The Secret Keeper

Chapter One

OLIVIA.

I was sixteen when Sean Kenyon came into my life; he was twenty-two. I suppose it seemed quite a big age difference to some, but not to us. We knew right away that something special was happening between us, and even my parents were soon drawn into the magic of it.

The first time I saw him, my friend Andrea – we call her Andee – and I were walking along one of the jetties at the marina here in Kesterly. We’d just finished school for the summer and were due for our first sailing lesson with the new instructor everyone was talking about. We were excited, apprehensive, all the things you’d imagine of girls our age embarking on a new adventure. I’m sure I saw him first, but Andee says she did. It doesn’t matter; what I can tell you for certain is that suddenly there he was, leaping from the deck of a sailboat to land in front of us, all six foot two of him with the kind of aura, or presence, or just drop-dead good looks, that halted us in our tracks. His fair hair was thick, wind-mussed, and tangled around his neck; he was hard-muscled and tanned, and his face looked as though it had been carved by someone who adored him. I could give you all the usual clichés, such as he took my breath away, made my knees go weak, set my pulses racing, because I’m sure they all happened. Andee summed it up well when she whispered to me, ‘Wow, a real-life dreamboat.’

We found that funny of course, thought the play on words was clever, the way you do when you’re young and barely know the difference between corny and comedy.

Sean was from London, he told us, but he and his family travelled a lot, so it could be said that he was from everywhere. As he spoke his eyes were mainly on me. I could feel myself blushing, and was aware of how much Andee was enjoying the build-up of chemistry; I think she might have been even more aware of it than I was in those moments. She already had a boyfriend, Martin, who was in the same year as us, but I’d never been serious with anyone. I’d just had a couple of dates that had never led anywhere, mainly because I’d never met anyone who really interested me.

Sean went beyond that; he completely fascinated me, and every time I looked at him I felt myself lighting up inside. It wasn’t just the way he looked back at me, although that was something else, his deep, navy eyes seeming to speak in a way that made me blush and laugh and feel so reckless I could have done anything in the world, even fly. He had a way with him that seemed to draw everyone in. He wasn’t the least bit arrogant, which he could have been given how worldly he was, far more than the rest of us, that’s for sure. Nothing ever seemed to faze him, or if it did he found a way to get over it. His passion was sailing, so of course it soon became mine too.

We were inseparable that summer. As well as teaching me how to handle a boat, he showed me how to surf the way he did, and he got me waterskiing like a professional. He was learning to fly so Andee, her boyfriend Martin, and I went out to the airfield to watch him take off, loop the loop and land. We paraglided with him, dived from rocks, barbecued on the beach and sang songs together, with him and Martin playing their guitars. He turned me from a naïve, silly schoolgirl into a confident, determined young woman who couldn’t get enough of him or the world he told us so much about.

When the summer was over Andee, Martin and I took our places at the local sixth-form college, while Sean returned to London. His uni days behind him, he was now working his way up through his family’s business. I didn’t know much about it then, only that they were into large-scale construction projects from hotels to shopping malls, leisure centres, even marinas. Sean’s degree was in business management, and he was also studying company law, but I know he found being hands-on with his father and the managing partners far more exciting and educational. Even then he was as confident in his instincts as he was in his ability to land a deal. He thrived on the adrenalin of it all, and somehow made more friends than enemies, which seemed unusual for someone involved in big business, and of his age.

I was terrified he’d forget me as soon as he returned to London, but that’s not what happened. We were in touch every day, unless he was out of the country when he’d send postcards to make me smile – and of course to make me wish I was there. We hadn’t really got going with texts and emails at the time, all that came later.

He returned to Kesterly at Christmas and again at Easter, and again the following summer – actually there were two more summers – and the closer we became the more certain we were that we were made for each other. When I finished my studies there was no question of me going to uni then – I already had a place at St Mar-tins, but I deferred for a year to go travelling with Sean. His father was all for it; he didn’t want Sean to become enslaved to the business the way he had been as a young man. He believed very strongly that Sean’s world experiences were going to count as much in his future as his academic accomplishments, and even his knowledge of the company. It was important, Philip always said, to know as much as you could about other cultures, to see them in action and understand them on a level that was both respectful and informative. His wife had felt the same way, he once told me, and after she’d died when Sean was only fourteen, Philip’s beliefs were reinforced.

It was as if she was speaking to him passionately, he explained, wanting to make sure that no matter how successful he was, he didn’t forget to be human. She was a woman of much beauty and many qualities, he said, as well as a philanthropist and effective campaigner, for she recognised talents in people that others didn’t always see. It was his belief that Sean had the same innate gift for connecting with others and using it to everyone’s advantage.

