The Guilty Secret

  Bello:

  hidden talent rediscovered

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  Contents

  Margaret Pemberton

  For my sister Janet and her husband David.

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Margaret Pemberton

  The Guilty Secret

  Margaret Pemberton is the bestselling author of over thirty novels in many different genres, some of which are contemporary in setting and some historical.

  She has served as Chairman of the Romantic Novelists’ Association and has three times served as a committee member of the Crime Writers’ Association. Born in Bradford, she is married to a Londoner, has five children and two dogs and lives in Whitstable, Kent. Apart from writing, her passions are tango, travel, English history and the English countryside.

  For my sister Janet

  and her husband David.

  Chapter One

  The face looking back at me from the mirror didn’t look like the face of a woman who had killed two people, one of them a child of eight.

  Titian-red hair hung silkily to my shoulders framing an oval face with straight nose and green eyes. It was a face that had given me no shortage of admirers, and it was a face I could barely look at. Quickly I turned from the mirror, fighting down a familiar wave of panic. It was over. All over. I had to start life afresh. Forget the past and think about the future.

  Below me lay the breathtaking panorama of Viana Do Castelo and the Portuguese coastline as it curved hazily southwards towards Ofir. I pushed the thought of Ofir away from me. I wasn’t ready for it yet. I needed another few days of seclusion. A breathing space before I put on my mask of normality and was enclosed amid the bosom of family and friends. Seeing again the compassion in their eyes. The careful skirting around the subject uppermost in their minds. Catching them unawares, when the compassion changed to blatant curiosity and it was only too easy to read their thoughts. How did I really feel? What was it like to kill two people? No. I wasn’t ready for that yet. Sometimes I doubted if I ever would be.

  I had been holed up in the Edwardian grandeur of the Hotel De Santa Luzia for over a week. As a refuge it was ideal. It was perched one thousand feet high overlooking the Igreja Santa Luzia, an imposing religious monument I had not had the energy to enter. Far below lay the town. That too, was still unexplored. It was early in the season and the Hotel had only a handful of guests. I liked it that way. I liked the fact that it was so inaccessible that casual callers didn’t stop off on their way to places further north or further south. For the first time in nearly a year I was no longer the object of curious eyes and I was in no hurry to reach Ofir. Perhaps in another week …

  There was a soft knock and I walked quickly across the thickly carpeted bedroom, opening the door to the maid who had brought me coffee. She smiled. If the English girl wished to spend the days in her room it was no concern of hers.

  I took the tray over to the small terrace and sipped it, wishing it was eight-o-clock and not six, and that I could take my tablets and go to bed. The tablets were my life-saver. They ensured a deep, dreamless stupor instead of the nightmares that left me waking with cries of terror, the sweat pouring off me, re-living again my own private hell.

  I finished the coffee and lay down on the bed. If only it were possible to go back in time. How often had I wished that? Every day? Every hour? To go back to the night of Phil’s party and the bright lights and the gaiety and laughter. To go back and stay there. Not to walk out into the darkness … It had been a good party. Phil’s parties always were. Rozalinda was radiant, her ears and throat glittering with diamonds, Harold watching her with slavish devotion. Rozalinda, our mutual Aunt Harriet had remarked, had been lucky in life. Strange that Rozalinda had been the one to be a success, when as children I had always been the lucky one. Though she hadn’t been Rozalinda then. Rose Lucas and as prone to tantrums then as she was now. Though now, an internationally known film star and married to a millionaire, she could afford to have tantrums. When we were children Phil had always said brutally:

  ‘When you’ve stopped screaming and shouting then you can play. You can’t have it all your own way all the time.’

  But she had. At sixteen she was modelling. At seventeen she was doing television commercials. At eighteen she had her first small film part. At twenty she was a star, and at twenty-three she had married the doting Harold, who had at least a million pounds to his credit and if Phil was to be believed, considerably more.

  It was Harold’s money that had bought Rozalinda what she called her ‘Enclave’ at Ofir. A cluster of luxurious villas for herself and friends and family, set among pinewoods and only yards from what Rozalinda claimed was the most spectacular beach in Europe. There was no fishing village full of Portuguese locals to spoil Rozalinda’s private paradise. Only a couple of hotels that she managed to turn a blind eye to. Harold had tried unsuccessfully to buy them out but the Portuguese government had put an end to that little scheme. However, he had been more successful where the owners of the private villas were concerned. Rozalinda had, as usual, got her own way. The ‘Enclave’ was as private and exclusive as money could buy. Aunt Harriet spent most of the year there. As yet I had never been. I closed my eyes. Rozalinda was spoilt, but she had shown unexpected depths during the hellish months leading up to the trial and the ensuing nightmare after. Even Phil had admitted that she wasn’t as self-centred as he had always supposed. It was her money that had paid my fare to Portugal, offering me the use of one of the villas for as long as I cared to stay. Aunt Harriet was already there and awaiting my arrival. I knew that my dalliance in Viana could only be causing her concern. Dear Aunt Harriet. Always there when needed. Loved by all of us. For Rozalinda and myself she was our Great-Aunt, never fussing over us like our parents did. Always treating us as grown-ups. For Phil she was even more important. His parents had died when he was thirteen and it was Aunt Harriet, no relation at all, who took him into her home, paying for his piano lessons, seeing to it that he had the best teachers that money could buy. When a neighbour had asked her why she spent so much time and money on the child of people who had been comparative strangers to her, she had replied tersely:

  ‘The boy is brilliant.’

