Chapter 72
SEVENTY-TWO
After driving home in near silence, we’re approaching the house when Evie asks, ‘Where’s Lina?’
She didn’t refer to her as Nan, I note, and I guess her emotions will now be utterly confused about her.
‘She’s being checked over at the hospital,’ I answer. Jemma had taken her, rather than wait for a second ambulance. Jack had thanked her as we rushed out, but I couldn’t bring myself to speak to her. ‘I’m going to call to see how she is. Do you want me to ask them to pass anything on to her?’
‘No. I’ll talk to her sometime, but not yet.’ Evie pushes her door open, jumping out almost before we’ve pulled up.
I climb quickly out after her. ‘Are you all right, Evie?’ I call as she marches to the front door. ‘It’s okay not to be, you know.’
‘I just need some space,’ she says, shoving her key into the lock and hurrying inside.
I follow as she heads straight to the stairs. ‘If you need to talk, Evie, I’m here. You know that, right?’ I call after her.
She falters. Then, ‘Are you two going to split?’ she asks, without looking back.
I hear the quaver in her voice and my heart bleeds for her. ‘I don’t know,’ I answer honestly. ‘But I’m here if you want me to be, I promise you.’
She answers with a small nod, then carries on up.
Sighing tiredly, I go to the kitchen. I need a drink, but definitely not tea.
Jack comes in as I’m pouring myself an orange juice. ‘Do you want one?’ I ask him.
He eyes the glass. ‘I could use something stronger,’ he says wistfully. ‘Maybe I’ll give it a miss, though,’ he adds with the faintest of smiles.
‘Probably a good idea.’ I walk past him to close the door. ‘We need to talk,’ I say.
‘I know.’ He nods despondently as I face him. ‘I’m guessing it doesn’t help much, but I am sorry,’ he adds.
What are you sorry for, though? I search his face. He looks so exhausted and I almost hesitate. Then pull myself up sharp. I can’t be swayed by my feelings for him. ‘The tablets I found upstairs,’ I start determinedly. ‘Were they yours?’
‘They were Natalia’s.’ Wearily, he repeats what he told me before. ‘I have no idea how they came to be here. Either Lina or Natalia presumably planted them precisely so you would doubt me. I’m hoping to God that you don’t.’
I stare at him, astonished. Does he imagine I don’t have just cause to doubt him?
‘Look, I did have some problems,’ he admits uncomfortably. ‘I was depressed for a while. I saw my GP. He gave me a prescription but I never got it filled. I can’t even remember what the medication was.’
Unsure how that’s relevant, unless to invite sympathy, I refrain from commenting.
‘Everything I’ve told you is the truth, Kara,’ he goes on, his gaze unflinching. ‘I swear.’
Which is a lie in itself, but clearly he doesn’t see it. ‘Except the bit about your affair with Jemma?’ I point out the obvious flaw in his statement.
He pauses, kneading his forehead with his thumb. ‘I didn’t lie about that,’ he says eventually, looking levelly back at me. ‘It was never an affair, I promise you. It was just one time. I didn’t mention Jemma because you two are friends.’
‘Were,’ I correct him. ‘Were you violent towards Natalia?’ I tack on before he can respond. I don’t want more apologies.
‘No!’ he denies vehemently. ‘You have to believe me. Natalia was lying. I don’t think she even knew the truth from fiction in the end. You must realise how unbalanced she was. She wanted to destroy me. Destroy us.’
‘Why?’ I ask simply.
‘Because you’d taken her place,’ he answers with a bemused shake of his head.
‘She didn’t want to be with me – clearly, when she was having affairs all over the place – but she couldn’t bear that I was with someone else.
That Evie might be better off with someone who wasn’t so self-centred she couldn’t see the damage she was causing her.
She was ill, Kara. I’ve no idea what else I can say.
How I can convince you that other than not admitting to having sex with Jemma, which was a huge mistake, I have never lied to you. ’
I look at him in amazed disbelief. How can he stand there and say that when he knows I know that he has? ‘Apart from about your wife supposedly dying in Antigua and how,’ I remind him, working to keep my temper in check.
‘She fell!’ He raises his voice. Then looks immediately contrite.
‘She lost her footing,’ he goes on more quietly.
‘I recall Evie being alarmed. I recall yelling at her to stay back because the ground was unsafe. I was trying to grab hold of Natalia to stop her going over. All I ended up with was the damn fucking locket.’
‘Also her identity bracelet,’ I state rather than ask. ‘You told me she was tracked reboarding the ship.’
Jack glances down. His eyes are cautious as they come back to mine. ‘I had it in my pocket,’ he says. ‘She was allergic to metal. She asked me to carry it for her.’
It sounds plausible. I don’t believe it for one minute. ‘Right.’ I nod. ‘So she fell from the cliff and you didn’t look for her or alert the authorities?’
‘Of course I looked for her.’ He kneads his forehead furiously. ‘For as long as I dared. I didn’t know what to do. All I knew was that Evie was traumatised and I had to get her out of there.’
‘So you left her with all this uncertainty?’
‘She’d blocked it out,’ he insists. ‘They’d argued beforehand and I thought… I don’t know what I thought. I just wanted to protect her. It was wrong. I’ve regretted the decision I made ever since, but I can’t undo it.’
I take stock. He’s saying Evie had nothing to do with the fall, yet Evie insists that she did. Why would she do that unless she felt she had to protect him? ‘So she wasn’t responsible for what happened on that clifftop?’ I double-check.
‘No.’ He’s adamant. ‘The only reason she would have said that was because she was hurt. Natalia was alive and didn’t even let her know.’ He shakes his head scornfully. ‘She didn’t push her,’ he repeats, ‘but if the police think she might have…’
They’ll assume she pushed her a second time.
And then there’s Imogen. Natalia claimed it wasn’t her who’d pushed her from the car park.
If not her, then who? Natalia had also said she expected they would be interviewing the person responsible at some stage.
Did she mean the boy they were arguing about?
I don’t know, but I think it might have been him who’d overheard the argument.
Had he followed Imogen? Is it possible he might have given a statement to shift suspicion from himself?
I look Jack warily over and then ask him the question I’ve avoided for fear of his answer. ‘Did you sleep with Imogen?’
A mixture of despair and disappointment sweeps his features. ‘No, Kara, I did not sleep with a girl my daughter’s age,’ he states emphatically. ‘If you believe I did, then you obviously don’t think very much of me.’
Hearing the hurt in his voice, I feel a stab of guilt, and then confusion as I wonder if that’s exactly how he wants me to feel.
‘I need to call the hospital about Lina,’ I say, turning away. ‘And then I need to lie down.’ In truth, I need space, too. Away from Jack. We need to take this conversation a lot further, but not now. With my emotions so raw, I don’t feel I can trust even myself.