Chapter 24
That fucking phone. I was going to throw it in a field. Or smash it with a hammer. Who was possibly ringing me at this ungodly hour?
I looked over. Oh, it was nine thirty. Not actually that early. And it was Nigella. I didn’t have the energy, but I answered anyway.
Kennedy was most put out that I was moving around and huffed.
“Hello?”
“Good, you’re awake. I never know what hours you keep. Anyway!” she said, changing her tone to bright and breezy. “You might want to get dressed and come down to my place. Put on a clean T-shirt and brush your hair. I’ve a full spread for breakfast.”
“Are you throwing a brunch?” I asked.
“An intimate one, yes, just you, me and … er, Verity.”
I was fully awake. “What?”
“She’ll be here by ten, so chop-chop,” she said.
“Now, don’t be mad. She rang me yesterday morning, before that whole …
incident. She wanted to know what was going on.
Oh, Arden, you hadn’t told her anything about Riz; she had no idea.
The pair of you need your heads knocking together.
As my last act as a gossipy old woman, before I hang up my meddling hat, I shall do just that.
And she said she has some big news for you. ”
Probably that I was having my contract cancelled. Or that I owed Donal and Ffion money.
“Fine,” I said. “But I intend to sulk the entire time.”
“That’s the spirit, love. See you in a bit.”
I stood up. Hated the world. Showered. Was furious with myself.
Combed my hair. Muttered under my breath about who the fuck these people thought they were.
I looked in the mirror and mushed up my fringe again because my hair, when combed, made me look like a seventies-pornstar-slash-twelve-year-old-boy.
And then I cursed out Nigella. And Verity.
And Guy. And Simon. And Ollie. And fuck it, Sonia, too.
And Maslin. And God. And the fates and my mother and everyone I’d ever seen naked or had seen me naked and the weather and …
“I think I do need a holiday,” I told Kennedy. “Shall we go to the seaside next week?”
He wagged his tail at that. “Good, we’ll go somewhere miles away, and my phone will be left here. We’ll go on nice long walks, and no one will bother us. No one.” At the word walk his tail started wagging harder.
Feeling slightly less annoyed, but frankly, still thoroughly pissed off with the world, I left the house, with Kennedy following me.
After reaching the village, I walked down the street towards Nigella’s place.
Too dazed from the previous few days to realise what was going on around me.
It all reverberated in my mind. Suzy was our new MP.
Verity was in Lilbury. Simon and Guy had been having threesomes with squaddies from Simon’s military base for years.
One of them died in Guy’s house, and they covered it up.
It was all too much. My head was pounding. On top of this, it really was going to be the hottest day on record. Already, I was sweating profusely from the sun beating down on the ground.
My phone rang. I took it out of my pocket, even though I wanted to ignore it. An unknown number. I answered.
“Arden?” came a now familiar cockney accent. “Listen, I’ve found something. I’m not sure what it means. But you need to be careful. If this is correct, then you were right, Stuart Murray’s family killed Riz …” His voice crackled out. The reception was terrible.
“Jack? Jack, I can’t hear you.” The line was gone. I tried to call him back.
A car drove down the street beside me too fast and distracted me from my phone. I looked up to scowl at whatever prick couldn’t follow speed limits and saw a shape I recognised instantly. “Oh, shit.”
I began walking the other way back towards the cut-through by the pub.
The car came to a screeching halt about twenty metres in front of me. Shit, shit, shit.
“Arden!” I heard him call. The car door slammed, and I began to pick up the pace. Kennedy bounded along beside me.
Ollie was still following me and still calling my name. “Arden!” he yelled again. “Please, wait!” I kept walking.
“Arek!”
I stopped dead in my tracks at the corner of Nigella’s street. She was in her front garden. We made eye contact, and she lifted her head in a what gives? gesture.
Ignoring her, I turned and stalked back over to Ollie. “Don’t you ever call me that. Ever again! You hear me? You. Don’t. Call. Me. That.” I punctuated every word with a prod to his chest.
“You said I could—”
“Yeah, in private. Before.”
“Arden, please, I need to talk to you. I can’t—”
“You turned up where I live to tell me more lies?”
“No.” His voice sounded raw. “It’s not like that. God, why do I fuck everything up with you?”
“Excuse me?”
“Please, can we go to your house and talk? I need to explain things.”
Nigella called out, “Arden, are you coming? Oh, hello, Ollie.”
He gave a quick wave. The act seemed to cause him physical pain.
“Just a minute!” I replied to Nigella and turned back to Ollie: “I’m busy right now. This isn’t a good time.”
He gave me a begging look. “Please.”
I groaned in frustration and grabbed his hand – out of instinct more than anything – and dragged him to Nigella’s place. “Can I use your back garden for a minute? And can you keep Kenny occupied? Thanks.”
Ollie followed me without saying a word. The front door was open, and Nigella’s house was delightfully cool. “Go through to the garden and wait for me,” I snapped at Ollie, who meekly complied. He headed for the back of the house as someone I had never expected to see here came out of it.
“You made it then,” I said to Verity.
There was a noise, and I spun around to see Nigella coming back inside, with an excited Kennedy. She led him into the living room and threw a toy in after him. “Now, let’s all be civil, yes? Also, why is Oliver here?”
I ignored all of that.
“Ard,” Verity said quietly. “You know I’m on your side, right? I was between a rock and a hard place with Donal and Ffion. They’re out for blood, and I was trying to do my best to keep the agency afloat. I never would’ve let them ditch you or screw you over.”
