‘Hi,’ I say into the phone.
‘Hello, sexy girl.’ The man’s voice is a soft growl.
I’m thrown, beyond startled.
‘Er, I’m not Rose,’ I say quickly, feeling my cheeks burn. ‘I’m her sister, she’s just . . . she should be back any second.’
Silence on the other end of the line.
‘Er, hello?’
The line goes dead as Rose reappears.
I hand her the mobile. ‘Someone called Brian just rang for you,’ I say, still blushing.
‘Right.’ Rose takes the phone and settles herself back onto the sofa.
‘So who’s Brian?’ I ask.
Rose’s head shoots up. ‘What did he say?’
‘Enough to make me think there’s something going on between the two of you.’ I raise my eyebrows. ‘How do you know him?’
Rose’s gaze is level and cool. ‘He’s just a customer, comes into the shop sometimes. I think he has a bit of a crush on me.’ She waves her hand dismissively. ‘Nothing I can’t deal with.’
‘I see,’ I say.
‘Really, it’s nothing,’ Rose insists. She smiles. ‘Now get home to your lovely man,’ she says. ‘And forget about Dan Thackeray and all his nonsense.’
It’s eight thirty when I get home to find the kitchen warm and scented with garlic and herbs. Jed has made a real effort with dinner. He’s defrosted and marinated some steaks ready to go under the grill, and made a huge salad which is already sitting on the kitchen table alongside a bottle of wine. He’s even been outside and picked some sprigs of holly from our back garden. Their red berries catch the light from the candle he has set down beside the wine. I’m touched by his desire to make the evening special.
‘What’s all this in aid of?’ I ask with a smile.
‘Just wanted you to know how much I love you,’ he says. ‘Plus . . .’ He points to a sheet of paper on the counter. ‘We have something to celebrate: the decree nisi came through.’
I grin. ‘That’s wonderful.’
I shrug off my jacket and Jed draws me close. I relax into his hug then lift my face up to be kissed. It’s impossible not to compare the ease of our intimacy with the awkwardness I felt when Dan put his arm around me earlier. Here I am truly at home. In every sense.
‘I know. Only six more weeks and Zoe and I won’t be married any more. Hey, come here.’
Jed groans softly as he hugs me, his hands running down, over my back, then lower.
‘You have the world’s best ass, baby.’
I laugh and he takes my face in his hands. ‘I don’t say it enough,’ he says, his eyes intent on mine. ‘But I do realize that I come with a lot of baggage and I am deeply grateful that you are so brilliant at coping with it all.’
Guilt sears through me. For a moment I’m overwhelmed with the desire to confess everything – then I remember Rose’s advice to let it go, that there is no point upsetting him. Instead we talk a bit about the decree nisi, which leads to Jed reporting that Zoe called him earlier, ostensibly to ask about the case against Benecke Tricorp.
‘Of course it turned into the usual nightmare within minutes,’ he complains. ‘I’m starting to think she’s really only interested in the law suit so she can carry on berating me for everything I’ve ever done to her.’ He sighs. ‘She was talking about Dee Dee, how she’d been withdrawn and unhappy, how it was all down to my leaving home.’
‘Oh, Jed,’ I say. ‘That’s not fair. I told you already, Dee Dee was a bit down about some girly nonsense at school. Of course she was upset about her parents breaking up, but it was Zoe who made things difficult. You never did.’
Jed gives me a wry smile. ‘That’s not how Zoe sees it. Not that she screams and shouts any more, not since Dee Dee . . . but almost everything she says is so bloody passive-aggressive . . .’
‘Did she mention me?’ I ask.
Jed shakes his head. ‘Let’s not talk about her.’ He walks over to the grill and pops our steaks under the flame. ‘I . . . I was thinking. Now we’ve got the decree nisi, I think we should set a date for our wedding. If it’s just a small do with close friends and family there’s really no reason why it shouldn’t be as soon as the decree absolute is given. That’s going to happen in six weeks so we could easily bring forward the wedding to early Feb.’ He turns to me with a mischievous smile. ‘You could come off the pill, get pregnant . . . we could have a kid of our own by this time next year. What do you think, baby?’
No.
