Fran yanked her arm away. ‘Don’t you tell me what to do,’ she seethed, turning on him. ‘You might employ me, but what I do in my own time is my business. You’re no better than her,’ she flailed a hand in Emily’s direction, ‘looking down your nose, thinking you’re better than me.’
‘Fran, you need to stop this.’ His face visibly paling, Jake moved back towards her, trying to reason with her. Edward and Joyce joined him after a second, and all three of them attempted to steer her gently towards a chair.
‘Don’t you touch me!’ Again Fran pulled away, dragging derisory eyes over Jake. ‘You’re no better than him either. Peas in a pod, the pair of you.’ Her lip curling in contempt, she looked from him to Tom. ‘Impressing deluded, gullible women with your good looks and your charming smile. Imagining everyone’s blind to what you’re up to, including your own wife!’
‘Jesus.’ Massaging his forehead agitatedly, Jake backed away.
‘Did you know he’s having an affair with someone young enough to be his daughter?’ Fran went on bitterly, her eyes swivelling again from Jake to Tom, causing Emily’s heart to jolt. Who was she talking about?
‘Ask him,’ Fran growled over the stunned silence. ‘Go on, ask him. I’m only surprised he hasn’t tried to chat up his own—’
‘Come on, lovely.’ Edward wrapped an arm around her shoulders. ‘I think you might have had a drop too much of the old sauce. Come and have a little sit down,’ he suggested kindly. ‘Less said, soonest mended, hey?’
‘Don’t you bloody well start with your do-gooding, pillar-of-the-community bullshit,’ Fran seethed, pulling away from him too.
‘Oh dear.’ Eyeing Jake in quiet despair, Edward shook his head.
‘You’re nothing of the sort, are you, Ed?’ Fran went on. ‘You’re just the same as them, pulling the wool over people’s eyes, hiding who you really are behind that amiable smile of yours.’
‘That’s enough, Fran.’ Finding his voice, Tom stepped angrily towards her.
‘He’s a thief!’ Fran exploded. ‘A thief and a liar!’ she went on, spitting venom as Tom caught hold of her arms. ‘Collecting the football club fees, taking people’s money at events he’s organised supposedly to plough back into the community. Lies, all of it! Half of it goes into your pocket, doesn’t it, Ed?’
Edward said nothing, as she eyeballed him accusingly. The colour draining from his ruddy cheeks, he simply looked at her for a second, and then dropped his gaze and turned away. The silence was so profound you could hear a pin drop as, avoiding the astonished gaze of his neighbours, he walked silently towards the door.
Trembling, Emily looked disbelievingly towards Fran. It was her. She’d been doing this. Destroying people. Driving them to the edge of despair, with no thought or feeling for the devastating consequences. Her heart banging as the whispers began to ripple around her, she looked towards where Edward had disappeared through the exit door, and then went after him.
Thirty-Six
Frantically Emily scoured the road back into the centre of the village. She breathed out a huge sigh of relief when she spotted Edward sitting on the bench overlooking the river. His hands resting on his knees, his shoulders slumped, he was gazing out over the water; seeing nothing but his world crashing around him, she imagined, supposing any of what Fran had said was true. Judging by his reaction, she had an awful feeling it might be.
Careful not to startle him, she made her way down the path and sat down beside him.
‘First you take a drink, then the drink takes you,’ he said quietly after a moment. ‘It obviously loosened her tongue. She would never have said the things she did otherwise.’
Emily wasn’t so sure about that. Fran might have spat out her accusations in a drunken rage – she’d clearly had much more to drink than the three glasses of wine she’d had at the party – but the woman’s tongue worked perfectly well with or without alcohol.
Thinking it better not to voice her opinion, she watched Edward carefully as he fell silent again. She wanted to reach for his hand, to reassure him in some way, but guessing from his long intake of breath that he was trying to hold himself together, she waited instead, allowing him the space he might need.
‘She was talking about Tom, by the way, not Jake, you do realise that?’ He glanced at her briefly. ‘I can’t abide gossip, as I think you know, but since Fran has opened that particular can of worms … Her daughter, Leah. If you look, you can see the likeness. I don’t think Tom ever has.’
