A Darkly Bound Betrayal

  Copyright © Val Knowles (2023)

  The right of Val Knowles to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

  Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  First published by Cranthorpe Millner Publishers (2023)

  ISBN 978-1-80378-109-9 (eBook)

  www.cranthorpemillner.com

  Cranthorpe Millner Publishers

  I would like to thank my family and friends for all their love and encouragement.

  PROLOGUE

  Somerset

  Saturday 30th May, 2020

  3 p.m.

  Dry, with long periods of sunshine had been the weather forecast that morning and it certainly hadn’t been wrong. It was yet another hot, sunny afternoon. Bees were circling around their favourite flowers, buzzing happily as the pollen collected on their little furry bodies. Butterflies wafted their fragile wings; their lovely colours enhancing their chosen flowers as they too took their share of the pollen. Dragonflies hovered; their gossamer wings almost transparent until the light caught them and their shimmering colours became fluorescent and even more beautiful.

  Everything should have been perfect for Talya’s eighteenth birthday. In fact, it should have been idyllic, except that it wasn’t, and it couldn’t be. The new coronavirus (COVID-19) had taken its evil hold on the world and no one was safe, although the UK was just about to take its first steps to emerge from a national lockdown.

  But Talya was never one to be suppressed. Like a whirlwind she burst into the garden, startling Anna and Nick who were lazily relaxing in the sun.

  “I’ve just taught Grandmamma how to do Zoom but she couldn’t get the hang of the audio button so we had to talk on our ’phones as well. It was just so funny; she kept talking when I was trying to talk. They send their love, and they want us to pop over for a drink in their garden one day next week, now that we can meet up again.”

  Nick smiled at her fondly. He wasn’t in agreement with the scientists who were supporting easing of lockdown measures too quickly. His support lay with those scientists who urged caution, and were trying to persuade the government to ease lockdown measures slowly.

  “Well, we’ll see. They’re both in the vulnerable group but they don’t have to shield, so meeting outside in their garden for a short time might be OK.”

  Anna smiled to herself as the image of Talya and her mother-in-law trying to out-talk each other flashed through her mind. Talya seemed to have inherited more than her fair share of her paternal grandmother’s volatile genes. More than once Anna had breathed a secret sigh of relief that Mikey had inherited his father’s more pragmatic approach to life.

  “Hey, Dad, quick, you’re on!” shouted Mikey from the living room. His parents exchanged an amused smile at the excitement in their son’s voice. They’d forgotten just how proud he was of his father’s work, and now that he was home from his final year at Oxford University during the COVID-19 lockdown, his enthusiasm and pride in his father’s prominent role in the fight against the virus seemed to fill the house. Reluctantly, Nick and Anna dragged themselves up from their comfortable loungers.

  They all trooped into the living room just as the prime minister was finishing his briefing, gesticulating enthusiastically, his pale hair flapping around his face as he did so.

  “I’ll now pass you over to Professor Nick Karev, a prominent viral immunologist whose research work on T-cells, which are among the immune system’s most powerful weapons, has shown a link that bodes well for the development of long-term protective immunity. Karev and his team are investigating findings in the important role that T-cells play in the battle against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. They are looking at significant data that seems to link levels of vitamin D with the activation of T-cell response.”

  Nick’s face filled the screen as he started to explain his research in a simplistic format, and to answer questions. After a few minutes, Nick reached forward and turned off the TV.

  “Enough, this is boring stuff. It’s a lovely day, let’s get outside again and start celebrating Talya’s birthday. Now, who wants a Pimms?”

  After the usual fight over the most comfortable lounger, Talya and Mikey raised their glasses with their parents. Talya took a sip of her drink, pulled her long, dark hair away from her face and smiled sweetly at them.

  “Grandmamma also reminded me that you’d promised to tell me and Mikey all about it when I reached eighteen.” She paused expectantly as Anna and Nick exchanged a long look.

  Anna’s heart sank as she gazed across at Nick. Of course she remembered that promise and she and Nick had discussed it between themselves more times than she could remember, but Anna had still dreaded this moment.

  “About what, darling?” she asked, playing for time.

  Talya shrugged impatiently, her voice rising. “Oh, Mummy, don’t play dumb, you know exactly what I mean. We’re not stupid, or kids anymore. The past – yours and Daddy’s past – that dark, secret, mysterious family history that you won’t talk about. Look, we know that I’m named after Grandmamma and my middle name is after your mother, even though I never knew her. You’ve told us that Mikey’s middle name is after Daddy’s father, although we never knew him either, but why break an obvious pattern? Why isn’t he also named after your father?” She leant forward, almost shouting now. “Why was he named Michael? Who was Michael? We don’t have anyone in our family called Michael. We don’t know anyone called Michael. So why would you give your first child that name rather than the name of your own father? And why is it all such a secret? Why so many secrets? What really happened to your father, Mummy? How did he die? You never want to talk about him. You said he had an accident at work, but what kind of accident? And what happened to Daddy’s father? Grandmamma will only say that he died young, but she won’t talk about him until we know his story. Daddy says he never even met him. We don’t know anything about either of them. And why can’t we visit their graves, like we do your mother’s? It’s not fair. Why do we have to live with so many secrets…?” Her voice tailed off and she brushed a tear from her eye.

