Page 31 of The Lucky Winners

Dev joins Simon, Bingo charging ahead of them. The darkness outside is almost complete, the hills looming like shadows against the fading light. Feeling slightly shaky, I follow. Tilda is just behind me, her breath coming in quick, short bursts.

‘I thought I saw someone in a cluster of trees on the hillside the other day,’ I whisper to her.

Tilda looks at me, her eyes widening. ‘ Really? ’

I nod. ‘I can’t swear it was a person, but it bothered me.’

We stumble into the cool air. Simon’s flashlight sweeps across the garden, its powerful beam jerking from side to side. I scan the area, squinting into the blackness, but there’s nothing. No sound. No movement. Only the rustling of the trees in the breeze and a distant dog barking.

‘Nobody here.’ Simon continues to illuminate the darkest corners of the lawn.

Bingo patrols the path a little less frantically now, sniffing casually at the bushes and cocking his leg against one.

Tilda moves closer to me, her arms crossed, rubbing at her elbows as if she’s trying to shake off a chill. I glance at her, and for the first time since we arrived, she doesn’t look so composed. There’s something brittle in her posture, something unsettled.

Dev glances at me. ‘Let’s head back inside, shall we?’

We troop into the kitchen, but I can’t shake the feeling that we’re being watched. The night feels different now – heavier, oppressive. Bingo had felt something too, but nobody else seems worried.

Inside, the warmth of the kitchen, our untouched dessert on the table, feels like a refuge, but it’s tinged with unease.

We sit down at the table, but the atmosphere has shifted.

The conversation is stilted now, fragmented.

Tilda opens another bottle of wine, but no one’s really drinking.

I chase a piece of Tilda’s exquisite chocolate délice around my plate, pushing it to the side when I catch it.

‘We’ll have to get you both out on the lake soon,’ Simon offers, already recovered. ‘We’ve got a small boat. Nothing fancy, but it’s peaceful. A good way to clear your head.’

‘Is that where you were earlier?’ Tilda says crisply. ‘On your little rowboat?’

‘What?’ Simon gives her a look. ‘No. Don’t be silly.’

There’s a beat of awkward silence and I’m grateful when Dev speaks. ‘Yeah, the boat sounds great. I could use a bit of peace.’

Eventually, after coffee and a meaningful look between us, we decide to call it a night. The walk back up the hill is steep, but I’m grateful for the fresh air. For the chance to escape the tension that’s been building all evening.

‘I’m sorry I spoke out of turn,’ Dev says meekly, after we’ve been walking for a minute or two. ‘I shouldn’t have done that.’

‘No,’ I say. ‘You really shouldn’t.’

‘I’m proud of you, though, for what you’ve overcome.’

‘Other people don’t need to know that.’ I shake my head, trying to dispel the thoughts about Beth that I’ve been having since we arrived. ‘I don’t want to think about it, never mind discuss it in front of strangers.’

‘I know. Sorry. I wish … Oh, ignore me. I’m an idiot.’

He’s right. He is an idiot. But I’m a liar, and that’s probably worse.

He turns to me and grins. ‘Bit awks that, wasn’t it? Sounds like one of Simon’s disappearing acts.’

I nod, but I don’t grin back. It’s obvious Tilda’s worried.

We reach the top of the hill and Dev punches the code into the keypad at the gate.

‘I’m never going to get used to this, do you know that?’ Dev grabs me with a whoop of joy, pointing ahead. ‘That amazing place right there belongs to us. It’s ours. Hear me? It’s bloody well all ours!’

In spite of my annoyance at his outburst to Tilda and Simon, I smile. We left the lights on and, blazing up ahead of us, it looks incredible. Amazing . Plus a thousand other superlatives that still don’t fully describe the miracle that happened. And not to someone else for once, but to us .

‘Dev?’ I whisper hoarsely, grabbing his arm as we walk into the lounge.

He follows my gaze. The wall of glass that leads on to the terrace has something all over it. I walk slowly towards it, narrowing my eyes to try to make sense of what it is.

‘What the hell?’ Dev strides forward and snaps on the terrace lights, illuminating the glass.

