‘Saffron.’ He peeled back the duvet. She glared at him with eyes that glistened through the gloom.

  ‘Dad’s gone to prison. You told me he’d be coming home.’ Alex felt wretched, although he hadn’t purposefully misled her. He’d only been trying to make her feel better, but the things he said had been a lie.

  ‘I’m so sorry. I’ll make it up to you.’

  He had made a promise to her and to God. He’d be a good person. He’d never lie again.

  The years rolled past. They both left school with plans to go to uni, but Saffron’s dad was released and she chose to live with him. Alex visited the dingy bedsit where mould clung to the ceiling and walls and condensation streamed down the windows, and he watched as she faded before his eyes. Alex completed his law degree and as soon as he got his first job he asked Saffron to come and live with him. She wouldn’t, but pleaded with him to send her money for food. He set up a direct debit, pleased there was something he could do to help. The next time he saw her she was even thinner. Eyes glassy. The light inside her extinguished. Needle marks pinpricked her arms. Alex begged her to come and live with him but she wouldn’t leave her father.

  By that time Alex had met Dafydd, and was helping out on the farm. Dafydd allowed Alex to spend more and more time there, and he worked out his frustrations. Losing himself in the endless sky and fields that stretched as far as the eye could see.

  He remembered the day he received the phone call. It was the perfect summer day. Shimmering sun and fluffy white clouds. The sort of day where everything in the world seemed right. Darkness twisted around the receiver, snaking down his throat and gripping his heart.

  ‘This is Newtown Hospital. We’ve admitted your sister, Saffron. You’re down as her next of kin. She’s had an overdose. I think you should come.’

  He rushed to her side.

  ‘Saffron.’ He took her hand, her fingers as thin as twigs and he didn’t let go of her until her eyes flickered open.

  ‘Dad’s in prison again,’ she whispered. ‘He’s never going to change, is he?’

  ‘Don’t cry. I’m here.’ He wiped away her tears. ‘I’ll look after you.’

  When Saffron was discharged Alex drove her to rehab.

  ‘I feel so helpless,’ he told Dafydd as he drove his spade furiously into the earth.

  ‘Bring her here,’ Dafydd said. ‘Fresh air. Open space. It’ll do her good. I’m planning on selling the farm, Alex. My hands aren’t up to it but she’s welcome to stay until then.’

  Alex felt the potential loss of the farm keenly. Ideas flitted through his mind as he dug, until one stuck.

  ‘What if…’ Alex placed a pot of tea on the pine table at the end of the day. ‘I moved here and with the money I’ve saved, financed an organic fruit and veg company. You wouldn’t have to do anything. There’s so much land here. So many possibilities.’

  Dafydd balanced a tea strainer over his cup and as he poured the tea, proposals poured from Alex. A green lifestyle. A community.

  ‘I’ve nothing to lose,’ Dafydd said.

  But Alex had everything to lose. He handed in his notice immediately and worked hard on his plans. By the time he picked up Saffron from the facility twelve weeks later, he couldn’t wait to tell her about his future haven away from the outside world and all its temptations.

  ‘Can I bring a friend I’ve met here?’ she asked.

  ‘Of course.’

  And they built on what he’d started until it became the thing he’d always dreamed off. A sanctuary.

  Saffron began to smile again and he knew he was fulfilling his childhood promise.

  He was a good person.

  He was looking after her.

  And he knew he’d do whatever it took to keep her safe.

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  TILLY

  ‘I love you, Saffron,’ Alex said again.

  I told myself that it didn’t mean anything. That Alex loved everyone but all the same, the buzzing in my head returned, barely audible, white noise in the background.

  ‘Even if I’ve done something terrible?’

  ‘Tell me what you’ve done.’

  As they held each other with their eyes, something silent and intimate passed between them. Saffron’s expression slid from sorrow to fear to horror.

  ‘You know, don’t you, Alex? How?’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘I’ve never been able to keep anything from you, have I? Please don’t hate me.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘You don’t need me to say it. You know… I can’t.’ Her eyes flickered to me. ‘Tilly…’

  ‘It’s Matilda. Unburdening sets you free, Saffron. You know that.’ He wiped away her tears with his thumb. Jealousy jabbed sharply into my side. ‘Let it all out.’

