Chapter 27
When I don’t respond straightaway, Gabby reaches for the diary. ‘Forget it, I shouldn’t have said anything.’
‘Wait,’ I say, clutching it tight. ‘I just need a second, that’s all. In the space of a few days, I’ve gone from thinking Alexa and Otis were struggling but in love, to finding out she’s been hiding money, and now this.’
Gabby deflates. ‘It’s a lot, isn’t it?’
‘More than I bargained for when I said I’d help,’ I joke feebly, handing the diary back to her. ‘Show me what you’ve found.’
Gabby hesitates, but then she starts flicking through the diary.
‘As you know, Alexa never embraced technology,’ she begins.
‘She insisted on using a paper diary. Otis is the opposite, so they were forever double booking. It was a running joke between them, even if it was annoying to be on the other end of. I learned that whenever Otis and I made plans, I had to tell Alexa to put it in her diary, too, so she didn’t sign him up for something at the same time. ’
I bet she loved that, I can’t help but think.
‘The police came to the house again yesterday,’ Gabby continues. ‘They asked about Alexa’s schedule. Appointments she attended, regular plans she had, people she met.’
‘I’m guessing that’s when Otis showed them her diary?’
‘But that’s the thing, Janine. Otis never mentioned Alexa’s diary.’
I can’t hide the fact that hearing this makes me gulp. ‘Why not?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t dare ask,’ Gabby confesses.
‘Did you tell the police about it?’
Gabby squirms, and I eye the diary she’s clutching to her chest.
‘No, I didn’t,’ she replies, rushing to explain when she sees me frown. ‘I know how Otis not mentioning the money Alexa withdrew makes him look. I wasn’t going to drop him in it about her diary too, but Otis is the most honest person I know. There must be a reason why he didn’t bring the diary up.’
‘So, you lied for him.’
Gabby bristles at my statement. ‘I didn’t lie. I just didn’t say anything. The two are very different things.’
I nod, understanding now more than ever why Gabby is such a good lawyer.
‘Otis gave the police Alexa’s phone and told them she doesn’t get out much other than to attend a bereavement support group once a week,’ Gabby continues. ‘He wasn’t hiding anything. He just didn’t mention the diary. Maybe he forgot about it. That’s possible, right?’
‘I guess, but it’s unlikely if Alexa uses the diary as much as you say she does.’
Gabby struggles. ‘Alexa hasn’t been going out for a while now. Maybe he thought she wasn’t using it anymore, so there was no point bringing it up?’ she suggests before slumping. ‘To be honest, it’s weird to me that he didn’t mention it, but he must have his reasons.’
‘But why would Otis hide something that could help find Alexa?’
‘Honestly? I think he’s scared of what the entries written inside it could mean,’ Gabby replies, then she sighs.
‘Look, I think we can agree that Otis hasn’t been the most attentive husband recently.
He will have to live with that forever, but this diary suggesting Alexa could be having an affair?
Well, it would kill him if it were the truth. ’
Remembering Otis, bleary-eyed and shrunken by distress, I’m forced to agree with this assessment. ‘What does the diary say?’ I ask, leaning forward in my seat.
Gabby thumbs through the pages then points to something. ‘Alexa has been meeting someone every Friday for the last five months, see?’
Spinning the diary around, Gabby shows me an appointment that reads: S – 1pm, Café Marco.
I take the diary and flick back to the week before. Sure enough, another meeting with ‘S’ had been scheduled for Friday. Again, they planned to meet at one p.m. at Café Marco.
‘You said her best friend is called Sonya,’ I say, skipping over the part where I admit to meeting her. ‘Could it be a recurring catch-up with her?’
‘I thought that, but whenever Alexa and Sonya have plans, she writes Sonya’s name in full.’ Gabby flips through the diary until she finds an example at the start of the year. Sure enough, she’s right: 8pm, call with Sonya.
‘Is there anyone else she knows whose name begins with “S”?’
‘Not that I can think of. Not anyone Alexa would feel the need to write “S” instead of their name, anyway. Doing that is suspicious, don’t you think?’
‘It is strange,’ I say, biting my lip. ‘Did you ask Otis about the diary?’
‘Not directly,’ Gabby admits. ‘But once I’d seen what the diary said, I asked Otis if he knew about any meet-ups or recurring plans Alexa had. He said no.’
