Chapter 38
I can’t let that happen. The police will ask questions, and the very first one will be, ‘Where’s Holly’s father?’ And it will take them five seconds to figure out that he’s not in Zurich.
I have to do something. Now.
Back home, I find Holly downstairs in the living room. She stands as I walk in and holds up her phone to show me.
‘I thought we weren’t supposed to draw attention to ourselves,’ she says.
Squinting at the screen, I see it’s a freeze-frame of my face, distorted and ridiculous, mid-shout in the middle of Waitrose. I guess that was bound to happen. ‘I had a rough day.’ I take off my coat and lay it on the back of an armchair. ‘Holly, we need to talk.’
‘You had a rough day?’ She presses play. My voice erupts: ‘How dare you!’
I sit down on the couch. ‘Yes, all right. You don’t need to do that. I’ve seen it – I was there.’
‘What’s the matter with you?’ she yells. ‘What is wrong with you? Do you see yourself? You’re an embarrassment, Kate! You’re losing it!’
‘Holly, calm down. It’s fine.’
‘It’s not fine! Your meltdown is all over Facebook and TikTok!’
‘Holly—’
‘Shut up, Kate.’
‘Holly!’
She sneers at me. ‘She’s right about you,’ she says. ‘You’re pathetic. You’re awful. You only married him for his money.’
Oh, God. That woman has filled her head with so many lies; no wonder she doesn’t know who to believe.
‘We need to talk,’ I say.
‘No. We don’t!’ She starts to cry. ‘She was right about you all along. You are leaving me. It was true. You said it wasn’t, but you lied to me. Just like she said.’
‘I wasn’t leaving you. I’m not leaving you.’
‘You’re lying! It’s all over that Facebook post.’
I swallow. ‘You saw the Facebook post?’
‘Yes, I saw the Facebook post. Somebody sent it to me.’
Great. So much for taking it down immediately. ‘I’m sorry, but it wasn’t my fault.’
She wipes her tears roughly with the back of her hand. ‘Why did you tell her all these things?’
‘Who?’
‘That woman! The one who posted it! She says you told her about the accident! Why, Kate?’
‘It wasn’t me. I promise you. I give you my word.’
‘You liar!’
‘Holly, you need to listen to me. I didn’t send that email. It’s fake.’
She blinks a few times. And inside all that hurt and rage, I can see how much she longs to believe me. ‘So who did?’
I rub my forehead with my fingertips.
She gives little shakes of the head. ‘Oh, no. No. Not Teri.’
‘It is her, Holly. She admitted as much to me just now.’
‘Oh, my God! You’re lying! Again! She tells me the truth. She said you were leaving, you were getting another job, and you told me it wasn’t true, but it was true. And now you’re leaving me. That’s why you never got rid of him.’
‘Holly, I’m serious,’ I say, as if I’d been joking all this time. ‘Please sit down. I want to show you something.’
‘What?’
‘Sit down.’ I tap the space next to me and pull my phone out of my pocket.
She hesitates, but then sits on the sofa, leaving as much space as humanly possible between us. ‘What?’
I scroll through my emails until I see the one about finding a place for Holly at the school in Hull. I show it to her.
She rubs her nose with her sleeve. ‘What’s this?’
‘I was leaving, that’s true, but that was before…you know…everything. I was leaving with you. I was taking you with me.’
She looks up. ‘Really?’
‘Jesus, Holly. Of course. What do you think?’
She reads the email.
‘I saved money. I found a house for us and I was waiting to hear about the school for you. And I was applying for jobs.’
‘When were we leaving?’
‘I was waiting for your father to go to Zurich.’
Her face goes through a range of expressions as the reality dawns on her. ‘We were leaving while he was in Zurich?’
‘Yes.’
I show her everything – the applications, the email I’d drafted for the lawyer.
She sits there, in shock.
I put my phone away. She folds in two; her face falls. She cries again. I grab the box of tissues from the coffee table and hand it to her. I know what she’s thinking. This is the worst news, really. To know she was so close to freedom, and then…
‘There’s another thing,’ I say. ‘Teri isn’t who she says she is.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Do you remember when your dad had an affair?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s her.’
‘No!’
‘Yes. Her real name is Beatrice. Wait here.’
I go upstairs to my bedroom and retrieve the note I found in Teri’s house. I bring it back downstairs, holding it by a corner. ‘Remember this?’
She frowns at it. ‘That’s not the note Dad had. There’s no kiss on it.’