  Mikey kept silent, watching his parents with something like sympathy in his dark eyes as Nick leant across and briefly squeezed Anna’s hand.

  Nick took a deep breath and settled back in his lounger, drink in hand, frowning slightly in concentration.

  “Talya, Mikey, your grandmamma is right. I’m sorry, we’ve tried to shield you but for too long. It’s time to tell you the truth and unlock the secrets of the past.”

  He smiled reassuringly at Anna as he started to slowly and carefully relate the well-rehearsed and much edited version of the story of their dark and tragically entwined past, from which neither of them would ever be able to fully escape.

  But even before he started to speak, at Talya’s mention of Michael, Anna’s thoughts had drifted back to that evening in May, 1996.

  CHAPTER 1

  Somerset

  Friday 17th May, 1996

  8 p.m.

  The doorbell rang and she got up and wal
ked slowly to the door. Her father was standing on the doorstep. The moon was dim and her father’s unsmiling features were in semi-shadow as she moved forward to greet him. Then, as he stepped backwards away from her and faded into the darkness, her reaching hands found only the smooth contours of a wooden coffin and a scream echoed around her head. The doorbell rang again, jolting her from her restless dreaming state.

  Anna sat up abruptly, her head as heavy as her heart, confused as to where she was. What time was it? What had startled her? The doorbell rang yet again, followed by a heavy banging on the door. With an effort equivalent to the most hungover of mornings, she dragged herself off the sofa and ran her fingers through her hair, glancing briefly in the mirror over the fireplace as she did so. Grimacing at the sight of her hair almost standing on end, she stumbled to the door. The dream had evaporated but the emptiness had not yet had time to engulf her. Distraction is the antidote to grief, and she’d experienced more than her fair share of grief these last couple of days, what with her father’s death and Michael going missing.

  She pulled open her front door, which always stuck in damp weather. How often had she intended to get someone to fix it? It was him again; a large shape silhouetted against the teeming rain.

  “Miss Hamilton, I am so sorry to disturb you again but I’m afraid I do have a few more questions to ask, and some more information to share with you.”

  Anna stood, undecided for a moment. Do I say, no? Can I even say, no; she, who until recently, had only ever spoken to a policeman once before, as a child, as a dare? “Ask him the time, Anna, I dare you.” She could hear Sarah’s voice in her head now, as if that dare had been yesterday rather than nearly twenty years ago. She looked up at Detective Inspector Paul Ravell in his smart dark jacket, wet hair dripping over his eyes, but still upright and stern.

  Would he be amused if she asked him the time? Did he have a sense of humour beneath that stiff exterior? Did he laugh or cry? Could he ever make passionate love? she wondered. Could he let himself go? He wasn’t bad-looking after all: tall and fair, a bit broad perhaps. Not her type – she preferred men with dark hair – but a lot of women would find him attractive…

  “May I come in, please? I’m actually getting very wet standing here,” he pointed out.

  She glanced briefly at her watch, shocked to see it was only eight p.m. The early darkness and heavy rain, coupled with her uneasy afternoon sleep, had fooled her into believing it a much later time. She looked back at him as he stood dripping on her doorstep. Behind him, the sky looked black and threatening.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry. Yes, please do come in,” she said, stepping back to allow him to enter, closing the door behind him and shutting out the unfriendly night.

  Where had all this rain come from? It had started as the most beautiful of May mornings, the hottest day of the year so far (so the weatherman had said at lunchtime); fresh at first with dew, but later, hot and heavy with the scent of the flowers as they emerged to enjoy their freedom, the smell of the lilac blossom as it regained its territory from enforced sleep. Anna hadn’t enjoyed this day though; how could she? She’d fallen into her fitful doze about five p.m., exhausted from her constant grief and worry, and now she felt cheated. I’ve woken up from my sleep but I don’t feel refreshed. Where has my day gone? Where has daylight gone? Surely it can’t be dark yet?

  Anna waited as the inspector carefully wiped his wet shoes on her mat, and then she led him through the hall and into the sitting room (badly named, Michael had always said; more of a lying down room than a sitting room, with its deep white sofas, soft cushions and crazy, colourful rugs).

  Ravell instinctively ducked under the low doorway as he entered the room. Michael always did the same, she thought with a pang. She mentally shook herself, trying to get Michael out of her head and concentrate on what this police officer might want to ask her.

  “I am sorry to bother you,” he began, looking slightly ridiculous in his sodden jacket that had dripped its wetness across the floor and into her sitting room.

  She smiled – for the first time since her father’s death.

  “Please, do take off your jacket, you’re soaking wet. I can find you something else to wear. Your jacket will be ruined if you leave it on.” But he looked so stiff and formal. Would he even take his jacket off in front of her?