Leah? Emily stared at him in a combination of bewilderment and disbelief. Fran’s daughter was Tom’s? And she’d never told him? Why?
‘She was married at the time,’ Edward explained intuitively. ‘Definitely a case of throwing stones in glass houses, I’d say. It’s not common knowledge, incidentally. She confided in me once – had a drop too much to drink then, too, I suspect – so …’
He was asking her not to say anything. But didn’t Tom have a right to know? Didn’t Jake?
‘I expect you’re wondering if what she said about me has any truth in it?’ Edward asked, taking another long breath. ‘It shames me to say it, but I’m afraid it does.’
Oh God, no. Emily’s stomach dropped.
‘I believe Fran overheard me on the phone to my mortgage provider. She cleans the building I worked in, as bad luck would have it,’ he continued. ‘I wasn’t sure how much she’d heard. Enough, obviously. I think she’s had eyes on me ever since. Been doing a bit of sleuthing. You can’t blame her.’
Obviously she’d been gathering information to fuel her nasty gossip. Had Edward been about to become the next recipient of a letter? Emily wondered. None of this information would be on his file, though, which might have cast doubt on the assumption that someone from the surgery was sending them out.
‘I’m basically bankrupt.’ Edward cut through her thoughts, stunning her.
Bankrupt? But how? When? ‘Edward, you don’t have to tell me any of this,’ she said quickly. She dearly wanted him to know he could talk to her – he’d offered his shoulder to so many people – yet if she was honest, she didn’t want to hear it, didn’t want any of it to be true.
He reached for her hand, squeezing it gently. ‘I think I probably do,’ he said gruffly. ‘There are no excuses, but I’d like to try to explain, if I may?’
Emily nodded, glancing down at her hand as he tucked it back in her lap, patting it gently as if she were a child. She felt like one. Felt like sobbing like a child, for Edward, for Joyce. For Fran, ludicrously.
‘I hit a few problems at work,’ he admitted. ‘My accountancy business went under, a while back now. That new firm, Affordable Accountancy, opening up next to the bank did for me, I suspect. I couldn’t compete. I was obviously getting a bit slow in my old age.’
‘Oh Edward …’ Emily’s heart broke for him.
‘I tried to keep going for a while, relying on my savings and investments. I ran out of funds eventually. The thing is … the investments were supposed to fund our retirement. I haven’t made any other pension provision. Damn bloody foolish thing to have done.’
He had no income? Nothing coming in at all? Bewildered, Emily searched his face. It was riddled with shame and regret.
‘I tried not to worry about it at the time, thinking I would cross that bridge when I came to it. They have a habit of coming up on you faster than you expect them to, though, don’t they?’ He smiled ruefully.
Emily had no idea what to say. ‘Couldn’t you have sold up?’ she asked hesitantly.
‘Downsized?’ He met her eyes sadly, and then looked away. ‘That was the plan,’ he said. ‘I hadn’t told Joyce, unfortunately. I knew she’d stand by me, but … Pride, I suppose, stopped me initially. Then I thought I would choose my time, break the news gently. Time waits for no man, though.’ He sighed heavily. ‘Joyce got ill, as you know, and when she told me she would be happy with whatever time she had left as long as she could potter about in her garden and smell her roses …’
/>
Emily wiped away a tear that spilled down her cheek. ‘So she doesn’t know any of this?’ she probed gently.
Edward shook his head. ‘I couldn’t bring myself to tell her,’ he said, his voice catching. ‘I haven’t told anyone apart from Jake, and even then I only hinted at how bad things were, for obvious reasons.’
Jake knew? Why hadn’t he mentioned it to her? Because they’d hardly been speaking unless to argue, she reminded herself, her heart twisting. Why? Why did people tear each other apart when life was so short?
‘He was sympathetic, of course. He’s a good listener, that husband of yours,’ Edward said, with another sad smile. ‘He suggested I look at equity release. He was going to research options for me, but I couldn’t take that route either without Joyce finding out. I was trying to buy time, imagining I could replace the funds at some point. I’m not sure how. I’m not sure what I was thinking, to be honest. I’ve never done a dishonest thing in my life until now. This will kill her.’ He stopped, holding his breath, desperately trying to rein in the emotion.
