Page 83 of Dead Fall

‘You’re saying it might be a rebound thing.’ He tipped his head, acknowledging the point. ‘It did occur to me. But you know, Letty and I do have previous, so .?.?.’

He looked at her, his eyes serious yet full of warmth. ‘You’re the best, Cassie. I’ll always treasure the memory of our time together.’

Hearing those words, which filed their relationship irretrievably in a box labelled ‘the past’, Cassie had to bite the inside of her cheek – hard – to quell the tears building behind her eyes. His eyes were still on hers – crinkled with concern. Seeking absolution.

‘It’s all good, Archie. I’ll remember it too,’ she said, managing a smile. ‘Just do me one favour, will you?’

A wary nod. ‘Sure.’

‘When you move to the sticks, promise me you won’t murder any innocent foxes?’

Chapter Forty-Six

It was a fortnight since Chrysanthi had got out of hospital after the operation on her arm.

Cassie had been back to visit her four or five times during her hospital stay. Haunted by the prospect of one day opening a body bag to find that familiar face with its winged eyebrows, she felt driven to stop Chrysanthi giving up on life again. And crazy as it might sound, she had an unspoken deal with Bronte that if she looked after her mother they’d be quits.

Absolution.

So she’d made herself a nuisance with hospital staff, sorting out Chrysanthi’s post-release occupational therapy to get her damaged arm working properly, as well as gently encouraging her to think of ways that might give her life meaning again.

Now the two of them sat in Chrysanthi’s living room in Hampstead, drinking tea and eating oven-warm kolaczki – biscuits made with rich cream cheese pastry and filled with home-made cherry preserve. Babcia had made a batch for Easter, which had fallen the previous weekend, and had given Cassie a tin of them to take to Chrysanthi’s.

Cassie sought her eye, pleased to see some colour back in her cheeks at last.

‘So have you thought any more about the future, what you might do now?’ she asked gently.

Chrysanthi tipped her head. ‘I’m going for a visit with my relatives. In Australia’ – pronouncing it in the Greek way ‘Af-stralia’.

‘Wow! This was the cousin you mentioned?’

‘Second cousin – on my mother’s side.’ They exchanged a look. ‘I had never been in contact before but I found her on Facebook and now she sends me pictures and messages every day. Her teenage children call me their Kamden theitsa – Camden auntie.’

‘How exciting!’

A cautious smile lifted one side of her face, as if smiling was a trick she had yet to master. She still wore the black of mourning but today it was brightened by a coral-coloured scarf round her neck – the first time Cassie had seen her wear any proper colour. It offset her complexion, making her look more her real age – forty-four. Barely halfway through life.

‘I’d like to ask you a favour,’ said Chrysanthi. ‘Will you look after my Sophia’s grave at St Ioannis while I am away?’

‘I’d be honoured.’ It struck Cassie that the old patriarch Father Michaelides would be furious at the sight of her on his patch tending Bronte’s grave, but that was just an added bonus.

Chrysanthi’s eyes scanned Cassie’s face. ‘I see a lot of her in you, you know. Not in the face but in the spirit. You’re both such brave girls.’

Cassie could hardly contradict her, to say that she wished she really had been brave when it mattered, back when they were fourteen: brave enough to befriend her daughter so they could have faced down the bullies together. But time didn’t run backwards.

Chrysanthi went on, ‘They’re not religious, my cousins. But .?.?.’ Meeting Cassie’s eye, she made a face that married regret and resignation. That part of her life was over now. She might find a liberal priest who would absolve her of the ‘sin’ of her incestuous marriage but now there was the other little matter of a dead husband and father.

Thou shalt not kill, was the biggie, after all.

Chrysanthi met her eye. ‘I miss the church,’ she said simply. ‘And most of all I miss the sacrament of confession.’

Picturing Father Michaelides’ implacable profile through the grille of the confessional, Cassie failed to see any comfort there. But then religion hadn’t been the lifeline it had been to Chrysanthi all these years. ‘I can see that it must be cathartic to have someone you can say anything to,’ she said.

Catharsis, from the ancient Greek for cleansing or purification.

Seeing Chrysanthi’s gaze upon her, an uncertain look in her eyes, Cassie realised something. She had more to confess. And by a twist of fate it was Cassie who had become her confessor.

Cassie had never asked, and Chrysanthi had never revealed, how she had exacted revenge on George for their daughter’s murder. She clearly couldn’t have done the deed herself: at the moment George was falling to his death in Stratford she’d been in St Ioannis with Cassie after all, bent on taking her own life.

---