Didn’t you? Jo demands, the voice in her head choked and snotty.
Jo feels a gentle hand on her arm. ‘Come on, Jo, you’re in shock. Let’s get you inside.’ Simon guides her up the drive, Jo’s gaze still fixed on where Will is standing. But, as she gets further away, he gives her one last glance before shaking his head, turning and walking off in the opposite direction, disappearing into the darkness.
Forty-Nine
Five Weeks Later
Jo pulls back her hair in her hand, securing a band around it – her smile broad as she heads down onto the expanse of beach, Spangle racing ahead. His barks are carried away on the warm breeze. She’s come in only a T-shirt and jeans, her feet in flip-flops, which she’ll kick off when they get down to the shore.
‘Come on, you,’ she calls back over her shoulder. Simon runs, catching up with her as he pulls his sweater off over his head.
‘Yes, ma’am,’ he says, looping his arm through hers as they continue walking.
‘I’m so glad you were able to take today off,’ she says.
‘Shame I can’t take all the days off,’ he says, winking. ‘I enjoy spending my time with you. While I can,’ he adds.
‘I never saw this coming, you know.’ For the first time in what seems like ages, Jo laughs. Of course, it feels unnatural, as if she shouldn’t, but she’s put her life on hold for far too long not to at least enjoy simple moments like this. A walk on the beach with Spangle and Simon – the two males who have made the biggest impression on her life lately. ‘And I never expected to stay on here. Just so you know.’
Jo knows that much of her grieving has already been done this last year – even if it was without knowing the full facts. All that time, she’d hung onto a shred of hope that Will would return. Now, a fresh round of devastation and grief has been triggered by his death – denial, disbelief, anger – made all the more painful in light of the betrayal. And it had been going on right under her nose. Hope had been her drug for so long; kept her going. These last few weeks, when she wakes up in the morning – those few blissful moments of numbness before her mind remembers, before it all comes flooding back – is when she wishes she didn’t know he was dead. That she still had that hope. She’s tried to explain to Simon that the not knowing where Will was now somehow seems preferable by comparison, even though she’d have once sworn the opposite.
‘You’re doing Suzanne a massive favour by staying on and house-sitting for a couple of months,’ Simon tells her.
‘It’s a favour for me, too,’ Jo adds. ‘I couldn’t go back home. Not yet.’
‘I know. And I’m enjoying you being here too,’ he adds, glancing at her as they walk on.
Jo smiles up at him. ‘Mum’s been at my place again to sort a few things, send some more stuff down that I’ll need. And she’s been amazing with…’ Jo trails off. It doesn’t feel right to divulge too much yet about her financial situation, that her parents were only too happy to support her through a sabbatical from Sew Perfect. Margot was completely understanding, even when Jo couldn’t bring herself to divulge too much about what had happened. They’d been discussing taking on another apprentice from Beth’s college anyway, so it seemed the ideal time to do that. Work was steady and Jo was still a partner in the business, promising to manage the online marketing side of things until she came home, work on some designs, too. Stepping straight back into real life after what she’d been through was the last thing she wanted. She didn’t think she could do it. Not yet. Her mother and father had come down to the South Coast several days after Will died, rallying round and taking care of practical issues – as well as helping financially.
‘It’s a loan, Dad,’ she’d said, staring at the amount received on her banking app. ‘I insist.’
‘Nonsense,’ her mother had chipped in. ‘Our girl is getting back on her feet. I’ve always told you that I’d be here for you, that we’d support you if…’ Elizabeth had thought better of airing her thoughts, had actually managed to bite her tongue on several occasions. And for that, Jo was grateful.
‘Now Will’s death is official…’ Jo’s eyes had stung with tears, as they did at every mention of his name. ‘Now it’s official, his insurance policy will pay out. I’ll be able to pay you back.’
‘Race you,’ Jo hears, snapping back to the present.
‘What? Wait… that’s not fair!’ She squeals, kicking off her flip-flops after a few paces of trying to run in them, charging after Simon who’s already nearly down by the shoreline, a stick in his hand that he lobs high in the air for Spangle. Jo catches up beside him, breathless and laughing, splashing through the foamy breakers as the tide creeps up the ridged sand. ‘Crazy man,’ she says, pulling on his T-shirt sleeve.
