ALONE TOGETHER
ALONE TOGETHER
GRADY
“You know I love a good revenge story,” Kitty says. “Once I knew the truth about what you did to my goddaughter, Abby and I came up with a story of our own. Your life was already unraveling, all that was required was a tiny tug on the final few threads.”
“Well, congratulations. Mission accomplished,” I tell her.
“Oh, Grady. We’re only just getting started. I think Charlie left me this old writing cabin in his will to piss me off. He said his tenth novel was his best but then wouldn’t let me read it, because he was cross that I wouldn’t do something to stop what was happening on Amberly. He was the only man left by then—Charlie contributed so much financially to the island that they needed him, and Sandy adored him so he was untouchable. But he became increasingly cranky about Amberly being ‘overrun with women’ as he put it, and I don’t know whether it was the stress, or just his age, but he stopped being able to write. Didn’t write a word for years, or if he did, refused to share anything with me. Then he hanged himself on that beam just there. You see, he genuinely lived to write and when he couldn’t...” I see something like emotion in Kitty’s eyes for the first time but it soon fades. “So when I finally got to read the infamous Book Ten manuscript after he died I was a little disappointed. It had potential, but it wasn’t the masterpiece he seemed to think it was.”
“So you left the book here for me to find?”
“I’ll get to that part of the story when I’m ready. The island needed a new source of finance after Charlie died. Sandy and Midge liked the idea of another writer coming to Amberly, so I sent one of my authors who’d had a big debut novel but proved to be a one-hit wonder. That little experiment didn’t work out, the results were very disappointing, and unfortunately he tried to leave and died in the process. He stole an old wooden rowboat without realizing it had a small hole in it and drowned about a mile off the coast. His body washed up months later. It really wasn’t anyone’s fault, it was an accident , but one which nobody needed to know about. So the Isle of Amberly Trust voted to bury him in an unmarked grave in Saint Lucy’s. It’s easy to make writers disappear; it’s finding good ones that poses a challenge. He was like a rehearsal for you in some ways, but nothing that will happen to you will be an accident.”
I stare at her in horror. “Are you saying that—”
“What I’m saying is that replacing Charles Whittaker has proved to be very difficult for the women of Amberly. So I sent you here and, I’ll be honest, you surprised me. I thought you would torture yourself trying to turn Charlie’s unpublished novel into something of your own, and that you would lose what was left of your mind when you failed. But I was wrong. The new book is terrific, I think it’s your best. This novel really could relaunch your career, Grady. Well done.”
For a moment I forget everything that she said before. My agent’s opinion about my books has always meant so much to me. Too much probably. I can’t help it.
“Really? Do you mean it?” I ask, sounding like a child desperately seeking praise from their favorite teacher.
Kitty smiles and nods. “I do.” The smile fades. “The only problem is what you did to Abby. I need to know why.”
I am my own worst enemy but I am also my own best friend. I say nothing.
“We can sit here all night if you want,” Kitty says, lighting another cigarette. “I’m not going anywhere and neither are you, so—”
“I loved Abby but she was going to leave me,” I blurt out.
Kitty frowns and exhales a cloud of smoke. “Why would you think that?”
“I found a pregnancy test in the bin at our home. It was positive.”
“You didn’t want a baby?”
“I’d had a vasectomy to make sure she didn’t get pregnant, so I knew she had been cheating on me. She’d been behaving strangely for months, and was always coming home late. Abby was clearly having an affair. She was siphoning off money from our bank account, and was secretly plotting to abandon me, just like my parents did. Everyone I love leaves me in the end. I loved her so much it hurt. All I wanted was for us to be alone together.”
“So you pushed her off a cliff?”
“If she left me, so would you have,” I say.
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t tell me that you would have carried on being my agent if your goddaughter divorced me. You would have abandoned me too. It wouldn’t have just been the end of my marriage, Abby leaving me would have meant the end of my career. But if she died , if it looked like she had killed herself like her mother did, then I thought you’d feel sorry for me and be my agent forever.”
