Woman Last Seen(100)

“You don’t know what love is.”

“But I do. Twice over. I love them both.”

“That’s not allowed.”

“I know, but who decided it wasn’t?”

She raises her hands and for a moment I think she is going to hit me. Instead she pulls at her own hair. I guess she is trying to make me choose between them as some sort of therapy. Facing up to things. I’m frustrating the hell out of her. We stand on the cliff edge, drenched, incensed, bewildered. I imagine Daan walking away and I feel all the things I am going to miss about him. They hit me like stones. His loud, low, long laugh, his funny stories, his promise of the unexpected, a bright future. Then I think of Mark. His pride in his children, his solid, steady work ethic, his earnest interest in the land, our shared history. My bones snap.

“Mark,” I blurt. “Mark, Oli and Seb outweigh Daan. I guess they always did. I was never able to leave them. I’m glad it was Daan who abducted me. I choose Mark.”

“Right, good, I’m glad we’ve got that cleared up. Finally.” The dark night, the noise from the waves smashing, the wind whipping is disconcerting, overwhelming. Her breathing is as fast and shallow as mine. But something skitters across her face that looks a lot like triumph. We look at each other and it is as though it’s the first time we’ve ever really seen one another—

And I suppose in a way it is.

We see one another for what and who we really are. It’s hard to know who is most disappointed, disgusted. “Do you see what you have done?” she asks. “Because you have tried to run two lives in parallel, you’ve shortened the one you really have. Sort of used them up, you know? You’ve run out of time. Do you see that?”

I feel the force of the shove a nanosecond before I anticipate it or understand it. I don’t know why I’ve been so slow. The wine? Something in the wine? It’s too late now. My knees crumble under me and I am flying. The grassy verge, the edge of the cliff, the black sea below are somersaulting into one. Round and around I spin. It’s a fraction of a second. It’s forever. I am plummeting. I am done.



50


Fiona


Fiona walks quickly back to the house. Her head is whirling. Twisting. She takes deep breaths. This isn’t the moment to lose her cool. She’s been so careful all along. She can’t afford a slipup at this late stage.

She had expected Kylie’s eyes to be wide with horror and anguish, her face to be distorted. She thought there might have been a moment of realization when she would beg to be saved. At least for the boys. But she didn’t do that. She stared, eyes wide open (finally!), as she understood what she had done and what it meant, which just goes to show how selfish she is. Was. She can use the past tense. Kylie should have wanted to survive at least for the boys.

Bitch.

She looked almost peaceful. That annoys Fiona, that Kylie found peace. That isn’t what she wanted to deliver.

Still, at least now she knows which man Kylie would have wanted to hold on to. Which she ultimately valued the most. It was as Fiona had guessed. There is some satisfaction in getting it right. Knowing Kylie better than she knew herself. Fiona guessed months ago. People are always assuming she knows little about intimacy, because she hasn’t ever married—it’s so insulting, so patronizing—she knows more about any of them than they do about each other.

Fiona carefully but rapidly packs up the house. Removes any evidence that she—let alone Kylie—has been here tonight. Then she drives back to London. She hasn’t had a drop to drink. She was very careful about that. Not that she’d have touched the wine, of course. Not after what she’d put in it to ensure Kylie’s reactions were slowed. The drive should take just less than three hours. She wants to hurry but forces herself to keep below the speed limits for the entire journey; she cannot afford to get flashed by a camera.

By now, DC Clements will have searched Daan’s apartment block. It would be lax of her not to, considering Fiona told her he is unfaithful, an accomplished liar. They will have found the room. Well, Fiona wasn’t able to keep it secret forever. Kylie was getting rebellious. That stunt with the plasterboard, that annoying clanking of her chains. Fiona couldn’t keep drugging her and starving her, one thing or the other, so a move had become necessary. When they dust the room for fingerprints, they will find empty water bottles and protein bar wrappers with Daan’s fingerprints on them. When they search Daan’s apartment they will find the cash receipt she planted, for a chain and zip ties, a plastic bucket purchased ten days ago. Eventually, if they search well enough—and DC Clements will because she strikes Fiona as the thorough type—they will find Leigh’s and Kai’s phones hidden in the back of Daan’s wardrobe.

Fiona stole the protein bars and bottles of water from his kitchen, not on her last visit to his flat but on the one before. This whole escapade had taken quite some planning, quite some organization. Fiona is rather proud of herself, how thorough she has been. How she has thought of everything. Kylie always believed she was the smart one, as she was a management consultant and a bigamist too, but in fact Fiona has outwitted her. Tortoise and Hare.

Fiona isn’t a lawyer, though, and there’s only so many things a person can sensibly google so she’s not absolutely certain whether this amount of evidence is circumstantial, or more robust. She believes Daan will be arrested and trialed for Kylie’s abduction. Of course there is a possibility that he’s left the country by now, but that won’t look good either. He will naturally protest his innocence and no doubt hire brilliantly cunning lawyers who will draw out the case for his extradition to the UK; even if he has to stand trial, he may or may not be convicted, again because he can pay for decent lawyers. Without a body, it will be hard to make a case that will carry a long sentence. But there may be a body. Fiona expects Kylie’s body will wash up. She’s already told the DC that Daan has visited her cottage on the coast, it will be assumed he returned to a familiar place to dispose of Kylie. He hasn’t ever visited her home, of course. Nothing so cozy, nothing so committed. Still, that’s not a problem. She has planted enough items around her place to convince a jury he has been there. A single cufflink, the partner of which is still in his own apartment, a glass with his lip and fingerprints, his toothbrush, a pair of boxes. Bits and pieces she picked up from his place when she stayed over on Saturday.