The Wife Before Me(90)
Loneliness is her companion now. To break loose and risk everything to be with the man she loves is an intolerable burden. She was able to carry it until Elena Langdon came knocking on her door with her bruises and harrowing facts but now this loneliness is combined with uneasiness, a nervous tension that has heightened since Moira Ward stood inside her cottage and radiated hypocrisy.
Fifty-Two
The Present
Amelia watches the car from the back of the cottage, where she has a view of the twisting road. The BMW is out of place on Mag’s Head, where four-by-fours, jeeps and quad bikes are a more normal means of transport.
The driver brakes outside the cottage. She has imagined this moment so often. Imagined her heart thudding to a shuddering halt or her brain imploding. Now that he is here, though, she is alert and resolute. Kayla is at school. The front and back doors are securely locked but her jeep will indicate that she is at home. Moving quickly, she enters the chamber and huddles down. When it had been completed, she had left two packed suitcases of clothes and toiletries inside it, along with passports for Kayla and Annie Ross.
He knocks four times. The sound reverberates through the cottage. Each bang on the door feels like an electric charge on her skin. She draws her knees towards her and breathes silently into them. She doesn’t move from this position, even when the silence suggests he has given up and left. An hour later, she emerges from hiding. His car is missing, but she is not deceived by this obvious sign of his departure. She rings Lily to ask if she has noticed a BMW coming and going from the headland. This is a rhetorical question. Nothing escapes Lily’s eagle eye.
‘I saw him heading up the head and coming down again,’ Lily says.
‘Has he left the village?’
‘I reckon he has. He called in here to ask about you on his way out. Said he’d been knocking on your door for ages but got no answer. I told him you were in New York and wouldn’t be back for a few months. I hope I did the right thing.’
‘Yes, you did, Lily. Did you talk to him about Kayla?’
‘Don’t worry. I never said a word about the child.’
‘Is there any chance Bart could pick her up from school today?’ Despite Lily’s assurances that Nicholas has gone from the village, she is still too frightened to leave the cottage. ‘I’m busy tracing some textiles that I need for a client, who is expecting an answer from me in the next hour.’
‘Bart!’ Lily shrieks at her husband, who makes deliveries of coal and turf to the small community at the foot of Mag’s Head when he is not helping out behind the counter. ‘Will you collect Annie’s kid from school and drop her home?’ She pauses, then reverts to her normal voice. ‘He says he’ll pick her up in the van.’
‘Tell him not to talk to anyone.’
‘You mean your man in the BMW?’
‘I do. Make sure to tell him.’
‘Don’t worry about Bart. I’ll be sure to tell him to keep his big trap shut.’
‘Thanks, Lily. I don’t know what I’d do without you.’
‘Ah sure, isn’t that what neighbours are for? When he first came into the shop and asked about you, I thought all your dreams had come true. Such a handsome hunk and a charmer, to boot. He even admired my painting. There’s not many around here do that so I figured then and there that he was a right chancer.’
* * *
Kayla is sleeping. Her mother is staring at the stars. The sky is clear tonight and the constellations dazzling. She talks to Leanne, as she always does last thing before she goes to bed. Do you believe in ghosts, Elena had asked the first time she came to Clearwater.
Amelia’s reply had been emphatic. No ghosts haunted this craggy peninsula but sometimes a play of light, a darting bird, the swirl of a butterfly brought Leanne to mind with such vividness that she was forced to a standstill, her heart filled to bursting.
Fifty-Three
In the dead of night, shadows tell no secrets. I’m insubstantial but I’m not a shadow, of that I’m certain. Billy Tobin dead. One blow from a weapon that has yet to be found. Nicholas recognised Rosemary Williams’s orange Citro?n that afternoon. Guessing it was being driven by Elena, he knocked on Billy’s door that night, demanding to know what she had been doing there. When the fear of death has been conquered, we become unconquerable. And, so, Billy didn’t bend. He had solved a mystery that had tormented him for years and he made the accusation to Nicholas, loudly, defiantly. How easy it was to crack his skull. The gardai were convinced it was a cricket bat or, perhaps, a mallet. It wasn’t either. The knob on Billy’s walking stick was the weapon of choice. He died from the third blow. It lay beside him, washed clean of blood and unfamiliar fingerprints. A less deadly weapon to the one that killed John Pierce, but just as effective.
Initially, Nicholas had no reason to query the financial transactions that were taking place in his offshore accounts. The dark web had too many layers to infiltrate, he believed, and, with the confidence of a true narcissist, he was convinced he would never be found out.
Nicholas is unaware of the extent of the discovery, yet his instincts tell him something is wrong. His habitual charm has disappeared. He no longer flashes his white teeth at the female staff at KHM and tells them how stunning they look. He is wary, verging on panicky, working late at his computer to try to combat information that threatens his future. It has taken time to trace the changes to his online account. The payouts that he never authorised yet which have his imprimatur. His accounts were being hacked but he was unable to figure out how it was happening or who was responsible – until he saw the photographs he had obtained from a private detective.