop stand up in spikes. ‘Sure.’ She yawned, widely, showing two sets of perfect teeth. ‘I’ll do my best.’ She held out her hand. ‘Give it here.’

Alex handed over Elena’s laptop and phone. ‘I need them back in pristine condition, Honey,’ she warned.

‘Come on, Alex, you know me. No one will ever know I’ve been in there.’

Alex smiled. She really did trust this hacker who’d somehow almost managed to stay below the radar of the authorities since she was sixteen. The one (and seemingly only) time she’d come a cropper was when Alex had found her after a tip-off for a story she was doing at the time about cyber security, and she’d managed to get Honey off the hook with the coppers in return for information. Honey had been grateful ever since.

She was on the road that wound along the Norfolk coast, sometimes going near enough to the sea, most of the time winding through flat acres of fields. Eventually she saw a signpost for Hallow’s Edge and turned into the narrow road with hedges either side. For about half a mile there was nothing, then she spied a farm set back from the road, a couple of flint cottages and a modern bungalow. It really was as if she was entering a time warp. She drove slowly, praying she wouldn’t meet a tractor coming the other way, and stopped the car by a curved flint wall before getting out. The heat hit her like a sledgehammer.

There it was. The Drift. Elena’s school. A school for the privileged. Beautiful. It was at the end of a long gravel drive, lined with lime trees, that swept up to the front of the house. Two of the four brick and flint wings of the house made a graceful curve. Large wooden front door in the middle. Magnificent thatched roof. Heavy on the insurance. Alex knew there were two other wings curving at the back with beautiful views over the coastline and the sea. Shaped like a butterfly, it was built during the Arts and Craft movement. She knew all this because she’d looked it up online, and the pictures had been fantastic. She’d had to look up about the Arts and Craft movement, but, hey, that was what Wikipedia was for.

Alex breathed in deeply. East Anglian air. More specifically, North Norfolk air with its taste of salt and freedom and sense of space. There was a reason why everybody talked about the wide East Anglian skies – the world seemed to go on forever. She closed her eyes, continuing to breathe in the air that, despite its heat, felt cleaner and fresher than the diesel, spices, and dirt of London. She had missed this. For all the ghastly events of two years ago, she had missed this. Of course, this trip to find out more about Elena’s death was another burst of conscience easing, but, who knew, maybe some good could come of it, if only to help Cat.

‘Hi.’

She turned towards the voice and found herself looking at a boy – teenager, a young man – who could only be described as beautiful. Thick dark hair was brushed away from his forehead, cheekbones were sharp, top lip was slightly fuller than the bottom. Chocolate-brown eyes that were fringed by long, girlish lashes appraised her. He held a cigarette loosely between his fingers. For a moment Alex felt awkward, gauche even. Then she told herself not to be so silly. This was an adolescent. A beautiful one, but one who was about Gus’s age. Younger. ‘Hallo,’ she said, smiling.

‘Did you want some help? Only …’ The boy raised his eyebrows. Looked her up and down, slowly.

She felt discomforted. ‘Only what?’

‘You looked … lost, that’s all.’ He smiled back at her. Dazzling.

‘No, not lost,’ she said. ‘Only looking. It’s a beautiful building.’

‘What?’ He followed her gaze. ‘Oh, yeah. That.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s school, that’s all I know.’

‘You a pupil?’ Though she had guessed this, and not only because she could see books protruding from the rucksack slung over one shoulder.

‘Yeah, just. Exams. Then I’m outta here. Maths. Do you want to know where to go? Directions? That sort of thing?’

She shook her head. ‘No. Really, I’m fine, thank you.’

He stared up the drive. ‘Y’know, I never really look at the building. I know it’s beautiful; a great example of some sort of architecture yadda yadda, but hey, to me it’s school. Even if I live in a sixth form house and can wear my own clothes, go out at lunchtime, even smoke.’ He grinned. ‘As long as they don’t find out, of course; it’s still school with all its petty rules and regulations. I’m so past it.’ He threw the butt down and ground it under one trainer-ed foot. ‘But you don’t want to know that, mystery lady. Good to see you.’

‘And you.’

‘Name’s Theo, by the way.’

‘I’m Alex,’ she said.

‘Yeah.’ He sauntered off, lifting a hand as he went. ‘Ciao.’

Ciao? Didn’t that go out in the eighties? And what did he mean, ‘yeah’? Had he recognized her? But it was two years ago, and the newspapers had not only wrapped fish and chips but would have been used as compost by now. So what? She couldn’t worry about that. More likely it was a teenage tic.

She went back to the car and drove slowly past the entrance, peering up the drive. Theo was standing motionless, staring at her. For some reason, she shivered.

