The Hornbeam Tree Read online

  Contents

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by Susan Lewis

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  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

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Copyright

  About the Book

  Just as celebrated columnist Katie Kiernan thinks life is over, it suddenly arrives on her doorstep in the shape of her sister Michelle, and all the intrigue Michelle brings with her. Friction, resentment and old jealousies make life in their house doubly challenging, as Katie struggles to cope with a rebellious teenager and Michelle longs for the man she has left behind.

  After a devastating betrayal Laurie Forbes is trying to rebuild her relationship with Elliot Russell, when she is plunged into a whirlwind of passion that threatens to tear them apart completely.

  Top journalist, Tom Chambers, the man Michelle left behind, faces the greatest challenge of his career when highly classified documents fall into his hands. Realising how explosive the material is, Tom calls upon Elliot Russell to help with the investigation, and very quickly they are caught up in the deadly efforts to stop them going to print …

  About the Author

  Susan Lewis is the bestselling author of twenty-seven novels. She is also the author of Just One More Day and One Day at a Time, the moving memoirs of her childhood in Bristol. Having resided in France for many years she now lives in Gloucestershire. Her website address is www.susanlewis.com

  Susan is a supporter of the childhood bereavement charity, Winston’s Wish: www.winstonswish.org.uk and of the breast cancer charity, BUST: www.bustbristol.co.uk

  Also by Susan Lewis

  Fiction

  A Class Apart

  Dance While You Can

  Stolen Beginnings

  Darkest Longings

  Obsession

  Vengeance

  Summer Madness

  Last Resort

  Wildfire

  Chasing Dreams

  Taking Chances

  Cruel Venus

  Strange Allure

  Silent Truths

  Wicked Beauty

  Intimate Strangers

  The Mill House

  A French Affair

  Missing

  Out of the Shadows

  Lost Innocence

  The Choice

  Forgotten

  Stolen

  No Turning Back

  Losing You

  Memoir

  Just One More Day

  One Day at a Time

  For my cousin, Karen,

  with love and thanks

  Acknowledgements

  A very big thank you to District Nurse Sarah Moore for taking the time to guide me through Katie’s illness and for answering my endless questions. I’d also like to thank Chris Floyd and Michael Evans for their help with the political story. Another big thank you to Hilary Andrews for the ‘tour’ of Washington. And to Mort Rosenblum for additional help with Washington. Much love and thanks to my dear friend Fanny Blackburne for showing me Pietrasanta. And more thanks to Ellie Gleave for letting me use her lovely home in Burgundy as a ‘hideout’.

  An especially big thank you and lots of love to my beautiful goddaughter, Alexandra Hastie, for all her help with Molly. I couldn’t have done it without you, Alex.

  Chapter 1

  STRANGELY, THE SKY hadn’t fallen. Nor had the ground split apart. Houses were still standing, trees remained rooted, people were walking on their feet. No, nothing had changed from the way it had been an hour ago, before she’d entered the building, yet now it all felt so different that she could be stepping back into another world entirely.

  The automatic doors swish-closed behind her. She waited for a car to pass, then crossed towards a small patch of green. She could see Judy waiting and wanted to run towards her, but she carried on walking, zigzagging through the car park until she was close enough to make out the concern on her friend’s plump, normally cheery face.

  ‘Do you know what today is?’ Katie demanded, looking at her over the roof of the car.

  Judy eyed her, not sure how to respond.

  ‘It’s Day One of the rest of my life,’ Katie informed her.

  Judy looked surprised, then laughed as Katie gazed around, seeming to absorb a whole new world.

  ‘Did you already know?’ she asked, her eyes coming back to Judy.

  Judy nodded.

  Katie felt as though she was seeing her friend differently to the way she had a minute ago, then, shrugging it off, she smiled and got into the passenger seat.

  ‘Would you have preferred me to tell you?’ Judy asked, sliding in next to her.

  ‘Would you have wanted to?’ Katie countered, not without irony.

  ‘No.’

  Katie laughed at the frankness that was her own stock-in-trade.

  ‘So what would you like to do now?’ Judy asked, turning on the engine. ‘On Day One of the rest of your life.’

  Katie’s gaze was fixed ahead. Her face was gaunt, seeming to cling to the bones, the shadows beneath her hazel eyes were grey and blue, the texture of her skin was like ash, powdery and pale. There wasn’t much sign now of the full rosy cheeks or wickedly humorous eyes that for several years had graced the small photo over her newspaper column. Nor was she the heavy-set, energetic woman who’d worked so hard to win the villagers over when she’d first moved down from London. She’d changed a lot in the past year, and now she was going to change again.

  ‘What about a coffee while we decide?’ Judy offered. ‘We can go somewhere here, in Bath …’

  ‘You know, I think I’d just like to go home,’ Katie responded.

  Disappointed, though not altogether surprised, Judy slipped the car into gear and headed for the exit.

  ‘Blast,’ Katie said, as they turned left out of the car park towards Penn Hill. ‘I keep thinking of things I should have asked.’

  ‘There’ll be plenty of time,’ Judy assured her. ‘Did you speak to Simon himself?’