‘Maybe he was lying? It wouldn’t be the first time in all of this.’
Again, Gabby bristles. ‘Otis isn’t a bad person, Janine.
He might make stupid decisions every now and then, but he loves his wife and wants her home.
Besides, if he’d have thought Alexa was having an affair, I’d have heard about it.
He tells me all the time about the problems they have.
Her meeting someone every Friday would have definitely come up in conversation. ’
‘Fair enough,’ I say, although after all of Otis’s lies and half-truths, I’m not sure I share Gabby’s belief in this.
‘But if these meet-ups were part of an affair, Alexa writing anything about it is risky, especially if Otis knew about her diary. What was stopping him from seeing this and finding out?’
‘Why would Otis go through Alexa’s diary if he didn’t have to? He trusted her. If she said she was busy on a Friday, he wouldn’t think to question her. He’s not the jealous type.’
Once again, Sonya’s words stir in my mind, her character description the opposite of the person Gabby is describing.
‘Don’t you think this is weird?’ Gabby asks. ‘Whoever “S” is, they’ve been secretly meeting Alexa every Friday at the same time and place for months.’
‘That doesn’t necessarily mean an affair.’
‘Maybe not, but I wouldn’t be here unless there was more to this than the Friday meetings. Remember when we found out Alexa was taking money from her account?’
I pull a face. ‘How could I forget?’
‘Well, when the police left, I asked Otis to show me Alexa’s bank statement. I made a note of the dates she withdrew cash. It turns out, she only started doing that after she’d been meeting “S” for a few weeks. What if they were collecting money to run away together?’
Gabby looks at me for an answer, but I don’t have one. This is a whole other layer of deception, and one I was not at all prepared for.
‘I don’t know what to do, Janine. If I go to the police, it might help them find Alexa, but if Otis finds out Alexa was seeing someone else, it will kill him.’
‘Again, we don’t know she was having an affair,’ I say, but Gabby looks incredulous.
‘Secret weekly meetings and withdrawn money – what else could it be? I know this is a big accusation, but Otis and Alexa have been in a bad place for a while. Otis says they’re still in love, and with my luck they probably are, but grief makes people do things we wouldn’t expect.
I mean, Alexa wouldn’t be the first person to find comfort in the arms of someone else during a hard time, would she? ’
I try not to react, even though Gabby’s words burrow into the most insecure part of my heart.
Kamal’s late nights flash through my mind.
A client dinner could be something else entirely, and I would never know.
With the way things are between us right now, could I blame him for wanting to be with someone else? Someone less prickly, less resentful.
‘Do you know who “S” could be?’ I ask.
‘No idea,’ Gabby admits. ‘I don’t know Alexa enough to know the people in her life.’
‘What about her phone? Did you look through her contacts for an “S”?’
‘I can’t. We gave the phone to the police. But I had an idea about how we could find out who they are.’
Before I can react to Gabby’s use of the word we, her index finger points to another weekly event in Alexa’s calendar: Families United meeting – 6pm – Saddleforth Community Hall.
‘Is that the support group Alexa attends?’ I ask, but when the name registers properly in my mind, it’s like I’ve had an electric shock.
Families United is a support group for parents who have experienced child loss. Kamal suggested we attend a session together when we first moved to Bramblethorpe, and I did everything but laugh in his face.
‘You want us to sit with strangers and share feelings we can’t even share with each other?
’ I scoffed before walking out of the room.
The conversation ended there, but it’s in front of me in black and white: Alexa Clarke attended those sessions.
If I had taken Kamal up on his suggestion, I would have met her again.
Suppressing a shiver, I face Gabby head on. ‘What makes you think going there will tell us anything?’
‘You’ve heard it yourself – Alexa lived a reclusive life. The only place she could have met someone was at this meeting. And the Friday meet-ups only started a few weeks after Alexa started going to the meetings, see?’
When Gabby pushes the diary back to me, I take my time flicking through it.
The pages are heavy with insights into Alexa’s life.
Hospital appointments, gym classes, haircut reminders.
At the start of the year, the plans are frequent, but then suddenly in April they stop. The U-turn is sudden, and stark.
She must have miscarried again around then, I think.
I trace my finger over the empty days that come after, aching as if I’m looking at my own diary.
Alexa Clarke and her grief, once again paralleling mine.
The one difference is that Alexa attended support meetings to help navigate her grief.
