You Can Trust Me: A Novel

by Sophie McKenzie

  Glad something good came out of it, honeypie, I hear her chuckle.

  I peer closer. Apart from the anxious lines around my eyes, I look better than I have for ages. My hair could do with a brush, for sure, but my features are more sharply defined than they have been for a while, and my face has a healthy glow. Noticing this makes me feel calmer. I scrub my face and tie my dirty hair back with one of Shannon’s black bands.

  Damian raises his eyebrows as I come out of the restroom. “You look great,” he says. His directness makes me blush. How long has it been since Will complimented me on how I looked? Apart from that guilt-induced attempt at flattery at Leo and Martha’s party, I can’t remember him saying anything unprompted about my appearance for a long time. Still, maybe I look different in some way. I glance down. Shannon’s T-shirt is every bit as tight on me as it would have been on her, though my breasts are definitely smaller. The top emphasizes all my curves. I place my hand over my stomach self-consciously.

  The next London train arrives within ten minutes and we get on board. I fish my phone out of my pants pocket—it’s survived the escape from the cottage remarkably intact—and call Mum. She’s on her mobile and sounds distracted. I can hear carnival noises in the background—music and metallic clanking sounds and lots of excited chatter. I hurriedly explain that I’ve bumped into my friend Mandy and we’re going to make a night of it, so if she doesn’t mind, I won’t be back until tomorrow. Mum sounds surprised, but takes the news in stride. She’s used to having the kids, after all. Last summer they spent a long weekend on their own with her while Will and I had a getaway to Madrid.

  I ask to speak to them. Zack comes on immediately, full of the ride he’s just been on. “It went up and down and up and down reeeally fast, Mummy.” I smile and tell him I miss him. He accepts my impending absence with the same trusting ease with which he approaches virtually everything.

  Then Mum offers Hannah the phone. I can hear her urging Hannah to take it, but Hannah says nothing.

  Mum comes back on the line. “Sorry, love, she’s busy eating some cotton candy.”

  “It’s fine,” I interrupt. I’m tired of fighting with my daughter. Right now, it feels like I’ve got way bigger things to worry about. “I’ll call again tonight.” I get off the phone.

  Damian is watching me, a curious expression on his face. “It must change everything, having kids,” he muses.

  “It does,” I say.

  He hesitates a second, then starts asking questions about Zack and Hannah: basic stuff, like how old they are and what subjects they enjoy most at school. I’m amused—and touched—by his interest.

  “Do you see yourself becoming a father one day?” I ask.

  He nods. “I guess. It was something Julia and I talked about … that we both wanted.”

  My jaw drops. Is he kidding? “I … I didn’t … Julia?”

  “I know.” He grins. “She used to make out that she had no interest in being a mum, but like I told you before, that was because she was scared. I saw it straightaway.” There’s a pause as he stares out the window. I follow his gaze. Fields and trees pass by in a blur against a hazy blue sky. “The week before she died, when we got engaged, she said she wanted kids in the next couple of years.”

  “Wow.” Again, I’m at a loss for words. I thought I knew Julia better than anyone in the world. How can she still be surprising me like this even after her death?

  We get off the train at Salisbury, find a small pub hotel, and book in. Despite my self-conscious request at the desk for separate rooms, there’s an illicit thrill about the whole thing. I wonder, with a stab of misery, if this is what Will feels like when he sleeps with Catrina, Damian pays in advance in cash, explaining that we’ll be moving on tomorrow, and we head upstairs.

  My room is basic but clean, with simple white linen on the bed and pine furniture. Damian says he’s going to get straight online to check out what his friend Gaz found on the fragment of Julia’s hard drive. In all the trauma of the past few hours, I had almost forgotten Gaz called him, that we have this extra lead.

  I take a shower, then wander along the corridor to his room. Damian looks perturbed as he lets me in.

  “What is it?” I say.

  He points to his open laptop on the dressing table. “It’s an e-mail from Julia’s computer. There were hundreds of fragments. Gaz filtered them, looking for key words. I’ve had a look at what he found, and this is the only e-mail that looks like it might be relevant. It’s just a series of scraps, but … well, take a look yourself.”