  Katie nodded. ‘Not the kind of task he could delegate,’ she responded, ‘though I’m sure he’d have preferred to. You know, a funny thing happened,’ she went on, feeling faintly light-headed as the memory popped up, ‘when he told me, you know … When he said it was all over I suddenly fancied him in a way I never have before. It didn’t last. It was gone in a moment, but it was pretty intense while it was there. To tell you the truth, I wouldn’t have minded running with it a while, because the next thing I knew I was right back in reality, and that’s no place to be at a time like this.’ She sighed, then chuckled and let her gaze slide over a rank of shops as they passed by. ‘He’s a nice man. I’m going to miss him,’ she said.

  Judy looked at her, and because everything felt so dislocated and absurd, from the weather to the words, they started to laugh.

  ‘I didn’t think I’d ever say that,’ Katie remarked, as they headed up over Lansdown Lane into
the countryside. ‘It’s true though, I will.’ Before Judy could comment she ran on with her next peculiar thought. ‘I could become one of those irritatingly inspirational women who write best-selling books about their miraculous recoveries,’ she declared. ‘You know. The ones who manage to digest enough spiritual guff to vaporize tumours the size of footballs, or start up empires after their husbands have royally dumped them. What do you think?’

  ‘If anyone can do it, you can.’

  ‘They’re annoying though, aren’t they, those women?’

  Judy laughed. ‘Some, yes,’ she agreed. ‘But Heather isn’t.’

  ‘No, Heather’s an angel who managed to get it together without writing a book and crowing from the hilltops,’ Katie conceded, picturing her radiantly blonde spiritual counsellor in a fetching celestial get-up. She’d never have imagined finding anyone like Heather buried alive in a concrete jungle just outside Chippenham. What a find. These last months would have been a total nightmare without her, even with her they’d been hell.

  Her attention moved out over the sparkling green valley where sheep grazed and horses stood like paintings in the afternoon sun. Suddenly, a huge wave of panic rolled in from nowhere. I don’t want this to be happening. It has to stop. Now! Please make it stop! She took a breath, and, like Canute, summoned her will to send the tide back to where it had come from. She wouldn’t let it engulf her now. There was too much to do, to think about and put right. Her thoughts suddenly began hovering around the real danger area, Molly, but she quickly marshalled them back to the innocuous patchwork of passing fields and woodlands, and wondered how the tree she sponsored was faring. It was around here somewhere, she just couldn’t quite remember where.

  ‘Yes, we can do that,’ Judy told her.

  Katie frowned. Had she said something? Asked a question without even hearing it? Then quite suddenly she recognized the spot. ‘Can we stop?’ she asked. ‘Over there. I think that’s the right place.’

  Surprised, Judy glanced at her, but flicking on the indicator she pulled into the lay-by and brought the car to a halt.

  Katie gazed along the narrow track that led into the woodland. With all the misty bands of sunlight and glossy leaves it seemed as enticing as a fairy tale, and pushing open the door she stepped out on to the dusty patch of earth. The sun slipped behind a cloud and she frowned. A moment later it was back, like a child playing peek-a-boo and she walked into the copse, breathing in the woody scent of the air, absorbing the many shades of green, enjoying the playful sparkles of light that shone down through the leaves. She’d never been informed of which actual tree she sponsored, only of the woodland it was in, so on reaching a small clearing she looked around and decided to take her pick. It wasn’t long before she settled on the towering old beech that was set slightly back from the glade, because, to her mind at least, there seemed something permanent and irresistible about it. She moved towards it, aware of the ground underfoot feeling soft and sponge-like, and the birdsong sounding more melodious and inviting.

  Not until she reached the tree did she realize from the smooth grey bark and sharply serrated leaves that it wasn’t a beech at all – it was a hornbeam. She blinked in surprise. Such serendipity. Such a dizzying coincidence, for hornbeam was used to help ease the feelings of exhaustion at the mere thought of facing an ordeal. It was exactly how she was feeling now, exhausted by the thought of what lay ahead. She gazed up at the tree’s magnificent canopy of tooth-edged leaves, so green and soft, and delicately pointed at the tips; the three-lobed cups of its fruit sprouting in thick clusters of paler green, the unwieldy tangle of branches that for some reason made her think of a mother’s arms.

  What had made her come here today? What unknown hand had guided her? She rested the palm of one hand on the trunk, then her cheek. The bark was warm and fluting with age. It smelt of earth and damp and was prettily patched by moss. It would live for another hundred years or more, this tree of hers, never moving from this spot, watching the seasons come and go, releasing its leaves and fruit, and producing new in spring. She put her arms around it, and after a while was certain she could feel the gentle force of its energy flowing into her.

  She’d never done anything like this before. Tree-hugging. Usually she left it to the New Agers who were into this sort of thing, while she scoffed from the sidelines, but her eyes and mind had been opened to many things this past year, and now here was another revelation. This sense of permanence and safety, of being in the right place at the right time, and of being so much smaller than nature yet as intrinsically a part of it as this tree, was what she needed to feel here, at this hour, on this day.

