You Can Trust Me (31 page)

It was a hot, sticky day, the third in row where the temperatures were in the low thirties. Sandra was on tenterhooks from the start of our walk, fishing for compliments about her new hairdo—she had pinned those blond locks back with an execrable butterfly-shaped hair grip. I knew she was expecting me to seduce her. I kissed her while her little girl played behind a rock.

“Wait,” she giggled, all simpering and irritating.

“I
can't
wait,” I groaned, shamming sexual desire for her. “I want you, I need you.” Or some such. Whatever. My words worked. Sandra let me peel off her clothes; then I led her into the water, slightly warmer than normal from days of fierce sunshine. “So we can be private,” I whispered. She blushed and murmured her appreciation of my consideration. I took her into the water, then drew back. She looked at me hesitantly. We were both naked now, up to the neck in the cool lake. Our clothes were on the dry grass, the trees beyond. The little girl out of sight behind the rock with her coloring book or her doll. I told Sandra I wanted to swim with her under the water. She nodded, and I drew her down into the deep. The sun sparkled on the surface above as I held her hand and swam her closer to the rock I had found on an earlier, solo visit. The stones I'd left in place were still there. On we swam. Sandra was running out of breath, tugging at my hand to pull me up to the surface.

I pointed to the rock, holding up one finger from my free hand.
Just a moment,
I was signaling.
Look here.
And the stupid woman did as she was told. I slid my hand along her leg, with a slick movement pushing her foot into the hole in the rocks. I picked up the rock I had gotten ready in advance off the bottom of the pool and shoved it into position so her leg was trapped. Then, holding the rock firmly in position, I turned to see her face. My exertions had left me short of breath myself, but I still watched, fascinated, as Sandra's body jerked then slowed then finally slumped. I took my hands away from the rock. It held. Unable to last any longer without breath, I shot to the surface.

I burst, glorious, into the fresh, warm air. Eyes open, I blinked away the water. I turned. And saw a pair of feet in little pink sneakers.

Sandra's daughter was standing on the rocks, beside our pile of clothes, her mouth a shocked O. She was staring into the pool. I followed her gaze. Sandra was clearly visible underwater, the outline of her naked body smudged and pink and floating up from its prison. The little girl turned to me. I realized with a thrill she was the first-ever witness to a kill of mine. I felt a throb of pride. Then the little girl let out a thin, high scream. Instantly I was out of the water. I swept her into my arms, my hand over her mouth. I jumped in, under the surface again. This had not been planned, of course, but my whole killing life so far had led me to this, this ease under pressure, this sure touch decision-making. The girl crumpled in my arms. Niamh, her name was, not yet three. I left her floating facedown, just above her mother; then I got out of the water.

I was cool and calm as I dragged on my clothes and removed all traces of my footprints. Not hard to do, the grass by the water was soft and lush but already considerably trampled upon by previous passersby. I looked around once more. I was pretty sure how the police would interpret the scene. Sandra went skinny-dipping, got trapped underwater, panicked, and drowned in a freak accident. Her tiny daughter fell in—or jumped in to rouse her mother—and died too. I had left no marks on the bodies and no trace of myself at the scene. I checked everything of Sandra's for telltale signs. It was fine: no hair, no fabric, no prints. I took her butterfly-shaped hair clip and went back to the car. Then I changed into different clothes—just to be sure—and drove off, dumping my original outfit in a trash barrel a couple of miles away..

I was home within the hour, full of the latest tales from work. I pretended to show an interest in my wife's day, but inside I was bursting with a new pride. I had delayed gratification. I had improvised to deal with collateral damage. And I had triumphed. Again.

 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The sunshine glints off the glass-walled office buildings as our train zooms past. Fields and trees, soft green and brown open up to the right. It's another beautiful day, but Damian and I are traveling in a tense, anxious silence.

Once we'd heard the news of Shannon's death, we made our way back to our hotel, feeling stunned. We sat in the deserted bar for a while, trying to calm our nerves. Then we went to bed.

Separately.