CHAPTER 6

She found the Devonshires’ holiday home pretty easily with the directions she’d been given. The car had wheezed and bounced down a long rutted track that looped and curved down a hill until she reached the flint cottage that stood stark against the sky. Alex had to walk round the cottage to find the front door. She could see why. Whoever had originally designed the cottage had wanted visitors to marvel at the view. The sea, less than a hundred metres from the door, was grey and endless. She could have been at the house at the end of the world. The only sounds were the screams of gulls above her and the crash of the waves onto the shore. She looked to her right: grass and open fields with the beach below; to her left, in the distance, she could see cliffs, rocks, sea defences, the beautiful building that was The Drift.

Somewhere along there Elena had fallen.

The key was where she had been told it would be: under the stone pig guarding the front door. Marvellous, she thought, people still left their keys the first place a burglar would look. She felt comforted by the thought that the world up here hadn’t changed much in the last couple of years that she’d been living in London, where, if you left your key under a stone pig, you’d more than likely get back to find your house stripped bare.

The air in the hallway was pleasantly cool and the rooms of the cottage were large and tastefully furnished: polished rosewood tables juxtaposed with modern settees. A cracked leather sofa. An old-fashioned upright piano and a couple of Ghost chairs. The kitchen had what she thought must have been the original pamment tiles, but there was every mod con, including a rather alarming-looking coffee maker. In the fridge she found a cold chicken and a bowl of salad as well as milk, eggs, butter, and a bottle of wine. Cat had been true to her word and had asked her housekeeper to stock up the fridge with essentials so she wouldn’t have to go shopping straightaway.

She brought her case in from the car and took it upstairs to the main bedroom, which was furnished with an iron-framed bed, a dressing table, chest of drawers, and a door through to a small bathroom. Again, everything tasteful and charming. Cat had come a long way since their schooldays. Peering through the window there was that view again: endless sky and sea, the sun high and unforgiving. She was conscious of the sweat on her forehead. Fresh air, that’s what she needed.

A cooling breeze was coming off the sea as she walked along the stretch of beach below the cottage. She’d walked across the grass to shallow steps that had been cut into the cliff enabling her to scramble down. She stood for a moment, imagining she was the only person in the world, for that’s what it felt like, then she turned to her left, walking along the shoreline in the lee of the cliffs.

After ten minutes of walking she reached the section of cliff where the road above had been swept away in the ferocious gales and sea surge of the previous year. As she looked up she could see the remnants of blue and white police tape fluttering in the breeze. She imagined Elena standing at the edge of that road, looking down onto the beach and the rocks below. What had been in her mind that dark, cold December night? Had she been frightened? Or calm; sure of what she wanted to do. How unhappy must she have been to overcome her fear of heights? It was a long way to fall, but then it took only a split second decision to jump, and once that decision was made, you couldn’t go back.

If she had indeed made the decision for herself.

Alex looked around and saw the rocks that Elena had most probably landed on, the seaweed draped over them like throws on a chair. Nearby, a family was picnicking, their red and blue tartan rug spread out underneath them, two boys – one aged no more than two – digging in the sand. A short distance from them, a young man and a woman lay on two towels soaking up the sun. Near to where the sea sucked at the shore, a woman was throwing a stick into the waves for her retriever to fetch. The scene was summertime on an English beach. Pity it was a beach where a teenager’s broken body had lain for an old man to find.

She looked up again, along the clifftop. A chalet bungalow teetered right near the edge, gripping the last of the land for dear life. It looked as though it only needed a wisp of wind to send it toppling onto the sand below. It was weather-beaten and abandoned, with a broken door and smashed windows. Alex imagined the owners had given up the fight.

Suddenly a missile barged into her legs almost knocking her over. As she regained her balance, she saw the now very wet retriever sitting at her feet, a stick in its mouth. It dropped the stick, looking hopefully up at her, wagging its tail across the ground, distributing sand everywhere. Alex laughed, bending down for the stick before throwing it as far as she could.

A woman hurried up to her. ‘I’m so sorry about Ronan. Are you okay?’ She frowned, looking worried as she pushed dark corkscrew hair off her face.

‘I’m fine,’ laughed Alex, brushing sand off her clothes. ‘I love dogs and he’s a beauty.’

‘He still hasn’t learned obedience, however many classes I take him to.’

Ronan bounded up and dropped the stick at Alex’s feet again. She picked it up.