  I walk over and peer down at the screen. The date—three days before her death—and sender’s name—Julia Dryden—are clear, but the name and e-mail address of the person she was writing to are not there, and the message itself is only partial, just a few words.

  … HOW DARE YOU THREATEN ME? THIS IS MY …

  I freeze.

  “Who’s she writing to, d’you think?” Damian asks. “She never mentioned anyone threatening her.”

  “I don’t know, and I don’t see how we can tell from just this.” I look at the send date again. “D’you think it could be something to do with what she found out about Kara?”

  “There’s a bit more of the e-mail here. I only had a quick look before you came in. See?” Damian scrolls down the page. None of the other fragments sound as angry as the first one, but the word “money” comes up several times.

  “Maybe there was some kind of blackmail element?” Damian muses.

  I shake my head. It’s so frustrating, all hints and possibilities—with nothing holding the whole e-mail together. And then I see the final few words extracted from it. I gasp and point to the screen.

  Damian follows my gaze. He reads the line out loud: “‘… so typical of you, Dickweasel.…’” He turns to me, and I see in his eyes the same light of recognition that burns inside me.

  “Dickweasel,” I say slowly. “That’s Julia’s brother, Robbie. She always called him that. I never heard her say it about anyone else.”

  Damian nods.

  I stare at him, aghast. “Do you really think Robbie could have hurt her?”

  “I don’t know,” he says.

  It suddenly occurs to me that we are both jumping to almighty conclusions here. The “threat” Julia refers to could be about anything. And apart from the word “dickweasel,” there is no indication that Julia sent the e-mail to Robbie. She might just as well have sent it to Damian himself.

  I don’t say this.

  “Could Robbie have had something to do with Kara’s death?” Damian frowns. “He and Julia were twins, so he’s the same age as she is … as Kara was. Was he at the same college? Julia never said.”

  “No, he didn’t do a degree. He lived at home with Joanie in Bridport, where they grew up. But he was always coming over to Exeter and going out with us. He actually had a bit of a crush on me—Will thinks he still does. Julia thought that was hilarious.” My mind reels. I’m suddenly exhausted. I sink down onto the bed. Could Julia’s brother have taken his own sister’s life? Could he really have killed Kara all those years ago? He was certainly unpleasant about Julia at the funeral, but that doesn’t make him capable of murder.

  “Another suspect,” I say flatly. “And still no proof of anything.”

  Damian sits down beside me on the bed. He’s completely wrapped up in his thoughts.

  I take the opportunity to look at him for several long seconds. He is particularly handsome in profile. His nose is broad, his chin square and strong. And there’s just a hint of arrogance around his lips and eyes. I can see why Julia fell for him. He’s strong and masculine enough to challenge her, yet there’s something soft and unformed about him too. Nonthreatening and, ultimately, controllable.

  He senses me staring and turns to meet my gaze. His expression is one of profound misery. A wave of compassion washes through me. Damian is hurting over Julia in the same way that I hurt over Kara: He didn’t protect her. He doesn’t know if he could hav
e protected her. He doesn’t know what happened. And without understanding, there can be no closure.

  I see no guilt in his eyes, no hidden agenda. He truly loved her and is consumed by his grief for her. It’s almost unbearable to look at his face and see so much of my own pain reflected, and in that moment I’m transported back to that day, years ago, when I saw my loss for my sister echoed in Julia’s eyes.

  “I miss her so much.” His voice is broken. His eyes glisten.

  My own fill with tears, and I take his hand and squeeze his fingers.

  Damian reaches over and we hold each other. His body is warm. I can feel the muscles of his arms, pressing against my sides. Desire fills me and I have to fight the urge to tilt my head toward his, to find his mouth. I stop myself, of course. Tell myself it’s not lust. Not really. It’s just a deep longing to be held, safe, in another person’s arms. Because I can’t remember the last time Will and I properly hugged.

