Page 19

19

CALIFORNIA, 2011

I’m inventing things to do in order to avoid having to go upstairs and get ready for bed. But I know that the longer I draw it out, the elephant in the room is only going to loom ever larger in Brad’s mind. I hear him stomp from the bedroom to the bathroom, slamming the door.

I wonder if I’ve got time to run up the stairs, get into my nightgown, slip into bed and pretend I’m asleep before he comes back out. But even if I have, Brad has always been of the belief that we should never go to sleep on an argument—and although it hasn’t happened yet, this has the potential to be the mother of all arguments.

We cross on the landing outside the bathroom, me having planned it with precision so as to limit the chances of him raising his voice since Hannah is within earshot. But I know I’m only putting off his inevitable wrath—and who can blame him? I deserve everything he’s going to give.

It feels as if there’s a boulder on my chest as I clean my teeth, an obstruction that’s been growing day by day, for every month and year of marriage that I haven’t told him my deepest, darkest secret. There’s a tiny part of me, buried somewhere I’d never be able to reach, that’s relieved it’s all about to be cast out into the open. But I’d never choose to do it like this; I’m still not ready. Though if I were honest with myself, I’m not sure I ever would be.

Brad’s making a good show of reading his book when I come out of the bathroom, willing myself to pretend that it’s just a normal night. I switch off my bedside lamp and climb into the cool cotton sheets beside him. My head has just hit the pillow when he slams the book down, making me jump.

“Are you honestly intending to go to sleep without telling me what the hell she was talking about?” he exclaims, his hurt and fury so evidently close to the surface.

“I-I don’t know what you want me to say.”

He jumps out of bed and switches on the main light, making me feel as if I’m an unwilling actor onstage. “ Something! Anything! You need to start talking because until you offer an explanation I can even begin to understand, we’re going to have a huge problem.”

I pull myself up against the headboard. “She came by a week or so ago.”

“And you didn’t think to tell me?” he seethes. “What does she want from you?”

“She was asking questions about what happened back then.”

Brad’s jaw tenses as he looks at me with narrowed eyes. “And what did happen back then?”

I swallow. “I-I was around the band at the time.”

“Around the band?” he repeats incredulously. “Is that honestly all you’re going to give me?”

“I-I was seeing Ben Edwards…” I falter, the memory of his smiling face flashing in front of my eyes. “Wh-when it happened.”

“Jesus!” roars Brad. “I always knew you were running from something, but I never imagined it would be something like this.”

I thought I’d prepared myself for every eventuality, getting ready every conceivable answer to the questions I knew he was going to ask. But this is a sucker punch I wasn’t expecting, and I turn into my pillow to stifle a sob. He doesn’t mean it, of course—he can’t possibly have known that I had come to America for any reason other than that my sister had tragically been taken from us and, feeling alone and bereft, I wanted a new start somewhere far away, where no one knew me.

That’s why I got on a plane to Los Angeles, took the Pacific Surfliner to San Diego, and then, when it still didn’t feel quite far enough away from my former life in London, jumped on the ferry to the tiny island of Coronado. At least that’s what Brad thinks.

“I wasn’t… It wasn’t…” I start, my rehearsed lines deserting me.

“Why wouldn’t you have thought to tell me something like that?” He looks at me wide-eyed, expecting an answer.

“I should have been honest. I should have told you, but I was scared.”

“Of what?” he says, still too agitated to sit down and talk it through calmly. “What have you got to be scared of?”

I disguise a shudder. If only he knew.

“It was a really difficult time that I wanted to put behind me,” I say, matter-of-factly.

“So that’s why you fled to America?”

“I didn’t flee anywhere,” I say, hurt by the suggestion, even though it’s true. “After the trial, I just needed to get away for a while.”

“And never go back?”

“I was always intending to, but then I met you, so…” I shrug my shoulders nonchalantly, but nothing about me is indifferent.

Brad’s eyes narrow and he goes to say something before seemingly thinking better of it.

“Go on,” I prompt.

He straightens himself up and runs a hand through his beard. “But you were a suspect?”

I suck in a breath. “Yes, but thankfully justice prevailed.”

“So, what’s this woman doing here now, then?” he asks, looking more worried than mad. “What does she want?”

“She was after some help with her book—I assume looking to fill in some blanks, but I told her I wasn’t interested in being dragged back to the past.”

“What day was she here?”

Bizarrely, it’s the question I’ve been most frightened of. “Wh-what?” I stutter.

“What day was she here?” he asks again, slowly and deliberately.

“Erm, I-I can’t really remember.”

“Well, was it before Hannah went missing, or after?” His patience is wearing thin and I’ve run out of places to hide.

“I think… I think it was the same day…” My vagueness lends itself to someone who genuinely doesn’t know, but it’s etched into my memory, and I’m a fool if I think Brad doesn’t know me well enough to see it.

His nostrils flare. “So, this has something to do with what happened to her.”

“ What? No, of course not. Why would you think that?”

He snorts derisively. “Are you honestly telling me it’s pure coincidence? That our daughter going missing has nothing to do with your mucky past being raked up on the very same day?”

“Yes,” I say, sounding far more forthright than I feel. “There would be no reason on earth why what happened twenty-five years ago would result in anything happening to Hannah.”

“You’d better be telling me the truth,” he warns, his features pinched.