You Can Trust Me (9 page)

Did I buy it because I knew she'd be impressed? Or because at some level I was aspiring to Julia's own, streamlined existence? Either way—and I hate to admit it—Will was right about it being too small for family life.

Outside Julia's front door, my hands tremble as I fit my key in the lock. The last time I stood here, I had no idea that Julia was dead. Now, the image of her body on the sofa is seared into my brain.
It's not there now,
I tell myself.
Her body is gone. Burned.
As I open the door, I wonder for the first time what Joanie will do with the ashes. No one has, so far, mentioned this, at least not in my hearing. Neither, now that I come to think of it, has there been any talk of a will. It would be unlike Julia not to have made one. A self-confessed control freak, she carefully filed all her paper invoices and bills in color-coded folders, reflecting—she once told me—the more extensive files on her computer.

Julia's flat is eerily quiet. It feels somehow stale and anonymous, like a hotel room, but maybe that's just because it hasn't been lived in for over a week. I glance at the photos lining the hall corridor—from a holiday Julia and I took to Africa the year after Kara died. I had met Will just a few months previously and bored Julia insane by talking about him at every opportunity. She tried to get me to flirt with the guys we encountered on the trip, but I refused. It wasn't just loyalty to Will. I was always useless at talking to people I didn't know. Julia, on the other hand, was a born flirt. Even back then, when she was only nineteen, she had a uncanny knack for zoning in on the alpha male of any group and catching his eye. Of course, it helped that she was strikingly beautiful. Not in the same fragile, elegant way that Kara was; Julia's features weren't regular or doll-like, but her eyes danced when she talked, her laugh was a throaty and sensual cackle and she looked like she'd be the best fun you'd ever have in bed.

“That girl practically sweats sex,” I remember one of her ex-boyfriends saying admiringly.

None of that is reflected in Julia's choice of photos from that African trip, which hang on the wall: a series of shots of the various animals we came close to—monkeys, a pair of giraffes, and my favorite, a baby elephant.

Into Julia's living room and I hold my breath. I don't want to look, but of course my eyes go straight to the sofa, where the dark stain lingers on the seat. My heart is beating fast as I look away, around the bookshelves and across to the table and chairs that are, as always, positioned under the window.

Wait. Where's the art? Julia had a couple of pieces—nothing valuable, just some abstract stuff she liked. I don't know the names of the artists. The walls are bare—also missing is the flat-screen TV that used to stand in the corner of the room.

I head into Julia's bedroom. Her jewelry lies scattered across the dressing table. There's so much here, I can't tell if any of the more expensive pieces are missing. There's certainly no sign of the diamond and emerald ring she was given by one of her wealthier former lovers. Alan Rutherford was a widower who doted on Julia. The ring wasn't the only extravagant gift he presented her with. He died a couple of years after they broke up, and much to Julia's astonishment, he left her his seaside cottage in Lympstone, which they had, apparently, visited occasionally on weekends. Julia immediately began supplementing her income by renting it out. What will happen to it now?

Wondering about both the ring and the cottage, I stroll into the spare room, which Julia used as an office. I gasp. Her computer is gone, leaving a large square gap surrounded by papers in the center of her desk. The sun shines on the wooden surface, highlighting the layer of dust at the edges of the gap.

I grip the back of the chair, suddenly panicked. Who has taken all this stuff? The police? Why would they bother? They've already accepted the suicide verdict.

I whip out my phone, intending to call Joanie. Then I remember that I am, effectively, intruding here and that it's still only a few hours since Joanie buried her only daughter.

I put my phone away. There are no signs of a break-in. Joanie herself has probably removed the missing items. Perhaps she felt they would be safer away from an unoccupied flat.

I still don't like it, but there's nothing I can do. And I'm here to look for evidence that Julia didn't kill herself. That's the priority.

