Jake looked about him at the gravestones under the big oak tree. They looked old. Some of them had not fared well, and most of the inscriptions gone, worn away by time.
‘What are we looking for?’ Marcus
Jake worked his way along the gravestones, glancing at the inscriptions and reading where they could be read. He had no idea why he was doing this. It occurred to Jake that the old chap could have been referring to something different entirely when he’d said,visit the old oak. He passed one gravestone after another.
Marcus gingerly stepped under the tree and started to examine gravestones, every now and then glancing at the tree as though it were going to sprout legs and make a beeline for him.
‘I’ve found something,’ said Marcus.
‘What is it?’ Jake weaved his way through the memorial stones to where Marcus was standing.
‘I think I’ve found your man,’ said Marcus, tapping the top ofa decaying memorial stone with the palm of his hand.
Jake stopped in front of the memorial stone. He looked at the name carved on it and then back at Marcus. This was not Arnold Wright’s gravestone.
‘Read further down – there’s a newer inscription. Must be a family plot,’ Marcus said.
Jake squatted down in front of it, pulling out a fistful of dead flowers and weeds at the base of the stone. He was just about to toss them away when he caught the disapproving eye of the caretaker. Jake placed them carefully to one side and read the inscription, then the date. Jake stared at it; there was the proof, if he needed it, that Lawrence and his damn computer had been right all along, which meant … someone had to be impersonating a dead man. Unless …
‘I need to get back to the hospice right now.’ Jake couldn’t get up fast enough and couldn’t get moving soon enough; he’d just had an epiphany.
‘Why – what’s going on?’ Marcus was blocking Jake’s way through.
‘Don’t you see?’ Jake’s eyes were wide. ‘Arnold can tell me about Eleanor. No,’ he stopped, turning wildly back to the memorial stone, ‘he can go get her, bring her back with him. I could see her, talk to her. She might be dead, but it doesn’t mean we can’t—’
Jake turned back just as Marcus’s fist connected with his right temple, sending him keeling sideways, his feet slipping on the wet dewy grass. He lay clutching the side of his face in shock.
‘That’s for putting up that memorial stone at The Lake House, you son-of-a-bitch,’ Marcus seethed. ‘I should have done that a long time ago. I don’t care about the word you put on it. I don’t care if you believe what I say happened when we were skiing last Christmas or not. What I do care about is my sister,’ he paused, ‘and you.’ Marcus stared down at Jake. ‘We’ve all hadour ways of coping after the accident, but yours – yours beggars belief. How could you! How could you do it? Why did you erect a memorial stone in her name, and have the wordChoseninscribed on it – why, dammit, when she isn’t dead! Answer me!’
Jake lay very still on his side. He had a clear, stark revelation. Marcus was right: they’d each had their ways of coping with what had happened up there on the mountain. Marcus’s coping mechanism had been to turn to drink and drugs; his had been to convince himself that she was dead; to put up that stone in the grounds of The Lake House.
After what they’d discovered had happened to her, once they’d pulled her out of the snow, she might as well be dead. And the family had kept the outcome of the accident from the press, the public. That had further enabled him in his delusion.
He opened his eyes to see Arnold Wright’s memorial stone, at a ninety-degree angle, rearing over him. He didn’t attempt to get up. He didn’t attempt to move. And he was scaring Marcus. ‘Jake.’ he could feel Marcus’s hand on his shoulder. ‘Jake.’ A hand brushed his temple where he’d been hit. ‘Jake – can you get up?’ Marcus’s voice was becoming more insistent. But it wasn’t a case of whether he could get up; Jake was quite sure he could get up. The question was, did he want to get up – ever? If he could just lie there quietly for a while, perhaps all the hurt would go away.
‘Jake?’
Jake suddenly became aware of his shoulders shaking – heaving, almost. For the first time since Eleanor’s accident, he was actually crying. There had been no time to grieve – he’d made sure of that, and this was the end result, lying on the cold, damp ground in front of a stranger’s grave, sobbing his heart out.
‘Oh god, Jake – I’m so sorry.’
After a while, when the sobbing had subsided, he thought heheard some stranger’s voice – the cemetery gardener’s, perhaps – telling Marcus that he had better call an ambulance, and Marcus telling him to get lost, which, for Marcus, was quite restrained. Jake would have expected a few choice swear words the old gardener had probably never heard of.
Bizarrely, the thought of Marcus attempting to be polite made him smile. He could still feel Marcus’s hand on his shoulder and his knees pressing in the small of his back. He guessed Marcus was kneeling beside him; he was going to ruin those beige chinos. A chill ran through him. He suddenly felt cold – so cold. He began to shiver.
‘Come on.’ Marcus said gently. ‘Let’s get up before you catch pneumonia.’ He squeezed Jake’s shoulder. ‘I’ve got something for you in the car.’
Marcus helped him up. To his own and Marcus’s surprise, Jake pulled Marcus close and hugged him fiercely, then let go and walked back to the car. He got in. He could see Marcus still standing where he had left him, rooted to the spot, momentarily stunned.
Chapter 48
Marcus got in the car in silence.
He turned to Jake and placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘Come with me to London. Let’s go and see her together.’
‘No. I have to find Martha’s son.’
Marcus’s hand dropped from Jake’s shoulder.
