The Therapist(55)

‘Yes, of course, it’s lovely of you.’

‘I don’t want you to think we’re taking sides.’

‘I don’t. You said I could stay with you, remember?’

‘What about you, are you doing anything nice?’

‘I’m having Eve, Tamsin, Maria and their partners over for dinner. I’m doing a curry, nothing major.’

‘Sounds lovely.’

‘I have to go, I’m on the way back from the shops and it’s freezing. Let’s catch up after the weekend.’

‘Definitely! I’ll phone you on Monday.’

I start walking again, my mind going over my conversation with Tamsin. I can understand her relief now that she knows Connor didn’t have an affair with Nina, because it must have been terrible to have that hanging over her. But if she didn’t tell the police about Oliver’s habit of going to sit in the square to protect Connor, shouldn’t she be wracked with guilt? She didn’t seem to be so maybe she did tell the police and they dismissed it. Or it’s as I thought, and both conversations – the one I overheard yesterday and the one I had just now with Tamsin – have been fabricated for my benefit.

As I cut across the square to the house, I happen to look up, and see the blur of a face at the study window. My heart plummets. Leo must have come to get something before going to Ginny and Mark’s. I wish he’d mentioned in his voicemail that he was coming to the house. If he had, I’d have gone for another coffee so that I wouldn’t have to see him. I don’t want him putting pressure on me to let him come home.

I put my shopping down in the hall, expecting him to appear at the top of the stairs.

‘Leo!’ I call. There’s no answer so I go upstairs and push open the door to his study. It’s empty. I check the guest room, because it’s at the front of the house and maybe I got the wrong window, calling for him as I go. I stop in the doorway of our bedroom. It seems empty but there’s something in the air – the scent of his aftershave maybe – that tells me he was here. The bathroom door is ajar. I head towards it nervously.

‘Leo, are you there? You’d better not be hiding behind the door to scare me!’ I try to make my voice jokey but inside I’m shaking at the thought he might jump out at me.

I give the door a shove and it smashes back against the wall with a bang. The noise ricochets through the house, a gun being fired over and over again. Stupidly, I’ve managed to scare myself even more.

I hurry back through to the bedroom, coming to a momentary stop when I see that the framed photograph I keep on the chest of drawers, of me and Leo in Harlestone, has been laid face down. Pathetic! I think, as I go downstairs, the drumming of my feet igniting my anger at the stupid game he’s playing. He must have gone down to the kitchen as soon as he saw me walking across the square.

Gone completely, it seems, because there’s no sign of him anywhere. I can’t believe he actually left by the French windows and sneaked around the side of the house as I was going through the front door to avoid seeing me. But didn’t you want to avoid him? a voice asks. If you had known he was coming, you would have waited in a café until he’d left.

The voice calms my anger. It’s sobering to think that Leo doesn’t want to see me any more than I want to see him.

By seven-twenty everyone has arrived. Tamsin and Connor are the last; they had trouble getting the girls to bed before the babysitter arrived, Tamsin explains, giving me a kiss.

‘Until I tanned their wee hides,’ Connor growls.

I look nervously at him, wary of the scowl on his face.

Tamsin smiles. ‘Don’t worry, he’s joking.’

Connor leaves to go and talk to Will and Tim and I find myself thinking about Lorna. When I took the flowers around earlier, it was Edward who came to the door. I hoped he would invite me in, but he kept me on the doorstep, telling me that she was having a nap. Which means I’m still no nearer to knowing what she whispered, or if she whispered.

I mentioned in my text message to Tamsin and Maria that Leo wouldn’t be here tonight, so there are no awkward questions. Eve and Maria are in deep conversation and I leave Tamsin to join them while I get her and Connor drinks. I don’t usually make snap judgements but there’s something about Connor that makes me wary. I’m surprised that he and Tamsin are a couple. She’s beautiful, fragile, while there’s something almost brutish about him. He’s a big man, muscle not fat. It’s easy to imagine him overpowering someone.

‘You seem miles away.’ Connor’s eyes find mine and I realise he saw me watching him. I search for something to say.

‘I was just wondering why you didn’t ask for a whisky, given that your job revolves around it.’

‘That’s why I don’t drink it socially. I love whisky, but I drink too much of it for work purposes. Does Leo like whisky?’

‘Not really. He’s more a G&T man.’

I give him the beer he asked for and take a glass of wine to Tamsin.

‘Lovely,’ she says, taking it gratefully.

‘I’ll just go and say hello to Connor, otherwise he’ll think I’m ignoring him,’ Maria says.

Tamsin waits until she leaves. ‘I was telling Eve earlier about bumping into you this morning, and our subsequent chat,’ she says.