My reaction is sudden and visceral. I stand, facing him, feeling the resistance through my whole body. I gulp, unsure why I should feel so strongly. It’s not rational. I love Jed. I want to marry him and have his children. So why not agree to bring it forward to February?
‘I guess, but that means getting everything sorted over the Christmas holiday,’ I say, wrinkling my nose. ‘Even if it’s just a small wedding there’s loads to arrange – licences, invites, booking a restaurant . . .’
Jed checks the steaks. ‘Okay,’ he says.
I worry that he’s hurt and hurry over. I put my arms around him.
‘Don’t you think it’s a bit rushed, I mean . . . after Dee Dee?’
Jed leans his head close to mine. ‘I just want to do whatever will make you happy,’ he says softly. ‘We’ll do whatever you like, baby, I’m just telling you I’m ready. I don’t want to wait. That’s all. I want you to be my wife, for us to be married.’
‘Me too.’ I kiss his cheek. ‘Let me get to the end of term then I can think about it. Maybe there’s not so much to do as I think.’
‘Sure.’ Jed smiles and turns back to the grill. I trudge upstairs to change out of my boots. I sit on the bed and put my head in my hands. Rose was so, so right. Jed really does love me. And whatever Zoe put in an old text or a letter to her son from months ago, there’s no way it’s anything but madness to suspect her of using him to try and kill me. At best, Dan has got the wrong end of the stick. At worst, he is manipulating me for reasons that I don’t understand – and definitely don’t want to face.
I decide to ignore his next attempt to contact me.
The rest of the evening passes smoothly. Jed and I eat the steak and salad then watch a movie on TV. For once Jed resists the lure of his briefcase and emails and comes straight to bed. Dan sends me a text at eleven saying that Lish is a no show at the pub. I delete it without replying. I don’t want to think about Lish. His letter from Zoe is buried deep in the bottom of a drawer. I keep Rose’s wise, tempered words in my head and do my best to forget all about Dan’s claims.
In the end, after thinking I might not be able to get to sleep, I actually have a good night, waking to find Jed bringing me a cup of tea before leaving for work.
‘I like this “showing me you love me” stuff,’ I say, smiling up at him.
‘I like your body in the morning, baby.’
I’m not really in the mood, but Jed is persuasive, though stressed afterwards and in a rush to get to work. I leave on time myself and have a busy day at school. The end of term production is on Friday and I rehearse the kids hard to assuage my feelings of guilt from taking yesterday off sick. I wonder several times if Dan will stick around in Southampton and try and hook up with Lish again. He said he was freelancing so presumably he can afford to take the time. But Dan doesn’t contact me for the rest of the day – or indeed the rest of the week and, gradually, thoughts of Zoe’s letter and Lish’s illegal activities distil into three thoughts:
1. What Lish gets up to at uni is none of my business.
2. If either he or his mother wanted me dead back in the summer, surely they would have tried to kill me again by now.
3. They have both been recently and horribly bereaved and I should make allowance for that before rushing to any kind of judgement about them.
I try to put the whole thing out of my mind and yet it is impossible to remove a thought once it has occurred and as the days pass I am haunted by the image of Dee Dee smiling up at me
as she asked to take that picture of us at the citadel in Calvi. If the ExAche powders were deliberately poisoned by a Benecke Tricorp employee or as part of some manufacturing accident, then Jed’s case against the company will eventually achieve justice. But if the cyanide was deliberately added later then Dee Dee’s death was a targeted murder, regardless of whether she or I was the target. Which means someone should pay.
At least I am distracted by my busy last week of term. The school production goes well: the kids do me proud and the head pronounces herself delighted. The day after term ends Jed and I take a walk along the river, then visit Gary in his designer flat near Canary Wharf. As he mentioned when he visited the other day, he’s with a new girlfriend. Allia is slighter and shyer than Iveta – and seems much more in Gary’s shadow. She runs around refusing all offers of help and making us Cosmopolitan cocktails and smoked salmon blinis while Gary interrogates Jed over the latest developments in the civil case against Benecke Tricorp. The whole thing is bogged down in incomprehensible (to me) legal details. As a trader I’m certain Gary has no greater understanding of the specifics than I do. I wonder again why he is so interested.