Shannon's murder—and I'm as sure as Damian that she was killed deliberately—kept me awake much of the night. I felt sick with fear, shoving a chair under the handle of my hotel room door and getting up several times to check that it was properly locked.

Even now, hours later, I'm still on edge. Damian clearly is too, his hands fiddling nervously with a cigarette, refraining from smoking only because it's forbidden on the train. There's a new awkwardness between us since last night, but I'm not letting myself think about that.

I desperately want to call Will. But I am too hurt and too angry to speak to him. It doesn't matter if he slept with Catrina once, or one hundred times; it doesn't matter if there were lots of other women over the years, or only her. It still changes everything. I can't hold my feelings back any longer. There are things here I must face. Most important, that our life together has been shattered. Will's affair the first time around tore at the heart of our marriage. But at least back then, I believed there
was
a heart, something that we could, together, heal and mend. But now everything is ripped to shreds, broken beyond mending. Will has destroyed our marriage, and I cannot see a way back for us. I think this; then I think of Hannah, grappling with early adolescence, and I think of sweet, loving Zack. I think of the pain that our breaking up will cause them.

I cannot bear it.

Damian and I barely speak on the journey home. I don't know what to make of how he looked at me last night, how close we came to kissing, how easily that could have led to everything else. In the state I'm in, it's hard to see anything clearly. Paranoia fogs my brain. My fears run riot. I suspect everyone and everybody of Julia's death. Maybe Will has a dark side I've never seen. Maybe Damian has set up everything we have experienced—from the messenger in Shannon's flat to the fire at Julia's cottage—as some kind of elaborate double bluff. Maybe Julia's brother, Robbie, is a psychopath whose constrained, ordinary life masks a whole series of sick desires and evil actions.

Our train draws close to Exeter, and I rouse myself from my horrific musings to give Mum a ring. She says that Zack has been up for hours but that Hannah is still in bed. I glance at my watch. It's almost ten. I tell Mum to wake Hannah if she's not up in half an hour and that I'll be with them later—though I don't know exactly when. Then I have a chat with Zack, who is full of the “bug paradise” he's been making in Granny's garden, “with a home for beetles under a stone and some flowers for the bees to visit and some earth for worms.”

We arrive in Exeter as I finish my phone call. Outside the cool of the air-conditioned car, the air feels hot and humid.

As we pass through the turnstile, Damian clears his throat. “So do you still want to go to Aces High?” he asks.

I'm jolted back to the reality of the plan we made last night, before we knew about Shannon's death. “What's the point of going there?” I ask. “We were only going to try to find Shannon again. And now…”

Damian's shoulders sag. “I know, but I can't give up,” he says. “I need to know who killed Julia.” He pauses. “Whoever it is probably killed Shannon too.
And
your sister.”

I nod. I owe it to Kara and Julia to find out as well.

As we emerge into the sunshine, Damian sighs. “How about if we go to Aces High to try to find out if anyone knows who Shannon got that locket from? She said she got one of the guys there to put pressure on the person who owed her. Maybe we can find him.”

“Okay, but whoever it is, is hardly going to admit to threatening anyone.” I think it through. “Maybe
you
should go to Aces High, and I'll see if Robbie will meet me later. The more I think about it, the more I'm sure he's involved. He got Joanie to destroy Julia's computer—”

“I agree,” Damian says. “But I don't like the idea of you meeting him alone.”

“I'll be fine. I'll try to arrange to meet him for lunch in Exeter, then we'll be in a public place.”

“All right, but be careful.”

We head toward a taxi stand, where Damian hands me money for a cab. I'm going to have to replace virtually the entire contents of my handbag, from house keys to bank cards. The thought fills me with exhaustion.

“So, you promise you'll be careful when you talk to Julia's brother?” Damian looks at me with real concern in his eyes.

“I promise.”

“Okay, then.” Damian hesitates. “Don't forget to use the fact that he liked you once, maybe still does.”

His words echo in my ear as I watch him head off to Aces High. I take a steadying breath, then call Robbie.