She stares up at him – and he gazes down at her. Their lips draw close for a kiss, each of them aware of Spangle yapping nearby as he chases the stick.
Jo suddenly squeals again, jumping backwards, her face flushed as she laughs. ‘I’m soaked,’ she says, looking down at her wet jeans. Simon is the same.
‘We’ll just have to strip off when we get back, then, won’t we?’ he says, grabbing hold of her again as they carry on walking, his arm slung around her waist.
It’s nearly an hour later, as they turn to head back towards the car park, Simon whistling for an exhausted Spangle to follow them, when Jo stops dead in her tracks. Her skin prickles with goosebumps, her eyes growing wide and blinking furiously, trying to focus, trying to make what she saw go away.
‘You OK?’ Simon asks, urging Jo to veer inland a little as the tide creeps up on them again.
Jo’s mouth opens though nothing comes out as she forces herself to see only the sand rising up to the dune, the sprouts of marram grass dotted about like a green fringe on the skyline. A couple of other dog walkers, two women, are the only other people in sight. She swears that’s the case. Blinks again just to make sure.
‘Yeah, yeah, I’m fine thanks. Just thought I saw… something,’ she says, smiling. ‘But I was mistaken. Very much mistaken,’ she adds, convincing herself there’s nothing but the sky and the sand stretching before her.
‘Suzanne,’ Jo says, answering her phone later. The animals are settled and the house is clean. She even managed to cut the grass today, though she was tired from the long walk. ‘How’s it going?’
‘Surely I should be asking you the same question?’
If Jo could see Suzanne’s face, she knows she would see a twinkle in her eye. Even though she’s only been at the clinic a few weeks, the change in her mood and demeanour is noticeable. And Suzanne has said as much; that the few sessions she’s had of EMDR therapy have already made a difference to her mood, her PTSD.
‘All is well here, so fear not. Spangle and Bonnie are fine. To be honest, I don’t know what I’d do without them right now.’ Jo laughs. ‘The painter came to do the front windows the other day. They look great. And I’ve forwarded some quotes for the plumbing jobs you want doing.’
‘Thanks, Jo. I really appreciate it. Though you know that’s not what I meant.’
Jo makes a noise down the phone. It’s as much as she can manage right now to show how she feels. ‘Honestly, everything’s good,’ she says, wanting to add ‘all things considered’. Since Suzanne asked her to stay on and house-sit for several months, she’s naturally become closer to Simon. ‘I’m just taking things slowly – in all respects. It’s all too… all too raw,’ she says, knowing she’ll understand. It’s almost as if Suzanne has stepped into the shoes that Louise left behind when she had her baby, when Suzanne’s mind flooded with memories that changed everything. The three of them in the room together. Bringing it all back. ‘But it’s good to spend more time with Simon,’ Jo adds, hearing a little sound of approval from Suzanne.
The night that Will was killed, Simon had walked her back up to the house, made her sweet tea and calmed her down. Jo’s lasting memory was of shaking – not simply her hands, arms and legs quivering, rather the very core of her tre
mbling, as though her soul had been rocked.
The truth was, it had.
And all she could hear at the time was the baby upstairs crying – as if its screams were inside her head, taunting her, getting louder and louder.
The baby that should have been hers and Will’s.
‘OK, Jo,’ Simon had said in the kitchen. ‘I want you to tell me exactly what happened. I’ll need to build a picture of what’s gone on here, and you’re a big part of that. You’re a key witness.’
Witness, Jo had thought, wondering how much of her life she’d actually witnessed lately or, as it currently felt, how much of it had been outside of her control, passing her by, how much she’d been blind to. She was still so confused.
‘Will,’ she began. ‘He went missing. My lovely husband. Gone. Can you imagine that?’ She’d drunk some tea then, taken time to compress all her feelings into a knot of despair, something no one could unpick. She sat staring blankly across the room. ‘But before that everything had already gone bad, worse than you can imagine, except neither of us wanted to admit it and still there was no baby, and then he disappeared and… and… and then I needed a holiday and Louise wasn’t well and I felt like such a bad friend and… I’ve not seen him in nearly a year, and now he’s dead.’
