Chapter Nine
CHAPTER NINE
The headstone still looked new. It was far newer than the ones on the row behind it but had started to look older than those that shared the same row. Ottilie stood and looked at it and was overwhelmed with guilt. It wasn’t only because she was here with Heath, but for so many other reasons.
Instinctively, she’d slipped her hand from Heath’s as they’d arrived, and so she felt guilty for that, because it must have hurt him, and she felt guilty that she was even holding someone else’s hand in front of Josh’s grave. She was filled with shame that she hadn’t been to visit it more often. There were flowers laid there, but until now, none of them had been hers. She’d found it difficult to get away from her commitments in Thimblebury to come here – or so she’d told herself. Those excuses had been white lies to ease that nagging guilt. In reality, she hadn’t been here because she simply hadn’t been able to face it.
There was a deeper, nameless guilt too. Was it because she was still alive, forging ahead with a new life in a new place while Josh hadn’t been given that luxury? Would it have seemed to him she’d far too readily grasped the chance to start again? That she’d forgotten him too quickly – although she still thought of him every day – that she’d left him behind with far too much ease?
Today would have been his fortieth birthday. In the years leading up to his death, they’d talked about what they’d do to celebrate. Go on a cruise, perhaps hire one of those houses on stilts on some Thai beach, maybe throw an old-fashioned family party at a local pub. He’d always hankered to see the Northern Lights, and that was meant to be her anniversary gift to him, only they never got that far. Josh had died before then, and nobody had gone on the holiday Ottilie had booked as a surprise.
So here she was, the day they’d talked about for years, and there was no cruise, no house on stilts, no family knees-up. There was only Ottilie standing here with another man, looking at his grave.
Heath kept a respectful silence as he stood at her side. He was good at this sort of thing, Ottilie had noted. Knew when he should offer comfort and when to back off. Even before they’d become a couple she’d noticed that about him.
She recalled the day he’d found her sobbing on the floor of her house when she’d heard Josh’s killer had been arrested, and how brilliant he’d been. He was sensible enough to be here with Ottilie and not see her past with Josh as a threat. She’d admitted she still loved him – because how could she have fallen out of love with a man who wasn’t here to fall out of love with? – but Heath had taken that information like a proper adult, and she wasn’t sure she’d have been able to do the same if it had been the other way around. He was good for her and she knew it, and she was certain Josh would have seen it too, but none of that helped her feel any better.
As she wiped away her tears, she glanced up to see Heath watching her carefully. He offered a pained smile.
‘I’m all right,’ she said.
‘You don’t have to pretend for my sake.’
‘I know. I mean, I’m obviously not all right, but I’m all right enough.’
‘Do you want me to leave you alone for a minute?’
Ottilie considered his question. Did she? On the one hand, she could say what she needed to Josh better without Heath there. But on the other hand, she didn’t want to keep secrets from Heath, not even that one. And she appreciated the strength that she absorbed whenever he was close. Right now, she needed it. The time for falling apart had passed, but it didn’t mean that standing in front of this stone was easy.
‘No,’ she said finally. ‘Stay, please. I won’t be much longer.’
‘Stay as long as you want to.’
Ottilie shook her head. ‘There almost doesn’t seem like any point. He’s not there really, is he? Now that I’m here, I don’t even know why I’ve come. It’s nobody’s birthday – how can a man who isn’t here have a birthday?’
‘You don’t mean that.’
‘I’m not sure if I do or not, but it’s how I feel looking at his grave right now. It makes no difference to him if I come or not.’
‘It makes a difference to you – that’s what matters.’
‘Then that’s selfish.’
‘Ottilie…’
Heath’s tone had a note of concerned warning in it. She was spiralling – she felt it, and he could see it. It used to happen a lot in the early days. Perhaps it was selfish to have come, , but perhaps the only way she was ever going to completely move past this tragedy was to be selfish. Perhaps she could only be selfish, and perhaps Josh would have understood that too. Josh wasn’t here, so everything she did that concerned him and his memory was for herself in some way. Visiting the grave, seeing his family…it was all for her really. She’d go and sit with his parents later because she wanted them to think she still cared. It wasn’t for Josh – he couldn’t give a fig now. She was here now because she felt that forgetting him made her a bad person – Josh didn’t care about that either. Josh would have known that she hadn’t forgotten him; there was no need for any big show as far as he was concerned. So all of it had to be for her.
