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‘That’s not true, and you know it.’ A defensive lilt in her voice. I imagine her face has flushed. She’s so predictable. ‘Iwasyour friend,’ she continues. ‘I thought you were mine, and I tried to stop it. It had started before I’d even met you. I didn’t know he was married. I tried to end it. And it did end.’
It’s her turn to be economical with the truth. It did end, but only when I intervened and he found out about our friendship. Louise would have gone on guiltily spreading her legs for him behind my back if he hadn’t panicked and finished it. Protecting her from me. That’s David. Forever saving women. Of course that version of events doesn’t suit her view of herself, so she likes to think her guilt would have won out and she would have ended it anyway. I know people better than that. I knowherbetter than that.
‘Well, now you have lost both of us,’ she says, defiantly.
‘No, I haven’t. He won’t leave me. He’ll never leave me.’
‘You don’t get it.’ She’s talking to me like I’m a child. ‘I believed you. I believed everything you said. I went to the police with it.’
‘You did what?’ I emit an almost-gasp. Surprised. Or at least a good impression of it.
‘I wrote them a letter. Addressed to the policeman who investigated the fire that killed your parents. The one who thought David was involved. I told them all about Rob and how I thought his body was still somewhere on your estate.’
‘You did what? Why would you do that? I never told you to do that.’
‘I did it because I’m stupid and I didn’t know you were crazy then!’
‘They won’t believe you,’ I mutter, standing and pacing the hall, my head down as if I’m frantically thinking. She can’t see me, but she’ll hear my footsteps. She’ll sense my worry. ‘They won’t believe you.’
‘No,’ she says, ‘maybe not.’ A breath. ‘But they will believehim.’
I freeze and pause. ‘What?’ I say.
‘He’s on his way to Scotland to speak to them. He’s going to tell them everything. He’s going to tell them the truth.’
A long moment of quiet falls between us, only the relentless tick of the clock breaking the silence.
‘But he can’t!’ I say eventually. ‘They won’t … He can’t … He wouldn’t …’
‘But he has. And no, they won’t believe him. You’re too good for that. They’ll arrest him.’
I can hear her momentary joy at how aghast I am. At how we’re both hurting now. I see all that potential love for him that she’s denied for so long, burning brightly inside her.
‘We both know he didn’t kill Rob,’ she says. ‘Why can’t you just say that?’
‘They’ll put him in prison,’ I say so quietly it’s barely a whisper. ‘They’ll take him away from me.’ Tears spring from the corners of my eyes. Just the thought of being separated from David can cause a physical reaction in me, even now.
‘Why couldn’t you have hated him?’ It’s my turn to shout. ‘Why? Why would you do this?’
She doesn’t answer, so I wail like an animal and sink to the ground. ‘You were just supposed to hate him,’ I cry into the handset. ‘You were supposed to choose me.’ I pull my knees up under my chin as I snivel snotty tears onto my silk sleeve, lost in my role. ‘What am I supposed to do now? He can’t leave me. He can’t. He won’t.’
‘He has,’ she says, Louise now the calm one, now the one in control. ‘But you can stop this, Adele. You’re the only one whocanstop this. Tell the truth. At least tell me the truth, here and now.’
Oh no, little goody-two-shoes,I want to hiss at her.It’s not going to be that easy.
‘You’re sick, Adele.’
Oh bless you for that, Louise, you husband-stealing sorry excuse for a woman. We both know the word you’re actually thinking is ‘crazy’.
‘The pills you haven’t been taking will help you,’ she continues. ‘If you go to the police and tell them the truth – if what happened with Rob was an accident and you panicked – well, they’ll be easier on you. All you did was hide the body. With David they’ll think it was murder. They might think he murdered your parents too.’
I note that she’s very carefully avoiding suggesting that perhaps I murdered all three –psycho crazy Adele.
‘They’ll be gentler on you. Mitigating circumstances. You’d lost your family and had been in therapy. They won’t put you in prison, I’m sure of it.’
Oh, what a honey’d-tongue she has. No, they might not put me in prison, but I hear Broadmoor’s no walk in the park either, thank you very much.
‘Why would he do this?’ I moan. ‘Why?’