I go back into Julia's bedroom and sit down on the bed where Zack, Hannah, and I huddled just two weeks ago. It feels like a million years have passed since then. Without access to Julia's phone, which I already know Joanie has with her, or her computer, I'm not sure what to look for. A diary? Julia was never one to pour out her soul on the page, but she definitely kept an appointments book. She always refused to use the calendar on her phone and computer, buying instead an annual Moleskine diary.
It's a journalist rite of passage, Liv, a way of channeling Hemingway without the dead bulls.…

I rummage in Julia's bedside drawers. I feel voyeuristic looking here, though I know what I'll find—nail file, hand cream, paperbacks, cigarettes (she kept them for guests), condoms (ditto), and pens and Post-it notes. No sign of her diary. She always kept that in whichever handbag she was using at the time.
A girl can't have too many bags. Or shoes. Or orgasms.
I wander over to the large fitted wardrobe and slide open the door. Julia's dresses and tops hang from a rail. On impulse, I grab a handful of Prada silk shirt and hold it to my face, hoping for a scent of her. But all I can smell is the faint whiff of chemicals. I sigh. Trust Julia to be on top of her dry cleaning. Shoes and boots line the second section, with skirts and pants hanging from the rod above. I rummage through the final, shelved section, my fingers stroking the soft, delicate lingerie that Julia loved to buy. I hold up a pair of black silk panties, then a lacy basque. I remember Hannah wide-eyed when Julia showed her a recent purchase: a blue bra and panties in soft satin with a thin cream trim. Julia had grinned at Hannah's awe.
Beautiful underwear, honeypie, will always be your greatest gift to yourself after financial independence and an inquiring mind.
Hannah had nodded solemnly, as if Julia were offering her the keys to adult life.

Perhaps she was. It's funny, but I never resented how much Hannah looked up to Julia. I was always grateful that, having lost her aunt, my daughter at least had a godmother who adored her.

The huge bottom shelf is full of handbags. Small and large, High Street and designer, they're testament to Julia's lifelong search for
that one, perfect bag to go with every occasion.

Stupidly, my eyes fill with tears as it strikes me she will now never achieve her ambition.

For God's sake, Livy, get a grip,
I mutter under my breath. Handbags are the least of it.

I root around for a bit. Julia's Kelly bag isn't here. Neither is her vintage Chanel clutch nor her tiny Versace shoulder purse. I open the bags I saw Julia use most frequently. The third I pick up is one of Julia's recent High Street purchases. I hadn't thought it was anything special myself, but Julia was ecstatic when she found it—
total Prada knockoff, Liv,
she'd told me as proudly as if she'd designed the thing herself.

The diary is lurking in the inside pocket. My throat is dry as I take it out. This, suddenly, feels like I'm touching her life in a way that the clothes and bags do not.

I flick back through the pages to the week Julia died. Our Sunday lunch is logged in her bold, firm hand, but apart from a few work meetings, most of the week to either side appears empty. The Thursday two days before her death is marked:
A.H. 9pm
. I wonder for a moment who A.H. is, then turn to the week after her death. It's blank, apart from a dental appointment.

My heart sinks. I'd so hoped for some clue to her state of mind here, but there's nothing. In fact, the absence of appointments surely serves to support the verdict of suicide.

I turn the page again, to the current week. I stare at today's date. It's empty. How bizarre to think that Julia might have flicked over this page, never dreaming it would be the date of her own funeral. I shiver and move on. Tomorrow night, Tuesday, contains the following entry:

SHANNON
,
10:30 PM
,
ACES HIGH

I stare at the words. Aces High is a singles bar in Torquay that Julia once described as a
lean-meat market, full of skinny, trashy women and classless men.…

Why would she be going to meet someone there? Julia hated bars like that as much as she disliked Torquay itself. And who is Shannon? I'm certain Julia doesn't have a friend with that name. I'm intrigued and encouraged. Because this, more than the work or dental appointments, suggests that Julia was looking into the future before she died. Maybe I'm clutching at straws, but it feels like fate that I've found this. It's something to hang on to at least.

Something to help me act.

It takes me most of the following twenty-four hours to face up to what that action needs to be: I have to go to Aces High and meet Shannon myself. Of course, she probably won't be there. Chances are she will already know Julia is dead. But I have to try.