  The thought of Will brings with it a shard of jealousy, piercing through me to the core. Where is Will? Could he be with someone else right now?

  Damian pulls away and wipes furiously at his eyes. “Sorry, Jesus, I didn’t mean to … God … sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize.…” I clear my throat as an unbidden image of Will kissing Catrina flashes horribly before my eyes. “Okay, so … so far we’ve got a lot of bits of information, but nothing that adds up. It looks as if someone—possibly Julia’s brother, Robbie—was threatening her.” I pause. “And there’s Kara’s locket, which someone gave Shannon to pay off a debt.”

  “And there’s Honey Hearts,” Damian adds, sitting up straighter on the bed.

  I get up and wander over to the window. The sun is still high in the sky, bright against the blue. “Julia must have talked to Alexa Carling, just like I did, then picked and hired Shannon—but why, when she’d already contacted Shannon through eBay? And Shannon said entrapping Will was a cover. But what for? I don’t get it.”

  Damian frowns. “Wait a sec, we’re assuming Julia went to Honey Hearts before she met Shannon at Aces High, but what if she went afterwards? What if her meeting with Shannon led her to Honey Hearts?”

  I stare at him. “But we know she saw Shannon for the first time on Thursday evening, just two days before she died. How would there have been time to go to a honey trap agency before she died on Saturday? You have to make an appointment, and Julia wouldn’t have been able to call until Friday morning at the earliest.”

  “That wouldn’t have stopped Julia.” Damian is on his feet, cheeks flushed.

  Adrenaline floods through me. We’re on to something. I can feel it. I rack my brains, trying to remember what Shannon said. “Okay, so Julia contacts Shannon through eBay, pretending to buy the locket that Shannon was selling, Kara’s locket.”

  “Right.” Damian paces across the room to the window, then back again to the bed. He sits down, brow furrowed.

  “Okay,” I say slowly. “Suppose Julia meets Shannon and finds out whom she got the locket from. She’s going to try to track them down too, isn’t she?”

  Damian looks up. “You think that person worked at the honey trap agency?”

  “It fits with what we know,” I say. “Julia finds out where Shannon got the locket on Thursday. On Friday she goes to the agency. By Saturday evening she’s telling you she knows who the killer is, straight after which, she tries to tell me.”

  Damian blinks rapidly. “Yes. Which means Julia was just doing what you did, pretending to hire Shannon from the agency as a cover in order to get information.” His voice rises with excitement.

  I nod. “Information about Kara’s killer.”

  “Yes.”

  I hug my arms to my chest. We’re getting close to the truth; I can feel it. “We have to find Shannon again. Force her to explain.”

  “And fast,” Damian adds grimly. “Before whoever set that fire finds her—or us.”

  We talk for another hour, trying to work out where Shannon might have gone. She said she had friends at Aces High. Perhaps it will be worth going back there and asking around. “She knew the bartender. She might have other friends who work there,” Damian points out. “Maybe there’ll be someone who’ll have some idea where she might have gone.”

  After a while, I’m so tired, I’m finding it hard to think clearly anymore. Damian yawns, which sets me off.

  “Hey, we’re both exhausted,” I say, yawning again. “Let’s get some sleep, then have something to eat downstairs. We can talk about all this later.

  Damian agrees and I go back to my room. I lie on the bed and pull the comforter over me. The window is open a fraction, but all I can hear is the soothing swish of wind in trees. I can’t believe I’m here in this strange room, with Damian, whom I barely know, just down the hall. I turn onto my side, watching the door. My heart is still thudding with fear, and yet for all my anxiety, I feel alive. I have a sense of purpose, something to drive me. I realize how much I have lost that over the past few years.

  And how much I miss it all.

  I mean to lie awake for a while and try to plan our next step. But I’m asleep almost before I’ve closed my eyes.

  When I wake up, it’s almost dark. I blink. The room is cooler, but I’m warm under the comforter. I sit up and check the time. Jesus, it’s quarter to nine. I must have slept for hours. My whole body feels stiff and sore, and my cheek is smarting from the graze on the roof. I shiver, remembering the fire.