My answer comes about an hour after we arrive. Allia is pouring Jed a drink. She’s bending over and her top has slipped, revealing the edge of a pink lace bra and the swell of her breasts. I can see Jed trying not to gawp at her cleavage and grin at his evident discomfort. She turns away to replenish her jug of Cosmopolitan and Jed busies himself with his phone. I wander out onto the balcony to take in the amazing view of the City. Canary Wharf looms up on the right with the expanse of south London spread out beyond.
‘I’m telling you, Jed has no idea.’ It’s Gary speaking from the bedroom next door. His voice is low and tense, but it carries clearly through the crisp December air.
Jed has no idea about what?
I strain to hear more, unable to stop myself.
‘He’s still caught up in the case against Benecke Tricorp,’ Gary hisses. ‘Yes, I know, I know it’s the wrong focus . . . of course I know . . .’
I freeze. What is Gary saying? What is ‘wrong’ with Jed’s focus on Benecke Tricorp? Could he be saying that the drugs that killed Dee Dee have nothing to do with the company Jed is suing? Gary was there, at the villa, on holiday with us, after all. Might he suspect Lish of being involved? Or be involved in some way himself?
Gary moves out of earshot. I shake myself. I’m seeing conspiracies where there are none. Rose is right, I’ve let Dan get me all carried away.
Jed and I leave soon after Gary returns from his phone call, his usual ebullient self – full of backchat with his brother and low-level flirting with me. I can’t believe he is aware of Lish’s drug dealing – let alone involved in any way.
And then, on Monday everything changes.
July 2014
Oh. My. Days. Daddy just told me the most HUMUNGOUS secret before he dropped me off that it is Emily’s birthday on Wednesday and he is going to propose to her and he thinks she will say ‘yes’ then they will get married. I have like rockets in my head going off bam bam bam because part of me thinks it is good because Emily is nice but part of me knows that it means Daddy will never come home which I didn’t really think he would but this makes it for sure and Mum will be FURIOUS. There will be shouting and phone calls and I will have to pretend to be upset when I’m with her and NOT upset when I’m with him and EVERYTHING will get worse and worse.
At least it is the end of term on Tuesday. Ava has been talking to me again for the past few weeks but it’s not like before. I have to sit alone in the canteen if I go in there and no one ever chooses me to do anything with. A few weeks ago I got Mum’s razor and tried shaving down there to look more grown-up but it got all itchy and when I told Ava she gave me an odd look and I think she told other people because for a bit the looking and pointing started again so I let the hairs grow back and I think mine must be really ugly compared to other girls’.
The latest thing is drawing boobs on my text books which gets me into trouble because the teachers think it’s me and I don’t know which boy is doing it but they still call me ‘tiny tits’ or ‘hairy Dee’ almost the whole class so it could be any of them. Poppy blocks her number then sometimes sends me nasty messages like ‘u r a slag’ and ‘skl d b better if u fkd of’ and I know it is her because a) she won’t look in my eyes and b) she is proper best friends with Georgia now. Georgia isn’t even going out with Sam Edwards’ friend any more. I’ve seen Sam lots of times now but he never looks at me either. But it’s not like he’s avoiding me like Ava and Poppy and the rest of my class do, I think he has just forgotten I exist.
Oh my days, I am HATING the thought of school tomorrow and Tuesday and then school being over for the holidays which is YAY obviously – but then Daddy telling Mum about marrying Emily. He talked to her earlier about going on holiday with me and Lish in the summer. He gets two weeks with me and he kept asking what we should do and saying it would be fun but all I could think was Mum would be SO upset all by herself and then I will feel bad if I am enjoying it because I will have to pretend to her that I’m not. Lish is back home from uni for a bit but he doesn’t say much, just sits in his room, and I know he is going away with his friends soon and that Daddy has said he will only pay for that if Lish comes on our holiday too. When Mum heard that earlier she said Daddy was mean and ‘you’ve obviously let that whore of yours spend all your money on new furniture’ and then Daddy lost his temper and said ‘it was one fucking sofa from John fucking Lewis’ and I came upstairs so I didn’t have to hear any more.
