The Night She Died

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The Night She Died Page 17

by Jenny Blackhurst


  Cant wait to hear your boring home stories :-) Sucks here without u x

  Sounds like it

  I cringed at her tone. Surely she didn’t begrudge me a life without her? Then my phone buzzed again and I smiled at her follow-up text.

  ;-) Don’t do anything I wouldnt do xx

  I couldn’t wait for her to get back and meet Richard. And yet there was a nagging feeling in the back of my mind. What if they didn’t like one another? How would Richard fit in with Evie’s bohemian lifestyle, the weekends we spent flitting from downtrodden flats in the East End to fancy bars in the city? However hard I tried to picture it, I just couldn’t see them hitting it off and the thought of having to choose between them – even after knowing Richard for less than a fortnight – made me feel slightly sick.

  56

  Evie

  She couldn’t face going back to Harriet’s, her humiliation written all over her face as her friend waited expectantly to hear how she had foiled the engagement of the year and won back her prince. No, she would go home, let herself in through the back door and hope that her parents were out, that way she could go to bed and face them in the morning.

  The minute she pushed open the back door she knew she would have no such luck. Freezing cold from waiting half an hour for a taxi, and sober but emotionally exhausted, she shoved open the door and practically into her father who was pouring himself a drink in the kitchen.

  ‘Evelyn?’ His face contorted first in confusion, then concern. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Papa,’ Evie sniffed and fell into her father’s outstretched arms.

  ‘Has someone hurt you? What are you doing here?’

  As he led her into the sitting room and waited expectantly for her to explain her sudden appearance, Evie’s phone beeped. It was Harriet.

  Are you okay? Did you get out safely? CALL ME WHEN YOU GET THIS.

  Evie frowned. Get out safely?

  ‘Just a minute, Papa.’ Her father grunted impatiently as she clicked Harriet’s number.

  ‘Thank God!’ Harriet said after only one ring. ‘I was so worried. What the hell happened? Where are you?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Evie asked. ‘I’m at home, I just got in. I was going to come back to yours but—’

  ‘You don’t know,’ Harriet interrupted, saving Evie from making an excuse as to why she’d come home instead of going back to her friend’s house. ‘The Addlingtons’ house is on fire.’

  57

  Rebecca

  When I left yesterday Richard had promised not to contact Camille, but I’m desperate to know whether a night alone with nothing to think about but fake Facebook profiles and people dying in fires might have changed his mind. If he had spoken to her surely he would have called me – who else does he have to talk to these days? But it doesn’t stop me trying his number, and when he ignores my second call of the day I’ll admit to going round there to ‘check’ on him.

  ‘You can’t just not answer your phone,’ I snap when he answers the door. ‘I thought, well, what if you were . . .’

  Richard looks embarrassed, and rightly so. ’Sorry, Becky,’ he says, and he steps aside and gestures for me to go in. ‘I didn’t think.’

  ‘I don’t have to stay,’ I say, walking past him anyway and kicking off my shoes. I still expect to see Evie standing at the bottom of the stairs, welcoming smile on her face.

  ‘No it’s fine,’ he says, walking past me and into the kitchen. He doesn’t mention Camille, so maybe he’s kept to his promise.

  ‘Did you sleep?’ I ask, knowing the answer because it would be the same as mine. I wonder if he has the same nightmares.

  ‘A bit,’ he says, but I know he’s lying. Is he still in the spare room? I can’t ask him that, it’s too soon, too personal.

  ‘Can I use the bathroom?’

  In the bathroom the disintegration of Richard’s life in the last week is ever more apparent. Wet towels are draped over the edge of the bath, one has fallen onto the floor and the toilet has the unmistakable sharp odour of stale urine. When I think back to how well he was doing before I convinced him to go and meet his friends at the pub that day I could kick myself.

  The door to the spare room is shut and I ease it open as slowly as possible in case it creaks and lets Richard know I’m snooping. The curtains are closed, leaving the room sheathed in darkness, but I can just make out the duvet slumped in the middle of the bed. It’s more than likely that Richard has slept in here since his return to the house. Pulling the door closed, I move slowly to the master bedroom and open the door, taking one small step inside. The bed is made, the curtains wide open, the room is light and airy and basically tidy.