  ‘I can’t…’

  Again, Alex cradled her face with his hands so she couldn’t look away.

  ‘Release the struggle, Saffron. There’s so much love in the room. I promise you. It’s okay.’

  But I wasn’t feeling love. I was only feeling hate.

  ‘I…’ She inhaled deeply. Her chest juddering as she exhaled. ‘I moved the stones that lead from your cottage back to the farmhouse, the night Laura was here.’

  ‘Why?’ My thoughts gathered and scattered like petals on the flowers I used to help Mum arrange, as I tried to second-guess why Saffron would have done something like that.

  ‘And…’ she continued, ignoring my question. ‘I came into the porch and stole her torch from her coat pocket, so that she wouldn’t see the stones had been moved, and… and she’d be so focused on following them in the moonlight she’d lose her sense of direction and fall into the ravine.’

  ‘What?’ My eyes darted between Saffron and Alex, thinking I must have heard wrong. My exhausted mind playing tricks on me. Saffron can’t have just said she’d tried to kill Mum and yet, I thought she had. I pinched the skin on the back of my hand, hard. I was awake, but I just couldn’t make sense of it. ‘Mum didn’t though, did she… follow the stones… fall?’ Even as I asked, I knew the answer. It was so out of character for her to disappear. My angry words ordering her to leave after I found out the truth about Dad wouldn’t have driven her away.

  And then it came.

  As swift and as hard as the kicks Katie aimed at me on my last day of school. Mum had fallen to her death, just like Dad.

  Dannii.

  ‘Mum is… Is Mum…’ I just couldn’t say it. I couldn’t comprehend how Saffron and Alex were standing still and silent while my heart was rattling against my ribcage, shattering into pieces. ‘Mum fell into the ravine?’ I was uncertain once more. Sure I must have misunderstood. I tried to break it down into bite-sized chunks. You can’t eat an elephant all at once, Mum used to say. She couldn’t be dead.

  ‘Saffron! What’s happened to Mum?’ All I could think of was getting answers, I couldn’t begin to process her involvement. ‘Please tell me.’

  ‘She’s okay, Tilly.’ Saffron still didn’t look at me.

  ‘It’s Matilda,’ Alex said.

  ‘She did fall, but she was lucky.’

  ‘Lucky?’ There are many words I’d use to describe Mum: brave, beautiful, selfless; words I wished I’d realised while she was there. Lucky wasn’t one of them. But she’d never once complained. And now…

  ‘She knocked herself out when she landed on a ledge but she’s okay. I swear,’ Saffron said.

  ‘Is she in hospital? I need to see her. Alex, you have to take me.’ I was crying. Feeling horrible that after everything Mum had been through she could have died thinking I didn’t love her. Thinking I’d never forgive her.

  ‘She’s not in hospital,’ he replied. Something inside me shrank as I realised: if he knew where she was, he must be a part of it. He was supposed to be my safety, my Kansas, instead I was spinning and floundering and hurtling towards Oz where nothing made any sense.

  ‘Please.’ Everything in my body had shifted in panic, my organs squeezing together. ‘Somebody tell me what’s going on.’

  ‘Tell Matilda where Laura has been these past few days,’ Alex gently prompted.

  ‘Alex, please. Can we talk alone?’ Saffron begged.

  ‘Each moment is the chance for a new beginning. You don’t have to be the person you were even five minutes ago.’

  ‘SHUT UP!’ I screamed, the blinkers slipping from my eyes. Living in the moment didn’t negate the past. Something awful had happened to Mum and somebody had to be accountable, but first I needed to find her.

  ‘Saffron! Is she still at the ravine?’

  ‘No,’ she turned to me. ‘I moved her.’ In the dim light from the lamp her skin looked like a waxy mask, covering all the things she’d wanted to keep hidden. I thought we’d grown close, but there she was, revealing herself as the Wicked Witch. But instead of attacking with wolves and crows and bees, she’d defeated Mum with kind words and empty promises.

  Lies.

  ‘Moved her where?’ When I was small and had sneaked biscuits from the barrel, or chocolate from the cupboard, Mum would patiently coax the truth out of me piece by piece, but I didn’t have her patience. All I had was fury and fear and a fierce desire to shake the truth out of Saffron. ‘FUCKING TELL ME!’

  ‘To the sheep shed. I tied her to the lambing post but now she’s gone.’

