The Therapist(85)

I gather my things together and put my case and handbag by the front door, ready to leave once I’ve seen Thomas. There’s a ring on the doorbell. I look up sharply; it’s too early for it to be him. What if it’s Eve? If it is, I won’t let her in. I can’t, not with Thomas due to arrive.

I latch the chain before opening the door.

‘Oh, hi,’ I say, unsettled to see Tim standing there. He’s dressed in his usual jeans and rugby shirt and I find myself wondering if he’s ever played rugby.

‘Hi, Alice, I thought I’d come over and see you myself,’ he says, giving me a smile. ‘Maria phoned to ask if I knew the name of Nina’s therapist, she said you were asking about him?’

‘Yes, but it doesn’t really matter.’

He looks relieved. ‘Oh good, because Nina never mentioned it to me.’ He pauses. ‘Maria said you’re leaving?’

‘That’s right, I am. Which is why I don’t have time to invite you in,’ I add, in case he’s wondering why I’ve speaking to him through the chain on the door. ‘I need to finish packing.’

He takes a step away from the door. ‘No worries, I need to get on myself. I’m sorry it didn’t work out, Alice. Hopefully we’ll see each other again.’

‘Thanks, Tim,’ I say. ‘I’m sure we will.’

I close the door behind him and go to the kitchen. I lean against the worktop, thinking about Nina helping Tim with his psychotherapy studies. I had presumed she helped him revise for exams, looked over his essays, that sort of thing. But what if it was more hands-on? What if the help she gave him was based on role-play, where she took the role of a client and Tim took the role of the therapist?

I push away from the worktop, feeling as if I’m on the brink of something. Could it be Tim who Nina saw on Wednesday afternoons, when Maria went to yoga with Eve and Tamsin, then on to pick up the children up from school? It would explain why she wouldn’t give Tamsin the name of her therapist, if it was Tim she was seeing.

I stop, disgusted with myself. Tamsin is right, I am a fantasist. But not a total one. I know, one hundred per cent, that someone has been getting into the house.

I go to the fridge to get some juice. As I close the door, my eyes, already looking towards my glass, swivel back to the fridge, caught by something that shouldn’t be there. They come to rest on a small, passport-sized photo stuck in the middle of all the other photos, and my heart doesn’t just miss a beat, it stops. For a moment, I can’t breathe. I know who it is in the photo, I just don’t want to believe it.

I run into the hall and take my mobile from my bag.

‘Thomas, are you on your way?’ I try to keep my voice calm but I can’t.

‘Yes, I’m not far. Why, what’s happened?’

‘I just found a photo of Nina on the fridge.’

‘Nina?’

‘Yes, Nina Maxwell. I knew this morning that someone had been in the kitchen but I couldn’t see anything different, I could sense it but I couldn’t see it, I was too far away,’ I say, my voice high with panic. ‘But just now, I was right up close to the fridge and there it was, stuck among the other photos. I don’t know what to do,’ I add breathlessly.

‘Have you touched it?’

‘No.’

‘Then don’t. I was just speaking to my contact in the police about Ben Forbes. You’re not going to believe what we discovered. We were right, there is a conspiracy.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It seems that not only did Ben Forbes sell the Maxwells their house, he’s also a friend of Tim Conway.’

I freeze. ‘He just came here,’ I say.

‘What? Tim Conway did? Why?’

‘Because I asked Maria to ask Tim if knew the name of Nina’s therapist and he came to tell me that he didn’t. But I’ve been thinking – what if he was the therapist that she was seeing? Her sessions were on Wednesday afternoons, Maria is at yoga on Wednesday afternoons. And Nina used to go to yoga, but she stopped four months before she died.’ I can hardly catch my breath.

Thomas’s voice is calm but urgent. ‘Alice, I’m going to hang up now. The police might arrive before me but I’ll be there as soon as I can. Until then, if anyone comes to the door, don’t let them in.’





Forty-Three


My mind spinning, I lock the front door from the inside, check that the chain is in place and hurry upstairs to Leo’s study to wait for Thomas. I’m trembling, shaken by the knowledge that Tim has been the one coming to the house at night. Everything points to it, including the way he was so at home in my kitchen the day he came to supper. He must have got a key to the French windows from Ben, then used the gap in the fence between ours and Edward’s to get into our garden – maybe there’s even a gap in the fence between his garden and Geoff’s to make things even easier.

The questions keep coming. Was Ben also involved? If Tim murdered Nina, was Ben his accomplice? And how much does Maria know? Is she completely innocent, or is she part of a conspiracy that includes Eve and Tamsin, even Will and Connor? Unless Ben murdered Nina. Maybe he became obsessed with her when he sold her and Oliver the house, and they had an affair. Did he kill Nina and then tell Tim what he had done? Is that when the cover-up started? Or has everyone been in it together from the start, wanting Nina killed for reasons of their own and setting up Oliver to take the blame?