  Ravell glanced around him, admiring her cosy room, tastefully, if rather untidily, arranged. He looked at her in the soft light, cursing the reason he was here, wondering why he had ever chosen this as a career. He wondered briefly how Caitlin would have reacted to the situation he was about to create were she the one who was standing across the room from him as a stranger, small, alone, and looking, he realised with a start, slightly annoyed. He jumped back to the present. “Thank you.”

  He took off his jacket, embarrassed as the rain water dripped large pools onto her rugs. He wanted to shake his head like a dog as his hair was falling down over his eyes, but he had to content himself with running his fingers through it, just to be able to see again.

  “No, it’s so warm,” he said. “I’m fine thanks, I don’t need anything else.”

  So it is, she thought to herself, as she took his sodden jacket from him and carried it through to the kitchen to hang over the back of a chair. Let it drip there, out of the way. She glanced out through her kitchen window. It was dark outside, but it felt so humid that there must be a storm brewing.

  She returned to her sitting room where he had his back turned to her and was looking at the framed photographs on her desk. How often she had studied them herself these last two days, looking for some clue, some indication that might explain the events that had recently befallen them.

  There was one of her mother, her father and herself, taken some years ago in some forgotten French restaurant on some unmemorable holiday. Was it the Dordogne, or had it been Brittany? Did it really matter? And then there were the ones taken in the garden: the one of her mother, her father, Michael and herself taken just weeks before her mother died. Why had she not noticed before how thin her mother was getting? Then one of her and Michael, arms around each other’s waists, leaning into each other, wide smiles on their faces, and another of Michael and their father smiling but standing stiffly apart. Why had she not noticed that distancing before?

  But her favourite was the one of Michael and herself, taken, she remembered, on a fairly recent trip to Polzeath, Cornwall. It had been a couple of relaxing days in a small hotel, where she and Michael had enjoyed the sun and the surf and her father had sat with his nose in a book the whole time. Michael was still wearing his wetsuit in the photograph. If only she could have foreseen the short time they had left to be together as a family.

  He turned quickly as he heard her come back into the room, his look inscrutable. She sat down on one of the sofas and indicated for him to do the same on the opposite one. He looked doubtfully at the deep sofa and tentatively lowered himself down onto it, sinking rather more deeply into its welcoming interior than he’d obviously expected. He recovered almost immediately and looked across at her, his expression sombre. She found herself lowering her eyes, catching his mood.

  He spoke slowly, almost with painful accuracy.

  “I really am sorry to have to disturb you again. I do realise that I have questioned you already and that this is a very painful time for you, but I do need to speak to you again about your father and your brother. It is rather important.”

  Anna looked down at her tightly clasped hands, her nails digging into her palms, and quickly pulled them apart. Try to look relaxed, she told herself. I don’t want to talk about this again, absolutely I don’t. I can’t remember what I said before and you might catch me out. Her thoughts were in turmoil, her mind desperately seeking control as she wanted to say to him, “You tell me. I don’t have any answers, all I have is questions, and they are beyond your understanding. There is so much I need to know and I can’t ask you; you wouldn’t know where to star
t.”

  He waited patiently, seeming to sense her confusion, her loss of control.

  With a huge effort, she took a deep breath, smiled (calmly she hoped) and replied, “Yes, of course, but would you like a drink first?” He looked surprised, not expecting that response, her sudden composure knocking him off balance, making him reply without thinking.

  “Like what?”

  “I’ve got gin, whisky, wine, tea or coffee.”

  Paul was very tempted to ask for a neat whisky, realising he’d lost his brief advantage and she was back in control of herself now, but this was work.

  “Well, I am on duty so just a glass of water please.”

  Anna got up, went slowly to the kitchen, returning seconds later with a large glass of water liberally filled with ice cubes.

  When she handed him the drink, he hadn’t quite recovered his equilibrium and spoke more harshly than he’d intended.

  “There are certain aspects that don’t add up in the murder of your father.”

  Her world spun and her composure deserted her. The word ‘murder’ echoed around her head, bringing with it its horrible connotations. Murder: my father murdered, brutally killed, done to death, blood spilt, words unspoken, love destroyed. With an effort she controlled her thoughts.

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t understand. I thought the police – sorry, you – thought it was a pointless act of violence.” Why not say a mugging? The word ‘murder’ was so dirty. Anna couldn’t associate it with her neat and introverted father.

  “I’m sorry if I have distressed you. I understand this is still such a shock, that you are still grieving for your father, but other information has come to light and there are certain things that I must tell you.”

  All these apologies, she thought sadly. We don’t mean them really; we’re lying, trapped in some moral code of civilised behaviour, of polite spoken language. But I can’t be moral, for even now I’m about to be less than honest with you – you, the police – and I haven’t even asked you the time! Stupid thought, she reprimanded herself, this is no time to be frivolous, but her thoughts refused to be silent, for in silence the memories might intrude. She looked down at her hands, still clasped tightly, and made a positive effort to relax them.