Through her teary eyes as she sobbed, she saw how confused Simon looked, but he allowed her to spew it out, to release what was clogged up in her head. Begin to make sense of it. He didn’t interrupt, waiting patiently for her, even though none of it was relevant to what had just happened – when Will had run out into the road as the ambulance came tearing around the blind bend. He needed to take a statement.
As Jo continued, she barely managed a few words about Louise before covering her face again, holding back the rage, leaving Simon to carve it out of her, piece by piece. A jumbled mess of emotions and facts that made no sense.
‘It’s so ironic,’ Jo remembers saying, wondering if the sweet tea he’d made for her contained whiskey. She felt herself relaxing slightly, loosening, as if her mind, thoughts and actions were betraying her. As though she was free-falling. ‘It’s so ironic that he was run over. After everything.’
She managed to bite her tongue then, not reveal anything to Simon about the hit and run. She’d done enough of that the other night. But it came out the next morning when she was alone with Suzanne, just as Jo was about to leave to go home. Her belongings were already packed up. Her coat was on.
‘It’s true,’ Suzanne had said yet again, sitting quietly on the sofa as Jo stood in the doorway. She seemed different today – calmer, the worry lines on her face more relaxed. At peace with herself, Jo had thought. ‘I do know you.’
After she’d given her statement last night, after all the officers had gone, Jo went next door and curled up on Simon’s sofa, not sleeping, simply staring at the ceiling unable to get the image of Will lying dead on the road out of her mind. Occasionally, Simon had checked in on her, brought her a glass of water, tea, whatever she wanted. She was waiting for it to get light before she faced the long drive home, even though she was dreading going back, seeing Will’s belongings and all the reminders of their life together in an entirely different light.
‘I know you,’ Suzanne said again, staring at her.
The previous night, a police liaison officer had stayed with them for several hours after statements had been made, after Louise had been taken away to hospital with her baby, Jo pinning herself back against the hallway wall, saying nothing as she was taken out in a wheelchair by the paramedics, her baby swaddled in her arms. And Louise hadn’t looked up or said anything to Jo as she’d passed. Kept her eyes down. She’d not heard from her since.
‘And I know I keep saying it,’ Suzanne continued. ‘But I’m really sure of that now. It’s all so clear. As though my brain has been in a permanent eclipse, but now that’s passed and the light has come back.’
‘And I know you too,’ Jo had replied quietly, not feeling real. She wanted to stall the truth coming out, freeze things as they stood, process the pain of the last twenty-four hours alone, in private. She thought, in time, she might just be able to cope with everything. Not ever get over it, but at least cope. Learning the details about Suzanne and Will’s relationship, on top of finding out about Will and Louise – that he must have been having two affairs – well, she wasn’t certain she could deal with that as well. Not yet.
‘I recognise you from a party,’ Jo found herself saying. She wanted Suzanne to know her side, but didn’t want the truth in return. ‘It was after the play you were in with Will last year, and I was there.’ She cleared her throat. ‘Though you still had your thick white make-up and wig on so until I saw you in the programme here, I didn’t realise it was you.’ She remembers how the queen, Suzanne, had shunned her that night, turned her back on her at the party, and also how Will had barely acknowledged her presence. What a fool she’d been. How they must have been laughing at her.
‘I know your friend, Louise, too,’ Suzanne had continued, as if she’d not even heard Jo. As if, by stating these things, she was simply putting her own mind in order, wanting to clear her own conscience. ‘And, of course, I know your husband…’ She’d taken a deep breath then, whereas Jo had held hers, bracing herself in the doorway.
‘I have his pictures everywhere, as you’ve seen. After the accident, after I’d lost certain memories surrounding that time, I knew Will meant something to me, but I had no idea what. So I printed out all the pictures I could find of him online in the hope they’d trigger memories if I left them around the house. But all it did was make me have these weird turns, these episodes. I had the first one when he came to visit me in hospital.’