  ‘Gone where?’

  ‘Honestly, I don’t know.’

  My hands drifted to my scalp, fingernails digging into bone. The bees in my mind were back with a vengeance, loud and relentless. Should I go out and look for Mum? Demand my mobile back and call the police? Would Alex even let me have my phone? Whatever this was, he was clearly involved. It struck me that I could run to the main house and tell Hazel, but then I remembered it was her who told me Mum had gone away for a few days because she needed space.

  They were all in it together.

  I wasn’t just frightened for Mum, I was frightened for me too. I took a deep breath and tried to calm my voice. ‘Why did you tie Mum up, Saffron?’ I asked like I wasn’t angry or scared or any of the things I was feeling. Like it was a perfectly reasonable thing to have done.

  ‘Because it all went wrong.’ Saffron tried to wriggle free of Alex’s grip but he wouldn’t let her go. ‘I thought Laura would like it here. We’re all a family and she was so alone. I thought she’d invest the insurance money in us, but she kept talking about leaving. I thought… If she wasn’t around you’d inherit everything, Tilly, and if you were with Alex…’

  He had used me. Used her. I could feel myself cracking. All along I’d wished for courage when it was a brain I had needed. I didn’t know what to do. How to get away from them both. How to find Mum. They wouldn’t just let me leave. It all seemed so hopeless.

  ‘Matilda,’ Alex said.

  Saffron had tried to kill Mum. I was going to die there. I dropped to a crouch. Yanking at my hair. The buzzing in my mind deafening.

  ‘I love you,’ Alex said, but that didn’t excuse what he’d done. ‘Matilda, look at me.’

  Slowly I raised my face expecting to see the monster he had become, but he was Alex. Just Alex. I began to cry. ‘I want my mum.’

  ‘I had nothing to do with this,’ he said. I met his eyes, the eyes that had scanned my body and told me I was beautiful, and I so badly wanted to believe him but how could I?

  ‘Please let me go.’ I wiped my cheeks with my sleeve.

  ‘Matilda, no one’s forcing you to be here.’ He looked hurt. ‘When you both came here I wanted to help your mum. I wanted to help you. I love you, please believe me. I didn’t know about the stones. I didn’t know about any of it.’

  ‘But you did.’

  ‘He didn’t,’ said Saffron. ‘He wasn’t involved.’

  ‘I found Laura earlier,’ Alex said. ‘I’d thought it was out of character for her to leave you here. She’s gutsy, not the sort to give up on anything. Especially not on you, Matilda.’

  Shame pulsed through me. He’d believed in her love for me when I hadn’t.

  ‘How did you find her?’ Saffron asked.

  ‘I saw you heading over to the sheep shed this afternoon with a bottle of water and coming out empty handed. I was shocked when I found her, but I understood why she was there. You were trying to save us – the farm, our community – but it wasn’t the right way, Saff, and you know that.’ He turned to me. ‘She was sleeping but looked okay. She stirred when I untied her.’

  ‘You deliberately let her go?’ The disbelief on Saffron’s face told me that I could trust Alex.

  ‘You couldn’t keep her there forever, and if you’d wanted to… dispose of her, you wouldn’t have taken her water. It was the right thing to do, Saff.’ Alex’s voice was soft.

  ‘But she’ll call the police and—’

  ‘She might, but I think she’s had enough of them, with everything she’s been through. She’ll need to see Matilda at some stage, but I’m hoping she’ll want to put all this behind her and start again. There’s half a million pounds in her bank account, now that I transferred—’

  ‘The insurance paid out?’ Saffron narrowed her eyes. ‘That should have been ours! You bastard.’ She sprung at him, nails raking down his face.

  ‘Stop!’ I grabbed her hair. Pulled her off him. She pushed me hard and I fell on the floor, scrambling back to my feet. I sprung at her again. Alex stepped between us, arms outstretched, keeping us apart. She stood facing him, hands on hips, chest heaving.

  ‘You gave away our money.’

  ‘Saffron, it was never our money, and I would never have agreed to taking it. You know that. I didn’t take any money from Hazel when she offered it. It wouldn’t be right.’

