Page 66 of The Perfect Guests
Sadie turned back to the officers. “I’ll wait here a bit longer, if that’s okay. I don’t want to leave my mum alone.”
Outside, the darkness is finally giving way to sunrise. Beyond the band of reeds, the surface of Avermere glints with reflected oranges and pinks and golds. Beth leans closer to the glass and breathes out an “Oh.”
Sadie goes to join her, and she peers beyond the emergency vehicles to a civilian car, and a man standing next to it.
“Who’s that?” Sadie says. “Is it Joe?”
A moment later, he turns, and she sees that the man is Joe. He walks around to the passenger side and helps a second person climb out of the car—an elderly man, white-haired and slow-moving. The old man doesn’t straighten fully once he’s out on the gravel. He leans on a stick as he walks, his tall frame stooped, his gait uncertain.
Beth is no longer watching the ambulance; she seems transfixed by the spectacle of Joe and the old man approaching the house.
“Come on,” Sadie says, aware that her bright tone sounds false. “Let’s go and see if Joe’s got any news.”
She sets off for the hall, half expecting Beth to stay by the window, but after a short delay, Beth follows her. They wait on the top step as the two men approach at the old man’s slow pace. When Joe looks across and spots them, his whole face lights up.
“Wow, Mum,” Sadie murmurs. “He sure looks pleased to see you.” She’s only ever known her mum single; Beth always maintained she wasn’t interested in finding a partner while Sadie was growing up. Sadie’s pondering her feelings about this, when her attention is caught by the old man again—something about his face as he glances up...
“Woah,” Sadie says. “That man looks like...” She turns to Beth. “He looks like the man in the portrait in the dining room.”
Beth doesn’t reply. The men reach the bottom of the steps, and the old man leans more heavily on Joe’s arm as they begin to climb.
Joe looks up at Beth. “How are you?” Belatedly, he tears his gaze from her and smiles at Sadie too. “And how’re you feeling? The police just told us they found sleeping pills ground up in the pantry. That accounts for how dopey we all felt...” His smile falters. “They told us about Nina too...”
The old man pauses and coughs into his fist, and even with his face tilted down, Sadie can see he looks utterly miserable. She catches Joe’s eye and looks pointedly back at the old man.
“Oh yes, sorry,” Joe says. “This is Hendrik Meyer. He owns Raven Hall. He was staying at the B and B last night... Hendrik, this is Beth and Sadie.”
Hendrik barely looks at them but indicates they should all move inside. They make their way into the still-chilly drawing room, and Joe guides Hendrik to the armchair that Roy Everett was sitting in not so long ago. Sadie adds a couple more logs to the fire, and then she joins Joe on the sofa opposite Hendrik. For the first time, she feels self-conscious about wearing nightclothes under her borrowed coat. Amazing how such trivial worries creep right back in, as soon as your life’s no longer in danger.
Beth returns to the window, to resume her watch over the ambulance.
Sadie studies Hendrik covertly, strangely entranced by the washed-out blue of his age-clouded eyes. He peers around the room, and his gaze comes to rest on the glass fragments scattered over the black marble hearth.It looked much nicer in here earlier,Sadie wants to tell him.It was quite glamorous and welcoming back then.But she worries it would sound odd for her to try to cheer up this old man, when she’s never met him before. So she stays quiet.
Joe shifts his position to look at Beth. “The police said we’ve just got to be patient...”
Finally, Sadie remembers what she wanted to ask him. “Was Genevieve there, at the B and B?”
“Yes.” He gives her a relieved smile. “She was. After all that panic here. Mum said she knocked just after eleven—a young woman with dark hair in a red dress, fur coat. She told Mum she’d been at a house party but got fed up with the other guests—can you believe it?”
Even in her least responsible moments, Sadie would never have walked out of a job, leaving people to worry over her like that. Still, she’s relieved they didn’t find Genevieve’s body at the bottom of the lake... With a jolt, she remembers what happened to Hendrik’s son, Markus.
“So, yeah,” Joe says, “I jogged back to the B and B and rang the police. And then I found Hendrik, still wide awake, having a drink in the lounge. He flew over from the States just yesterday.”
“Eight-hour time difference,” Hendrik says gloomily. “It doesn’t get any easier as you get older, I tell you.”
“I e-mailed Hendrik a few weeks ago,” Joe explains. “I kept seeing vehicles coming and going from Raven Hall—carpenters’ vans, department store lorries. I thought maybe Hendrik was getting the place tidied up to sell, but he said—”
“I thought it was squatters,” Hendrik says. “And I said not to worry. I wanted to come over for one last visit anyway, sort through some stuff here and get the place on the market. But then, when Joe said he’d been invited to an event here, I asked him to go along and see who was behind it.” He turns his head away to cough, then turns back. “I suppose, before I called the police, I wanted to make sure it wasn’t Nina, come back to her old home. But I never imagined...”
“That this was what she had planned,” Sadie says.
“Exactly.” Hendrik shakes his head morosely. “I’d have let her live here, you know—I’d have given her the house if she wanted it. I did try to stay in touch, after Markus...” He pauses, waiting for his throat to settle. “But Leonora cut me off, refused all my offers of money for the child. She took Nina away—to the south coast somewhere.”
“I’m sorry,” Sadie says. “That must have been difficult.”
Hendrik sighs. “I should have tried harder to contact her once she was an adult and out of Leonora’s clutches. That’s the other reason I flew over. I suppose I was hoping, if I could find Nina, we might talk face-to-face. I’ve no doubt her mother poisoned her against me, but still—sheismy granddaughter.”
Sadie holds her breath.He doesn’t know yet.She glances at Joe, but he wasn’t there to hear Nina’s final revelation either. And over by the window, Beth remains silent. Should Sadie leave it to the police to tell Hendrik eventually, or would it be kinder to break the news to him herself?