Emily says maybe her sister Rose and brother Martin can come on the holiday too. It must have been WEIRD Rose being like a mum to her when she was little and Martin is REALLY rich. He has a BOYFRIEND too. And a yacht. But Mum will still be all alone. I can hear her crying now and she doesn’t even know about Daddy and Emily getting married yet. Lish knows about it but he hasn’t said anything either. I wish we could tell Mum and get it over so she would be upset while I’m at school and I wouldn’t have to feel so bad.
December 2014
On Monday morning Jed leaves me sleeping as he heads off to work. I wake alone at 9 a.m. with the sun shining in through the window. For a second I relish the space in the bed beside me and the day stretching ahead with no work, maybe just a little Christmas shopping later.
Then I remember Lish and Gary and Dee Dee, and anxiety twists in my chest. I potter downstairs and try to calm myself by making a cup of tea and reading the paper on Jed’s iPad. It’s no good. I can’t stop thinking about it all. Hoping to clear my head, I decide to go for a run. I used to jog every morning but since moving in with Jed, it hasn’t been easy to find the time. Plus Jed tends to poke fun at any exercise that doesn’t involve highly competitive ball games. Ironically it was Dan who got me into running many years ago. He used to go out every morning before work. He said it kept his head clear and his body able to play the football that consumed his Saturday mornings. I went with him at first simply because I adored being around him so much, but after hating the initial few runs I grew to love it more and more. Right now it feels like just what I need. After the first five minutes when – as usual – I feel like I’m about to die, my body warms up. I run to Highgate Wood and do a couple of laps. The bright sunshine fades as I head home and it’s just starting to drizzle as I turn onto our road. I’m a few metres from the house when I see Dan getting out of his car.
It is a total shock to my system. Shit. He must have been watching me running since I turned the corner. My first thought is that I’m sweaty, unmade-up and wearing old sweatpants with bleach stains on the legs. My second thought is that I’m an idiot for caring. What does it matter what Dan thinks of my appearance? He shouldn’t have turned up here like this.
I slow to a walk as I reach the car.
‘Hey, Em, good to see you in your element,’ Dan says with a smile, closing the car door.
I stop, then release my hair from its ponytail
and run my fingers through it self-consciously. Everything I had successfully pushed to the back of my mind during my run is flooding back.
Zoe’s letter flashes through my head:
The whore must be stopped. And somehow you must help me stop her. She cannot be allowed.
‘What’s up?’ I sound horribly abrupt. My cheeks burn.
The smile fades from Dan’s face. ‘Bad news.’ He holds out a tiny notebook.
‘What’s this?’ I flick through the pages. Each one is covered with lists of dates and initials in three columns. I can’t make any sense of them. ‘Dan?’
He points to the open page. ‘It’s an order book,’ he says. ‘I’m guessing Lish uses it to keep track of what he’s selling and to whom. It’s more secure than something electronic, plus it doesn’t actually prove anything, but it’s all there.’ He indicates the top line, then reads the contents of each column. ‘Va. - J.K. -30/11.’
‘Which means?’
‘My best guess is Va for Viagra sold to someone with the initials JK on the thirtieth of November. I’ve had a look through. There’s Vic for Vicodin, plus Pro for propranolol, which is a beta blocker, and Stan for stanozolol – that’s an anabolic steroid, Phen375, which I think is some kind of diet pill, and on and on, all the way to Z for Zoloft. You get the picture.’
I look up. ‘Where the hell did you get this?’
Dan rubs the back of his head. ‘I picked it from Lish Kennedy’s jacket pocket.’
‘You stole it?’
‘Yes.’ Dan holds up a paper bag. ‘While I was buying these.’ He opens the bag and shows me the contents: two small packets of Valium. ‘From the look of the packaging, I’m guessing they’re fakes rather than stolen, probably cut with chalk or talcum powder.’
Rain trickles down my face. This is proof, surely. Real proof against Lish.
‘He’s really doing it,’ I whisper. ‘He’s really selling drugs.’
‘I’m so sorry, Em,’ Dan says. ‘But there’s something else. Something worse.’ He turns the pages of the notebook. I wipe my damp hair off my face as he finds the place he’s looking for and points to an entry halfway down. ‘KCN - JL&LN -4/8.’ He reads the entry out loud, then looks up. There is genuine anguish in his eyes.