I’m making him sound like a saint, aren’t I? He wasn’t, believe me, in fact he was far from it, but in spite of his many faults I always believed in the spirit that drove him.

So during the year after I left college we went travel-ling. We experienced so many places, some I’d barely even heard of before. We sailed and swam, climbed mountains, flew over deserts, camped in beach huts, and I came to see and understand the world in a way I never could have without him. On several occasions my parents flew to wherever we were to spend time with us – I remember how they loved Vietnam and Bora Bora, and how much they missed me, and loved Sean. I suppose you could say that they were already seeing him as the son they’d never had.

My memories of that time are all happy, and I know my dreams for the future were completely centred around him.

Then it came time for me to take up my place at St Martins.

Sean didn’t want me to go. He said I was having a far more valuable education getting to know the world with him. In many ways I couldn’t deny it; my horizons had expanded so much in the space of a year that I could hardly remember who I’d been before, or even what I really wanted from life. My home town seemed embarrassingly parochial and even London no longer appealed to me in the way it had before I’d started my gap year. But at the same time I felt I needed some grounding, to get a sense of perspective on who I was and what I wanted from life. It was around the same time that Sean’s father and the company partners decided to move into Australasia. It was going to provide, Philip said, the perfect opportunity for Sean to start proving himself, and Sean was all for it. There were so many opportunities Down Under, he insisted when he told me, and if I was still set on going to uni then why not in Sydney, or Melbourne, or Auckland? It didn’t have to be London.

I was tempted, of course; more than tempted, I even got excited enough to look into it, but I knew I could never settle anywhere that was so far from my parents. Travelling was one thing; not speaking to them for weeks on end was just about bearable since we’d already experienced that, but setting up a permanent home in a place that seemed so inaccessible back then, especially to them, was another altogether. I’m an only child, you see, and we’ve always been close. I’m sure they wouldn’t have stopped me; in fact I know they wouldn’t have, and maybe that was what made it so difficult. It would have broken their hearts to think of me starting a new life on the other side of the world, and they’d never have told me.

In the end Sean gave me an ultimatum. It was him or them – what he actually said was ‘London or Sydney’ – and because I was so furious with myself for not being able to choose I ended up telling him he should go without me.

So he did.

That shocked me I have to admit, although it shouldn’t have, because I knew him well enough by then to accept that he could be as stubborn as I could.

So he went to Sydney, I went to St Martins to study art and design and I . . .

Deep breath here to get us from that horrible parting to what happened next . . .

I’d been in London for about three months when I met Richmond. I wasn’t looking for anyone, it was the last thing on my mind, but then along he came and . . . Well, he was different to Sean in just about every way: looks, character, view of the world. He wasn’t quite as tall or as handsome, but he was definitely attractive in a physical sense. I guess in the early days it was my anger with Sean that drove me into a relationship with Richmond, a kind of rebound situation, if you like. Maybe I wanted to pun-ish Sean for leaving me. I didn’t know if he had already met someone else, but even if he hadn’t I knew he would sooner or later, so why shouldn’t I?

One of the first things I noticed about Richmond was his sense of entitlement. He had an air of superiority about him that I detested, and I knew Sean would too, but at the same time it was strangely appealing. It’s odd, isn’t it, the things your psyche does to you for reasons you never understand.

Anyway, Richmond had already graduated by the time we were introduced by friends at a party. He was working at a brokerage firm in the City and was, as everyone kept telling me, the next big thing in high finance. Did that mean anything to me? Of course not. Did I even care? No, not really. I just liked being with him, partly because it helped me to stop thinking about Sean, and partly because we had a great social life together. I didn’t analyse our relationship much more than that, there was no reason to, and anyway, you don’t at that age, do you?

Richmond’s reasons for being with me? Well, I shouldn’t try to speak for him, because I’ve no idea what was going on his mind back then, and I certainly didn’t know what was going on in the background of his world. All I can tell you is that I believed he was falling for me, just as I was falling for him. Actually, I still have no reason to doubt that. We were good together, and so when I discovered I was pregnant around eight months into our relationship and he said he wanted to get married, I saw no reason not to.

Did I think about Sean during that time? Of course, I thought about him often, but I’d already heard through the grapevine that he’d found someone else and so I asked myself, what was the point of holding on to dreams that were never going to come true? I had new dreams now that perhaps weren’t as bold or exciting, but they had a sense of rightness and attainability about them that were as compelling as the baby kicks that were drawing me deeply into my new life.

