by K. L. Slater
I snatch up my bag and rush to the door, almost colliding with Dana Sewell, who is on her way in.
‘Juliet, are you rushing off? I wondered if you had time for another short therapy session before Maddy’s interview.’
‘I can’t, not right now. Sorry.’ I slide past her and rush down the corridor towards the foyer, my head spinning.
Figures fly through my mind. The thousands of pounds that have already been paid to the overseas suppliers for the Van Dyke order. The clothes we’ve commissioned are specific to their company, brightly coloured with their distinctive logo on pockets and lapels. We’ve no chance of selling them on to other customers if Van Dyke bail.
If the situation can’t be rescued, InsideOut4Kids is finished.
I barrel clumsily towards the main doors. I need air. Space. I need… Tom. Need to tell him everything so that he in turn can find Beth and sort it all out before we lose another minute.
Soon it will be time for Maddy’s interview and I need to bring my focus back to that.
A group of people are standing outside, a little way from the reception area, and I spot DS March among them.
She’s laughing, joking with her colleagues, and I remember with a jolt that this is just her job. She goes home at the end of the day and thinks about things like what to have for dinner, or what to watch on television.
Instead of walking past the group to the small patch of grass with a wooden seat on it, I turn right and stand behind a short row of conifers: judging by the cigarette ends littering the floor, it’s the preferred smokers’ spot. I’ll wait here, shielded from prying eyes, until they’ve gone back inside.
A silver car reversing into a parking space catches my eye, and I realise with a start that it’s Tom.
Relieved that he’s back at last, I step forward out of the shadow of the conifers, ready to rush over to him and blurt out my nightmare hacking discovery. But as the car stops and I glance at the passenger window, my feet root themselves to the spot.
I literally can’t move. Every part of me freezes as my brain struggles to make the necessary connections.
Tom twists around in his seat and I see that his face is distorted with temper. He’s jabbing with his index finger and baring his teeth as he spits out words like they’ll choke him if he doesn’t get rid of them.
My gaze turns back to his passenger, and I stare for a moment, trying to make sense of what I’m seeing.
But my eyes aren’t deceiving me. The passenger is Chloe.
My husband and my sister are having what looks remarkably like a lovers’ tiff.
Fifty-Two
I turn on my heel and scuttle back towards the building. My quick movement catches DS March’s eye and she calls out to me.
‘Juliet? Is everything all right?’
I ignore her and keep going, issuing an urgent gesture to the busy receptionist to buzz me through. She frowns at the intrusion to her phone call, but does so anyway.
I pull frantically at the door and it opens just in time for me to bump into Dana again, this time literally. She rubs her shoulder, takes a step back and studies me.
‘Is everything OK, Juliet?’
‘No, it’s not.’ I swallow, stepping forward and letting the door swing shut behind me. ‘Everything is really shit, actually. Sorry, I…’
I inch past her and scurry towards the bathroom at the far end of the corridor.
‘Juliet, wait!’
I hear Dana’s heels clipping on the hardwood floor behind me. I squeeze my eyes shut and steel myself before turning to face her.
‘Sorry, Dana, I just need a minute. I’ve had a bit of a shock. And I’m racking my brains to think how I can help Maddy, but… Is there any way you can help me? Find out who went to Bessie’s house regularly… anything?’
‘I think the police have already looked into that, Juliet.’ Dana pulls a sympathetic face.
‘An old lady has to have some help: a carer or a gardener… Someone must know something. Someone must have seen something,’ I say.
To my horror, the tears begin to flow.
‘Come on. In here.’ She takes my arm gently and steers me into an office on the left. I stiffen, starting to resist, but the relief of having a quiet, private space seems to open my emotional floodgates.
I feel Dana’s firm hands on my shoulders, pressing me into a seat, and I sink heavily into a low comfy chair. I accept the tissue she hands me, allow my handbag to be set aside. I feel like there’s no fight left in me.
