The Retreat(63)

Without warning, she grabbed my hand.

‘I’m so . . .’ She stopped, then forced herself to continue. ‘I’m so glad you got out of the water.’

Taken aback, I tried to make light of it. ‘Me too.’

‘When I saw you lying there, on the stones, I thought you were dead.’ To my surprise, tears filled her eyes. She continued to hold my hand, but gazed into space, into the past. ‘I don’t think . . . I don’t think I ever mourned Michael properly. I was so fixated on finding Lily. Even his funeral . . . I was numb. Not able to grieve. I’m told I cried, but I don’t remember. I hardly heard a word of the service.’

I squeezed her hand and waited for her to continue.

‘I miss him,’ she said. ‘I was angry with him for a long time, once the numbness passed. Angry for his drinking, blaming him for the argument that meant we weren’t watching Lily. Our marriage hadn’t been good for a long time and we were probably going to break up. I mean, we’d been in and out of the last-chance saloon a dozen times. He’d promised he was going to give up the booze because it was destroying us . . . But he didn’t. And I realised, that day, he never would.’ She produced a tissue and blew her nose. ‘Five minutes later, he was dead.’

I waited for her to continue.

‘There was another thing too . . . Another woman. I never found out for sure, but I think Michael was cheating on me with this woman in his office. Lana. Maybe they were only emotionally involved, I don’t know. But there was something going on. He probably would have ended up with her after we split up and I wonder, sometimes, if he kept drinking because he wanted me to chuck him out. It was his passive way of ending our marriage.’

She blew her nose again. ‘He loved Lily, though. I guess she’s the other reason he hung around.’ She wiped the tears from her cheeks and sniffed. ‘Oh God, you’re lying there with a massive bandage on your head after someone tried to kill you, and here I am, going on about my woes.’

‘Julia, don’t be silly. It’s good. You should talk about it.’

She shuddered. ‘I’m scared, Lucas. I can’t even express exactly why. But I’m scared.’

I tried to find the right words, but before I could locate them someone said my name. ‘Mr Radcliffe?’

It was DC Hawkins. This time she had another cop with her, a middle-aged man in an ageing suit. She introduced him as Detective Inspector Garry Snaith.

He nodded at Julia. ‘Mrs Marsh.’

He must have met her at Nyth Bran. I wondered if he’d also been involved in the search for Lily two years ago.

‘Do you mind if we have a word with Mr Radcliffe on his own?’ he asked.

She was flustered. ‘Yes. I mean, no. I need to get back anyway. I’ll call you later, Lucas.’

As soon as she’d gone, DC Hawkins said, ‘We spoke to Glynn Collins. He was at home all night, with his girlfriend.’

I pushed myself up in the bed. ‘Girlfriend?’

DI Snaith smiled. ‘Perhaps “lady friend” would be a better term. But yes, seems there’s life in the old dog.’

I wondered if this was the woman he’d been talking to at the funeral; the one with the cleavage.

‘Mr Collins’ lady friend is an insomniac,’ Snaith continued. ‘She was awake most of the night, with her gentleman friend lying beside her, snoring.’

‘So whoever attacked you,’ Hawkins said. ‘It wasn’t Glynn Collins.’





Chapter 32

The two detectives stayed for ages, conducting what they called an informal chat. They wanted to know everything about me. Did I have any enemies? Did Max? They’d heard Max and I had a fight yesterday – could I tell them more about that? Why did we decide to follow the person we’d seen down to the river? Had we been drinking?

‘Why are you asking if Max had enemies?’ I said. ‘I told you – I was the target.’

‘So why kill Mr Lake?’ DC Hawkins asked.

‘I think he saw their face.’

As I was answering their questions, my mind whirred. If it wasn’t Glynn who attacked me and killed Max, who the hell was it? Did this mean he wasn’t responsible for everything else? Had I been completely wrong?

‘Are you sure Glynn Collins’s lady friend isn’t lying for him?’ I asked.

‘You can never be one hundred per cent,’ Snaith responded. ‘But she, Margaret, is the ex-wife of one of our retired chief inspectors. He told us she’s the most honest woman he’s ever met and there’s no way she’d protect a criminal. Also, Mr Collins has this app on his phone that records his sleep patterns.’

I nodded. Priya had used one of those.

‘He showed it to us. According to this app, he slept like a baby while Margaret tossed and turned beside him.’

‘Maybe he has someone helping him,’ I said. Even as the words came out I realised how desperate I sounded.

The two detectives exchanged a look. DC Hawkins spoke. ‘The two deaths you told us about, Malcolm Jones and Shirley Roberts. There’s nothing suspicious about either of them. Mr Jones was taking medication for a heart condition. It appears he forgot to take his tablets.’

That seemed strange to me, but I let her go on. ‘And by all accounts, Ms Roberts was inebriated when she left the wake. Those stairs are steep. I don’t want to pre-empt the coroner, but there’s nothing to indicate it wasn’t an accident.’