He answers straightaway, sounding delighted to hear from me. “I was so hoping you'd call back.”

“Call back?” For a moment I'm thrown. Then I remember the phone call he made just before I found Julia's ring a few days ago. “Right.” I'm about to suggest meeting up later, but before I can formulate the sentence, Robbie asks me to meet him right now for coffee.

“I have to be at the hotel for work in an hour, but I could slip out now if you fancy it? Could you meet me in ten minutes? Wendy won't notice.”

He's speaking so fast, with such enthusiasm, that I can barely follow what he's saying, but that reference to his wife at the end makes it sound, worryingly, as if he is proposing some kind of secret rendezvous.

“Shall I come to the hotel?” I say, determined to make it clear my own intentions are entirely aboveboard.

“God no,” Robbie says with feeling. “Don't want to get to work before I have to. There's bound to be some problem to sort out. I'll get roped in straightaway. How about Top Tiffin?”

“What's that?” I ask.

“Great little café about five minutes from the cathedral. Could you meet me there now?”

I reluctantly agree. I'd wanted to go home to Heavitree first to change—plus I seriously don't like the idea that Robbie is sneaking out to see me behind his wife's back. However, I don't want to put the meeting off, so I head straight for the café he's suggested.

He's already there when I arrive, his head buried in a book, his fingers tapping nervously on the table. I glance at the cover—Julian Barnes's
The Sense of an Ending.
I stand, watching him for a moment. After a few seconds, Robbie looks up with an anxious glance at the door. He spots me and beams.

I head over, feeling decidedly unsettled. Robbie makes a show of switching off his cell phone before asking what I want. I say I'd like a cappuccino and switch my own mobile off too.

Robbie goes over to the counter and orders our drinks. He smiles at me again as he comes back and sits down. “It's
so
great to see you, Livy. You look gorgeous. I thought so when you turned up at Mum's the other day. I can't tell you how pleased I am you called me. I was scared that, after Mum accused you of taking that ring—”

I flush, suddenly remembering where the ring turned up. I stare at Robbie's open face. Does he know? Is this somehow a trick? I'd completely forgotten until this minute that when Will took the ring from me, he
definitely
said he was going to return it to Robbie the next day. Has he done so?

“What's the matter?” Robbie asks. He self-consciously smooths down the hair that curls over the back of his neck. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you by—”

“You haven't.” I touch his arm.

Robbie blushes. I glance outside. Despite the heat, the sky is overcast. A dark cloud looms in the distance.

“I'm sorry if I've disturbed, er, your plans.” I pause.

“Don't be sorry.” Robbie is still smiling at me. “I'm not sorry.”

The atmosphere shifts and tightens. I'm suddenly very aware of the lustful glint in Robbie's eyes. I draw away, feeling uncomfortable. Better to get straight to the point. “Actually, I wanted to ask you about something,” I say. “I found … an e-mail Julia wrote. I think she sent it to you just before she died. She's angry. It's about, well, I'm not sure, but—” I stop, unwilling to come right out and say that the e-mail implies Robbie was threatening his sister.

His face tenses, a tiny involuntary movement of the muscles. “I'm sorry, Livy, but Julia hadn't e-mailed me for years.” And it's there, in the way his voice rises slightly at the end of the sentence: He's lying.

I keep my gaze on his face, trying to work out what to say, how to draw him out. “Well, she sent an e-mail, and she sounded furious in it.”

Robbie looks uncomfortable. “Livy, I have no idea what outrageous, angry, manipulative things Julia might have written down in a random e-mail, but I wouldn't pay it too much attention.” He frowns. “How come
you've
seen it?”

I sit back in my chair, unsure what to say. The waiter comes over with our coffees. He sets them both down on the table. Two black coffees with a jug of hot milk.

I'm about to point out that I'd asked for a cappuccino when Robbie leans across the table and takes my hand. “I ordered Americanos with hot milk. That's what we drank on our first, our only date, remember?” He smiles.

I stare at him. Is he serious? “Blimey, Robbie, that was eighteen years ago.”