  There’s a knock at the door. Feeling groggy, I stumble over.

  It’s Damian. His face is pink from his shower, and his black shirt looks sponged and pressed. He smiles as I stifle a yawn. “You too?”

  I nod. “I just woke up.”

  “They’re still open for dinner,” he says. “Shall we go down? I’m starving.”

  “Sure.” I automatically turn back for my makeup, then remember it’s in my handbag, which is gone in the fire. I shiver again. “I don’t have any of my normal things with me.” My voice comes out all fragile and forlorn, far more pathetic-sounding than I mean it to.

  “Hey.” Damian squeezes my arm. The touch of his hand sends a different kind of shiver through me. “We’ll get you some new stuff tomorrow, okay?”

  “Thanks.” I follow him down to dinner. At first I don’t think I’m hungry, but as soon as the bread arrives, I realize I’m ravenous.

  Damian and I eat two courses without stopping for breath, washing our pan-fried cod and treacle tart down with water for Damian and a glass of red wine for me. I ask for just the house wine, but Damian takes the drinks menu and upgrades my request, picking a delicious rioja with a surprising level of wine knowledge.

  “I thought when you drank, you drank whiskey?” I say.

  “When I drank, I drank whatever I could get my hands on.”

  “I still wouldn’t have figured you for a wine buff. Where d’you learn about Spanish reds?”

  He laughs. “My dad taught me. He said being able to navigate a wine menu would impress women. Kind of old-fashioned, but there you are.”

  “Was … is he fierce too? Like you said your mum was? They sound amazing, all the support they’ve given you.”

  “They are. Nah, Dad’s a big softie. Henpecked a bit, but I reckon he loves getting pushed around at home a bit, after being a captain of industry all day.”

  I think about my own parents. Bath seemed very dull to me growing up. It makes me laugh to think that Exeter once seemed edgy—even dangerous—in comparison and that I couldn’t wait to leave home to go to university there. The day I discovered, two years later, that Kara had chosen to follow me to the same place, I’d felt angry, as if she were trying to steal my freedom … muscle in on my choices. I didn’t stop to think that she might have been scared of going away, picking the same uni as me because my presence made the whole experience feel less daunting, because I would be there to look after her. To show her the ropes. To protect her.

  The old guilt rears up inside me. I try to ignore it, f
ocusing on what Damian is suggesting—a return to Exeter in the morning and a fresh visit to Aces High.

  “You could try to speak to Robbie, too?” Damian suggests. “Sound him out about that ‘dickweasel’ e-mail Julia sent.”

  I agree, then look up train times on my phone. After we’ve eaten, Damian suggests a stroll along the road, away from the hotel. The night sky has clouded over and the air is still and sultry, building up to a storm.

  I check the time and am shocked to realize it’s almost 11 P.M. It’s far too late now to call the kids; Mum will be going to bed too. I feel guilty. Then it occurs to me that I haven’t heard from Will all day either. I wonder if he phoned Mum and discovered I’m not there.

  Why hasn’t he called me?

  Is he with Catrina?

  Damian gestures toward a small patch of private parkland that backs onto a row of high houses. I’m still preoccupied with thoughts of Will when, to my surprise, Damian leaps over the gate.

  “We shouldn’t,” I say.

  He grins at me. “Go on, Livy, live a little.”

  I smile at such a Julia-esque phrase coming from his lips and clamber over the gate after him.

  Damian holds my hand as I jump down. He keeps holding it as we walk across the grass. I flush, grateful for the dark night. My heart is beating faster—and not because we’re trespassing. I tell myself Damian can’t really be interested in me. He’s just being friendly.

  We wander into the trees and he lets my hand go. Music is playing from one of the flats in the houses opposite. The air is sweet and humid as we stroll along. I think of Will again and how he hasn’t checked in to find out how I am. Still, I rationalize, I haven’t rung him either. I am too churned up to call; I’m hurt and jealous and angry. More than anything, I’m angry. Will has lied to me, made a fool of me. Again. And I have let him.