‘He’ll be having you doing that all day if you’re not careful. And he loves going into the sea.’ The woman had an open smile, though there was a sadness around her eyes and what looked like a wariness in them. She was wearing a smart, short-sleeved shirt and dark linen trousers, rolled up over her calves. She was barefoot and carried sensible sandals in her hand. Alex saw a small tattoo of an angel’s wing on her ankle. Alex smiled back.

‘I might be tempted myself.’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t if I were you. North Sea’s freezing even at this time of year. It’s almost acceptable in September. If you’re a masochist. My feet are like ice blocks.’

Alex threw the stick again. ‘You live here then?’ Alex’s question was, in fact, disingenuous, as she had recognized the woman as a teacher from The Drift. It hadn’t been a waste of time trawling through the school’s website and imprinting the faces of the teachers on her mind. This was Louise Churchill, English teacher. And another thing she knew about the woman, thanks to Catriona, was that she had been Elena’s English teacher.

‘For my sins.’ A flicker of sadness crossed Louise Churchill’s face before she smiled again, though this time there seemed to be more effort behind it. ‘No, it’s a great place to live. I’m a teacher, though. That makes it hard.’

‘Really?’ said Alex. ‘A teacher. That is a tough gig. I admire you. I don’t think I could stand up in front of a class of kids and make them listen to me.’

She called to her dog. ‘Ronan, come here. Don’t go so far out.’ Ronan continued to paddle, stick in his mouth. ‘Oh, it’s not so bad. It’s not as if I’m at some inner city school or failing academy. The students are supposed to be the cream of society. Moneyed society, that is.’ She pointed upwards and there, in the distance, The Drift stood: imperious, looking out over the sea. ‘That’s where I am. The Drift. Posh boarding school for posh kids.’

‘Nice.’

‘It is, mostly. What makes it hard is living in the village, but I guess I’m luckier than some who have to live in the grounds. They never get away from it. It’s not a bad place to teach, though it took a while to find my feet.’ She looked at her watch then clapped her hands. ‘Ronan. Here. Now.’

Alex thought about what Cat had told her about the young teacher. She and her husband had moved to the school and started in the January of the year Elena died. Her husband taught Maths. Or was it Physics? Some subject Alex was useless at anyway. She thought they might have had young children. Twins? Damn, her brain was turning to mush; she wasn’t concentrating enough. There was a time when she wouldn’t have forgotten any of those facts.

At that moment, Ronan bounded up to the pair of them and shook vigorously, splattering drops of seawater over the two women.

‘Ronan, stop it.’ Louise turned to Alex. ‘I’m sorry, that dog really has no discipline.’

‘It’s okay,’ said Alex laughing. ‘It’s quite refreshing in a funny sort of way.’ Ronan began to bark at the waves, running in and out of the water. ‘Now look at him,’ she said, not sure whether she was glad or sorry the subject of what she was doing in Hallow’s Edge had been avoided, ‘he’s loving that.’ Probably glad, as she wanted Louise to trust her before they spoke about what had happened to Elena. It had been a stroke of luck to find her on the beach.

‘You’re right about that.’ They both stood looking at Ronan for another few moments. ‘Are you on holiday? Where are you staying?’

‘A cottage over that way.’ Alex waved her hand in the vague direction of the cottage. She didn’t want to be too specific in case Louise knew of the Devonshires’ place. Unlikely, but it was better not to take any chances. ‘It’s a beautiful spot, this.’

Louise looked around. ‘It is.’ Then she looked at her watch and groaned. ‘God, lunchtime’s almost over and I’ve got to get this one home, and then get back to school.’ She bent down and clipped the lead onto Ronan. ‘Can’t be late. I’ll bring the wrath of the heads on my shoulders. They don’t like us to be a minute over time. If they could have a clocking in and out machine, they would.’

‘Two heads?’

‘One for the girls and one for the boys. The Farrars. A dastardly double act. But don’t tell anyone I said that, will you?’

Alex smiled. ‘Of course not.’

Louise hesitated. ‘Perhaps I’ll see you again? Are you up from London? I miss the city. This place can be quite lonely sometimes.’ There was a vulnerability on her face that struck a chord with Alex.

‘That would be great. I’d like that.’ And Alex found that she meant it.

‘Okay. I’ll be here with Ronan tomorrow over lunch. I’m not on dinner hall duty this week, thank God.’

‘Lovely. I’ll try to make it.’

She watched as Louise strode across the sand to the slope that would take her up to the path above. At the top she stopped, looked round and waved at Alex. Alex waved back.

CHAPTER 7

The long evenings, that’s what Alex loved about the month of June. She tried not to think that in not much more than two weeks’ time it would be the longest day and then the evenings would start to draw in. But for now the light was soft and the air balmy. She was glad she had been able to eat her solitary dinner outside on the terrace.

