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FORTY-TWO

TUESDAY 4 FEbrUARY

She’s lost count of how many times she’s tried to call Kate. Harper should have stopped her leaving – she’s got a terrible feeling that tonight won’t end well.

A sudden pounding on the door startles her. She springs up from the sofa and makes her way to the front door, checking her doorbell camera on her phone. It’s Ellis. And Harper knows why he’s here.

‘What do you want?’ she shouts from behind the door.

‘Let me in, Harper. I need to see Kate. Now. Where is she?’

‘She’s not here. Just go before I call the police.’

There’s a moment of silence before Ellis responds. ‘I think that’s a good idea. Call the police. Because there’s a lot I need to tell them.’

This has to be a ruse, and Harper’s not falling for it. She puts the chain on the door and opens it a fraction. ‘Why the hell would you want me to call the police, after what you’ve done?’

‘What is it you think I’ve done, Harper? Just let me in before all the neighbours wake up.’

It’s a split-second decision, and Harper has no idea what’s about to happen, but if Ellis knows where Kate is then Harper needs to find out. She pulls the chain back and slowly opens the door. ‘I’ve got a video doorbell and it’s filmed you coming here. If anything happens to me, then?—’

Ellis steps inside. ‘What do you think I’m planning to do, Harper? Why would I hurt you? Turns out you’ve actually done me a favour by trying to turn Kate’s life upside down.’

She doesn’t trust him, but time is running out. ‘Where is Kate? What have you done?’

He frowns. ‘I’m here looking for Kate – why would I be here if I’d done anything to her? I need to see her. Now.’

‘If I knew where she was then I wouldn’t be asking you, would I?’ Harper snaps. ‘It was you who attacked her, wasn’t it?’

Ellis’s face crumples. ‘What are you talking about? Kate’s been attacked?’

‘This evening. She thinks it was you. I do too.’

Ellis’s mouth hangs open as he digests Harper’s words. ‘But…what happened? Is she okay?’ His voice is frantic.

‘Thankfully a group of teenagers walked past and the man ran off before he could do serious harm. But he tried to strangle her. He wanted her dead.’ She glares at Ellis, willing the truth to come out of his mouth.

‘Jesus! Where is she now, then? We need to find her!’

‘I told her to stay here but she said there was something urgent she needed to do. A bit like you did earlier. Now I don’t know where she is.’ She studies Ellis’s face. His concern seems genuine, but then he must be adept at lying by now. ‘It must have been you,’ Harper says. ‘Who else would want to hurt her? And you were with Jamie in a bar months ago – Maddy saw you! She’d come to meet you and saw you talking to Jamie.’

Ellis frowns. ‘If you’re talking about that time in the summer, that was a meeting with a potential client. He worked for the Financial Conduct Authority. But he never got back to me after that meeting. I never saw him again. I only saw him that once and I’m not great with remembering faces. He told me his name was Ewan.’

‘That’s his middle name,’ Harper says.

‘So that’s why Kate kept showing me pictures of Jamie. I didn’t recognise him – he looked different when we met up. He had facial hair.’

This all seems plausible, but Harper will never trust Ellis. ‘I still don’t believe you,’ she says.

‘Why the hell would I want to hurt my wife? I love her!’

Harper can tell Ellis is distraught, but still she corrects him. ‘She’s not your wife any more, Ellis. You need to accept that.’

Ellis shifts his feet. ‘I know! But that doesn’t mean I don’t still love her. She’s the mother of my son. We’ll always be family. And that’s why—’ He stops short and stares at Harper. ‘Why are you so concerned about Kate all of a sudden? You wanted to destroy her life! How do I know you didn’t arrange for someone to attack her?’

‘Because that fire changed everything,’ Harper says. ‘It’s not likely that a woman who could rush back into a burning house to save a child could also be a cold-blooded killer.’

Ellis fixes his eyes on the floor. ‘I know the truth, Harper. Finally, after all these years I know .’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘The truth about Kate. And I think you need to know it too. Everyone does.’