Richmond hired a nanny who would help with the baby while I continued my studies. His family was quite well off – I guess you already know that – and I thought, at first, that his parents were fully supportive of our marriage. His father was, I never doubted that, but his mother . . . Well, she’s another story altogether.

Now would be the time to tell you that I’d never heard of Richmond’s previous girlfriend, Ana Petrov, before we got married. Neither he nor anyone else had ever men-tioned her. When I did find out about her (at a party for Richmond’s father’s birthday, which she wasn’t at) I was shocked, and I admit intimidated. My predecessor was the daughter of a Russian billionaire who owned half of London. OK, that’s an exaggeration, but the man was seriously rich and seriously powerful in a way that made me uncomfortable just to look at him. And she, Ana, I saw from the photos Richmond’s mother showed me, was seriously beautiful. She was also insanely spoiled and weird, but of course I didn’t know that then. Her mother was Malayan, I think, which would account for her and Ana’s exotic looks. Richmond’s mother, who laid claim to some Slavic roots going back a few generations, was in total awe of the Petrov family, I discovered, and adored their only daughter.

Anyway, the first time I actually came across Ana was just after I had my son, Luke. My parents were coming to stay as often as they could at that time, but they had their own businesses to run back in Kesterly so it was never as often as they’d have liked. It was always a relief to have them there, because Richmond’s mother was so critical and dismissive of me. She adored the baby, I’ll give her that, but I could tell that she was never going to warm to me.

Luke was a few months old and we were living in an apartment in Holland Park when Ana’s crazy insinuation into our lives began. Apparently she’d been in New York since she and Richmond had broken up. She’d worked for her uncle, her father’s brother, but I’ve no idea what he did. I’m not entirely sure what any of them did apart from make enormous amounts of money. If she and Richmond had stayed in touch while she was gone I had no knowledge of it, but it wouldn’t surprise me now to learn that they had. At the time it would have upset me a lot to discover that he’d maintained contact with an old girlfriend and kept it a secret, especially when I was no longer in touch with Sean, but there was much more to come . . .

I didn’t think of Ana Petrov as a stalker at first, but after a while there was no other way to see it. You’d have thought someone in her position, with all her wealth and opportunities, would have found better things to do with her life, but no. She started turning up in places she had no reason to be, and she’d somehow make sure I saw her, but from a distance. There would be this creepy, supercilious sort of smile on her face as if she wanted me to think that she knew something I didn’t. It was the scariest time, especially when she started to leave things in our mailbox. At first they were letters addressed to me telling me I shouldn’t trust Richmond, that he was cheating on me, and that he intended to take the baby away from me. Richmond contacted her parents, asking them to step in and control her, but if they did speak to her, and I somehow doubt it, all it did was seem to make her worse. I can’t remember exactly when she began threatening to harm me, but I guess it was before the day she walked up to me in a café and in front of every-one slapped me in the face. ‘There’s more to come,’ she told me, hissing like a cat, and I’ll always remember the way she looked down at my son in his pushchair before she left.

I was already carrying our second child by then, and this really freaked me out. I was having a difficult pregnancy, too difficult for me to complete my final year at St Martins, and in a way I didn’t mind. I was so unnerved by Ana’s behaviour that I never wanted to let my son out of my sight. I was terrified she was going to try to snatch him, and of what she might do if she succeeded.

In the end things got so bad that her parents shipped her out of the country. It was either that, or a restraining order, and they weren’t going to tolerate anything so ignominious for their precious princess. I think they settled her somewhere in the Far East for a while, but I honestly don’t know for certain. Richmond’s mother stayed in touch with her, because she’d often drop her name into the conversation saying how well she was doing, or that she sent her love. Can you believe that? Richmond’s mother used to tell us that our stalker sent her love? That will give you some idea of the kind of woman she was – and still is.

Luke was nine years old, and his sister Sasha seven, when my father had a stroke and was unable to carry on running his business. He got better over time, you’d hardly know now that anything had happened, but back then   everyone was beside themselves with worry. Richmond didn’t hesitate. His own father had passed away by then and his cousin whom he’d never got along with was running the Benting family law firm, so Richmond felt no obligation there. Besides, he’d started having difficulties with a couple of new partners at the brokerage firm he was managing, so it made perfect sense for us to leave London. He could help my father with his financial planning services, he said, and work on bringing in new business, while my father retained his oldest clients and moved his life into a slower lane.