Two weeks of complete silence, and now I had multiple directions pulling me at once. I said nothing.
Ollie was still standing behind her, looking conflicted. “I said to wait in the garden,” I yelled at him. I could feel my temper like a rubber band being pulled and pulled and ready to snap.
I turned to Nigella. “Really can’t apologise enough for all this. Didn’t mean for everyone I’ve ever met to turn up at your door. If any long-lost relatives arrive, feel free to tell them to wait in the pub.”
Aggrieved, I stormed to the end of the hall past Verity. She reached for my arm, and I jerked back. She noticed, and I instantly felt like an arsehole.
“It’s okay,” I said, feeling rather meek suddenly. “I—” I looked at Ollie. “I need to deal with one thing beforehand.”
“I have good news,” she offered in a hopeful tone.
“If it’s not that we’re all going to die tomorrow in an apocalypse, then I’m not interested,” I muttered and grabbed Ollie, pulling him into the kitchen, and then sighed.
“Oh, for God’s sake.”
Inside Nigella’s beautiful kitchen were Simon, Guy, and Sonia.
“Hello, everyone,” I said.
Ollie noticed Simon. “You.”
“You,” Simon growled.
“Who are you?” Sonia asked Ollie.
“That’s Arden’s cheating piece of shit ex,” Simon said succinctly.
“I have a name,” Ollie said.
“Yeah. Cheating piece of shit.” Simon folded his arms. “That’s your name.”
“You—” Ollie growled and pushed past me. Simon made his way forward, too, only held back by the others. Guy looked half ready to start swinging as well.
“ENOUGH!” I yelled. “Ollie, go out to the garden. You lot” – I gestured to Simon and Guy – “fucking keep it in your pants. The last thing we need is more testosterone.”
Nigella slunk in behind me. “Why are they all here too?” I asked.
“Oh, that’s actually not my fault. Honestly, they all turned up one by one this morning.”
I gave her a look. “I’m very maternal; people flock to me,” she said.
Instead of saying anything else, I glared at her as hard as I could.
Then I turned and followed Ollie out into the garden and shut the door.
Verity and Nigella had joined the others at the kitchen island.
They all stood there, facing out towards us, alternately glaring – the men – and looking concerned – the women.
Outside, Ollie was pacing the garden, his hands going through his hair.
I never wanted to see anyone pace ever again after the past month.
Looking him up and down, he was not the immaculately dressed Ollie who never let the world get the better of him.
This Ollie wore running shorts, a pair of plimsolls and an old workout T-shirt that was about two sizes too big for him.
“Did you get dressed in the dark?” I came to stand near him.
“Hmm? Oh, yeah. I took a sick day. Didn’t think about an outfit.” He cocked his head to the kitchen. “Who the hell are all they? Doesn’t anyone have a job in this place?”
I shrugged. “Nigella and Guy? No. Simon, yes, but, you know, dead husband, also, technically no. Verity is her own boss. Sonia … er, that’s complicated.”
He let out a choked, half-hearted scoff.
“What do you want, Ollie?” I asked.
He stopped pacing, stopped running his hands through his hair. Stopped everything. There was a long, long pause. “I … I need to put this right, Arden. I can’t let you be out in the world hating me. Anyone else can hate me all they want, but not you.”
Exhaustion washed over me. I had nothing left in the tank. “You don’t get to keep coming and doing this to me.”
“Give me one more chance. I promise—”
“Promise what, Ollie? That you’ll never cheat on me again? That you’ll never see Jamie again? Which is it, Ollie?”
“I love you, Arden! I fucked up and I’m sorry!” he yelled, tearing at his hair. “I keep screwing up, and I just want you!”
“You had me! And I wasn’t enough for you!” The whole village must be able to hear us. Our voices carried across Nigella’s garden. I dared not look inside, but I knew that every word was going through Nigella’s double-glazing.
“I’m sorry. Please tell me what to do, Arden. I can’t go on like this. The past year has been unbearable without you. I feel sick all day, every day.”
“Then why didn’t you think of that before?” I asked. I was screaming as loud as I could, but then my voice left me.
After a long silence, I said what I swore I would never admit to.
Something I promised myself I’d kept buried deep down in my chest. “You broke me, Ollie. You know what my life had been like up until I met you. You know, because you were the first person that I ever told those things to.” I pushed my finger into his tear-stained face.
My voice shook. “I never told anyone about my brother or my dad, I never told anyone, but I told you. I let you use my real name; I gave you everything, but it wasn’t enough for you.”
“I …”
A year of anger, and rejection poured out of me. The desire to let it all out was too much. “You ruined everything!” I screamed at him. “I never wanted anyone like I wanted you!”
Words failed. But now the anger overwhelmed me. My chest was about to burst. “I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you!”
Ollie was trying not to cry, his hair sticking up and wild from where he’d run his hands through it.
“I wanted to forgive you,” I said eventually. My body was exhausted.
“That week in Surrey, I thought I could. I thought when we made love that everything could fall away, and we’d be us again. But we can’t.”
Silence.
Eventually, Ollie sniffed and looked away. He put his hands on his hips and took some calming breaths.
“Now, isn’t that lovely?” said a voice from behind me. “You two are all sorted out then?”
I spun around. Standing at the back gate to Nigella’s garden was Katrina Pettigrew. Holding a very large gun. Pointed right at us.