For a moment, Harper falters. Has she been wrong to trust Kate? Or is Ellis gaslighting her? ‘What are you saying, Ellis?’

He takes a deep breath. ‘I’ve just been with Jennifer Seagrove. She was Graham White’s ex-girlfriend.’

‘I know who she is. Go on.’

‘I’ve been in contact with her. For months now. Because I know Kate’s been lying about what happened back then.’

Harper swallows the lump in her throat and waits for Ellis to continue.

‘I first reached out to Jennifer about a year ago. Something was bothering me about Kate’s story and I wanted to find out the truth. I…I think I suspected that she might have…known Graham White.’

‘What do you mean exactly?’

Ellis takes a deep breath. ‘I mean – I wondered if he’d done something to her. You know – groomed her into having some kind of relationship with him. Child abuse. That’s what I mean.’

Harper stares at him, numb with shock.

‘So I managed to track down Jennifer and we struck up a kind of friendship. I suppose she found it okay talking to me as I had nothing to do with the past. I didn’t know Kate then. I think maybe she saw me as another innocent victim in all the lies.’

‘What lies?’ Harper holds her breath; she doesn’t want to hear that Kate killed Graham White deliberately. She’s been so sure that she could trust Kate after all.

‘Jennifer admitted she had a letter that was sent to her the day before Graham died,’ Ellis continues. ‘It was from a schoolgirl, claiming she was in a relationship with Graham. It had so many details that Jennifer couldn’t ignore it. Times and places they’d meet, that sort of thing. And all of it tied in with when Jennifer wasn’t with Graham. But it’s been years and Jennifer couldn’t find the letter to show me.’

Harper considers this. ‘Jennifer could be lying about it, then. Where’s the proof?’

‘What would be the point?’

Harper’s not sure – all she knows is that everybody lies.

‘And I believed her,’ Ellis says. ‘Now even more.’ He sighs. ‘I went round there tonight because after she emailed me, she’d called me and told me she’d finally found it. She’d put it inside an old notebook and had only just come across it when she was packing to move house.’

‘Just tell me,’ Harper says. She will face whatever it is she needs to.

‘The letter was exactly as Jennifer had said. A confession from a fifteen-year-old girl. Explaining she didn’t want the affair on her conscience, and she wanted Jennifer to know what kind of man she was with. But the thing is – it wasn’t Kate’s handwriting.’

Harper’s eyes widen. ‘What? How can you tell? She was fifteen when she wrote it.’

‘Handwriting doesn’t change that much. This girl’s writing was completely different to Kate’s. The shape of the letter Y . It wasn’t Kate’s writing at all. Nothing about it was similar.’

‘So who wrote it, then?’

‘I managed to track down some old school friends of Kate’s on Facebook. And they all kept coming up with the same name. Kate had a best friend called Mona Shaw. I found her on LinkedIn and messaged her. She didn’t want to talk to me at first but I told her I had the letter she wrote, and that handwriting experts would be able to determine that it was hers. But she never got back to me. What if she’s the one who attacked Kate? I think Kate might have threatened to finally tell the truth, and that’s what this is all about. Maybe Jamie too.’

Harper can’t see how. ‘But Kate said it was a man.’

‘She could have been mistaken. Or Mona could have got someone to do it for her.’ The urgency is back in his voice. ‘We need to find Kate now. Are you sure you don’t know where she could have gone?’

‘No! One minute she was going to bed – the next she’d rushed off.’

‘It’s got to be Mona Shaw,’ Ellis says. ‘I don’t understand it but I need to find Kate!’

‘How are we going to find her?’

Ellis stares at his feet. ‘I’m ashamed to say this…but I never took family sharing off my phone – and if Kate didn’t either then we should be able to see where she is. I’d forgotten we even had it on. So much has happened since we separated.’

‘What are you waiting for?’ Harper says. ‘Check it now!’

Harper watches Ellis as he checks his phone, relieved when a smile appears on his face. ‘Come on!’ she urges. She’s got to take a gamble and trust Ellis. ‘Before it’s too late.’