Page 66

SIXTY-THREE

Ash.”

Nina is calling to her through the house.

“Yes,” Ash calls back from her bedroom.

“Did you see Nick today?”

Ash slips off her bed and goes to the landing. “Nope. Not since this morning. Why?”

Her mother is standing in the hallway, still in her big winter coat, her bag on the floor at her feet, a takeaway for their dinner in another bag.

“Just weird that he’s not here. He said he’d be in all day. And now he’s not answering his phone.”

A chill runs down Ash’s spine. Ah , she thinks, it’s started . “Oh,” she says nonchalantly. “That’s strange. Why don’t you have a look at the Ring app? You might be able to see when he left? See if he had a bag? Or whatever?”

“That’s a good idea.”

Ash descends the stairs and follows Nina into the kitchen.

At the table they sit elbow to elbow and look through the clips on Nina’s phone.

They see the postman come and go, they see a delivery driver pull up in a big gray van and shove something through their letter box, then, in the next clip, they see something strange.

At about half ten a car pulls up and a petite woman gets out.

She looks about forty-five, with lots of thick, curly blond hair.

As she moves closer to the front door and her face comes into full focus in the camera, they see that she has wide blue eyes framed by mascaraed eyelashes, and that she looks wildly anxious.

“What the hell?” Nina mutters. “What is she up to?”

The woman rings the bell and stares into the hallway, her face still contorted with anxiety.

She waits for just under a minute and then slowly walks away from the door and goes out of the shot.

Two minutes later, she is back in the shot, climbing into her car, and then a moment after that she is gone.

Ash stares at her mother’s phone. She’s pretty sure she knows who that woman is, but she cannot say.

Not yet. They flick through a couple more clips, and then there it is: Nick leaving at roughly midday, a rucksack over his shoulder, his weird doctor’s bag (apparently it belonged to his late father who was a GP) in his left hand, his coat on, a woolen hat over his white hair.

He leaves quickly and smoothly, without looking back.

And then he, too, disappears out of the shot, just the sound of his feet crunching on the graveled road and a note of winter birdcall from a nearby tree before the recording falls silent again.

Nina doesn’t say anything for a while after watching the clip. She sighs heavily and pulls her hair off her face with both hands. “I’m a little confused. What did I just see?”

Ash draws in her breath. “OK,” she says, “I have an explanation. But you have to promise me that you will hear me out. This is nothing like what happened in London. Nothing. I am completely sane now. I have never felt more sane. Everything I am about to tell you is the truth and I have people who can corroborate it. You have to trust me and you have to believe me. OK?”

“OK,” says Nina. “I’m listening.”

Ash recounts it all, every last bit of it, from the pacifier clip in Nick’s coat pocket to her visit to Martha’s shop this morning and her meeting with Emma Greenlaw.

“Jesus Christ,” says Nina, her expression stricken. “Jesus fucking Christ! I can’t believe I let him… I can’t believe I… Oh my God. I’m such a fucking idiot.” Nina slams her fists down against the kitchen table and growls.

Ash touches her shoulder gently and says, “I’m really sorry, Mum. You do believe me, though, don’t you?”

Nina’s face softens and tears fill her eyes.

“Oh, baby,” she says, taking Ash’s hands in hers.

“I believe you. Of course I believe you. But I want you to know that I would never have been one of those women. I honestly never would have. I would not have let him use me and manipulate me. I would not have let him take my money. Our money. I just wasn’t that into him.

Not in that way. Not in the way that I was into your dad.

” She laughs softly, and Ash smiles. “But I do see how those women fell for him. I do get it. He is a consummate professional. He somehow knows just what buttons to press, just how to play things. He just knows. But it was different with me, the way he was with me, it never quite rang true. It wouldn’t have lasted.

I would have ended it. Very, very soon. You are my priority, Ash.

You and your brother. Always have been. Always will be.

And I’m sorry if I’ve made you feel unwelcome in your own home.

Unsafe. I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you and I’m sorry I let that stupid man in here.

All I want in the whole world, Ash, is for you to be happy. I cannot be happy unless you are.”

As her mother says these words, Ash knows she has to share one more thing with her. “There’s something I didn’t tell you, Mum. About what’s been going on. I haven’t been investigating Nick by myself, I’ve had someone helping me.”

Nina raises her brow quizzically.

“Jane Trevally.”

Her mother frowns. “Mad Jane?”

“Yes. Mad Jane. But she’s not mad. She’s great.

And I didn’t want to tell you because I thought you’d believe me even less—I know how you felt about her, how you and Dad both felt about her.

And I only got in touch with her because I thought she might have known Nick from when he said he was working in that restaurant with Dad, and of course that was a big lie.

But she wanted to help. And I needed help.

I’m sorry I did that behind your back, but I didn’t know what else to do. ”

Nina pushes her chair toward Ash and takes her in her arms. She holds her against her heart and Ash hears her sigh heavily.

“I don’t blame you, angel,” she says. “I don’t blame you at all.

I have not been there for you…” She pauses and breathes in hard “… for a very long time. I really haven’t.

I’ve been very self-absorbed, and I think a lot of that was to stop me from feeling the things I should be feeling.

To distract myself from everything that has happened.

Because if I think too hard about what happened, I start feeling like I might lose my mind.

And I cannot afford to lose my mind, not now. ”

Ash nestles closer into her mother’s body. “Will you come with me tomorrow?” she asks. “To Enderford? To see Martha? Have you got time?”

Her mother squeezes her hard. “First thing,” she says. “I’ll cancel all my meetings, and we’ll go first thing.”

She looks down at Ash with a small smile playing on her mouth and she says, “So. Mad Jane. What does she look like these days. Is she still hot?”