Through the tissue I’m holding up to my face, I see a glass of water materialise on the low table. Then Dana’s crossed lower legs appear as she takes a seat opposite.
Someone else with an ordinary, normal life. A life I used to have, that I used to despair of at times, sick of the banality of my routine.
It’s getting embarrassing now. The tears just won’t seem to stop. I’ve been doing so well, swallowing it all down, and now…
‘Let yourself be helped, Juliet,’ Dana says softly. ‘You can let go in this safe space. Just you and me; nobody else knows we’re here.’
She seems to get it so well.
‘I’m in no rush. If you want to, you can just let it all out, in your own time. Nobody will judge you, but if you keep blocking yourself like this, you’re going to make yourself ill. I think you must feel that’s true.’
I do feel it, feel the madness. Like I’m teetering on the edge of a sheer cliff.
But instead of feeling fear, there’s a huge part of me right now that wants to just jump and make it all go away.
I open my mouth and everything comes pouring out. Not just my fears about Maddy, but about my husband, too.
* * *
‘And this all happened just now?’ Dana says gently once I’ve finished. ‘In the car park?’
I nod, blowing my nose. ‘They’re probably already inside the building, ignoring each other again, pretending they have no connection at all.’
That’s the rub. My husband and sister have never been the best of friends, communicating mostly via me or because of me. But the last few weeks I’ve had the distinct feeling they’ve almost been avoiding each other. Like in the family room when Chloe didn’t even look up when Tom came in.
Yet it seems they’ve been seeing each other, or else why would they be in our car together?
Tom has always seemed to give Chloe distance, nothing much to say to her. But he had an awful lot to say just now in the car. The emotion looked very heated. Too heated to be a simple disagreement. It had a history behind it, if that makes sense.
Chloe’s lack of focus and interest in the business is suddenly making more sense. She’s had her head turned in other ways.
‘Juliet. Have you considered facing up to this?’ I hear Dana say. ‘Tom and Chloe are both here. Why not speak your mind, for once? Instead of dismissing your feelings, air them. Feel the difference it makes to accept that you’re angry and upset instead of trying to pretend everything is all right.’
Something about what she has just said prompts the most awful, terrifying thought to cross my mind. What if… No. I can’t even articulate it. But the idea lingers in my mind like poisonous gas.
What if Tom and Chloe have conspired to ruin me? Between them they know everything there is to know; enough to ruin the business and send me crashing. So they can be together.
As soon as I give the idea air, I can’t stop the rush.
‘I don’t know how long this has been going on.’ I look at Dana. ‘I haven’t a clue how long they’ve been having an affair. It could be weeks, months, even years. I’ve been so absorbed in the business, it would have been the easiest thing in the world for Tom to have an affair. Maybe he’s had several; I wouldn’t know.’
I couldn’t bring myself to spare time to check on my husband and my daughter when there were InsideOut4Kids adverts to place, stock to unpack, emails to answer.
I’ve probably been happier the last couple of years than I’ve been in my
life, building the all-consuming business that means I haven’t the time or inclination to think about anything uncomfortable.
I haven’t read Maddy or Josh a bedtime story for months; Tom and I haven’t had a dress-up date night for the best part of a year. I’ve avoided so many people on a social basis: the mums at school, my sister, my parents. It’s just been so easy to immerse myself in work as if it’s the only thing that really matters.
Dana is still watching me as the cogs in my head race around, waiting patiently for me to continue.
‘What if Tom and Chloe have tried to ruin the business to send me over the edge?’ I say. ‘I haven’t noticed how stressed I am, but Tom has. He knows the business is everything to me.’
‘Why would he want to send you over the edge?’ Dana reflects my own words back at me, and I hear how melodramatic they sound.
‘So they can be together! Chloe is the only person other than me and Beth who knows the password to the business email account. I can’t believe it’s never occurred to me before.’ I laugh bitterly at my own naïvety. ‘Letting the insurance policy lapse, failing to run a regular back-up of our computerised systems. It all makes perfect sense if you want to ruin someone, doesn’t it?’