  For Aunt Harriet that was enough. She was right of course. Phil was brilliant. It was ironic that so far, all his years of study had brought him little renown, whereas Rozalinda’s face smiled languidly down from cinema hoardings the world over. He played publicly a couple of times a month, the rest of his time spent in teaching, eked out by two days a week at a local school where he taught not only music, but English and Maths and more often than not found himself with a whistle round his neck surrounded by grubby schoo
lboys on the sports field. As an actress on the stage, Rozalinda had no real talent, only on film did she spring to life with devastating effect. By rights the fame that was hers should have been Phil’s. At least that was my opinion. I wondered if it was Phil’s as well. If it was he showed no signs of it. The only thing he ever said, was that they had got the wrong girl. That I was the beauty, not Rozalinda. But if I was, I wasn’t sufficiently aware of it. I had done what I had always wanted to do. Become a nurse.

  My thoughts were straying along paths that were becoming too painful. I thought instead of Mary Collins, or Farrar as she now was. Mary had made up the quartet of our childhood and Mary was going to be at Ofir as well. It would be good to see her again. Mary’s steady grey eyes would hold no pity or curiosity, just the love born of a friendship twenty years old. As children the four of us had lived in Templar’s Way, a small village perched precariously on the edge of the North Downs in Kent. My father had been the family doctor, Mary’s the village greengrocer. As children it was Mary who was the peacemaker of our squabbles. Mary who persuaded Phil to let Rozalinda come along with us on our expeditions, even when her selfishness threatened to wreck Phil’s carefully laid plans for a battle of cowboys and indians in the nearby woods. Rozalinda never would take her turn at being a cowboy. She always wanted the painted face and feathers. I smiled affectionately. She had certainly got them now.

  Mary’s placidity and gentleness had been the saving of our quartet. Phil always wanted to leave Rozalinda behind and then she would go crying to Aunt Harriet and both Phil and myself would be in disgrace for not being kind to her. I wondered if Rozalinda ever realised what a lot she had owed Mary as a child. She probably did because the friendship between them had outlasted childhood, and though no two life-styles could be as different as Rozalinda’s and Mary’s, they were still close. In fact Rozalinda had said herself that the next few weeks at the Enclave would be just like old times. The four of us all together again, for she had even persuaded Phil to fly out and join us for a few weeks, luring him with the promise of a quiet room and grand piano on which to practice.

  Mary’s husband, Tom, would be there too. He had come as rather a surprise. Mary was such a plain and quiet person that no-one had expected her to marry anyone as outstandingly handsome as Tom Farrar. But Tom Farrar had chosen well. Mary’s life revolved around him and their two young children and if ever a man was adored, he was. The rest of us visited them at irregular intervals, finding in Mary’s peaceful home the rest and solace we missed in our own lives. This would be the first holiday that Mary and Tom had taken away from the children and I wondered how Mary was surviving it. She would be like a mother hen without its chicks, but Great Aunt Harriet had been adamant that she needed the rest.

  ‘That girl is ageing prematurely,’ she had said to me over the telephone whilst persuading me that I, too, needed a complete rest. ‘It will do both of you the world of good to spend a few weeks down here in the sunshine.’

  It was the thought of Mary’s companionship that had decided me. That and the faint worry that Aunt Harriet’s words had left. What could be causing Mary so much anxiety that it was ageing her prematurely? Aunt Harriet wasn’t prone to exaggeration. I wondered if it was Tom and then dismissed the idea. No-one could possibly be unhappy married to Mary. She’d obviously been overworking and of course the trial and its aftermath had left its mark on her as it had everyone else close to me. It would be a long time before I forgot the agony on Phil’s face. As for Aunt Harriet’s … I reached for my handbag and tablets. I could wait no longer for the oblivion they brought. If I could have slept through the day as well as the night I would gratefully have done so.