  As I step back again something pierces my heel and I hiss out ‘Shit!’ Water soaks into my socks – the carpet here is saturated – but looking up I can’t see a leak in the roof. Scooping up the silver necklace that jabbed me in the foot, I go back to the bathroom, flush the toilet and head back downstairs.

  In the hallway I let the silver chain dangle through my fingers. The silver knotted pendant on the end is instantly recognisable as the one Evie wore every day of her life – a gift from her father that had cost less than five pounds. That’s why she’d liked it. She said he’d bought it because he thought she’d like it, not because the sales assistant handed him the thing with the most diamonds.

  ‘It’s complex,’ he’d said, ‘like you.’

  Evie had been wearing it the day she disappeared.

  58

  Evie

  It had taken ten minutes of tears and begging but eventually Evie’s father agreed to take her back to James’ house, with a promise she would tell him what the hell was going on as he drove. She told him everything, sensing his growing annoyance as she got to the part about her sneaking back to Wareham to confront James and Camille. She edited down the party – merely telling her father that she’d seen how happy they were and decided against speaking to James.

  Blue lights cut through the darkness on the approach to the Addlingtons’ property. People were standing on the lawn, still dressed in their finery and shivering against the cold – women wrapped in men’s suit jackets, many of them in tears. Hoses wielded by firefighters were trained on the house where flames were visible through the smashed-out windows. Where was James? Had he escaped the blaze, or was he trapped in the furnace?

  ‘You stay here,’ her father instructed, giving her a look that told her it was an instruction, not a request. Evie watched as he worked his way into the crowd to find a familiar face, and she scanned the crowd for signs of James, or even Camille. She could see faces of old school friends streaked with tears, holding one another, and she wanted to get out of the car and scream at them to tell her what happened here, but more importantly, was James safe?

  She couldn’t see her father any more and was about to risk getting out when a face appeared at the window. Camille. Evie pressed the button and the glass slid down.

  ‘Where’s James?’ she said, without preamble.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Camille’s face was red and tear-streaked, mascara and eyeliner ringing puffy eyes. ‘I’ve looked everywhere. You need to get out of here, you shouldn’t have come back. I thought I told you to stay away from us, we don’t need you here.’

  ‘Oh fuck off, Camille,’ Evie snapped, tired of the other girl’s superiority all of a sudden. ‘I just wanted to check James was okay, and I have every right to do that. You’re his fiancée, not his mother.’

  ‘Mr Rousseau,’ Camille’s tear-stained face turned to where Evie’s father was getting back into the car.

  ‘Camille,’ he spoke through the open window. ‘You need to go to the operations vehicle – the Land Rover over there. I’m very sorry for your loss.’

  ‘My loss?’ Camille looked confused. ‘Why . . . who?’

  Dominic’s face clouded – he’d spoken out of turn and now he knew it.

  ‘You should go,’ he replied, putting the car into gear and
pulling away.

  59

  Rebecca

  The necklace is burning a hole in my pocket as I re-enter the kitchen. Richard is sitting at the table and he smiles at me as he looks up from his phone.

  ‘Becky – look, I’m sorry about when you first arrived, I—’

  ‘Did you spill something upstairs?’ My heart is thumping, I don’t know what to do. Do I tell him about the necklace? How sure am I that Evie was wearing it at her wedding? I have to know. I need to know.

  ‘Upstairs?’ he looks confused, at my interruption, my question, the sharpness of my tone, I don’t know. ‘No, I don’t think so. Why?’

  ‘There’s water, all over the hall carpet. And—’

  ‘And what?’

  ‘And there’s no leak,’ I finish.

  He sighs impatiently. ‘I’ll go and have a look.’

  As soon as he leaves the room I pull the necklace from my pocket and study the pendant in the palm of my hand. I’ve seen this necklace so many times – I should be able to identify it perfectly. And yet I know it can’t be the one she was wearing, because the necklace Evie was wearing went over the cliff with her.