‘God, Edward, I’m so sorry.’ Emily turned to him, wrapped an arm around him. ‘It will be all right. Joyce is stronger than you think. She will stand by you. She loves …’
Seeing someone approaching from the path, she trailed off. ‘Jake …’ she breathed, never so glad to see him. He would help. He would know what to say.
Wiping a hand across his eyes, Edward blinked in his direction. ‘Talk of the devil,’ he said with a strained laugh. ‘Looks like I managed to spoil the party, hey, Jake?’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Emily told him firmly. ‘None of that matters.’ She glanced up at her husband. His eyes were anguished, filled with obvious concern.
‘How are you doing, Ed?’ he asked, crouching down in front of him.
‘I think I’ve done better,’ Edward said, his voice hoarse. ‘Where’s Joyce?’ He looked anxiously back along the path.
‘She’s okay. Tom and Nicky have taken her home,’ Jake reassured him, exchanging glances with Emily. ‘Come on, let’s get you back too. She’ll be worrying about you.’
‘She will.’ Alarm crossing his face, Edward attempted to lever himself up. ‘She does insist on fussing about me. I told her she would worry herself into an early …’ He faltered, swallowing hard. ‘I’ll be all right, Jake. You go on and see to your own family. I can walk from here.’
‘I’m taking you home.’ Jake reached to support him as Edward wobbled on his feet. ‘Can I take your car, Emily?’
‘There’s no need for all that,’ Edward insisted. ‘I can manage.’
‘That’s what friends are for,’ Emily said firmly, coming around to his other side to thread an arm through his. ‘To offer you support when you need it.’
Edward nodded appreciatively. ‘Just mind you support each other. It’s easier to dam a river than it is to stop gossip,’ he said, nodding towards the flowing water. Emily tried not to see the ghosts that floated there. ‘There’s a saying: divide and conquer. Whoever is sending these evil letters out is aiming to drive a wedge between you two, for whatever reason. Don’t let them. Stand together. You’re a team. You always have been. Don’t let them win.’
Thirty-Seven
Listening to Jake moving about downstairs, Emily rolled onto her side, her heart constricting as she reached out to trace the empty space in the bed where he should be. It was almost dawn. She hadn’t had a wink of sleep. She’d heard Jake going to the kitchen a couple of times in the early hours and guessed he hadn’t had much sleep either. They’d had broken nights over the years, many, but they’d rarely slept apart until recently. Edward had been right: they needed to stand together for the children, for the people they’d come to know and love around them. And for themselves, if there was still any hope for them, if the person who was doing all this hadn’t already won. Did she want to be with him, still not knowing for certain whether he had cheated on her, nothing but the email and his relationship with Sally, which he’d insisted was over years ago, to go on? Did he want to stay in this marriage? The endless questions rattled around in her head. She wondered whether he’d stayed here tonight rather than at the surgery, where she had to trust he’d been sleeping, because Millie hadn’t come home. They’d called her, only to reach her voicemail. Emily had checked with Anna, every terrifying scenario possible crashing through her mind when she’d found Millie wasn’t there.
‘She’s probably out with the boyfriend.’ Jake had tried to reassure her, but she’d seen the flicker of doubt in his eyes, the worry that was now obviously eating away at him too. She was torn between frustration and fear. Millie had done this too often lately, and she had no idea what to do. Attempting to ground her would only drive her further away. Jake had said he would try to talk to her. Emily had agreed, suspecting he might be able to reach her where she couldn’t.
Turning onto her back, she stared at the ceiling in the semi-light, her mind instantly conjuring up her sister’s face, her violet eyes staring at her through the window of her dreams, the accusation in her gaze, the warning Emily had sensed there. But might it be that in interpreting the dream as some kind of prophecy, she herself was making it happen? Because she felt she deserved to lose Jake, to lose everything, just as her sister had? She recalled again the awful things she’d said to her, as she had countless times since the day that came back incessantly to haunt her. ‘He doesn’t love you. He laughs at you,’ she heard herself screaming. ‘We both do, Little Miss Goody Two-Shoes with her nose always stuck in a book. He loves me!’