I sit back and wait for Dana’s response, daring her to deny the evidence. I find it irritating how she always seems to reach for a more palatable explanation, even when the facts are so glaringly obvious.
The realisation that everything I’ve just said fits together feels as satisfying as it does devastating. I’ve finally worked it out.
‘Now that you’ve come to this conclusion, what are you going to do about it?’ she asks.
The fury drains from me and is replaced with an empty feeling, a buzzing in my head.
There’s a tap at the door and we both glance up as it opens.
‘There you are, Jules! We’ve been looking everywhere for you,’ Tom says.
Chloe stands behind him, tapping away on her phone.
Dana gets up and walks over to the door.
‘I’ll give you all a few minutes’ privacy,’ she says, and looks at me meaningfully.
I take a breath, sit a little straighter and fix my gaze on my husband. He’s pale and handsome, and I’ve only just noticed that he’s lost weight in his face.
‘I need to speak to you both,’ I say. ‘Right now.’
Fifty-Three
The juvenile centre
Dana Sewell glanced at Chloe as she passed, but she didn’t say a word.
Chloe would dearly have liked to wipe the smug, self-satisfied look from the interfering woman’s sly, freckle-filled face. Dana seemed to think she knew what was best for everyone here, particularly Juliet, who she’d clearly taken a shine to.
Well, Juliet might have fallen for her therapist’s claptrap, but she certainly hadn’t.
Chloe was too immersed in the real world, had been plunged into it without warning and it had been like being dunked suddenly in ice-cold water. Her problems were too entrenched to be solved by a shallow heart-to-heart with Dana Sewell.
It had been Tom’s idea to come straight inside from the car park and tell Juliet the truth. Especially since her mum and dad knew everything now.
Chloe herself had actually thought long and hard about coming clean to Juliet for a few months now, and never more so than over the last couple of days. But now the moment had arrived, she couldn’t help thinking they were far better leaving it until after this mess with the police was sorted out.
Her sister seemed fragile, distracted for obvious reasons. Chloe’s own daughter was in this mess too, but Chloe took comfort from the support around her. Juliet seemed push people away, to retreat into herself and shun any efforts to bring her into the fold.
Chloe sat opposite her sister and made her best attempt at a smile, but Juliet stared right through her. She looked like a spooked cat ready to dart at the first opportunity. Tom shut the door and sat down next to his wife.
Juliet folded her arms. Her foot jiggled and she chewed at the inside of her cheek. She’d done that since being a little kid, Chloe remembered. It was her way of trying to settle her nerves when something was on her mind.
Well, she wasn’t the only one who felt sick with nerves at what was about to come out.
Tom coughed and reached for Juliet’s hand, but she snatched it away.
‘Juliet, I know you want to talk to us, but there’s something we need to tell you,’ Tom said gently. ‘Please know this isn’t easy. We’ve been waiting for the right time, but… well, I’ve finally realised there is no right time.’
‘Have you both considered that perhaps I already know?’ Juliet’s punchy retort surprised Chloe. She glared at them both in turn. ‘Maybe I know all about what’s been happening. Maybe there’s just a slight chance I’m not quite as stupid and blind as you both obviously think I am.’
Tom shot Chloe a look and Juliet saw it.
‘No use batting your eyes at her now, Tom. She can’t help you wriggle out of this.’ She unfolded her arms and squeezed her hands into fists. ‘I saw you both. Out there in the car park together. I—’
‘Juliet, you’ve got this all wrong.’ Tom shook his head.
Chloe sighed. ‘We haven’t—’
‘Shut your mouth!’ Her screech was shocking in the small space. It reverberated around the room.
Chloe fell silent. This was not going to plan.
‘You’ll both listen to me whether you like it or not,’ Juliet continued. ‘I saw you arguing with her in the car, Tom. It was quite obviously an intimate falling-out, a lovers’ tiff. And do you know what? It was almost a relief to witness it, because suddenly everything that’s been baffling me now makes perfect sense!’
