Chapter 34
Holly said, ‘I don’t like driving when it’s icy, not when I’ve had a couple of drinks.
’ She handed me the key and I got behind the wheel, quickly figuring out the Jeep’s controls.
It was so old it had a tape deck. I guessed Zack must have driven Charles back to the house in his Land Rover, leaving the Jeep at the pub for the two sisters to get home in.
‘Let’s go,’ Holly said, her voice all business.
As I drove, I glanced at Miranda in the rear-view mirror, watching to see if she got her phone out.
She didn’t. I began to wonder if there was some way to get her on my side.
I couldn’t risk simply telling her that I’d watched Zack shoot Morag – she almost certainly wouldn’t believe me – but perhaps I could try another tactic.
‘You know it’s not Jasmine’s fault that she looks like your mum, don’t you?’ I asked her. ‘She’s the victim here. One of the victims, I should say, along with you two.’
‘What are you wittering on about?’
‘Your dad and Zack kept it secret from you. I know how much that hurt you. If my spouse kept something like that from me …’
She folded her arms. ‘Oh, he’s going to pay. Believe me. When we get home, he’s going to wish it was him who’d fallen to his death in that cave.’
‘He deserves everything he gets,’ I said.
In the mirror, I saw her narrow her eyes. ‘I thought you men always stick together. You’re just pretending to sympathize to look good in front of Holly.’
‘That’s not true at all. I think it’s awful what he did.
The app itself is horrific. The very idea of it makes my skin crawl.
And to use it to bring someone into your life who looks like your mother, without caring about how you would feel.
’ This was all easy to say, because it was the truth. ‘If I were you, I’d divorce him.’
‘Me, too,’ Holly said.
‘Oh, that will never happen,’ said Miranda.
‘Really?’ I was disappointed. ‘Because you love him too much?’
‘Why are you grilling me about my marriage?’
‘Sorry. I was trying to sympathize with you, that’s all.’
There was a long silence. This hadn’t gone the way I’d hoped. But then she said, ‘I’ve already had one failed marriage. You think I want to be like Jasmine’s trailer-trash mother, with a string of divorces behind her?’
The insult provoked me. ‘Didn’t your first marriage end because you had an affair with Zack?’
‘Patrick …’ Holly warned me.
But Miranda spoke over her. ‘I started seeing Zack because my first husband fucked a twenty-year-old intern in his office! That is the one thing I cannot stand. Cheating. Disloyalty. You know, if he’d come to me first, said he wanted a discreet, open marriage, I might have said yes. But infidelity – it shows contempt.’
‘And you’re sure Zack has always been faithful to you?’
‘Oh yes.’ She smirked. ‘He has no reason to go elsewhere. And he wouldn’t find anyone else willing to put up with his … little preferences.’
‘Oh Jesus, Miranda.’ Holly made a gagging face. ‘Too much information.’
I remembered hearing them the other night.
Whatever, at least I knew now that Miranda was not going to turn against her husband. I wasn’t going to win her over.
We drove on in silence for a little while. The snow had slowed to the faintest smattering. I switched off the wipers.
Then Miranda said, ‘I’m looking forward to seeing the manor house again.’ Her tone had the soft tinge of nostalgia. ‘We were all so happy back then, weren’t we? Mum was so excited about the arts centre. Dad was, too. And then it all went so horribly wrong.’
She and Holly began to reminisce about when they were young, telling stories to each other about their mum and Lewis.
How had I ended up here? Only a few days ago I’d been in Brighton, full of excitement about coming to Scotland and spending time with Holly’s family. Apprehensive, too, of course, but mostly looking forward to coming here.
‘It will be fun,’ Holly had said when she’d invited me on this trip. ‘It’s a beautiful place. Bleak and windswept and real, you know?’
I knew that in the morning, when the sun came up, with the hills covered in snow, it certainly would look beautiful. But I didn’t want to die here.