But now she was feeling restless.

She had tried and failed to raise Gus on FaceTime.

What was he doing and why hadn’t he answered his phone? This is where she could start to get worried and think about corrupt policemen and drugs mules. But Gus was sensible, she told herself. He’d had to grow up fast and had become quite streetwise these last couple of years in London. She had to trust him. And the ferry from Dover to Calais wasn’t exactly the drugs route to the west. But where the hell was he? Please God this hare-brained idea about trying to find Steve was just that. An idea.

She washed up her plate and cup and left them to dry on the drainer. How pathetic they looked. Then she prowled round the house, picked a couple of books off the bookshelf in the sitting room: a thriller with a lurid cover and a Terry Pratchett novel. Who read what? she wondered. She opened a couple of drawers in the desk in the corner of the room but found them empty with the exception of a few drawing pins and paper clips. She went upstairs and into the second bedroom. Like the main bedroom, it was simply furnished: a double bed with an iron bedstead, a wardrobe, and a chest of drawers. In the corner was an antique washstand – Victorian, maybe – with a white roses washbowl and pitcher. But the photograph in a silver frame on top of the chest of drawers was what drew her eye. She picked it up. Elena, standing on the beach below with her arm around Cat, laughing; her long hair whipped around her face by the wind; looking as though she hadn’t got a care in the world. When was it taken? How could she go from a girl who looked as though she loved life to one who threw herself off a cliff?

‘She was a clever girl. And resilient,’ Cat had told her in that dull, defeated voice as they sat in Elena’s bedroom. ‘She had depression and anorexia after her father died.’

‘How did he die?’ Alex was ashamed that she didn’t know. And hadn’t bothered to find out.

‘Asthma attack. Elena found him. Her illnesses were a way of controlling her grief, they told us. But she beat it. She’s – she was – strong. I know she was strong. She told me she never wanted to go back to that dark place. Never ever. She started making plans. She wanted to go to Art college, you know.’ She smiled. ‘She was good enough, too. She wanted to paint. She wanted to sculpt. She wanted to design. She could have had the world at her feet.’ She put her head in her hands and began to weep. After a few moments she lifted her head up. Her face was crumpled with grief. ‘She was doing well at school – and then I married Mark.’

‘Did she like Mark?’

She frowned. ‘Not much. I was hoping the Christmas skiing holiday would be a chance to bond. He’d been the one to persuade me to send her away to school, said it would be better for her and for my career.’

‘And what did Elena think about that?’

‘She seemed okay, at first. But I knew she hated it. I would have tense calls or abrupt texts. Then, in the summer term, the term before she died, she sounded, I don’t know, happier I guess. More settled.’

‘Boyfriend?’

‘I don’t know. I was so pleased she seemed to be settling in that I simply accepted it. I didn’t bother to find out. I didn’t bother to try and get to know my daughter.’ She looked around the room. ‘And now, this is all I know of her. Cuddly toys, boy bands she’d grown out of, and a dubious taste in literature.’

‘Cat,’ said Alex, ‘I will find out what happened. I will get to the truth, though you may find you won’t like it.’

Cat grabbed her hand. ‘The truth. That’s all I want.’

Alex hoped to God it was. She knew how much the truth could hurt.

Putting the photo frame down, she crossed to the window and looked out over the sea to the endless horizon, suddenly realizing what it was she was feeling. Lonely, that’s what it was. Her son was halfway across the world, okay, maybe an exaggeration, but that’s what it felt like; her sister was in a mental institution; her parents were old and frail and didn’t want to know: there was no one in the world who cared where she was or what she was doing. Except Bud, maybe. He had always looked out for her and took her on as a freelancer at The Post when she’d fled Suffolk for London two years ago. She’d gone from writing profiles about the good, the bad, and the dangerous, to more investigative stuff: she had that instinct; the ability to nibble away at a story looking at all the angles: digging into its core. She hadn’t had time to feel lonely, to seek out companionship, someone she could talk over the day with.

Not to say she hadn’t had offers, but sharing a bed with another journalist was not for her: too much shop talk. No, she preferred brief encounters, a bit of fun, bit of a laugh then goodbye before anybody got hurt. At least, that was the theory. Didn’t always work. One brief encounter had produced Gus, so that was a bonus. But two not-so-brief encounters had brought her nothing but heartache. The most recent had been with someone she thought she could love, and had even begun to trust: he’d moved in, got to know her son. But he had betrayed her. Since then, she had kept dalliances short and sweet.

Moved in. Getting to know her son. And the two of them had got on. Very well. What had Gus said about finding his father? That a friend was helping.