The Therapist(23)

It’s true that this is the most relaxed I’ve seen her. She was still wearing classic skirts and formal shirts at her fourth session. Today she’s wearing a pleated skirt that comes to just above her knee. Her hair is tied back, as usual, but if the last few sessions are anything to go by, it will soon be loose around her shoulders.

‘Excellent,’ I tell her. ‘I take it you’ve had a good couple of weeks?’

‘Yes.’ She raises a hand and pulls the elastic from her ponytail. ‘I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what we talked about last time,’ she says, swishing her head from side to side, settling her newly released hair around her shoulders.

I nod approvingly. It’s taken a while, but at our last session, she finally accepted that her husband is at the root of her problems and that the only way forward, if she is to gain some inner peace, is to leave him. I wait for her to expand.

‘You were going to speak to your husband,’ I prompt, when she doesn’t say anything. ‘Could that be the reason you’re feeling better?’

She nods. ‘We had a long discussion, and it made me realise something. He’s not the reason for my unhappiness.’

I stifle a sigh. It is not my place to show disappointment but it’s there, nonetheless. I draw my notepad towards me. ‘During our last session, you had concluded that he is,’ I say, consulting the notes I’d made. I pause. ‘You had also made the decision to leave him.’

‘I know. But everything’s different now. I’m not unhappy anymore. I don’t think I ever was, really.’

The sun is bright today, despite it being cold outside, and through the blinds, lines of light run across her face in perfect blocks.

‘I think we need to explore the reason for your change of heart.’

‘I think it’s just that I came to my senses.’ She smiles across at me. ‘And I have you to thank for that.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes. You said honesty was the best policy so I told Daniel how I felt – not that I wanted to leave him, but that I was unhappy – and he said that I wasn’t unhappy, I was bored. And I realised that he was right.’ She fiddles with the tiny silver J, which hangs from the clasp of the white-gold Omega watch on her wrist. ‘I’ve never thought about getting a job because financially, I haven’t needed to. It means I have too much time on my hands – too much time to think, too much time to focus on myself when I should be looking outwards, channelling my energy into helping others. Daniel suggested that I do some voluntary work and he’s already put me in touch with a couple of organisations.’ She laughs. ‘I told you he was perfect.’

‘That’s progress indeed,’ I say, smiling.

‘I guess I’m going to have to stop these sessions,’ she says. ‘I feel guilty for never having told Daniel about them and I’m not sure I really need them now. On the other hand, I don’t want to undo all the good work we’ve been doing by stopping abruptly.’ She looks at me anxiously. ‘What do you think?’

‘I think a few sessions of the relaxation therapy we discussed during our first session would be a good way of transitioning out of therapy. Is that something you think you’d like to consider?’

She nods happily. ‘Definitely. Relaxation therapy is something that Daniel will understand.’

‘Good.’ I hate losing clients when I’ve put so much work into them. I check the time on my watch and stand up. ‘We have time for one now, if you like.’





Twelve


‘Stay as long as you like,’ Will says the next morning, taking his plate and coffee cup from the breakfast bar and putting them into the dishwasher. ‘Just pull the door behind you when you leave.’

‘Thanks,’ I say gratefully.

‘Are we leaving together, Eve?’ he asks, pushing his shirt, which he’d been wearing loose for breakfast, into the waistband of his jeans. ‘Because I need to go now.’

Eve slides off her bar-stool and looks anxiously at me. ‘Are you sure you don’t want me to cancel my mum? She won’t mind.’

‘No, it’s fine, I need to think about what I’m going to say to Leo.’

‘Then yes, Will, I’m coming with you.’ She gives me a quick hug. ‘If you need me at all, just call. You have my mobile.’

‘And we’re both here this evening,’ Will adds, picking up his backpack.

‘Thank you. You’ve both been so kind.’

Eve hovers. ‘Will you be alright?’

‘I’ll be fine. I have work to do.’

But I’m too wound up to concentrate on the book I’m meant to be reading. And hurt. And insecure. For Leo to have lied to me, and about me, makes me wonder what else he might have hidden from me. I actually know very little of his life before we met. I know that he left home at eighteen because of his difficult family background and drifted from one low-paid job to another, until he realised that education was the answer to his problems. He studied hard and worked for a couple of investment management companies before setting himself up as a freelance consultant in risk management.

Needing something to do, I open my laptop and then pull out the business card Eve passed to me when she took me back to the house last night. I hold it tightly along the edges; the font is black in a block print: THOMAS GRAINGER. I type ‘Thomas Grainger, Private Investigator’ into my search engine, to see if he’s legit. To my surprise, he is. His website is professional and discreet and his offices are in Wimbledon. I put the address into my phone. With new motivation, I begin to research Nina Maxwell’s murder. I want to know everything there is to know although I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s my subconscious telling me I’ll feel better if I have all the facts. Something to do with feeling in control, instead of completely out of control.