  ‘You and your fucking ideals. Your rose-coloured glasses. Yes, it’s a shit thing to do but the world is shit. It’s dog-eat-dog out there. It was the answer to everything. This…’ She swept her hand around the room. ‘This community you’re trying to create, it isn’t real.’ She began to cry again. Hard to soft and back again. ‘You fucking idiot! We’re going to lose the farm. Lose everything, while you stand there sheltered by your veil of honesty. Don’t you care? Why couldn’t you have fallen in love with Laura instead of her.’ She flashed me a look of pure hate. ‘She’d have wanted to stay then.’

  ‘Don’t fucking look at me like that.’ All those times I should have stood up for myself at school, all the outrage I could never feel for myself, came tumbling out now. For Mum. ‘We have to find Mum. Now. She’s out there alone.’

  ‘She’s right,’ Saffron snapped. ‘Laura’s still on site somewhere. Reed would have known if she’d left. Alex, please… it’s not too late, is it? The money?’

  ‘It’s not ours. It never was.’

  ‘And what do we have?’ Saffron was crying again.

  ‘We—’ Alex opened his arms. ‘We have each other. We’ll get by. We always do.’

  ‘Not this time.’ Saffron wiped her nose with the back of her hand. ‘We have to find Laura and bring her back.’

  ‘And then what?’ I asked quietly, fearing the answer.

  ‘And then we have to…’ Saffron began.

  ‘Let her go,’ Alex said.

  ‘We can’t,’ Saffron said, and there was something in her voice that turned me to ice. ‘Laura’s been digging in the sheep shed. She… she’s uncovered the body.’

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  ALEX

  It had all started a few weeks ago. Alex had strolled into the kitchen at the main house, unaware that that was the moment his life would begin to spiral out of control.

  Leaning against the Aga, hands wrapped around a mug, was a blonde woman.

  ‘Alex, this is Carys,’ Dafydd said delightedly.

  ‘Carys? Your daughter?’ Alex’s smile stretched as wide as Dafydd’s. He knew how much the farmer missed her. ‘It’s so good to meet you.’ He offered his hand before wrapping her in a hug instead. Any family of Dafydd’s were family to him too. She was stiff in his arms. Pressing against his chest, pushing him away.

  ‘Sorry.’ Alex shook his head laughing. ‘I’m just so pleased you’re here. I didn’t know you were—’

  ‘I thought I’d surprise Dad.’ Her Australian accent was prominent, but underneath was still the faint Welsh lilt. She didn’t return his smile. ‘I haven’t heard from him for ages and I was worried. But I was the one who was surprised, finding a house full of strangers.’

  ‘She’s met Daisy and Hazel—’ Dafydd began.

  ‘Yes, once I got past the electric fences and barbed wire gate. Both women wearing all white.’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘Dad says that’s a thing here?’

  ‘Yes. Well…’ Alex was uncomfortable. Aware it looked odd to an outsider.

  ‘And you’re the leader, I understand.’

  ‘Not exactly a leader, but Oak Leaf Organics was my idea…’

  ‘Ah yes. The fruit and veg. If it wasn’t for that I’d almost think you’ve turned Dad’s farm into some sort of… cult.’

  ‘Ah, there’s no sacrificing goats at midnight, I’m afraid.’ Dafydd’s eyes twinkled. He seemed unaware of the change in atmosphere.

  ‘Glad to hear it,’ Carys said. ‘Or I’d think Alex here had taken advantage of a vulnerable old man.’

  ‘Less of the old!’ Dafydd placed his mug on the table. ‘I can’t wait to show you around, Carys. Show you the changes.’

  ‘Of which there are many, I bet.’ Again, she flashed Alex a look.

  ‘Yes. There are. Alex implemented most of them. Along with Saffron. She’s his sister. Oops.’ He covered his mouth. ‘We don’t tell people that. Alex wants everyone here to feel like one big family. No favourites. It’s not the past that matters is it, Alex, but the now?’

  Alex averted his eyes so he couldn’t see the disdain on Carys’s face. Dafydd continued.

  ‘Reed. You met him on the gates. He’s been here since the beginning. He arrived with Saffron. They met in rehab.’

  ‘Rehab! Dad. Let’s go for a walk. Talk properly. Just family.’

  And that one word contained enough bitterness and doubt for Alex to know.

  It was all going to fall apart.

  Carys only stayed for a few days but that was long enough to ruin everything.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29