Where the Memories Lie (33 page)

‘Well, you were very close to Tom; it’s understandable. It’s

difficult for everyone.’

‘And now with Charlotte being ill. It’s like someone’s got it

in for us.’

Or it’s reparation for everything this family’s done. Payback time.

‘Do you think she’s going to survive?’

I took a deep breath and pulled back. ‘We have to think

positively. For Charlotte and Nadia and Lucas. It’s going to be a

long, hard struggle for all of them.’

‘Yeah.’ He looked at me and blinked, his eyes shining. He

sniffed and stood up straighter. ‘Look, I’m not going to be all

distant anymore. I’m here for you, OK? And Anna. My girls are the

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most important thing in the world, and I’m sorry I’ve been acting

so angry. I’m sorry I’ve been blaming you.’

‘You’re in mourning,’ I said, unable to look at him. ‘It’s natural

to be all over the place.’

He took the fuse from my curled fist. ‘Here, I’ll do that.’ He

kissed me on the cheek and I fought the urge to shudder. ‘I’ve got

a planning meeting this morning and some other things to finalise

but I’ll try and get home early tonight. Maybe we can all go out for dinner or something. Save you worrying about cooking.’

‘I don’t really feel like going out at the moment. I want to know

what happens with Charlotte at the hospital.’ I watched him screw-

ing the plug back together, wondering if those same hands had

killed Katie.

‘OK. Whatever you want.’

What I want is to find the truth. What did you do, Ethan? What

did you do?

As soon as he left for work I called DI Spencer and asked if they had any more leads with the investigation.

‘Unfortunately not.’ He sounded tired, too. ‘Because it hap-

pened such a long time ago, we don’t have many witnesses who

actually remember anything. The enquiries we’ve made have led to

no new sightings of Katie on the day she apparently disappeared.

I checked with the employees who were working on the barn con-

version at the time. There was one labourer helping Tom on site who remembered that when he finished work on Saturday afternoon,

the foundations for the garage had been dug out and the sub-base,

insulation and rebar were completed, but the concrete lorry wasn’t

booked to pour the garage floor for another week or so. He was

surprised when he came back to work on the Monday and Tom

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suddenly wanted a rush job on the flooring and a lorry was already

on site laying the concrete for it.’

Again, I pictured Tom stuffing Katie’s lifeless body into that

hole. Her head flopping back as he dropped her down into the

cold dirt and covered her up with earth and concrete. My stomach

twisted violently.

‘At this stage we’ve found no evidence to suggest that someone

other than Tom was responsible for her death and for burying her

in the garage. Unless we find anything to contradict that theory,

the case will be closed. We can’t prosecute someone who’s now

deceased.’

‘Um . . . I just wondered . . . when you found her . . . was there

anything with her?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, did you find what she was wearing? Or was she . . .’

‘We didn’t find the rucksack Chris said she was carrying. Perhaps

Tom threw it away or burned her belongings. We may never know.

There are a lot of things we may never know.’

I remembered Ethan saying the very same thing. Is that because

he’d hidden the truth so well?

‘There were fragments of clothing that hadn’t decomposed

yet, plus buttons from her shirt consistent with the one Chris saw

her in.’

‘What about jewellery?’

‘We found some plastic hooped earrings.’

‘Right. What about the necklace Chris said she was wearing?’

‘No. We didn’t recover that. It could’ve got lost in some kind

of struggle.’

I stared at the necklace in front of me on the island, tracing the

curve of the sun. ‘Yes. Maybe.’

Maybe not.

‘Or perhaps Tom disposed of it with the rucksack,’ he said.

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‘I suppose so. OK, well, thanks for your help.’

‘You’re welcome. I’ll be in touch if we find out anything else,

although to be honest, I don’t think there’s anything more to find. It will probably be just a courtesy call in a few weeks to let you know we’re closing the case.’