  I slip it back into my pocket as I hear Richard coming back down the stairs. It’s a replica – it has to be. Either that or someone found it on the clifftop. What, and brought it into Evie’s house and dropped it into a puddle on the floor? Who would do that? Thomas? Is he fucking with me? Or most likely fucking with Richard – after all, if he’d been the one to go into his own bedroom he’d have found the necklace.

  ‘It’s soaking,’ Richard says as he re-enters the kitchen. ‘I don’t know how. I probably spilt something without realising,’ he gestures around the kitchen. ‘I’m not the tidiest at the moment.’

  ‘Probably that,’ I say, feeling the necklace in my pocket burn white-hot against my leg. ‘It’s probably nothing.’

  He’s got papers out on the desk and I realise they are the notes he made yesterday on the fire at the Addlingtons’ house. Over the timeline he’s written:

  WHY DID SHE WANT TO DIE?

  It’s a question I asked myself the first time Evie tried to kill herself, a question I found out the answer to before she did it the second time.

  60

  Evie

  ‘Who is it? Is it James? Papa!’

  Dominic spoke to his daughter in French for the first time in years and pushed the button for the electric windows, waiting until they were all the way up – even though they were back on the main road now and there was no one here to hear them.

  ‘It’s James Sr,’ he said, his face tight. ‘They were working on him on the grass by the front of the house but it was no good. He’s had heart problems in the past – if he even had a heart to begin with.’

  Evie’s gut clenched as she thought of the key to the office that she’d thrown in a plant pot as she left the Addlingtons’ house. Was that why James Sr hadn’t made it out of the house? Surely he’d have been able to get out of a window. She pictured him waiting for her, lying down to take a nap and passing out on the couch as smoke filled the room. Had he even woken up?

  ‘Do they know how it started?’ Evie asked. Dominic shook his head.

  ‘They’re concentrating on making sure everyone is out,’ he replied. ‘The investigation will come later. Why were you there tonight, Evelyn?’

  ‘I told you, I wanted to send my congratulations.’

  ‘Did you see him? James Jr? Did you tell him about the baby?’

  Evie processed the words slowly. ‘Why would I need to tell him about the baby, Papa? He knows already – you told him.’

  ‘Your French is rusty, Evelyn,’ her father reprimanded in English. ‘I asked if you spoke to him about the child. I thought maybe you argued . . .’

  ‘And set his house on fire? You think I did this?’

  Dominic hesitated, then shook his head. ‘Of course not.’

  ‘I didn’t even see him. Only Camille,’ Evie lied. Now was not the time to tell her father the truth. Now was not the time to tell anyone the truth. ‘She knew about the baby. She said James told her.’

  Dominic frowned. ‘Camille knows?’

  Evie nodded. ‘Yes, but I don’t think she’ll tell anyone.’

  ‘And now Addlington Sr is gone,’ Dominic shook his head. ‘And you are lucky you weren’t in that house when it happened.’

  Evie shuddered. If she hadn’t got so angry at James’ father when he made his little joke about her being ‘problematic’, would he still be alive? Was she a murderer?

  61

  Rebecca

  I want to ask Richard about the necklace – did he drop it there? What does it mean? Where did the water come from? But he’s caught up in his notes and paperwork, he doesn’t need more questions. It’s nothing, I tell myself. Nothing.

  ‘I was just writing this,’ Richard points to the PC, where there’s a Facebook message on the screen. A message to Camille Addlington. So much for promises.

  ‘I thought we’d agreed it was best not to contact her,’ I start. Richard looks bashful and is about to launch into a detailed explanation of all the reasons he ignored my advice when my phone buzzes.

  MAKE HIM STOP.

  The text message comes as a shock – I’ve heard nothing from ‘the wife’ in days, and before I realise it I’ve let out a strangled noise from my throat.

  Richard looks up. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Oh, nothing,’ I say, looking back at the message and clicking ‘delete’. Make him stop what? Contacting Camille? How does she even know that’s what he’s doing? Another coincidence? ‘My phone is playing up. Virus, I think.’

  ‘Here, let me see,’ he says, and takes the phone before I can object. Thanks God I deleted Camille’s messages in time. He taps away at the phone looking for a virus that doesn’t exist, so you can imagine my shock when he says: ‘Here, it’s this tracker you’ve installed.’

