The Therapist(60)

‘Still here?’ he calls over, looking at Eve in amusement. ‘I thought you were desperate for a run.’

‘I am.’ She starts to move off. ‘Bye, Alice!’

She jogs to meet Will at the bottom of the drive. They exchange a few words and she plants a kiss on his mouth before disappearing into the square. Will gives me a wave and follows at a more leisurely pace. I watch them go, acknowledging once again that the more time I spend with the people who knew Oliver and Nina, the more I feel that something is off. Eve said she knew that Leo was at the house yesterday because it’s hard not to see things in The Circle. Yet Nina had apparently had an affair for several months before she died and no-one, not one person, had seen someone going into her house more frequently than they should have. Which means that Nina either met up with him outside The Circle, or they were able to sneak into her house undetected – which points the finger right at Will. He’d have been able to come and go as he pleased, using the gap in the fence without fear of detection. Although Eve works from home, she goes for a run for at least an hour every morning, and spends every Thursday with her mum. If Will had wanted to, he had plenty of opportunities to go and see Nina while Eve was out.

It doesn’t take me long to accept that I am the sort of person who will snoop through her partner’s affairs. The key to the filing cabinet is an itch I can’t get rid of. I’ve tried to distract myself by keeping my head down and working, but by the time I break for lunch on Wednesday, I can’t ignore it any longer.

I take the key from the earthen pot and go up to Leo’s study. There’s no point unsticking the smaller key from the underside of the drawer in his desk if there’s nothing in the filing cabinet except client files. I unlock it; the first three drawers hold exactly that – a neat row of client files lying snugly in their hammocks. I bend to open the bottom drawer and when I see that it contains client files too – not as many as the first three, because they’re pushed to the back, leaving room at the front for new files – I begin to feel a bit foolish.

And ashamed. I sit down on the floor, embarrassed that a part of me had actually wanted to find something. But I need something more, because if I’m to leave Leo, I’m worried that his lie of omission, plus his lie about me – both of which have changed the way I feel about him – won’t be accepted as a good enough reason, not just by Leo but by others I care about, like Ginny, Mark and Debbie. In their eyes, maybe those lies aren’t so great. I still care for Leo but the trust has gone. I told him, the day we spoke about my friend, that if I couldn’t trust him, I couldn’t be with him. He knew, yet he still took the risk.

The bottom drawer is still open and, disheartened, I give it a shove to close it. Something shoots out from under the files; I just have time to see it before the drawer slams shut, pulling it back underneath. My heart in my mouth, I crouch down, open the drawer and reach in under the hammocks. My fingers touch something solid. I pull it towards me, expecting a book, a desk diary maybe. What I get is a black metal cash box.

I stare at it. Apart from the colour – I had imagined it red, like the one I had as a teenager – it’s exactly the sort of box I’d imagined the key fitting. And then I remember the nightmare I had, how the box had been black, just like this one, and how what I saw inside had caused me to scream – a scream that had been silenced by a hand over my mouth. I scramble to my feet and look nervously towards the door. Voices reach me from the road outside, a parent speaking, a child laughing in response. They calm me; it’s the middle of the day, there are people around, nothing bad is going to happen if I open the box now, in broad daylight.

I unstick the tiny key from the underside of the drawer in Leo’s desk, telling myself that it might not fit the lock anyway. When I lift the box from the filing cabinet, I’m surprised at how light it is. I move it a little and something slumps against the side, a small book, a diary or journal maybe. My heart thumps, Nina heavily on my mind.

I place the box on the desk and insert the key. It fits. I turn it and lift open the lid.

At first, I think it is a diary. But it isn’t, it’s a passport, one of the old blue ones that are no longer valid. I feel a rush of adrenalin. Was this Nina’s? I pick it up gingerly, my fingers already shaking, because why would Leo have Nina’s passport? I turn to the page where the photograph is, and forget to breathe. Taken twenty years earlier, yet instantly recognisable, it’s not a photo of Nina, but of Leo. And then I see the name, and once again, the world I thought I knew crumbles around me. The passport is in the name of Leo Carter, not Leo Curtis.

I grope behind me for the chair and sit down, vaguely aware of someone ringing on the doorbell. Why would Leo tell me his surname is Curtis when in fact it’s Carter? I remember then, the way he looked as if he was about to pass out, the day I confronted him about the murder, when I asked him who he was. I had meant – who was he that he could lie to me? But he must have thought I’d discovered his true identity.

The doorbell rings again, sending panic surging through me, because Leo must have noticed that the key has gone from his wallet and has worked out that I’ve got it. I jump to my feet; what am I going to say to him about why I took it? And then I realise – if he has a passport in a different name, he must have something to hide, something far worse than sneaking a key from a wallet.