Fifty
‘Will came to see you in hospital…?’ Jo asked, incredulous. She had no idea how he’d found the time to conduct not one but two affairs, let alone take the risk of visiting Suzanne after the hit and run. It was going back to the scene of the crime. What was he thinking? Why hadn’t he mentioned this?
‘Yes, he visited me after the accident to see how I was,’ Suzanne said. ‘Quite a few of the theatre company came to wish me well, though none had the same effect on me as Will. As soon as I set eyes on him, I was… I was flooded with strange feelings, flashbacks, shards of terrifying memories. And I didn’t remember him at all, you see, whereas I did all the others. I felt quite bad that he had to tell me his name, explain how we knew each other, especially when he said we’d worked together recently.’ Suzanne paused, took a deep breath. ‘But do you want to know the very first thing he said to me, before he even knew I had amnesia?’
Jo gave a tentative nod.
‘He said, “Suzanne, I beg you, please don’t tell my wife. Please, I’ll do anything”. I remember it all so clearly now.’
‘What?’ Jo said, walking slowly to the sofa. She sat down next to Suzanne. ‘You mean, he was begging you not to tell me about your affair with him, when you were in hospital?’
Suzanne shook her head, frowning. ‘What affair? You think… you think Will and I were having an affair?’
‘Well, yes. It’s obvious.’ Jo folded her arms, not quite able to believe how calm she was being with Suzanne. She wanted to scratch her eyes out but didn’t have the energy.
‘No, no, no… you’ve got that completely wrong, Jo. Hand on heart, there was nothing between me and your husband. I’m one hundred per cent certain of that.’ She paused, locking eyes with Jo, waiting for her to process the information. ‘That’s not to say he didn’t give me the opportunity, because he did. He had a bit of a reputation, you see. And he didn’t like being turned down, either. No, Will was begging me not to tell you about him and Louise, though I had no idea that’s what he meant when I was in hospital. I didn’t remember what I knew about them. As soon as I explained that I’d got amnesia – dissociative amnesia around a certain time, to be precise – then Will backtracked, kept quiet.
‘He asked me a few questions about my accident, what had happened, who ha
d done such a thing to me. When I explained it was a hit and run, that I had no idea who had been driving the car, he… well, I remember how his shoulders dropped, how he was almost trying to suppress a smile. After he’d gone, I wrote down his name, how we knew each other and later made a point of finding him online.
‘He set something off inside me during that visit, and I wanted to know what it was. I suspected it was a key to something, yet I didn’t know what. When I came home, I printed out the photos I’d found and, whenever I looked at them, I’d have another of my episodes, although they waned as time went on. As if I was desensitising myself to him. And then, when I saw you on Simon’s phone, when we face-timed and… and exactly the same thing happened, I knew I had to come home to meet you, to find out who you were. I felt it was my only chance of knowing the truth, of getting my mind back.’
Jo remained silent, taking it in, shuffling and reshuffling the jigsaw pieces in her own mind, still not seeing the full picture. There was so much she wanted to say, but she couldn’t find it in herself to even form a sentence.
‘I’ve sat here all night, you know, Jo, mulling things over. Since I saw you, Will and your friend, Louise, all in the same room together, well, it did something to me. It was the moment that the fog began to lift, as if my brain had suddenly allowed me access to memories that it had locked away. It feels as if I’ve been glued back together. And, when I followed the paramedics out of the house last night, when they were taking Louise to hospital, that’s when I saw the front of your car. You’d had it parked a different way round before. And I knew. I knew everything… all of it filtering back throughout the night, as if my mind was a cinema screen playing out missing time.’ Suzanne raises her hand, gesturing. ‘My consultant warned me that could happen, that a certain thread might suddenly be pulled that untied the knot of memories. Releasing everything. Putting me back to how I was. The trauma of the accident, the emotion of everything surrounding it – I’d blocked it all out. Bundled it all up together and packed it away. My brain trying to protect me but getting it wrong in the process. That’s the only way I can describe it.’
The Happy Couple: An absolutely unputdownable and gripping psychological thriller Page 28
