The Therapist(56)

Her choice of words jars slightly. It’s as if she wants me to know that she’s told Eve I know about Connor and Nina.

‘I hope you also told her about the two slices of cake we demolished.’

She grins. ‘That too.’

I look around for my glass, which I’d put down to go and answer the door. It’s on the table and I go to fetch it because the more time I spend with Eve and Tamsin, the more confused I feel. There always seems to be an undercurrent of something I can’t quite explain.

Still, it’s a fun evening. Connor and Will are the perfect foil for each other. Will tells jokes and stories with a nervous energy and Connor’s interventions are witty and ironic. He’s also surprisingly laid-back. Tim is quieter, and perfectly lovely, jumping up to help me fetch and clear plates, totally at home in my kitchen, which must be the same as theirs, because he doesn’t have to ask where anything is. It’s not possible that any of them murdered Nina, I think, and again feel ashamed that I could have thought that one of them might have. Connor catches my eye and looks steadily back at me, as if he’s read my mind and knows that my motive for inviting them tonight wasn’t just to be neighbourly. For some reason – maybe for that reason – I feel slightly afraid of him.

‘Tamsin said that you found out about Nina from a journalist,’ he says, and the conversations that had been going on around us comes to a sudden halt.

‘That’s right. I’d rather have heard it from Leo, then it wouldn’t have been such a shock when the reporter asked me what it was like living in a house where a murder had taken place,’ I say.

‘Why didn’t Leo tell you?’ Connor’s eyes are the same tawny colour, I notice, as his hair. If he were an animal, he would be a lion.

‘Because he knew that if he did, I wouldn’t want to live here and he really wanted this house. So, in a way, he did the right thing, because once I knew, it was too late to leave.’

‘Why?’ He’s curious, not aggressive.

‘Because I already felt invested in my life here. And I don’t like to give up easily.’

‘That’s good to know,’ he says, raising his glass towards me.

‘Well, we’re glad you’re still here, aren’t we, Will?’ Eve says.

‘Definitely. I can’t think of anyone better to replace Nina and Oliver than you and Leo.’

There it is again, the slightly awkward phrasing, this time from Will. Or is it just me being overly sensitive?

‘By the way, did you ever discover who the man was, the one who gate-crashed your party, pretending to be me?’ Tim asks.

‘He wasn’t really pretending to be you, I don’t think. He just used the fact that I thought he was you to get into the house. But no, I haven’t managed to find out who he was. I’d completely forgotten about him, to be honest.’

‘It’s strange nobody saw him,’ Tamsin muses.

‘I don’t think he stayed around long enough.’

‘Then what was the point of him coming along?’

I take a sip of wine to steady my nerves. ‘Your guess is as good as mine,’ I tell her.

She exchanges a smile with Eve that I don’t much like. Thankfully, Connor launches into a joke and everyone relaxes into the evening again.

I don’t know if it’s the effect of there being so many people in the house, but later, when I close the door behind them, the silence seems heavier than usual. I stack the dishwasher, unnerved by the memory of Leo’s clandestine visit. Why did he come? Was it to fetch something from the locked filing cabinet, something that he didn’t want me to see? Is that why he left in such a hurry?

I delay going to bed, annoyed that Leo’s secret visit has managed to destroy the relative peace of mind I’d managed to cultivate over the past few days. My dreams are a mix of him and Nina, and when I half-wake in the middle of the night, it’s Leo I sense standing at the foot of my bed, not her. I go back to sleep but suddenly find myself sitting bolt upright in the bed, trying frantically to catch on to something that had occurred to me as I slept, something to do with what Ginny had said about Leo having had an affair with Nina. And then I realise – the woman who had come to Harlestone, supposedly wanting to know what it was like to live in the village, had had long blond hair.





Twenty-Eight


I don’t want to disturb Leo’s weekend with Ginny and Mark but I’m desperate to speak to him about Nina Maxwell. My mind tells me that he couldn’t have known her but my heart wonders if that was why he wanted this house so much. The thought that he didn’t just know her, but had had an affair with her, won’t go away and a chill goes down my spine when I remember what Thomas said, about a murderer returning to the scene of the crime. I chase the thought quickly; Leo might have concealed the murder from me but he’s not a murderer.

I don’t want to disturb him at work either so I wait until the end of the afternoon to send him a text.

I need to speak to you, when is a good time?

Now, he replies, and my phone starts ringing.

His eagerness is unsettling. I’m not ready, I wanted to get my thoughts in order first.

‘How are you?’ he asks.

‘Fine. Did you have a good weekend?’

‘Yes, it was good to be with Ginny and Mark. What about you, how are you getting on staying in the house by yourself?’