The Therapist(25)

‘What’s almost worse is that you lied about me, not just to me.’

‘What do you mean?’ he mumbles.

‘You insinuated to Ben that I was fine about living here, because it meant that I could keep my cottage in Harlestone.’

He stares at me for so long that I think he’s going to deny it, or tell me that Ben misunderstood. After what seems an eternity, he pulls out the chair he’s been holding onto, and sinks onto it.

‘I’m sorry.’ The relief on his face tells me he’s glad it’s out in the open.

‘What were you thinking? Were you hoping that I wouldn’t find out?’

He studies his hands. ‘No, I knew you would. I was hoping that you wouldn’t before I could tell you.’

‘And when were you going to tell me?’

‘I – I just wanted you to be a bit more settled here.’

‘Why?’

‘So that you’d find it harder to leave. It’s why I didn’t tell you before I bought the house. I knew you would refuse to live here and—’ he raises his eyes to mine, ‘I really wanted to.’

‘So much that you were willing to overlook that a woman had died here?’

‘It’s not the same house, Alice. It’s been redecorated and renovated, and I’ve changed the layout upstairs.’

I slam my hand down on the table. ‘It’s exactly the same house! I don’t understand how you can’t see that! It’s still the house where a murder took place!’

He gives a helpless shrug, which does nothing to calm me. ‘Then maybe it’s just that I’m able to live with that. I know it might sound callous, but it doesn’t really bother me. And I remember you saying once, when someone pointed out that people must have died in your cottage, given that it’s two hundred years old, that it wouldn’t bother you if they had.’

‘There’s a huge difference between someone dying peacefully in their bed of old age and being brutally murdered at thirty-eight years old!’

‘We can’t always know the history of the houses we live in. Somebody might have been murdered in the cottage in Harlestone.’

I hate that he has a point.

‘I mean, if somebody phoned you tomorrow, and said, “Hey, I’ve just discovered that fifty years ago, somebody was murdered in your cottage”, would you leave immediately and never spend another day there?’

I hesitate. I love my cottage. Noticing, he leans forward.

‘You would still stay there, wouldn’t you? You wouldn’t sell up.’

‘Yes, actually, I would. I’d put it on the market. Even fifty years is too close.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ he says, rubbing his face with his hands.

My anger flares again. ‘Since when has this become about me? And since when have you started not believing me? I’m not the one in the wrong, Leo, you are!’

‘I know, and I’m sorry.’ He reaches for my hand but I move it away.

‘What must people have thought on Saturday, when I offered to take them upstairs to see the changes we’d made? They thought I knew about the murder.’

‘I never expected you to show people around.’

‘That’s why you didn’t want to have people over, isn’t it?’ I stand up, needing to put distance between us. ‘You were worried someone would mention what had happened here.’ I move to the other side of the kitchen and lean against the worktop. ‘I don’t understand, I don’t understand how you thought you could get away with it.’

He opens his hands, pleading with me to understand. ‘I wasn’t trying to get away with it. I was going to tell you, as soon as the time was right.’

‘And until then, you didn’t mind people thinking I was a callous bitch.’

‘I’m sure no-one thought that.’

‘Tamsin did.’

‘The redhead?’

‘Yes. I overheard her say that she couldn’t believe it didn’t bother me. I had no idea what she was talking about. Now I do.’

He sighs. ‘What do you want to do?’

I grab a cloth and start wiping the worktop, which is already clean. ‘I can’t stay here, not now.’

‘We could go and stay in a hotel for few days.’

‘And then what? Come back here and pretend the murder never happened?’

He flinches. ‘Not that it never happened, no. But maybe accept that it happened, and move on. I think you should give the house a chance, Alice.’

I stop wiping and turn to look at him. ‘What do you mean?’

He leans forward, fixing me with his eyes. ‘Make new memories for it. Be happy here.’

Resentment bursts out of me. ‘Be happy here? How can I?’ I throw the cloth angrily into the white enamel sink. ‘She was called Nina, Leo!’

‘I know, and that’s another reason I hesitated about telling you.’ His voice, quiet and reasonable, is designed to calm me. ‘I was worried that, just when you’d decided to try and let go of the past by leaving Harlestone, it would bring everything back. You’ve done so well by actually agreeing to move here. Can’t we build on that?’ He waits for me to speak but I can’t because what he said about making new memories for the house has struck a chord. He rubs at his face again. ‘What do you want to do? Do you want to go back to Harlestone? Do you want me to put this house up for sale and rent a flat in London while I wait for it to be sold? Because that’s what I’d have to do. I couldn’t take all that travelling from Harlestone to Birmingham each day so I’d have to live in London during the week and see you at the weekends – sometimes, occasionally, just like we did before we moved here. Is that what you want?’