‘There’s a little café at the gates,’ she said. ‘Let’s go and get a hot drink.’
‘You’re sure? You don’t want to stay a bit longer?’
Ottilie shook her head. ‘I think, just for today, a bit of selfish might be OK.’
Heath had gone off to see a friend, giving Ottilie time and space to visit Josh’s parents. It had been a lovely but emotionally draining few hours, and by the time she and Heath met for a late lunch she was exhausted.
‘I’m sorry I’m going to be rubbish for the rest of the day,’ she said as they followed a waiter to their table.
‘Don’t be daft. I wasn’t expecting us to be going on a pub crawl. It’s fine – you don’t have to apologise to me. I knew what sort of day it was going to be.’
‘And yet you still came.’
‘Of course. You’d have done it for me. You’d have done it for anyone.’
‘Even so, it must be a bit miserable for you.’
‘Would you stop that – I don’t want you to think about that again. I’m here with you and that’s enough for me. I want to be here.’
Ottilie took a seat at the table they’d been shown to. The restaurant was a decent mid-price Italian that was considered a reliable bet by locals for a good bowl of pasta. The walls were dotted with black-and-white photos of Italian scenes: rolling Tuscan hills, glorious churches, terracotta-roofed villages and clifftops bordered by sparkling seas. Some of them were photos of people in fashions of days gone by. Ottilie had been here before and often wondered if they were the ancestors of the current owners. In fact, she’d eaten here often with Josh, but when Heath had suggested it she hadn’t the heart to say so. He’d seemed so pleased with his choice, eager to see her pleased too, it would have been cruel to deny him that little triumph. And as days went, hers had been sobering but his hadn’t exactly been a picnic either. They both deserved better.
‘It’s nice in here, isn’t it?’ Heath said as he poured them both a glass of water from a jug already on the table.
Ottilie nodded. ‘Good choice.’
‘I remembered you’d said you liked Italian food.’
‘I do. I love it.’
He was silent for a moment. He seemed eager to please but wary of saying the wrong thing. Ottilie hated that he might feel that way.
‘It’s nice to be in Manchester,’ she said.
‘Really? Because we…’
‘I know we only came because of Josh, but I’ve actually enjoyed being back here more than I thought I would. I love Thimblebury, don’t get me wrong, but Manchester is home. It’s where I’m from so it’s always going to be important.’
‘I’m glad.’
‘I’ll come to visit you more here. It doesn’t seem fair now that I think of it. You always have to come to Thimblebury.’
‘I don’t mind; I like Thimblebury.’
‘I know. And I don’t really have so much of an excuse to stay away now. After all, they got the guy who killed Josh – not that I had to worry in the first place. It was a weird time, I suppose.’
Heath seemed to pause for longer than was necessary before he asked the next question. ‘Bound to be. It looks like this conviction is going to stick then?’
Ottilie reached for her water. ‘Faith seems to think so…You know, Josh’s old colleague Faith.’
‘Oh, yes, you did mention her. So that’s good. Does it make you see it all a bit differently?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Ottilie said as she stared into space. Did it? She’d waited to hear that news for so long she didn’t know how she felt about it now. Materially, what difference could it make to her life? It wasn’t going to change anything. But knowing that there was finally some sort of justice for Josh, she couldn’t deny there was a certain satisfaction in that. It was a closure of sorts, but closure only sparked those feelings of guilt again, because closure was halfway to accepting and forgetting as far as she could tell.
Shaking herself, she forced a smile for Heath. ‘I’m suddenly starving.’
‘That’s good. Have whatever you want – my treat.’
‘No, I don’t?—’
‘Don’t argue. I knew you’d make a fuss. Let me do this please. I’ve been pretty useless to you for most of today, so let me do this much.’