I hung up and glanced at the clock. Would Chris have left for

work yet? I phoned his mobile.

‘Hi. How are you?’ I asked.

‘Pretty shit. How are you?’ His voice was hoarse and he sounded

exhausted, as if he’d been up all night.

‘Double shit.’

‘I can’t believe this about Charlotte. It’s all gone mad. Our fam-

ily is cursed. She’ll survive, though, right? If it’s leukaemia? I mean, people go into remission, don’t they?’

‘The chances of remission are pretty good. We have to be strong

for them all and stay hopeful about the future.’

‘Hopeful. Yeah.’ And the way he said it let me know he was

anything but hopeful.

‘Are you at work?’

‘Just leaving the house. Why?’

‘Can you pop into the barn for a minute? I’ve got something

I want to show you.’

‘Sure. Be there in two.’ He hung up.

I rubbed my hands over my face and took a deep breath, trying

to mentally prepare myself for what was to come. True to his word,

Chris was on my doorstep in two minutes. He looked like he’d aged

even more since I’d last seen him on the front step. Mind you, we

probably all did. His five o’clock shadow was about a week’s shadow, but it was his eyes that really got to me. Vacant and blank, as if he’d checked out weeks ago. Or maybe he was still drunk. Or stoned.

‘Chris, don’t you think you should stop drinking? It’s not going

to solve anything. It’s not going to bring her or Tom back.’

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He shook his head. ‘Don’t tell me what to do, Liv. Don’t tell me

how I should feel or act.’

I held my hands up in mock surrender. ‘OK, OK. You’re an

adult. I’m just worried about you, that’s all.’

‘It’s not me you need to be worried about.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Nothing.’ He sighed. ‘What did you want to see me about? I’ve

got a building site I need to be at soon.’

I held my hand out, the necklace resting in my palm. ‘Was

this the necklace you saw Katie wearing the day she disappeared?’

He took it and held it up so the sun moved on the chain, the

star swinging beneath it. ‘It looks like it, yeah. Where the hell did you get it from?’ His eyes narrowed, dark and turbulent under

pale lashes.

‘I found it. I . . . I can’t say where until I know for certain what’s going on.’

A hand went to his hip and he shook his head. ‘Tell me, Liv.

Where? Where did you find it? Didn’t the police take it when

they . . . ?’ He looked over my head, focusing on the air above me.

‘Wasn’t it buried with her?’

‘No, apparently not. So whoever had it must’ve killed her,

mustn’t they? I mean, why would they have the necklace of a dead

woman otherwise? The last thing she was seen wearing.’

‘Where, Liv?’ His voice hardened and something seemed to

click in his brain. ‘Ethan said you’d picked up Dad’s things. It was in there, wasn’t it? Was it hidden in that stupid bloody magic box

of his? Tell me!’

I opened my mouth to speak but nothing came out.

He took a step towards me, one fist clenching at his side. ‘I told

you Dad had done it. How could he? How could he kill someone

I loved?’

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For a moment I felt scared, threatened, as his emotions seemed

to ooze through every pore. Fury, hurt, guilt, something else I

couldn’t quite put a name to.

I took a step back.

‘I’m not going to hurt you! What’s the matter with you?’

‘Nothing, I . . .’

He opened my hand and placed the necklace back in my palm.

Then he turned on his heel and stomped back down the path.

I watched him get into his pick-up truck as fear and revulsion

did a slow dance in my stomach.

It all made sense now. In his confusion from the Alzheimer’s,

Tom had confessed to a secret he’d been keeping for twenty-five

years. And when the police came to question him about the body

buried under his barn, maybe Tom would’ve been able to tell the

truth and give all the details of exactly what had happened. But

then he’d suddenly committed suicide while out with Ethan. How

convenient for Katie’s killer. Ethan had insisted on being the only one to take Tom to Durdle Door that day, and we only had his

word that Tom actually threw himself off the cliff. What if he’d been pushed? Had Ethan killed Tom, too, to shut him up because he was

about to spill everything?