I put off telling Will—I know he'll come up with all sorts of logical reasons why I shouldn't go to a meeting arranged between a stranger and a dead person. Put like that, it does sound crazy, and yet whoever Shannon is, he or she may know what it was Julia wanted to talk to me about. Or even something relevant about how she died.

I troll through the guest list for the funeral, which Joanie e-mailed me last week. There's no one with the name Shannon. I call Joanie herself, hoping to check that there aren't any other friends or family members I don't know about—as well as to ask about all the stuff missing from Julia's flat—but she doesn't answer her phone. This isn't a surprise. Julia often complained that her mother screened all calls. Joanie certainly has a reason not to want to speak to people at the moment. She's probably still with Robbie and Wendy anyway.

It makes no difference. I'm going. I'm going to Aces High to honor Julia's arrangement to meet Shannon. If no one is there, then I'll have lost nothing except a couple hours of my time.

And Will's approval, of course.

As the day wears on, I get more and more nervous—and less and less in the mood to tell Will what I'm planning. I could phone him at work, but I don't. He doesn't get in until almost eight. I could—maybe should—say something straightaway. But I hesitate. He's tired and grouchy and I decide to wait until he's had a chance to take the edge off his mood with a glass of wine and a bowl of pasta.

I've already eaten with the kids, so Will takes a spoon and scarfs the remaining Bolognese out of the saucepan as he slumps in front of the TV. Apart from a good night to the kids, he has barely spoken since he got in. I read Zack a story, then turn out his light and head downstairs. I mean to tell Will now. I really do. But he's in the middle of some History Channel documentary on the D-Day landings and has such an
I'm zoning out, please don't disturb me
look on his face that, again, I can't face telling him.

I tidy up in the kitchen, then check on Zack. He is already asleep, snuffling peacefully into his duvet. I nag Hannah out of her bedroom and into the bathroom to clean her teeth. She protests, as usual, at her school night bedtime of 9
P.M.
with lights out at 9:30. I make sure she's in bed and reading, then go into my own room and put on some makeup. I'm not dressing up—jeans and sandals will do fine—but I don't want to look totally out of place, so I select a silky top and fuss over earrings for a bit. I go back to Hannah and insist she switches out the light. She claims she's not tired and she wants to finish the chapter she's reading. Clever middle-class kids who know how much their parents value books miss no tricks. I give in and wait a few minutes. Of course, she still hasn't finished by nine forty-five, but it's starting to feel like this could be a long, drawn-out battle, so I insist and flick off the wall light as she's still looking at the page.

She swears at me. Normally I would take issue. Or fetch Will to back me up. Today I ignore her. To reach Torquay by ten thirty, I'm going to have to leave in the next fifteen minutes or so, and I'm already anticipating a spat with Will. I can't get into one with my daughter as well.

For a moment I feel an overwhelming resentment that I'm so often left to be the bad guy with Hannah—that Will tends to abdicate responsibility for bedtimes unless I call on him in a crisis. I remind myself this was the deal we made when Zack was born. I would give up my junior family law job, which barely covered Hannah's child care fee as it was, while Will would bring in the big bucks and leave the kids to me during the week.

Being a homemaker's a job too,
Julia had said wryly at the time.
Just one without status, remuneration, or opportunities for promotion.

I start to head downstairs then, suddenly self-conscious about turning up at a night club underdressed, I go back to my bedroom and change out of the flat sandals and into my open-toed Lanvin wedges. Julia found them in a sale and, knowing they would fit me perfectly, bought them as a birthday gift last year. I peek around Hannah's door. For all her protests at not being tired, she is already asleep, the book she was reading still defiantly in her hand. Sleeping is when Hannah looks most like Kara, and the sight of her still body sends that image of Kara's lifeless eyes into my head again. I shiver, unable to stop myself touching Hannah's arm for reassurance that her skin is warm. I remove the book and ease her under the covers. I smooth her fine, silky hair off her face and pull the duvet up over her shoulders. Over the years, I might have become less neurotic and overprotective, but if I'm honest, seeing her safe and asleep is the only time I feel truly secure.