  ‘The what?’ I ask, peering over his shoulder, hoping he can’t feel the pounding of my heart.

  ‘This Cerbus thing. The anti-theft device. You’ve hidden it on the phone but if you call your security number you can make it visible again.’

  ‘Cerbus?’ I’ve never even heard of it, but I don’t want to admit that to Richard.

  ‘Yeah, it tracks your phone if it’s lost or stolen. Good bit of kit – you can find the location – even take screenshots of the person holding it, all on your computer. You did install this – right?’

  ‘Oh yes, ages ago now, I remember. Bugger, I’ve forgotten the security number. How do I recover it?’

  ‘You have to call the number you set up – or the default number if you didn’t change it. Here, I’ll Google it.’

  He turns back to his own computer and closes Facebook – at least Camille has her own way for now. Is this how she knew where I was the day at the supermarket? And when I was at Richard’s house? How long has she been tracking me?

  ‘Here you go,’ he says, and shows me the screen, placing an arm around my back and pulling me closer. Trying not to let him see my face burn red, I dial the number and, sure enough, a bright red Cerbus logo appears on my phone.

  ‘Can you get it off?’ I say, handing him the phone back and stepping away quickly before he can touch me again. ‘It’s draining my battery and causing me all sorts of problems.’

  ‘Just log in,’ he says, and I feign embarrassment.

  ‘It’s been so long – I can’t remember any of my details.’

  ‘Give it here,’ he takes the phone back and messes around with it for so long I wonder if I’m going to have to throw the damn thing away. Eventually he says, ‘There, done it.’ He looks triumphant. ‘You’re not supposed to be able to do that – so the thief can’t just uninstall it. But that’s one of the perks of being an IT geek, I suppose.’

  ‘Indeed,’ I murmur, thinking of how little I really know about Camille Addlington. Her Facebook profile is private and, apart from some grainy pictures in some old interne
t news articles, I barely know what she looks like. When did she put this onto my phone? Was she at the wedding? My mobile would have been in my clutch bag on the table for ages – at a wedding you tend to trust the guests not to steal from you. Was Camille there without us even knowing? And why is she doing this at all?

  62

  Evie

  When she woke the next day Evie’s head pounded rhythmically and her eyes were tight and raw from the tears. She wasn’t sure whether she had been crying for James, for the loss of his father, or her loss of hope, or the loss of their baby, but it was grief all the same. When she plugged in her phone to charge messages chimed through, one after another. Three from Harriet, then a number she didn’t know.

  Did anyone see u here last night? C.

  Don’t ignore me. In big trouble if any1 finds out u were here.

  Txt me back.

  Evie thought back to the key she had discarded. There was no way Camille could know – could she?

  Leave me alone, she texted back. U don’t scare me.

  The reply was almost instant, as if Camille had been on pause, waiting for Evie to reply.

  The fire started in the study. The door was locked. I have the key with your fingerprints on. Scared yet?

  Evie’s stomach lurched. A vision of the study as she left, her fingers turning the key, Camille watching from the shadows. If that was true Camille had known James’ father had been locked in there. Why didn’t she tell anyone?

  Her fingers hitting all the wrong keys, eventually firing back a message to Camille.

  Doesn’t mean anything. Leave me alone.

  But Camille wasn’t so easily deterred.

  I saw u lock the door. Didn’t know James was inside until the firefighters knocked down the door to search. You killed him because he made James deny the baby was his.

  Evie sucked in a breath, dropping the phone onto her bedroom carpet and covering her cheek with her hand. It was her fault. She had locked a man away to burn to death. But how was she to know there would be a fire? It wasn’t her fault! And yet Evie could see the beauty of the situation, from Camille’s point of view. Evie wasn’t supposed to be there, and although she and James had strived to keep their relationship under wraps for the sake of their parents, plenty of people knew about it, or at least suspected. If Camille told anyone Evie had been at the house on the night of the engagement party they would believe exactly what Camille was saying – that Evie had started the fire in anger and locked James Sr in his study as revenge for her baby. Why would they doubt Camille’s word?

 

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