Chapter 33
THIRTY-THREE
I don’t care if anyone sees me running up the stairs.
This is my house and it’s about time I took control.
Those people work for us and, if they keep spying on me, I’ll insist that we either move or fire them.
I am prepared to see inside Laura’s room this time; I unlock her door and fling it wide and then take the small table from outside and push it against the door.
No one is going to shut me inside this time.
Without hesitating, I walk straight to the dressing room and open the door.
I find the light switch easily and making sure the door is wide open I take the chair from in front of the dressing table and push it under the doorknob.
Anger at being deceived surges through me as I scan the room.
I try to put myself in Laura’s place. Where would she keep her wedding photographs?
As they are not something a person would look at daily, I assume they would be tucked away in one of the closets.
Meticulously I open each door, moving piles of sweaters, and then I shake my head and turn around slowly.
A chest of drawers is against one wall and I slide out each one; there, right at the bottom, is a pearl-white box, with the names Laura and Jack printed in gold, and underneath the date of their wedding.
As I stare at the box, the musty smell of the room and Laura’s perfume envelops me and anxiety grips me with a ferocity that’s unnerving.
I stare at the closet that contains the mannequin wearing Laura’s wedding gown, and the need to be far away from this room rushes through me.
I pick up the box and, without bothering to shut any of the doors, I dash out into the hallway and head back downstairs to my room.
The smell of Laura’s perfume clings to me and, after dropping the box onto the table, I dash into the bathroom and thoroughly wash my face and hands.
I pace up and down my room. One part of me wants to discover their closest friends, while the other part of me fears what the truth might reveal.
How far would a close friend go to protect Jack if he is responsible for the deaths of his wives?
What if I’m wrong?
A wave of exhaustion washes over me. Am I thinking straight?
Has moving into this horrible house and having to compete with a dead woman altered my normally sound judgment?
How much of what I’m feeling is an overreaction?
I lean on the table and stare out of the window, trying to gain perspective.
I’ve never allowed people to get to me like this before and, trust me, in my business people are trying to walk over the top of you all the time.
Being an actor and having to constantly join the line of others auditioning for the same part has shown me sides of people I didn’t know existed.
Perhaps I’ve been too critical on the staff here.
After all, they have been working for Jack for many years and are obviously loyal to him.
To them I am an outsider and it would be normal for them to be protective toward him, especially after dealing with Laura’s unstable personality.
I picture each staff member and recall the variations they gave me of the night Laura died and shake my head.
I’m convinced there’s been a cover-up, and nothing that’s been happening since I arrived here will allow me to come to any other conclusion.
I glance down at the white box, take a breath and remove the cover.
I lift out the leather-bound volume and flip over the pages.
To my surprise, the sparkle in Jack’s eyes is drastically different to when he married Caroline.
He smiles at the camera, but it seems false.
I’ve seen him smile with happiness. He told me he loved Laura—he’s made this house and her belongings into a shrine to her memory—but the man in these photographs tells me a different story.
I pass over the usual bride and groom images to look at the friends and family.
Using my phone camera, I copy as many of them as possible.
I download everything I can find of Laura’s and Caroline’s weddings onto my laptop.
I include the newspaper articles listing the names of the people at the wedding.
I line up the pictures on my screen and, even though there is a time difference, it’s easy to make out who’s who.
The group of people we went to lunch with at the yacht club have been close friends for many years and most of them from college.
I notice Laura in a few of the socialite events but she isn’t with Jack but obviously moved in the same circles.
The newspaper clippings I discovered about their marriage were written after the fact, more as a mention than a society event.
I scratch my head, trying to make sense of it all.
My marriage to Jack was very private and, as far as I know, it never made mention in any of the newspapers, so I must assume that was the same with his marriage to Laura, although she didn’t seem the type to agree to anything else but a full-on wedding with all the trimmings.
I returned to the wedding album and went through it again.
Why didn’t I notice it the first time I looked?
Usually photographs taken at a wedding have images of the couple dancing or cutting the cake and often driving away to their honeymoon but not Laura’s wedding.
All the shots in the album were taken at the church.
I consider this anomaly and the false smile on Jack’s lips and wonder if he’d been pressured into marrying Laura.
If he had been forced into marrying, would that be a reason to murder her?
My head is spinning. The group of people around Jack now have been with him for many years.
They were at his weddings, with him on the honeymoon trip when Caroline died, and just happened to be on board the yacht when Laura accidentally fell overboard.
On the yacht there were other people. The captain and his crew, the staff and Tom Bates.
I notice Ruby in the background of all the other images.
Jack mentioned she’d be with him forever, and had been his PA since he first started in business.
I did notice at his wedding to Laura that Ruby was on the arm of a man who didn’t show up in any of the other photographs.
I can only imagine that he was her plus one for the wedding.
She would know everything, but getting her to talk would be like squeezing blood from a stone.
I’ll need to have a long talk with Jack when he comes home, and ask him about his marriage to Laura.
This time I expect him to tell me the truth.