Kitty’s cigarette hovers in midair. She stares at me as though she thinks I am unhinged.
“I still don’t understand why you thought Abby was going to leave you?”
“She was pregnant with another man’s child, of course she was going to leave me.”
“Oh, Grady,” Kitty says, her voice dressed in disappointment. “I guess there is no cure for human nature.”
“She should have been at home with me, waiting for the call about my book being a bestseller. I am sorry for what I did, more sorry than you’ll ever know. I just snapped.”
“I believe that you’re sorry, but you didn’t just snap. You planned the whole thing. You knew that Abby was recording all of her incoming calls because of the threats she had received. Those recorded calls were the biggest piece of evidence the police had, listening to her describe the person lying in the road while she was on the phone to you at home a mile away. But you weren’t at home, were you? You walked to the cliff road after the call with your publishers and me. And you knew exactly where Abby was and what time she would arrive there, because of the app you installed on her phone.”
“If she hadn’t been ‘working late’ again it wouldn’t have happened. She was probably with him, the father of her child. I’m not the only one to blame.”
“There was no other man, Grady. Abby was pregnant, but she wasn’t sleeping with someone else.”
My defense briefly loses momentum, but the betrayal I felt then and now soon reignites.
“I’ve seen the baby and I don’t think it was an immaculate conception,” I say.
“The money that she’d been withdrawing from your joint bank account was for IVF, using a donor, and in secret, because she desperately wanted to have a baby before she was forty, and she knew that you didn’t. Abby wanted to tell you but only if it worked, and then when it did, she didn’t know how. She didn’t want to spoil your big moment the week your book became a bestseller, so she was going to tell you the next day. Abby loved you, only you. She just wanted to give you the family you never had growing up. You had it all but you were too busy worrying about what you didn’t have to notice.”
I feel like all the air has been forced out of my lungs.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper.
“I’m sure you are, but I’m not here for an apology. Abby loved you. And now she hates you. And so do I,” Kitty says. “I bet you’ve spent your whole life since then looking over your shoulder. Without a body being washed up, you must have wondered if she was out there somewhere, and worried yourself sick that all of this might come back to haunt you. And now it has. No wonder you couldn’t sleep. And no wonder you couldn’t write . Sometimes I think you’ve been punished enough already, that there might be another way for you to make up for what you did. Other days, I’d happily let them bury you too.”
“I’m not a bad person. I just did a bad thing.”
“Do you think you’re a good person? Abby hitched rides all the way to the Scottish Highlands after you did what you did. She was pregnant, scared, heartbroken, and alone. All she had were the clothes on her back and a survival instinct, which guided her home to Amberly. The person she loved most in the world tried to kill her, and I think something got broken in her mind. She didn’t want to be a journalist anymore, she didn’t want to save the world from itself anymore, she just needed to save herself. She waited for the ferry on the mainland, and Sandy knew who she was the second she saw her. She and Midge took her in and helped her to start again with a new job and a new life. They helped her when the baby was born too, took her to the hospital on the mainland. And now she has a new family. I don’t care if you’re good . My client list would be rather short if I only represented good people. I only care whether you can write.
“Abby is happy here, Grady. It’s her home again now. And it could be yours too, but only if you can carry on writing books I can sell. The island needs an income or they’ll have to open to tourists all year long, and nobody wants that. Can you do it?”
I stare at her. “I just want to go home and for things to be how they were before.”
“You don’t have a home, Grady. You don’t have anything or anyone anymore. Only your books. Could you write another so that the islanders can let you live here?”
A tear rolls down my cheek. “I don’t know.”
“That’s fair enough. Nobody really knows anything. The only certainty in life is uncertainty. We’re all just a bad roll of the dice away from being right back at the bottom of the ladder we spent our whole lives climbing. I do need an answer, though. It’s decision time. They’re waiting,” Kitty says, staring at the walkie-talkie on the table.