I let out a shocked cry. My pulse thunders in my ears, and I don’t know whether to be terrified or furious.

In letters about a foot high, jagged, angry words are scrawled across the pristine windows in red spray paint.

And something even nastier and somehow more personal: someone has used something really sharp, maybe a key, to scratch into the glass itself, leaving permanent scars that catch the exterior lights in harsh, ugly streaks.

The scrawled words are blunt and bitter: GO BACK HOME in red paint and GREED slashed across the living-room window, etched deep into the glass. On one of the side windows, a crude drawing of a noose is carved deep, the lines uneven, as if the person doing it was shaking with either rage or fear.

‘Jeez, who would do this?’ Dev gasps, his face dark with anger.

The spray paint can be washed off, but those other marks are meant to last, to be seen every day. A reminder that the house might be ours legally, but not in the eyes of those who live here.

Someone tried to turn the house of our dreams into a symbol of hatred. And all I can think is how quickly jealousy can curdle into something so vindictive and personal. I start to wonder: did someone watch us leave the house and walk down to Tilda and Simon’s place?

Did they check we were inside before returning to Lakeview House and inflicting the damage?

A chill runs down my spine. My hands are shaking, and I glance at Dev, expecting him to tell me it’ll just be kids, a sick prank.

But Dev doesn’t say a word. He’s staring silently at the glass, his face pale and tense. After a few seconds, he takes out his phone.

‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m ringing the police,’ he says.

‘What?’

‘We need to report this, Merri. It goes beyond kids throwing half a brick through the window.’

‘They won’t do anything,’ I say. ‘And it’s late. Maybe best to wait until morning.’

He frowns, shakes his head. ‘It needs reporting! I don’t understand why you’d think otherwise.’

‘OK,’ I say, cold sweat pooling at the bottom of my back.

Of course, my husband doesn’t understand my reaction. He doesn’t know I was arrested. He doesn’t have a clue as to who I was back then.

But one thing is for sure: I’d rather not see the police again.

When Dev finishes the call, his face is like thunder.

‘What did they say?’

‘They’ve given me a poxy crime number.’ He rolls his eyes and affects a mocking tone. ‘“An officer wouldn’t usually attend an incident of this nature.” Can you believe it?’

‘That’s terrible but I expected it.’ Relief floods my chest. ‘Did you tell them how bad the vandalism was?’

‘I tried. But they seemed to regard it as just a bit of spray paint.’

We were used to graffiti, living in a city, but this wasn’t just graffiti.

The glass was indelibly marked and the messages were horrible.

Troubling. But not troubling enough for me to want the police here with their searching questions and narrowed eyes.

If they started digging, there’s no knowing how long it would take them to find my real name – and the case files along with it, which I’ve tried so hard to keep buried.

I make some tea, and we sit in the living space staring out into the darkness of the night. The lake gleams under the moonlight, a fluid surface of silver and ink that makes me want to retch. I pull a blanket around my shoulders and look away.

From my comfy seat on the sofa, I feel as if the glass barely separates me from the night outside. The expanse of dark water feels vast, as if it’s capable of swallowing everything in its path. I’m not sure I can ever get used to it.

‘This makes me want to run back to what we know,’ I say. ‘I can’t stand the thought that people hate us being here already. Anyone could be watching us out there and we’d never know it.’

‘Don’t think like that, Merri. We’re not going to throw away an amazing future here because of some jealous loser who can’t handle other people’s good fortune.

’ Dev puts down his mug and turns to face me on the sofa.

‘Think about it. They’ve got pressure groups here just like in other places …

in Cornwall and Wales … Troublemakers who loathe people who can afford second homes.

The papers are full of it. And if they think they can intimidate us, we’re sunk. ’

I nod, but what if there’s something more behind it?

‘I’m going to text Jack.’ He picks up his phone again before glancing at my expression. ‘Trust me. I’m not going to let anything bad happen.’

I know Dev means well – but I don’t rate his chances of scaring off the kind of people who’d do a thing like this.

Dev doesn’t know how rotten-to-the-core people can be.

But I do.