  The sinking rays of the sun filled the room with smokey light. In coming away I had intended to determine my future. So far it was as hazy as ever. I could never go back to St Thomas’s and nursing. The thought of a new job, of interviews, of explaining away the gap in my life that the trial had left was too daunting an ordeal. There was always Phil’s alternative. The tablets were already beginning to work and I felt my stomach muscles slowly relaxing, my eyes gently closing. Phil had recently asked me to marry him. Drowsily I thought of marriage to Phil. It would be a pleasant existence. We had always been together. Phil was insistent that we always should be together. We wouldn’t have much money, but I didn’t care about that. Besides, we would have a home. The cottage in Templars Way that Phil’s parents had left to him, and he had a brilliant future. He was only twenty-four …

  The only marriages I had seen at close quarters had been Mary’s and Rozalinda’s. Neither of them had encouraged me to take the same step. True, Mary was happy, but I knew that I could never be at someone else’s beck and call as Mary was at Tom’s. All that mattered to Mary was that Tom was happy, no matter what her own wishes and desires were. It seemed to me rather an unequal arrangement. As for Harold and Rozalinda … There it was completely the other way round. Harold’s eyes followed Rozalinda’s every move with dog-like devotion. And I knew Rozalinda well enough to know that without his money Harold wouldn’t last a day. He hadn’t earned his million for himself but had inherited it, and though he was kind and pleasant, he was also a rather stupid man who had even on occasion managed to bore the patient Mary. No, Rozalinda’s marriage was no encouragement to anyone. There had been gossip some months back that Rozalinda was having an affair with her latest leading man. Gossip that Harold’s public relations man had been quick to squash. Still, it was news that would have surprised no-one who knew her. The thought of Rozalinda being a faithful wife needed a definite effort of imagination. And that she should be faithful to Harold, who was thirty years older than her and who had nothing to offer in the way of looks or personality, seemed downright improbable. But Rozalinda was careful. She had planned her own career with alarming single-mindedness. She wouldn’t lose Harold and his millions for a passing love affair, no matter how handsome the face. When we had been in our teens it had been Phil who had been the centre of her attention. I’d often wondered if, had she not left Templar’s Way when she did, she would finally have wormed her way into his affections. She had made no secret of the fact that she wanted him, and what Rozalinda wanted she usually got. Phil had been totally immune to her advances. He didn’t even seem aware of them. His sole preoccupation was his music. If there were two sexes, Phil had shown no knowledge of the fact. Then had come the film parts and Rozalinda had left the village, moving out of our orbit and into the more exciting world of Harold’s. Yet even now, whenever she looked at Phil there was something in her eyes that I couldn’t quite define. I imagine he was the only man Rozalinda had ever wanted and failed to get. A perpetual challenge to her self esteem. I only hoped she didn’t try to rectify the situation when Phil reached Ofir. Rozalinda might be a sex symbol to the Western world, but to Phil she was Rose Lucas who whined when she didn’t get her own way and had no appreciation of his musical talents. They were friends, and only friends and Phil wouldn’t hesitate to tell her so. Tact wasn’t one of his qualities and after the unadulterated adoration she was used to, I imagined any home truths from Phil would be very ill received.

  Sleep was beginning to drift over me in waves. Aunt Harriet would be happy if I married Phil. Phil would be happy too. Perhaps Phil was right. Perhaps we should get married.

  With none of the past men in my life had I felt so at ease as with him. I came round to full consciousness with a rush of realisation. I was mad! How could I think of marriage after what had happened? How could I contemplate marriage to anyone? I covered my face with my hands, and for the hundredth time began to cry myself to sleep.

  Chapter Two

  I heard his car early the next morning. I was sitting beneath the scarlet awning that shaded my bedroom terrace, eating warm rolls and grateful for the strong coffee that cleared my mouth of the stale taste the tablets left, when there came the high pitched whine of a car engine beginning the twisting ascent to the hotel. For several minutes I listened as he changed gear
s, the tree shadowed bends twisting with increasing steepness. Through the heavy foliage I caught my first glimpse of the car. It was a Lamborgini with a GB plate and at the speed he was driving I was glad the hotel was so sparsely inhabited he was unlikely to meet anyone coming in the opposite direction. The road curved round to the rear of the hotel and the main entrance so that I was unable to get a glimpse of the driver, but when I went down to reception a little while later to telephone Aunt Harriet and put her mind at rest as to where I was, I saw him clearly. The large, sunny dining-room had only three occupants. Two of them German businessmen who had arrived two days earlier. The third the Lamborgini’s driver. My brief glance told me he was somewhere in his late twenties, with the most amazing shock of sun-gold hair I had ever seen on a grown man. He glanced upwards and I hurriedly averted my eyes, walking quickly across the marbled entrance hall towards the telephone, but not before I had seen a disturbingly attractive face with strong jawline and hazel eyes. It was the eyes that held my attention as I struggled to get through to Ofir and Aunt Harriet. There was something familiar about them yet I hadn’t seen him before …

  Aunt Harriet was understanding but brisk:

  ‘You did hire a car, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve no transport problems.’

  That was part of the therapy recommended by my psychiatrist. One of the ways in which he thought I could regain self-confidence and emotional stability. I hadn’t the heart to disillusion him.

  ‘That’s good. It’s only half an hour’s drive down here from Viana, but for goodness sake be careful of the cows.’

  ‘Cows? It’s the main motorway south. What do I need to be careful of cows for?’

  ‘Because the motorway is a deteriorated Roman road, with the added benefit of being like India. Cows are everywhere. Side of the road. Middle of the road and they’ve no traffic sense. Tranquil creatures, cows …’