‘That’s right. Teri had this one.’
Her face wobbles. ‘Where did you find it?’
‘I went rummaging through her bedroom.’
‘Why were you going through her bedroom?’
‘I was looking for her laptop to delete the video she took of you. I was going to steal it and… I don’t know. Crack the password somehow.’
‘But she deleted the video.’
‘No, it’s in the cloud. She told me.’
‘But why would she keep it?’
I put the note on the coffee table and sit back down. ‘She wanted money. Or that’s what I thought. She kept threatening to give the video to the police unless I gave her twenty-five thousand pounds.’
‘What?’
‘I didn’t realise who she was then. But now it turns out it’s not about money anyway.
She’s trying to make me leave. She’s in love with your dad and she thinks that if I get out of the picture, they’ll be together.
’ I tell her how Teri faked the accident.
‘You never actually hit her. Scarlett told me how slowly you were going and that you’d put the brakes on by the time she stepped out in front of you.
But it would have been really confusing for you.
She seemed to be really hurt. But it was all an act. ’
She looks at me with eyes like saucers. ‘It was an act?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘She told me so.’
She’s still crying, but now her whole face wobbles. She groans into her hands.
I rub her back. ‘I fell for it, too, if that helps.’
I tell her how Teri sent a fake email to Mrs Ashford-Wells purporting to come from me.
Things I never said and never thought. That she took all the cash that I had saved to get us away.
That I even threw my earrings and engagement ring at her, thinking that’s what she wanted, money, but not realising all she really wanted was Max.
‘What is she going to do with the video?’
‘Well, she still thinks your dad is in Zurich. If I don’t pack my bags and leave by tomorrow, she’s sending it to your dad and the police.’ I rub her shoulder. She’s so far away I have to lean across to do it.
After a moment, Holly shifts to sit next to me. I put an arm around her.
‘I’m sorry, Holly. I’m really sorry.’
We stay like that for a little while, Holly crying, but softly now. ‘I thought she was my friend.’
‘I know.’
After a while, she pulls away. ‘She thinks Dad is still in Zurich?’
‘Yes.’
‘We have to get rid of him, Kate.’
‘I know. I have an idea about that.’
She wipes her eyes. ‘Have you found another place?’
I stare at her. ‘Maybe. But first, I still need to get her laptop. She can’t have that video.’
‘I know where it is. And I know the password.’
I open my eyes wide. ‘Really?’
‘Yes. And deleting the video wouldn’t be enough anyway. You have to remove it from the deleted files. That’s how you delete it from the cloud.’
‘So…you could do it?’
‘Yes. But then what?’
I shift to face her and take her hands in mine. ‘I have a plan.’
Later, after Holly and I have talked long into the night and Holly has gone to bed, I go into my bedroom and call Jen.
‘Hey, you, everything okay? I’ve been worried about you.’
Jen did leave a couple of messages, but I never called her back. I couldn’t. She would know immediately that something was wrong, and I wasn’t ready to tell her.
‘Listen, Jen, I have to ask you a really big favour.’
‘Of course. What is it?’
‘It’s about Holly.’
‘Is she all right?’
‘Yes. She’s fine. But if anything happens to me, will you take care of her?’
‘Why? What’s happened?’
‘Max is not going to be around anymore.’
‘Oh no, Kate. Did you break up?’
She sounds genuinely sorry for me, even though she couldn’t stand him.
‘I can’t tell you anything right now. But do you promise me that she can live with you if anything happens to me? Just until she’s eighteen and can get set up on her own?’
‘My God, Kate, you’re scaring me!’
‘Please promise me, Jen.’
‘Of course. Yes. But won’t Max—’
‘He won’t. Can I count on you?’
‘But I don’t understand. What would happen to you?’
‘I just need you to promise me.’
‘But you’re not—’
‘Going to do anything stupid? No. It’s nothing like that.’
‘I promise,’ she says finally. ‘If anything happens to you, I will take care of Holly. I promise.’
After we end the call, I call Max’s mobile and leave a message that I am really concerned now, and I’ve done everything I can to manage his work, I’ve bought him time, but if I don’t hear from him tonight, I will report him missing.
I go downstairs to the garage and put aside all the tins and boxes from the top of the freezer. Then I reach for my gloves, put them on and grab the key from the shelf.
I stare at the freezer for a moment, steeling myself, before removing the lock.
Then I take a deep breath…and lift the lid.