And just look how Ethan had acted through this whole thing.

He’d been defensive, angry and obstructive the whole way. I mean,

I knew he was in mourning, but still, he’d gone way overboard

trying to prove Tom didn’t have anything to do with it when you

couldn’t deny that he must’ve known
something.

I was just protecting my family. I was just doing what a parent
should.

Yes, it all made perfect sense. Tom had lied to everyone and

covered up Katie’s death because he’d been protecting Ethan all

this time.

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Chapter Twenty-Nine

I got through the morning in a kind of daze. I phoned Charlotte

to wish her good luck at the consultant’s appointment later

that afternoon, but there was no answer on the house phone.

Both her and Nadia’s mobiles were switched off. I texted them each

a message instead.

When Anna surfaced at 10 a.m., she thankfully looked like

she’d slept OK and hadn’t been bothered by ghosts of Katie and

nightmares.

‘Why don’t we make something nice to drop off at Nadia’s for

dinner?’ I suggested to her after she’d had her promised waffles.

I needed a distraction to keep me busy. Keep me from thinking.

Stop me falling apart.

‘Yeah, she’s always doing that for other people. That’s a great

idea, Mum. We should make lasagne. It’s Charlotte’s favourite.’

‘Let’s run to the shops and get the ingredients.’

‘Can we make cupcakes, too? Emma’s mum made some with

this wicked icing and decoration stuff we could get.’

‘Absolutely.’

And that was how I did it, putting one foot in front of the

other like a robot, going through the motions, talking but not really
Where the Memories Lie

thinking, because if I had to think I’d have to admit to myself that my husband was a murderer. That he’d slept with my best friend,

got her pregnant, killed her. And not only that, he’d buried her

body with Tom’s help in this house. He’d walked over her grave all

this time and hadn’t batted an eyelid.

He was a psychopath. Or a sociopath, even. Were Anna and

I even safe from him once he knew we knew? I’d been too busy

suspecting Chris to even contemplate that my own husband could

be involved.

Hours later, there were perfect-looking cupcakes cooling on the

worktop waiting to be decorated; Anna had made them all by

herself. She was turning out to be a better cook than I was. Now

she was on her laptop with Mr Google again, researching leukaemia.

I didn’t know if it was a good thing or a bad thing for her to know everything involved, but I wanted her to be aware of what might

happen. Forewarned is forearmed. Knowledge is power and all that.

Charlotte had a good chance of going into remission, but there was

also a chance she wouldn’t survive this. There’s no easy way to prepare your kids for dealing with death. Hell knows, we’d just had the very worst of scenarios to deal with. But death was very real. It was a natural part of life. Hiding it from her didn’t make it go away. Plus, all the research was distracting Anna from her sadness and making her feel

helpful and useful, and she desperately needed to cling on to that.

My phone rang and I dived for it. It was Nadia’s number that

came up.

‘How did you get on?’ I blurted out straight away. No hello or

anything.

‘The consultant was lovely. She did the bone marrow biopsy

there and then, but we won’t get the results until tomorrow.

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But . . . um . . . yes, unfortunately, she’s pretty sure from looking at the blood test results and the other symptoms Charlotte’s had

recently that we’re looking at acute lymphoblastic leukaemia.’

I exhaled a lungful of air. I’d been expecting it but it still didn’t make it any easier. ‘Oh, no. I’m so sorry, Nadia.’

She was silent for a moment and I thought she was going to

burst into tears down the phone, but that wasn’t her usual style.

Instead, she acted true to form: calm, in control, dealing with what needed to be done.

‘Well, we’re just going to take this one day at a time. I’ve been

reading up on it. So have Charlotte and Lucas. We’re going to beat this.

It’s as simple as that. Charlotte dying isn’t an option,’ she said briskly.

‘No, you’re absolutely right. Is she up to visitors?’