She threw back her head and gave a hard, hacking laugh that sounded manic in the confined space.
‘You with your supposed after-work meetings,’ she said scornfully before turning to Chloe. ‘And you, always on your phone texting, always something more important to do than your actual job.’
Nobody spoke.
‘So you see, you don’t really need to tell me anything at all. I worked it out for myself.’ Her eyes watered.
‘Juliet,’ Tom said quietly. ‘You’ve had your say, and now you need to listen.’
‘I don’t need to do anything.’ Juliet stood up. ‘At this precise moment, the only thing I need is not to breathe the same air as you two.’
She stepped forward and Tom rose, blocking her path.
‘Juliet, you’re mistaken. Chloe and I are not having an affair. I swear it on Maddy’s life.’
‘Don’t you dare bring our daughter into this!’ She raised her fists and Tom grabbed her forearms as she moved to hammer at him.
The door flew open and Joan walked into the room, Ray at her shoulder.
Fifty-Four
‘Maybe you should go and get yourself a coffee or something,’ Joan suggested to Chloe. Her voice had assumed the warning tone they all knew so well. The warning tone that translated within their family as: Make yourself scarce, I’ll deal with this.
‘I don’t want a coffee,’ Chloe snapped.
‘It’s no use you getting yourself all upset over something that can’t be changed,’ her mother said firmly. ‘If Juliet continues to insist on discussing it, then let us sort it out.’
Tom slapped his hand over his eyes.
‘What the hell are you talking about?’ Juliet’s face was pale and furious. ‘Am I going mad or are you all keeping something from me?’
Joan’s face hardened.
‘If we are, then it’s for your own good. There are more important things to worry about than family secrets. Your daughter is close to being charged with manslaughter.’
‘We all need to talk, Mum,’ Chloe said quietly.
‘Somebody needs to start talking, I know that much,’ Juliet snapped. ‘Tom? Chloe? Anybody!’
Joan turned on her. ‘What do I need to talk to you for? Corey would have been twenty-one now. Do
you ever think about that?’
Juliet looked down at her hands.
‘I think about it most days, Mum. If I could go back in time, I’d do anything to save my brother. I loved him so much. But people make mistakes. Sometimes really bad ones.’
‘She’s right, Mum.’ Chloe sat a little straighter. ‘People do make mistakes, but that doesn’t mean they deserve to be vilified all their lives by their own family.’
‘I think you’ve said enough.’ Joan glared at her.
‘Dad?’ Chloe looked at Ray.
‘Joan, I adore you and I always will, you know that. But we’ve not always done right by our girls. You have to admit that’s true now.’
‘For the love of God, just tell me!’ Juliet hissed behind bared teeth.
Joan made a small sound in her throat, like a tiny suppressed cry.
But Ray continued.
‘I’d like to get to a place where we can finally be honest. See things straight. What do you say, love?’
Joan’s pale face contrasted starkly with her dyed black hair. She cleared her throat and assumed a harsh, guttural tone. ‘Don’t you dare, Ray. Don’t say something you might regret.’
‘Look where that attitude has got us, eh?’ He reached for her hand. ‘Don’t be afraid, love, we can sort this out. We can. It’s not too late.’
‘What?’ Juliet demanded. ‘What’s not too late?’
‘Ray… I’m warning you.’ Joan looked wild, feral even. She flexed her fingers wide then screwed her hands into tight fists. ‘You’re out of order. I want to go home right now.’
Tom finally spoke up. ‘If someone doesn’t tell Juliet, I’m going to tell her myself right now.’
Chloe shifted to the edge of her chair and looked hard at her sister. It was time.
‘Juliet, it wasn’t you who was responsible for Corey’s accident. It was me.’
The words bobbed in a sea of silence and seemed to sit there for a moment, for them all to finally hear, to feel, to touch.
