Chapter 57
NICK
My first thought is that the anonymous text was Ian.
He’d made a point of saying how much I’d benefitted from Arthur’s death when I bumped into him at Leeds.
But I don’t see how it could be him. He wasn’t in the office the day Arthur died.
Only Alison and I know what happened that night, so it has to be Alison who sent me the text, she must have another phone that she’s texting me from.
Did Alison buy the peanut butter too? And did she sneak into our house last night and slip the receipt in my pocket? It would be easy for her to get hold of Judith’s key and do that.
When Lizzie and I had our heart to heart, promising each other that there would be no more secrets, I felt bad because there’s one secret I’ll never tell her.
I can’t. It would destroy her, and our marriage.
At the time, Alison and I vowed to never speak about it again, but that was easy when we thought we’d never be seeing each other anymore.
Now it seems that Alison wants paying to keep that promise.
Everything is falling apart around me and I’m desperately trying to keep it all together.
Lizzie is struggling, and the way she’s going she will lose her job, and things are getting difficult at work too.
We’ve lost a couple of tenders just lately and profits are going down.
Then there was that emergency at the site in Leeds, which was far more serious than I let Lizzie and Judith know.
And lost us a potentially lucrative contract.
I wish that Alison would go back to Spain and then I could forget all about this nightmare. I wish that Judith had never met George. Everything has gone wrong since they got married.
The business started getting into difficulties before then, though, I have to admit. I ponder for a moment, trying to recall how long. Just after Judith met George. And that couldn’t be anything to do with Alison, as she was living in Spain.
But this text must be from her. Pay-as-you-go phones are cheap enough, she might have got one so she could text me anonymously.
I have to deal with this situation before it gets worse. I need to meet up with Alison and find out what she’s up to because if she reveals everything she knows about me then my whole world will come crashing down.
Lizzie will never forgive me and neither will Judith. But it was a tragic accident, one that I couldn’t possibly have foreseen, and the consequences of which I’ve had to live with ever since.
My mind goes back to that dreadful day.