In a Dark, Dark Wood(90)

She turns and looks, and then at last I let my knees give way, and I kneel on the cold, snow-wet tarmac, and I don’t have to run any more.

‘Nora!’ I hear through the fog. ‘Nora! Christ, are you hurt? Are you hurt, Nora?’

But I can’t find the words to reply. Lamarr is running towards me, and I feel her strong hands beneath my armpits as I collapse onto the road, holding me, lowering me slowly to the ground.

It’s over. It’s all over.





34


‘NORA.’ THE VOICE is gentle but insistent, tangling in my confused, restless sleep like a hook, dragging me back to reality. I know the voice. Who is it? Not Nina. It’s too low for Nina. ‘Nora,’ the voice says again.

I open my eyes.

It’s Lamarr. She is sitting on the chair at the edge of my bed, her dark eyes wide and bright, her shiny hair smoothed back from her sculpted forehead.

‘How are you feeling?’

I struggle up against the covers, and notice that she’s wearing a neck brace – incongruous against her silk tunic.

‘I came past yesterday,’ she says, ‘but they shooed me away.’

‘Are you in the hospital too?’ I croak. She passes me water, and I gulp it gratefully. She shakes her head, her heavy gold earrings swaying gently.

‘No. Walking wounded – I got sent home from Casualty yesterday morning. Good thing really, my kids hate me being away overnight. The littlest one is only four.’

She has children? This information feels like a peace offering. Something in our relationship has changed.

‘Am I—’ I manage, and then swallow and start again. ‘Is it over?’

‘You’re OK,’ Lamarr says, ‘if that’s what you mean. And as for the case, we’re not looking for anyone other than Clare in connection with James’s death.’

‘How’s Flo?’

I’m not sure if I imagine it, but it feels like a shadow flits across Lamarr’s face. I can’t put my finger on what changes, her expression is as smooth and calm as before, but there’s suddenly a presence in the little room, a dread.

‘She’s … holding on,’ Lamarr says at last.

‘Can I see her?’

Lamarr shakes her head. ‘She’s … she’s with her family. The doctors aren’t permitting any visitors right now.’

‘Have you seen her?’

‘Yesterday, yes.’

‘So she’s worse today?’

‘I didn’t say that,’ Lamarr says, but her eyes are troubled. I know what she is not saying. I know what she’s skirting round. I remember Nina’s words about paracetamol overdoses, and I know that the destructive ripples from Clare’s actions have not yet stopped, even now.

Of everything Clare did, I think that was the cruellest. What she did to James, what she tried to do to me, at least she had a reason. But Flo – Flo’s only crime was loving Clare.

I don’t know when Flo began to realise the truth – when she started to put two and two together about the text Clare asked her to send from my phone when I arrived at the house. It was innocent enough: James, it’s me, Leo. Leo Shaw. I don’t know what Clare told her – something silly, I expect. A hen-night prank.

The first inklings were probably when Nina spilled the beans about my past with James; perhaps she began to wonder why Clare, of all people, would want to stir things up again. Then when Lamarr started asking questions about phones … and texts … she must have realised that something was wrong.

I don’t suppose she guessed the truth – or not at first. She tried to see Clare in the hospital, but they wouldn’t let her. Clare was too ill, and the police weren’t keen on the witnesses at the B&B visiting the hospital anyway; Nina said she’d had to fight like a tiger to see me, and then only after they’d gone over her statement a hundred times. And Clare at that stage was still feigning confusion and semi-consciousness, waiting to see what transpired with me and Lamarr, I suppose, before ‘waking up’.

No. Flo stayed at the B&B, fretting, and wondering, and unable to ask Clare about what to say. She lied. She tripped herself up in her lies. She wondered what she’d done, what she’d set in motion. She started to doubt Clare’s motives. She got desperate.

‘Do you know?’ I ask, swallowing hard, trying to push away the thoughts of Flo lying somewhere up the corridor, struggling for life. ‘Do you know what happened? Did Clare tell you?’

‘Clare’s too ill to answer questions,’ Lamarr says grimly. ‘At least that’s what her lawyer says. But we’ve got enough to piece the case together. Between what you told us, the tox report on the drugs Clare gave you and, most importantly, Flo’s statement, we’ve got enough. She never did phone the ambulance, you know.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘From the house. When James died. There was no record of her ever trying 999. That should have tipped us off, but we were too busy looking elsewhere.’ She sighs. ‘We’ll need to take a formal statement of course, when you’re well enough. But we can worry about that another day.’

‘I thought it was Flo,’ I say at last. ‘When I found Clare’s jacket, with the shell in it. I thought it was Flo’s jacket. I thought she’d changed the shells. I just couldn’t work out why Clare would do such a thing – she finally had what she wanted, the perfect life, the perfect fiancé. Why would she throw that all away? It was only when I thought about the text, really thought about it, I realised: James never called me Lee. She didn’t make that mistake twice. But I should have realised.’