And after going to four of them, she began to meet the mysterious ‘S’.
‘We need to go to Families United,’ Gabby says decisively.
‘There’s no point taking this to the police if it’s nothing, and there’s no point me going to Otis and saying I think Alexa was having an affair if she wasn’t.
He’s crushed enough as it is. I’ve left him sitting in the same clothes he’s been wearing for the last few days, watching the door and waiting for Alexa to walk through it.
I can’t bear the thought of what this will do to him.
We have to investigate ourselves first.’
Discomfort makes my spine wriggle. ‘But whoever “S” is, they might know what was going through Alexa’s mind before she left. They might have been with her. They might even have hurt her.’
‘Exactly, which is why we need to look into this.’
Kamal’s words of warning about the danger I have unwittingly waded into crawl across my skin like ants. ‘I don’t know, Gabby,’ I say, shifting awkwardly. ‘This is starting to—’
‘Please,’ Gabby says, reaching across the table for my hand in a move that surprises us both.
‘I don’t know what to do or who to turn to.
All I know is, the man I love looks like he’s one bit of bad news away from breaking altogether.
I don’t want to be the one to push him over the edge.
I need to know what Alexa was doing. I need to know who “S” is and if there was something going on between them and Alexa. I need… I need your help.’
Her plea does what Gabby intends it to. It tugs at my conscience, my fear, my desire to find Alexa alive and well.
‘All we have to do is go to a meeting,’ Gabby coaxes. ‘Sit, listen, then ask around about Alexa at the end. As soon as we meet anyone with an “S” name, we dig deeper. It won’t be a big deal.’
My body peels away from the table, pressing back into my chair. ‘Do you really think it will be easy for me to listen to that conversation?’
Gabby has the decency to blush as what she’s asked of me hits home.
‘I don’t think it will be easy, no, but it’s the only way we can find out the truth.
I need you with me, Janine. If I go alone and find out Otis was being cheated on, I’ll never be able to control myself.
Besides, how can I convincingly talk about a grief I’ve never felt?
I don’t have that life experience. You do. ’
I try not to flinch as Gabby so casually outs the worst moments of my life.
Reading my face, Gabby softens. ‘The meeting isn’t until tonight,’ she says.
‘Take some time to think about it. Please, Janine. I can’t do this alone.
’ Standing, Gabby nods at the diary. ‘I’m going to the bathroom.
Look through the diary while I’m gone. Look and tell me I don’t need to be worried about Otis, or Alexa. ’
Gabby leaves me, but her heavy departing words linger. In her absence, I leaf through Alexa’s diary once more, the sadness of the empty pages aching inside me. My eyes linger on her only lifeline: Families United. Six p.m., without fail, every Thursday.
A gulp gets trapped in my throat. Would it be such a stretch to imagine that Alexa met someone there? Someone she cared for, someone she could trust? Someone who listened in a way everyone says Otis no longer did?
Someone who, perhaps, could have hurt her?
I trace Alexa’s writing, the letters curved and cut deeply into the page. A mark of permanence, of someone who was most definitely here, once upon a time. I fight a sigh, knowing that as much as I want to withdraw from this, I won’t.
I’m busy resigning myself to my fate when the front door to Coffee and Cake bursts open.
‘Margie, have you heard?’ calls Renee, the cashier from the village store, as she bustles inside. ‘The police are back at Otis Clarke’s. They’re searching the house and its surrounds.’
My body lurches with panic. As Gabby exits the bathroom, she takes one look at the scene and freezes. ‘What’s going on?’ she asks.
‘The police are finally searching the area for Alexa Clarke, that’s what,’ Margie says, reaching for her coat. ‘Renee, we should see if they want any help.’
‘Franny Henderson has already organised a team of volunteers. They’re on their way there now,’ Renee replies, but Gabby has heard enough. Springing into action, she dashes to my side and grabs the diary.
‘Think about it, okay?’ she says. Without saying goodbye, she rushes out of the café.
‘Anyone would think she was up to something, rushing off like that,’ Margie grumbles. She leaves the counter, pulling on her coat as she does. ‘I’m closing early, Janine. Sorry, neighbourly duty calls.’
It’s clear from the excited flush to Margie’s cheeks that there is more to her offer of assistance than simply being generous, but I don’t have time to concern myself with that. There are other, more important things I need to do with my time.
Things like finding out who the hell ‘S’ is.