  Judy was waiting beside the car when she returned, the expression on her round face with its large, velvety brown eyes and quirky mouth showing affection and understanding, even though she couldn’t know about the tree or the strangeness of that brief encounter. How could she, when Katie barely understood it herself? But it mattered, Katie was certain of that, fruitcakish as it was. She was glad they’d stopped. She might even come again.

  As they drove on towards home she was grateful for Judy’s silence, because she felt the need to be quiet now. Shock worked its way through the senses in a randomly confusing fashion, she was finding, alighting on one, then another, then several together. It was bizarre, because a part of her had been expecting this. Well, dreading it, actually, but it had been there for a while, stalking her personal horizon like a shy lover, or, more accurately, a countdown clock. Now suddenly it was galloping towards her like a terrifying knight in dull, black armour, intent on carrying her off to a place she didn’t want to go. She turned her head, as though to avoid the collision.

  It was gone. Everything was normal. She was in the car with Judy, signalling to turn right on to the road that would take them home. For a fleeting moment she seemed to boil with rage, then a sick, pleading desperation flooded her heart. She managed to suppress both. She had now to work out how she was going to handle it all. With dignity, was the first thought that came to mind, and grace and calm. No hysterics, no pleading or ranting, or bitterness or self-pity. No clinging to the impossible, or trying to make deals with God. Just acceptance and strength, and endless understanding and support for Molly. Oh dear God, Molly.

  Focusing again on her surroundings, she realized they were on the main Bristol to Chippenham road, speeding past Marshfield, a centuries-old village that was fast turning into an urban sprawl, then The Shoe that was cleared in a blink, then Ford that had a good restaurant in its pub. Not long now and they’d be home. Fortunately Membury Hempton, where both she and Judy lived, wasn’t one of West Wiltshire’s outstanding villages, so they weren’t too bothered by tourists, even though most of the cottages, and some of the larger houses, dated from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the church went back to ancient times. It just didn’t have the olde worlde charm of its neighbours such as Castle Combe, Biddestone and Lacock.

  Now they were carving it up down the high street, two forty-something bombshells in a Fiat Panda, past the nursery school on the right, and the doctor’s surgery and post office-cum-village store on the left. A few of their neighbours were gathered around the small war memorial on the grassy central island, gossiping and enjoying the fine weather. Recognizing Judy’s car they waved and smiled. It had been a struggle for Katie, a Londoner born and bred, to make them all accept her when she’d arrived last year, but things were finally starting to improve now, largely thanks to Judy, who’d encouraged her to involve herself in the community. She had much to be thankful to Judy for, and wasn’t in any doubt that it was going to stack a lot higher in the coming days and weeks. Where would she and Molly be without Judy, the district nurse, who’d fast turned into the best friend they’d ever had? She couldn’t even begin to think, so stopped trying.

  ‘Would you like me to come in?’ Judy offered, as they passed the pub and turned into Sheep Lane. Katie’s cottage was at the end, opposite the secluded, half-moon duck pond that was home
to a noisy assortment of coot, mallards and moorhens.

  ‘It’s OK,’ Katie answered. ‘I’m sure you’ve got a lot to be going on with.’

  ‘My time is yours today. Maybe I can answer some of your questions.’

  Katie smiled. ‘Actually, if you don’t mind …’

  ‘You’d like to be alone,’ Judy finished in a Garbo voice. ‘That’s fine, just promise me you’ll call if you need anything. You know where I am.’

  ‘Of course,’ Katie responded.

  After they pulled up next to the white picket fence that hemmed in her small garden, Katie sat gazing at the quaint, grey stone cottage that had been home to her and Molly since they’d been forced to downsize, and felt as though she was seeing a photograph, or a painting, something that wasn’t quite real. Roses bloomed either side of the front door they rarely used, a Virginia creeper framed the sitting-room and kitchen windows and the orange, weather-roughened roof tiles glinted like amber in the sun. The only other cottages down this lane were Mr and Mrs Preddy’s, attached to the back of Katie’s, and Dick Bradley’s, which was the other side of the pond, next to the cowfield and overhung by the gnarled limbs of a very old sycamore.

  ‘What are you going to do now?’ Judy asked.

  ‘Write a letter, I suppose,’ Katie answered. ‘I’d been hoping I wouldn’t have to, but I don’t have a choice now, so I might as well get it over with.’

  ‘It’ll work out,’ Judy told her gently. ‘You’ll get the answer you want.’

  Katie nodded, and after climbing out of the car she stood just inside the gate watching and waving as Judy reversed round the duck pond and drove back up the lane. Once the sound of the engine died away the place seemed eerily quiet, with just the odd squawk from a duck, a smattering of birdsong and the lumber of a tractor engine somewhere far away. The sun felt very intense. She thought the apples on the tree next to the shed seemed redder than they had this morning, while the potted plants around the well were starting to wilt. She walked along the front of the cottage and around the side to where the hose was curled up on the wall next to the back door. Trotty, their fluffy little mixed-breed, had obviously heard her, because she was scratching the door to get out.