Summer of Secrets (15 page)

‘It’s a good thing he did,’ Summer retorted. ‘The moment I heard that stupid ring tone, I knew I’d heard it before. You followed me last night, didn’t
you?’

‘No, I didn’t,’ Caitlin stammered, cursing herself for not changing the ring tone.

‘Don’t lie,’ Summer snapped. ‘There’s hardly likely to be anyone else with such a naff ring tone. So what were you doing? Spying and planning on running back to
tell tales?’

This, Caitlin thought hurriedly, called for what her father called ‘a damage limitation exercise’. She could admit to everything and risk Summer clamming up and shutting her out
totally, or she could lie just a little bit and hopefully be in with a chance of unravelling the whole mystery.

‘Summer, I don’t know what you’re on about,’ she said firmly. ‘The only time my phone’s rung since I’ve been here is when I went for a walk up the hill
behind the village. My mum rang to check I’d arrived – like how overprotective is that? If you heard that, you were either sitting in a bush . . . hey, you weren’t – you
know –
doing stuff
with that guy . . .?’

Her comment had the desired effect.

‘Get real!’ Summer retorted. ‘Go on. What else did you do?’

‘And I took some pictures near that old church – and that’s it! So that’s where you were, right?’

Summer nodded, pausing as they turned on to the cliff path and saw the others in the distance, loading stuff back on to the boat.

‘And you didn’t see anything?’

‘What was there to see?’ Caitlin asked as casually as she could. ‘Like I said, I was too busy taking pictures.’

‘OK, sorry.’ Summer looked mildly abashed. ‘Anyway, we’d better get back to the boat; apparently Gabriella’s got one of her headaches.’

Caitlin said a silent prayer of thanks for her narrow escape.

‘I said you’d been sketching,’ Summer called over her shoulder. ‘What if they ask to see your work?’

‘That’s the least of our problems,’ Caitlin replied. ‘Don’t worry – I’ll deal with it. And before you ask – no, I won’t be telling anybody
about anything we’ve done today, OK?’

Summer nodded. ‘You’d better not,’ she said. ‘I’m still not convinced you’re being straight with me.’

‘Why wouldn’t I be?’ Caitlin asked. ‘What’s not to be straight about?’

Caitlin tried to ignore the stab of conscience as she smiled reassuringly at Summer. The lie was, after all, in a very good cause. And one day, Summer would thank her.

It was well past midnight and Caitlin couldn’t sleep. The more she thought about it, the more determined she was to put the plan she had devised that morning into
practice. She had intended to confide in Summer but now she wasn’t so sure.

All the way home in the boat that afternoon, Summer had sat in the stern, her back resolutely turned on Caitlin, yabbering away to Freddie, Izzy and Jamie in an artificially bright voice.
Gabriella had gone below to lie down and Caitlin had Ludo all to herself, which was great – except for the questions. He’d clearly had a few beers over lunch and there was a can at his
side as he steered
Gina
homewards. Now, Caitlin lay on the bed, running and re-running their extraordinary conversation in her mind.

‘So, where did you two go?’ Ludo had asked the moment they got under way. ‘What did you draw? Can I see?’

That last question she had been ready for.

‘Not yet – it’s just rough sketches and I have this thing: no one sees my stuff till it’s finished. I know it sounds precious but . . .’

‘No, that’s OK, Mum was just the same. She’d never show us a thing till she thought it was perfect.’

He had suddenly looked so young and so downcast that Caitlin’s heart lurched. Maybe, she had thought, now was the moment to get him to open up a bit more.

‘Your mum’s stuff was amazing.’ She had caught her breath as Ludo turned sharply and stared at her.

‘I mean, I
guess
it was, not that I’d know,’ Caitlin had said. ‘Just from what Summer said about her talent. And the picture on her wall.’

‘Does Summer talk about Mum a lot?’ This was one question Caitlin hadn’t been prepared for. She had hesitated, not knowing what she was expected to say.

‘Well, she never used to say anything about her, but the last couple of days – well, yes, quite a lot actually. She really misses her.’

‘We all do, but the thing is . . .’ He had dropped his voice, even though the throbbing of the boat’s engine made it impossible for anyone else to hear. ‘. . . the rest
of us started missing her years before she died.’

Caitlin had wondered just how many cans of beer he’d consumed.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Oh – I just meant, you know, Freddie and me, being sent off to boarding school – well, we got used to not having Mum.’

He had eased the throttle on the boat and turned her towards the harbour.

‘Lucky for Summer then, getting to stay at home,’ Caitlin had commented. ‘She said her old school was just round the corner from your house in Brighton.’

Ludo had nodded. His knuckles were turning white as he gripped the steering wheel.

‘Yeah. She was Mum’s favourite, no doubt about that. Poor little sod. If it hadn’t been for Gaby coming over and moving in to––’

‘Did I hear my name?’ Gaby had emerged from the galley, looking slightly less pale than before.

‘Oh, hi! I was just saying to Caitlin that she should go and check you were OK,’ Ludo had blustered. ‘Only five minutes and we’ll be back.’

‘Great,’ Gaby had replied. ‘I’ll just get my things.’

With that she had disappeared down the hold again.

Caitlin was struggling to get her head around all this new information and was on the point of pressing Ludo for an explanation when Jamie had come over and plonked himself down beside them.

‘Hi, mate – you OK?’ Ludo had asked. ‘Want to take her in?’

‘Sure, thanks,’ Jamie had replied eagerly, edging over and taking the wheel. ‘By the way, is your brother here for long?’

‘Rest of the summer, I guess – till uni starts. Why?’

‘No reason.’ Jamie had sighed. ‘Just wondered.’