‘You’ve been brilliant, not useless!’
‘I’ve felt useless.’
‘You’re here and that was all I needed from you. Thank you for coming.’
‘Ottilie, I live in Manchester. It was hardly a trek for me to be here!’
‘You know that’s not what I mean,’ she said with a smile.
Heath reached across the table for her hand. ‘It might not be the right time to say this, I realise, but I don’t think I can keep it in any longer.’
Ottilie held back a frown.
‘In fact,’ he said, ‘I’m sure you already know it.’
‘Do I?’
He nodded. ‘But I want to say it, just for the record, so there’s no doubt, because I haven’t been brave enough to say it before. Ottilie, I lo?—’
‘Heath!’
They both looked up at the sight of a woman marching towards their table. She was blonde and curvy, with the sort of polished glamour that would make someone take a second look on the street. Heath yanked his hand from Ottilie’s as if he’d been burned. She looked sharply at him, but his eyes were wide, fixed on the newcomer.
‘Bloody hell!’ the woman cackled. ‘Fancy seeing you here!’ She looked at Ottilie, and then her sardonic gaze went back to Heath. ‘I take it this is your new model. I might have known you wouldn’t stay single for long.’
Heath cleared his throat, suddenly seeming to find his voice. ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked with such frost in his voice that Ottilie turned to him in surprise. She’d never heard that from him before, not even when they’d been at loggerheads over Flo when they’d first met. No, it wasn’t just coldness; it was clear contempt.
‘I fancied an Italian,’ the woman said. ‘It’s a free country, isn’t it?’
‘Alone?’
‘Why? Are you still mad at Dwight?’
‘I’ve got no feelings for your new boyfriend either way. I’m only making conversation.’
‘As a matter of fact, he’s parking the Merc.’
‘Right.’
The woman looked from him to Ottilie and then back to him. ‘So you’re not going to introduce me?’
‘No.’
She ignored him and turned to Ottilie with a saccharine smile. ‘I’m Mila. Heath’s wife.’
‘Ex,’ he corrected her.
‘Still, the wife bit’s what matters. We made vows.’
‘It’s a shame you didn’t think about that when we were married,’ he muttered.
She ignored him again. ‘And you are…?’
Heath shushed Ottilie in a way she didn’t like. She was going to decide whether she would answer, not him.
‘Mila…’ he said in a deliberate tone, ‘much as I’m enjoying our catch-up, is there any way you could possibly go and eat somewhere else? I don’t know, like maybe the Shetland Isles? As far away as you can would be perfect.’
‘Sorry, got a meal booking. How’s Flo these days? Still flying around on her broomstick, or has that mental village of hers finally burned her at the stake?’
Heath shot off his chair. ‘I’m asking you nicely,’ he growled. ‘If you can’t eat somewhere else then go and sit down – preferably where I can’t see you.’
‘So she’s dead?’ Mila asked. ‘You’re touchy so I’m guessing so.’
‘No!’ he snapped. ‘Not that it’s any of your business!’ His gaze travelled to where the waiter was showing a tall, well-built man with a shaved head to a table across the room. ‘Looks like Dwight’s all parked up. Don’t you think you’d better go and join him? Don’t want him getting the wrong idea.’
Mila threw back her head and laughed. ‘About us? Please!’ She waved at the man, who frowned slightly, and then the moment of clarity hit. He sidled over and took Mila by the arm to lead her away with the briefest nod at Heath. At least one half of the couple seemed to have some sense.
‘Wow…’ Ottilie said in a low voice as she watched them go to their own table. ‘So that’s the infamous Mila.’
Heath grimaced. ‘Sorry, but do you mind if we go and eat somewhere else? I know you like this place and…’
‘God, no!’ Ottilie grabbed the coat from the back of her chair. Given what had just passed between Heath and his ex, there was no way they could stay. And besides, secretly she was relieved not to have to go through with the pretence that this wasn’t a regular haunt for her and Josh. Somewhere else was fine with her.