Richmond found us our house in Kesterly’s Garden District, a few streets back from the seafront, and his mother followed us to the area so she could stay close to Richmond and her grandchildren, although she kept her house in London.

I should probably mention here that I saw Sean just after Sasha was born. He was in London and got in touch to ask if I wanted to meet. I could see no reason not to – what was the harm in catching up with an old friend?

I was shocked by the way my heart turned over when I first saw him. I hadn’t expected to feel so thrown, or so drawn to him. It was like small, hidden parts of me were suddenly finding the sun again. I realised it was the younger me reacting, the girl who’d been swept away by a teenage romance that had never really stood a chance of surviving. It had been a wonderful time, however, and we enjoyed laughing at our memories as they bloomed and faded and bloomed again, sometimes more brightly than ever. He didn’t tell me much about his life in Sydney, nor did I talk about mine with Richmond, but before I left he asked me if I was happy.

I assured him I was, and he said he was glad, but if I ever needed to get hold of him I knew how to find him. I thought it was an odd thing to say, but typical of his generous nature.

When I got home I dug out some old photos from our travels, and I was so absorbed in them that I didn’t hear Richmond come in. To my astonishment he was furious. He grabbed the photos and threatened to destroy them. I tried to get them back, but he pushed me out of the way. I fell against a chair, knocking my head, but he didn’t notice. He was already leaving the flat. I never saw the photos again, and I didn’t speak to him for a week, maybe longer. In the end he apologised and said he’d been wrong to do what he had, but he loved me so much that he couldn’t bear the idea of me even thinking about another man.

I forgave him, because I had to. We had two children who were already sensing the tension between us and where was I going to go with it? Nowhere that would improve our marriage that was for sure. We were battling a bit of a rough patch due to Richmond’s long hours and frequent spells away from home, and I could only remind myself that he was a wonderful father when he put his mind to it. And there was no doubt the children adored him.

There were plenty of moments, days, weeks, months, when I adored him too. He could be very charming, lots of fun and always generous, especially when he knew he’d been difficult, or overly critical, or even neglectful. He worked hard, and as I mentioned just now, things weren’t going well at the brokerage firm, so he was under a lot of stress. When we moved to Kesterly he threw himself completely into Penn Financial, determined to make an even bigger success of it than my father had. Within a year he’d opened a small office in London, and it wasn’t unusual for him to spend two or three days a week there.

So, fast-forwarding over all the usual challenges of an eighteen-year marriage, and there were plenty, believe me, we get to a few weeks ago when I first discovered that Sean Kenyon was in Kesterly. He hadn’t been in touch to say he was coming; in fact I hadn’t heard from him since the time we’d met just after Sasha was born, and she’s now sixteen. I will admit that there had been times when I’d felt like contacting him, usually after a row with Richmond, but he was an entire world away with a doubtless full and demanding life of his own. Besides, I was hardly his problem, and I certainly didn’t want to create any more for myself. Richmond was never physically violent, but his temper had grown increasingly unpredictable over the years and I usually – not always – went out of my way to avoid provoking it.

The coincidence of Ana Petrov also coming back into our lives at that time was . . . surprising? Curious? I’m more inclined to say unsettling. Yes, it was definitely unsettling, because anything to do with that woman set me on edge. It was only later that I discovered there was a connection to her and Sean turning up at the same time.

As she finished speaking Olivia’s eyes drifted to the clouds gathering outside the window, noting the darkness of their centre, the belligerence of their intent – and the brilliant borders of sunlight encompassing them in a steely grip. It seemed symbolic in a way that made her restless and uneasy.

After a while she sighed gently and turned back to the two people who were there to interview, interrogate, her: a casually dressed woman in her early thirties, and a solemn-faced man of around the same age. They didn’t look judgemental; there was nothing in either of their expressions to tell her what they might be thinking, but she could see they were hoping to capture more for the recording device on the table between them.

Of course they were interested to know more. So far she’d only given them a brief background on the main players in the events that had brought them here. They couldn’t do their jobs without a full account of what had happened during the two years since Sean Kenyon and Ana Petrov had emerged from the shadows of the past to change everything.

It wasn’t only Olivia’s story to tell, others would have their say as well, but it was right that she should start it. Maybe she’d have the final words too, but that would depend on the two people sitting across from her now, patiently waiting for her to continue.

She could see no point in holding anything back, so she wouldn’t; she just wished that while tell-ing the story she could alter the truth in a way that would avoid the terrible, life-shattering outcome it led to.