‘Why?’ she remembered Kara screaming back through her tears. ‘Because you’re different? Unique? You think you’re the only one who can give in to her wild side, don’t you? You’re wrong, Emily! We can all do what we want on a whim without giving a shit about anyone. The difference between you and me is I care about the people around me too much to hurt them!’
‘Right, as you’ve just fucking demonstrated,’ Emily had sneered.
‘You just don’t get it, do you?’ Kara had stared murderously up at her from the hall. ‘The more you rebel, because you think you have some God-given right to do what you like, the more I have to be perfect. And I’m sick of it.’
Emily’s heart wrenched as it all came flooding painfully back. They’d been so busy fighting each other, they hadn’t realised that the man they’d thought they loved was using them, pitting them against each other, getting his perverted kicks from it.
Emily had wanted to take her words back. She’d never had the chance. She’d apologised over and over, for years in her dreams, every time Kara slipped into her mind, but she couldn’t undo what had happened. She needed to stop. Punishing herself wouldn’t bring her sister back. She would probably never stop feeling guilty, but she had to stop dwelling on the past and concentrate on the here and now. Someone had tried to take away her ability to function by drugging her, but she would function. If it took every ounce of strength in her body, she would fight. The only other option, as Edward had pointed out, was to let the malevolent person who was trying to harm her and her family win, and that actually wasn’t an option.
She had to talk to Jake, swallow her pride and try to find a way to move forward with him, together on some level, for the sake of their children.
Thinking she would ask him to go for a walk where they could talk out of earshot of Ben, she tugged on her tracksuit bottoms and a T-shirt, pushed her feet into her pumps and made her way quietly along the landing. She didn’t want to wake Ben. He’d come home early, while they’d still been out, taking Edward home and making sure the village hall was secure. He hadn’t said very much, going up to bed looking sullen instead. His date hadn’t gone well, Emily had assumed, and promised herself to make time to talk to him properly. She wanted him to believe he could open up to her, however angry he might be feeling.
Reaching the lounge, she stopped, heart sinking, as she heard Jake’s phone ring. A patient? she wondered, and then clamped down hard on her ne
xt thought.
‘Jake Merriden?’ she heard him say, having clearly snatched the phone straight up.
A chill of apprehension running through her, Emily listened for a second and then tentatively pushed the door open, her stomach lurching as Jake’s alarmed gaze shot to hers. Her stomach turned over as he said, ‘Joyce, you need to slow down, I can’t hear you.’
Getting to his feet, the phone pressed to his ear, he appeared to be searching for his trainers. ‘What? When?’ His eyes slid in gratitude to Emily as, seeing them where he’d obviously kicked them off by the coffee table, she went to grab them and pass them to him.
‘What’s happened?’ Ben appeared by the door, looking as if he hadn’t had much sleep either.
Emily moved quickly across to him. ‘I’m not sure,’ she whispered, though she guessed from the urgent tone of Jake’s voice that something had. Something bad.
‘And he didn’t say where?’ Jake dropped to the sofa to shove his feet into his trainers. Standing again, he raked a hand through his hair. ‘What time did he go out, Joyce?’ he asked after an interminably long minute, his voice tight with obvious emotion. ‘Right.’ Checking his watch, he breathed in hard. ‘And your neighbour’s called the police?’
Emily’s heart froze as he waited again, his face drained of all colour.
‘Is she with you now? Okay.’ He nodded, heading towards the hall. ‘Try to stay calm, Joyce. Tell the police everything you’ve told me. We’ll find him, I promise.’ He ended the call.
‘What’s happened?’ Cold foreboding clutching her insides, Emily spun around after him. ‘Jake, what it is?’
‘Ed went out, walking, he told Joyce,’ Jake said, searching the hall table, his jeans pockets and then his jacket pockets. ‘When she realised what the time was and came down, she found a note. She thinks … Dammit, where …?’ He looked past Emily to where Ben was hovering. ‘Ben, car keys?’
Trust Me: An absolutely gripping and unputdownable psychological thriller Page 23
