Chapter Seventy-Eight
Daniel
Her image fades in and out as my brain tries to comprehend that the woman standing before me is Jo. But this can’t be right. Jo is dead. Gil saw the photo. We had a memorial. There was evidence. I feel my throat tightening. I don’t understand what’s happening.
‘Hello, Danny. I bet you didn’t expect to see me again.’
It’s her voice. It is Jo. But how?
Then I see Logan standing behind her, holding a Waitrose carrier bag.
It’s the most normal thing in this far-from-normal scenario, and I find myself staring at it as I try to process everything.
But they found her blood on Stuart King.
I struggle to overcome the shock running through me and force myself into action.
‘Oh my God, Jo,’ I say, my voice cracking. I lurch towards her, to take her into my arms. ‘I thought you were dead. I…’
Her body is tense in my embrace, and I slowly release her.
‘No more play-acting, Danny,’ she says sharply.
‘I’ll make tea,’ Logan says. ‘I have cake, too. I thought you might like some cake while we chat. Shall we have it in the lounge?’
I’m so confused that I just nod.
‘Chocolate cake,’ he adds. ‘You can’t go wrong with chocolate cake, can you?’
I stare at him, mute with shock, as Neville Logan pours tea into cups like a manservant. I must be dreaming. This is too surreal for words.
‘Cake?’ he says, smiling. ‘Jo says it’s your favourite.’
You’d think this was his fucking house, not mine. And who the hell does he think he is, calling her Jo?
Jo says, ‘You look a bit dazed, Danny.’ She offers me a cup of tea, but I ignore it. I don’t want her to see my hand shaking.
‘They said you were dead. Gil saw a photo. I can’t believe it. We have to tell the police,’ I say. ‘God, I’m so happy you’re alive.’
She looks at me with pity in her eyes. ‘Are you?’ she says caustically. ‘Because that seems odd to me, seeing as you arranged for Stuart King to kill me. You’ve got to admit, we did a good job of faking it.’
They faked it? I look at Logan. He’s smiling. The bastard has betrayed me. I need to talk my way out of this, but my brain won’t work.
‘I need to explain,’ I say weakly.
Jo smiles. ‘That would be a good idea. But let me go first. You underestimated Neville. You thought he was weak. But you’re the weak one, Danny. We were close. We had a child together…’ She breaks off, and I look away. I can’t bear to see the tears forming in her eyes.
‘I was trying to protect you,’ I say. ‘We would have been okay, you and me. I’d have sorted everything out, but I couldn’t risk anything happening to you.’
Her tears suddenly turn to a shriek of almost hysterical laughter, and I see how ironic that all sounds.
‘The only person you were thinking about was yourself. You hired a hitman to kill me. Well, if you really do care so much about me, you should thank Neville. He saved my life, and I saved his.’
‘Jo,’ I interrupt.
‘Don’t you fucking dare call me Jo. The newspapers said that the man was a rapist. If Nev had been a coward like you, that piece of scum might have raped me before murdering me. Did you know he was going to bludgeon me to death with a hammer? Or did you never ask how he was going to do it?’
I try to swallow, but there’s a heavy lump, like a stone, in my throat.
‘I’m begging for your forgiveness,’ I say.
‘I was a mess. I didn’t know what I was doing.
I got into this fix. It seemed the ideal solution.
They were threatening to get to you and Joel.
What was I supposed to do? I thought you’d be safe.
I was going to get the mess sorted, and then our lives would be back to normal, but then he’ – I point to Nev – ‘fucked it up.’
Neville lets out a long sigh. Anger overwhelms me. What the fuck has he been telling Jo? Probably anything he needs to, to cover his own back.
‘Why don’t you get out of my house?’ I snap.
‘It’s my house. And he’s staying,’ says Jo firmly. Neville has the cheek to help himself to a slice of cake. I want to throw up. Why can’t she see that I did this for her?
‘It was Nic. He got me caught up in all this stuff. What was I supposed to do?’
‘You should have talked to me.’
‘So you could tell your parents and give your father another excuse to belittle me, like he’s done for years? When did you ever stand up for me?’
‘You’re a man, Danny. You can stand up for yourself.
’ She gets up abruptly, knocking her hip against the tea tray, and I watch as the brown liquid spills from the tipped teapot onto the oak floor.
‘And that fucking memorial, what was that about? You knew I’d have hated that.
That was to make you look good, wasn’t it? ’
I go to reach for her, but she springs back as if she’s been stung.
‘Don’t you fucking touch me. You ruined your life, and you had no qualms about taking mine and leaving Joel without a mother. What the fuck is wrong with you? We had everything. People dream of having what we had. How could it even enter your head to have your son’s mother murdered?’
‘Jo, please,’ I plead. ‘I got scared. Your father would have ruined me, you know that.’ I struggle to hold back tears. I don’t want that prick Logan seeing me cry. ‘I love you, Jo, but I couldn’t bear the thought of losing everything.’
Her eyes are dark and hard. ‘You’re a coward, Danny.
You now have two options. You either hand yourself in to the police, and I might consider bringing Joel to see you in prison.
Or you can disappear, but you will never see your son again.
Don’t forget, you’ll be facing charges of kidnapping as well as attempted murder. ’
‘And embezzlement,’ adds Logan.
Our eyes meet. His are mocking me, and it’s all I can do not to hit him. Jo calmly steps between us.
‘Listen carefully, Danny. This is the story: Logan rescued me from the kidnapper, Stuart King, when he came with the new pool cover. We have the transcript of your conversation online. Everything points back to you.’
‘Except I have all my conversations with Logan nicely edited on a flash drive,’ I say.
She smiles, and somehow it’s not my Jo I’m looking at anymore. ‘I’ve been back to the apartment and destroyed that flash drive. I don’t imagine for one moment you kept any of the messages on your phone. Knowing you, you’ve probably bought a new phone by now.’
She knows me so well.
‘Jo, think of Joel. He’s everything to both of us.’
‘You didn’t think about that when you arranged to have me killed.’
I open my mouth to speak, but nothing coherent comes out.
Jo continues: ‘I removed all the money from the joint bank account, by the way, considering what’s left belongs to my parents anyway. How could you waste all our money like that, and take such risks when we have a young son?’
‘I… I just got pulled in and then…’
‘Yeah. I know what happened.’
I can’t bear to see the hate in her eyes.
‘Here,’ she says, handing me a bag. ‘Some mementoes for you. I believe they’re worth quite a bit; at least that’s what you told me when you bought them.
You should be able to pawn them for a fair amount.
I’m giving you twenty-four hours to hand yourself in or leave the country. Then I’m phoning the police.’
‘We’ll leave you to mull it over with a cup of tea,’ says Logan.
I give a cynical laugh. ‘That’s it, is it? All that we’ve been through together means nothing?’
She smiles, but the smile doesn’t reach her eyes. ‘When someone tries to kill you, Danny, you tend to forget all that you’ve been through together.’
I watch as they leave the room and sit in a daze after the front door closes.
The mementoes she has left are wrapped in tissue paper.
I unwrap them hastily. Inside are the diamond bracelet I bought her on our first wedding anniversary, and her eternity ring.
They will keep me going for a while, if I pawn or sell them.
No way am I going to hand myself over to the police.
But can I believe her? How can I be sure she wasn’t going to the police station right now?
I drop the jewels into my pocket. Has she really disposed of the flash drive, or was she bluffing? If she wasn’t bluffing, then I really have to move fast.
Then I remember what she said about the bank account. I am about to pull my phone from where it’s charging when the doorbell rings.
My heart leaps.
Jo has changed her mind.