The Soulmate(51)

‘That’s right,’ I said, remembering how relieved Max had been. ‘It was a huge coup.’

Max sighed. ‘Yes, well . . . It turns out the investor wasn’t exactly the saviour we were looking for.’

‘Why not?’

‘It’s a group called A.S. Holdings.’

‘And?’ I prompted, but Max didn’t continue. ‘So, what’s the problem?’

‘The problem is’ – Max hung his head – ‘A.S. stands for Arthur Spriggs.’





51


AMANDA

AFTER



Max has a leather satchel over his shoulder and is walking with purpose. To the Gerards’ house, I assume, but then he takes the steps down to the beach and heads to the rock groyne that sticks straight out to sea, like a pier.

He removes his shoes. It’s a romantic sight, Max walking barefoot on the rocks. In another life, I would have photographed it. The beach is quiet, apart from a few dog walkers several hundred metres away. When he reaches the end of the groyne, he opens his satchel and removes the secret laptop.

Suddenly I understand what he’s doing. All his secrets are on that computer: falsified paperwork, documents linking him to Arthur Spriggs. It needs to be destroyed.

He lifts the laptop and brings it down hard against the rocks. It’s shocking how quickly it falls to pieces. No one on the beach pays him the slightest attention as he bashes it again and again, his face contorting with the effort. I imagine it feels cathartic.

Max had another call from the cops this morning, this time to ask if Gabriel Gerard was a former employee of his. Max replied that he had thousands of employees; he couldn’t possibly be expected to remember every single one. That was interesting. It made me wonder what kind of game he was playing.

Still, the cops are smarter than either Max or I gave them credit for. They didn’t simply accept that my death was a suicide, as I presumed they would – they were doing their due diligence. They’d already been keeping an eye on Max and his business dealings, but my death gave them a reason to poke into his affairs. Now, while supposedly investigating my death, they’d stumbled across another crime.

When he’s finished, Max tosses the remnants of the laptop into the water and watches them sink to the bottom. Now the computer is gone, Max is already looking more relaxed. He doesn’t know that the evidence still exists – at least, he doesn’t know for sure. But I suspect he has an inkling, so that final hiding place will be the next thing he looks for.

My USB.





52


PIPPA

NOW



It’s mid-afternoon when Gabe arrives home with the girls in tow, and I’m sitting on the couch with my laptop, catching up on some emails.

Mum left half an hour earlier, having made enough soup to feed us for a week. After my phone call with Gabe, our conversation had moved on to regular topics – the girls’ birthdays, Kat and Mei’s baby, Dad’s high cholesterol – but something about it felt forced. I was glad when she finally went home.

Mei has called twice since then, and I let both calls go through to voicemail.

‘Mummy!’ the girls cry, and I put my laptop aside as they scramble onto my lap. Asha’s knee gets me in the belly, and it is surprisingly painful, but I ignore it and hug them both and listen to their stories about preschool. Then they tell me that Daddy has promised they can watch a movie if they’re very good.

‘We are very good,’ Freya says earnestly.

I do my best to smile. I feel Gabe’s gaze on me. Like everyone’s lately, it seems. I don’t look at him. I can’t.

Gabe sets up a couple of beanbags in front of the TV and the girls drop into them like stones. Then he microwaves some popcorn and gives them each their own individual bowls. Once The Little Mermaid is playing, he sits beside me.

‘What is it?’ he asks. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘I saw Max.’

I hadn’t been able to tell him over the phone, with Mum here. But he had obviously heard the panic in my voice because he doesn’t seem surprised. ‘Where?’

‘At The Pantry. He was ordering a coffee.’

Gabe closed his eyes, swore softly. ‘Did he see you?’

‘No. I snuck out of there like a thief in the night.’ The tears fill my eyes unexpectedly and I quickly wipe them away. ‘Sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.’

Gabe slides off the couch and kneels on the floor, between my legs. He makes it so it’s impossible for me to look anywhere but into his eyes. ‘It’s going to be all right, Pip. I promise you.’

In this cosy pod of security with our girls and the smell of popcorn in the air, it would be so easy to believe him. But I don’t. This is the one thing we’ve come up against that actually isn’t going to be okay.

‘Listen to me,’ he says, and I do, because more than anything I want someone else to take control. I want to be a bystander. I want to be like my two little girls, staring slack-jawed at the screen, my biggest worry that my popcorn will soon run out. ‘I know how difficult this has been. But you didn’t do anything wrong. You don’t need to lie or hide from anyone. You don’t need to worry about what the police will do.’ His face is pulsing with intensity. His cheeks are pink, and his eyes are desperate for me to hear what he is saying. ‘I was the one who lied to them, Pip. This is not your burden to carry.’