For a moment now, lying on the bed and trying to keep cool by flapping the sheet up and down over her sweating body, her thoughts strayed to Jamie’s question. She had a nasty feeling that
it had a great deal to do with the way Freddie and Izzy had been thick as thieves all day, or the way Freddie muscled in on every conversation and worse, the way Izzy let him.

She’d have to sort her brother out in the morning, tell him to be more assertive. She couldn’t help wondering whether Summer had been right when she’d said that Izzy made
mincemeat of any guy who fancied her.

Thinking of Summer brought her thoughts sharply back to the mystery of the Tilney family. Because a mystery it certainly was. Why would Ludo call Summer a poor little sod, when she got to stay
at home with her mum? And more importantly, why would Gabriella leave Italy and move in to a marital home unless she was out for one thing and one thing only? To break up a marriage and – no!
Surely not. She couldn’t – but if Sir Magnus was in on it too, she could.

Gabriella and Magnus could have
murdered
Summer’s mum and then pretended it was an accident. Her mind began racing.

‘Oh my God!’

What was it Summer had told her? That her mum felt safe and happy when she was around – so could that mean that Summer’s mum knew, deep down, that her life was in danger, and that
even Sir Magnus wouldn’t do anything while his own daughter was on the scene? Summer’s school trip to the States would have given him and Gaby the perfect opportunity. And Summer had
admitted that it had taken her father four whole days to let her know that her mother was dead. Four days spent covering up their tracks, perhaps.

Caitlin’s heart began racing and she was off the bed, pacing the room now, overwhelmed by the thoughts chasing each other round and round in her head. She would have to talk to Summer,
make her see that she was on her side. And then she’d have to start putting her plan into action. She had the perfect alibi. The whole family knew that she had an art project to complete.

What they
didn’t
know was that the paintings and the life – and death – of Elena Cumani-Tilney, was going to be the topic.

  CHAPTER 7  

‘A woman in love with one man cannot flirt with another.’

(Jane Austen,
Northanger Abbey
)

‘S
UMMER, CAN
I
COME IN
?’ C
AITLIN CALLED THROUGH THE
keyhole of Summer’s bedroom the
following morning before breakfast.

The door opened and Summer, her hair still tousled from sleep, waved her in.

‘What’s the matter? Are you OK? You look a bit sunburnt,’ she said, sleepily.

‘I’m fine, but listen – I’ve been thinking. You want to find out the truth about your mum and all this mystery, right?’

Summer yawned and nodded.

‘And you want me to help?’

Summer nodded again.

‘Right – so the first thing you have to do is to be really nice to Gabriella for a bit – I mean, seriously matey.’

‘Are you out of your mind?’ Summer exploded. ‘After what she did to my mum?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘She made that last year of her life a misery,’ Summer declared. ‘Taking over, bossing everyone about – Mum said that she was killing her creativity. She had to keep
going away in order to paint at all.’

‘Was this – I mean, did she live with you? In England?’ She wasn’t sure that she should let on about her conversation with Ludo, given Summer’s somewhat volatile
nature.

‘Off and on,’ Summer grunted. ‘She used to be Mum’s best friend, way back – she had this house in the next village. Well, she’s still got it but she rents it
out to holidaymakers now she’s shacked up with Dad. She used to come to stay with us in Brighton from time to time and when we were over here, she was always hanging around.’

She glared at Caitlin.

‘So, who put you up to this dumb idea about sucking up to her? My dad? Ludo the goody-goody? I don’t believe you, Caitlin – I thought you were on my side.’

‘I am, and no one put me up to it,’ Caitlin retorted. ‘I do have a brain of my own you know, and if you used yours, you might see what I’m getting at.’

‘Go on,’ Summer muttered.

‘I don’t want to upset you,’ Caitlin began, ‘but what if your dad wanted to get rid of all her pictures because – well, because . . .’

‘Get on with it!’

‘Because he didn’t want to be reminded that he’d already got rid of her?’

Summer stared at her.

‘You mean . . .?’

‘If Gabriella and your dad were an item, then perhaps––’

‘Shut up! Shut up! SHUT THE HELL UP!’

Caitlin froze. Summer had picked up a book from her bedside table and hurled it across the room, hitting the make-up bottles on her dressing table and sending them flying.

‘Summer, don’t!’ Caitlin gasped. ‘I might not be right, it was just a thought, and you did ask . . .’

‘So go on, say it,’ Summer shouted at her. ‘Say what you’re really thinking.’

‘I just did,’ Caitlin ventured nervously.

‘And the rest,’ Summer urged, her voice rising in anger. ‘Say that it’s my fault, that if I hadn’t begged and begged to go to America that Easter, Mum would be
alive and . . .’

The rest of her words were lost in choking sobs.

‘Summer, that’s crazy –
of course
it wasn’t your fault! That’s not what I meant. It was just that when Ludo said about Gabriella moving
in––’

‘Oh, so you’ve been talking to Ludo as well, have you? So much for keeping confidences!’

‘Summer, listen! He started talking to me, right?’

‘And said that Gabriella moved in because I couldn’t look after Mum properly, right? Because Dad said things were falling apart? That I was just a kid and couldn’t cope? That
so wasn’t true – just because none of them understood her artistic temperament . . .’

‘Why should you have to look after her?’ Caitlin burst out. ‘Was she sick?’

‘You are so unreal! Get out of my room – get out! Now!’

‘Have you and Summer had a falling out?’ Izzy flopped down beside Caitlin at the edge of the pool, where Caitlin had just put in a couple of lengths before
breakfast. ‘I heard shouting and she’s in a right strop – just pushed past me without so much as a “hello”,’ Izzy continued.