Page 121 of The Family Remains

‘Yes. Because of how he treated me. Because, you know, he raped me too. Raped me. In my sleep. I was asleep!’ Rachel clamps her hands over her mouth and makes a loud sobbing noise. ‘And then’ – she smiles apologetically and continues, drawing in her breath – ‘a few months later I found out that Michael had blackmailed my father out of all of his life savings by threatening to publicly share filthy photographs of me that he’d stolen from my phone at some point during our brief marriage. I went there that day to get him to pay the money back. I was going to get his gun – did you know he had a gun? And I was going to point it at him until he agreed to pay my father back all his money.’

‘And if he’d refused?’

Rachel looks directly into Lucy’s eyes and after a beat of silence says, ‘I would have shot him.’

‘But I got there first?’

‘Yes. You got there first. And you, Lucy, you are myheroine.’

Rachel leans towards Lucy then and takes her into her arms. ‘Thank you,’ she whispers into her hair. ‘Thank you for what you did.’

‘But what about your father’s money?’ Lucy asks. ‘Did you ever get it back?’

Rachel nods and smiles. ‘The wealth management company who’d been holding it for Michael really did not want the bad publicity, so they paid it all back to my father, no questions asked. So. Happy ever after.’ She smiles again and slaps her hands against her bare legs. ‘Is ten thirty in the morning too early for champagne, do you think?’

Lucy blinks in surprise. Then she smiles and says, ‘I’m fine with that.’

They take the champagne out on to Rachel’s balcony and make a toast to each other, to safety, to bad things happening to bad people and good things happening to good people, and Lucy tells Rachel about the old vicarage in St Albans and Rachel says she’d love to see it and Lucy says she’ll invite her for drinks when it’s fit for visitors and Rachel tells Lucy about her designer jewellery business and shows her some exquisitely pretty pieces on her website.

‘I’ll make you something, Lucy,’ says Rachel. ‘Whatever you want. Just choose something and it’s yours.’ But Lucy shakes her head and says, ‘No. I don’t need anything.’

‘What about for Libby, then? For your daughter?’ and Lucy smiles and says, ‘Oh. Yes. Thank you,’ and they don’t talk about Michael because Michael is dead and they are alive and they are safe and the sun shines on them as the barges pass down below.