Page 47

TUESDAY 4 FEbrUARY

There’s terror on Rowan’s face as Kate pushes the knife against his skin. ‘Tell me about Jamie Archer,’ she says. She unfolds the receipt she found in the box of Jamie’s things. ‘This is a receipt from your practice – I know he was a patient of yours.’

Rowan says nothing and closes his eyes.

‘Was it you who killed him?’ Kate says. ‘Talk!’ She presses harder on the knife, feels his body tense underneath it. ‘Why did you do it?’

‘You should never have blackmailed me, Kate. Don’t you get it? Everything that happened to Jamie is because of you. If you’d just left me alone and gone to another therapist, he’d still be alive now. I kept telling you I couldn’t be your therapist any more. You’re the reason we’re all in this…this mess.’

Kate stares at him, open-mouthed. She’d wanted Rowan to tell her that she’s wrong, that he had nothing to do with Jamie’s murder and it’s just a coincidence that he was one of Rowan’s patients, just like she was. Wasn’t it Rowan who’d insisted that coincidences happen? But looking at him now, Kate knows that’s not the truth.

‘Is this about Graham White?’ she demands. ‘Did you know him? Are you something to do with him? All those times you tried to convince me that he could have nothing to do with Jamie ending up dead! That was all to protect yourself!’

‘Please lower that knife so I can talk?’

Kate ignores him. ‘It was you who set fire to my house, wasn’t it? All of it…you did all those things. You’re the one who took my house keys from Jamie’s flat. And you attacked me this evening.’

‘Accusations without proof are meaningless, aren’t they? You should know that.’ Rowan glares at her.

‘My son was in the house. He could have died. And his friend too.’

‘But he wasn’t supposed to be in the house, was he? Whose fault is it that you changed your plans? Just lower that knife, Kate, if you want me to talk.’

‘How… how did you know the plan changed?’

‘Because I’ve made it my business to know every single thing you do.’

For a moment Kate doesn’t move. Every move Rowan makes is cold and calculated – how could he have been the one person she trusted above anyone else? But if she wants him to talk, she needs to play along. She lowers her hand, but keeps a tight grip on the knife.

‘You’re so deeply traumatised by that man,’ Rowan says, ‘that it clouds your judgement. Jamie had nothing to do with Graham White, and neither do I.’

They’d still be alive now.

They?

Faye Held.

Before Kate can question him, Rowan thrusts his chair back, knocking her off balance. The knife crashes to the floor, landing by his feet. Kate lunges towards it, but Rowan is too fast, swiping it up and rushing towards her, plunging the knife into her stomach. Kate doubles over. Ignoring the searing pain, she picks up a vase of flowers from the table and hurls it at Rowan’s face. It thuds against his head then smashes to the floor. Anger flashes across his face and Kate knows she has to run.

Making for the door, she reaches for the handle just as Rowan grabs her legs and drags her down, her bones crashing against the tiled floor. And for a fleeting moment it’s not Rowan’s face she sees but Graham White’s. But unlike Graham, Rowan is guilty, and she will kill him if that’s what she has to do to get out of here alive.

Rowan sits on her stomach, pressing down on her with all his weight, slamming his fist into her face, over and over until the edges of her consciousness begin to darken. And the pain in her abdomen in excruciating. She tries to kick out but he’s overpowering her. Why isn’t he using the knife? That would be quicker. And then she feels it against her neck. Kate closes her eyes and stays still. Her only hope now is to try and reason with him – maybe some minuscule part of him might care about her after what they had.

Someone is screaming. It must be Kate, but her mouth is closed. Rowan stops, the pressure of his body on hers easing.

More screams. Rowan shouting. A woman’s voice, urgent, frantic. Then footsteps running.

Someone kneels beside her. ‘Kate? Can you hear me? It’s Daniella. Please, let me know if you can hear me.’

Kate opens her eyes to find Rowan’s wife peering at her. It takes a huge effort, but she attempts to nod.

‘Good.’ Daniella stands up and grabs a kitchen towel from the worktop, pressing it down over Kate’s stomach. ‘You’re safe now. I’m calling the ambulance. They’ll be here any?—’

The doorbell rings, and Daniella jolts up. ‘That was too quick.’

‘Don’t let him in,’ Kate says.

Daniella nods. ‘Stay here.’

Alone in the kitchen, Kate pulls herself up, slowly making her way to the door. She can hear familiar voices. Urgent and questioning. Then Harper is rushing towards her, grabbing Kate’s arms to steady her.

Behind Harper, Ellis runs to Kate. ‘Jesus! What did that monster do to you?’ He glances at the trail of blood on the floor.

Kate can barely stand, but this is nothing compared to what Rowan would have done if Daniella hadn’t come back. ‘I’m okay,’ she says. She falls into Ellis, and he manages to grab her before she falls to the floor.

Kate opens her eyes, disorientated until she focuses on the square tiles on the bright white ceiling, then the crisp white hospital sheets covering her body. It all floods back to her: Rowan. Daniella coming back to their house. Saving her life. Harper and Ellis turning up – how did they know where she was?

‘Hey, you’re awake.’

She turns to see Ellis sitting on the chair by her bed. ‘Where’s Thomas?’ she asks. Right now, she wants nothing more than to see her son.

‘Don’t worry – he’s fine. He’s with Harper.’ Ellis offers a faint smile. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Like I’ve been stabbed in the stomach.’ Kate tries to laugh but intense shooting pains fire through her body and instead she groans.

‘It’s not something to joke about, Kate,’ Ellis says, reaching for her arm. ‘You could have been killed.’

Kate tries to pull herself up. ‘Where’s Rowan? He killed Jamie. He might try to come here and?—’

‘He can’t hurt you now.’ Ellis gently squeezes her arm. ‘After he ran from his house, he jumped off Chelsea Bridge. He’s dead, Kate.’

Kate should be relieved to hear this, but she’s not. Now Rowan will never have to face the consequences of what he’s done. Death was the easier option. And now she’ll never have the answers she needs about Jamie.

‘Why did he do that to you?’

‘I don’t know,’ Kate says. ‘We’ll never know. But… I need to tell you something about Rowan.’ Sick of all the lies, it’s time for Kate to tell Ellis the truth about her affair.

He listens silently and then takes her hand. ‘Is that why he killed Jamie?’

‘Maybe.’

Ellis shakes his head. ‘Let’s only look forward now. You’re free, Kate.’ He takes her cannula-free hand. ‘Harper told me you thought I was the one who killed Jamie. And that I attacked you. I can’t bear the thought of you thinking that, even for a second. All I’ve ever done is try to protect you.’

Kate pulls her hand away. ‘It was all those lies you told.’

Ellis buries his head in his hands. ‘A while ago, I started looking into what happened with Graham White. It was after you said something weird in your sleep one night.’

Kate frowns. ‘What?’

‘You don’t normally talk in your sleep, but this one night you were mumbling something about how Graham White had got away with what he’d done. Something like that. It was a bit garbled but that was the gist.’ He looks at Kate again. ‘It scared me, Kate. I…I thought you must have been lying to me about not knowing him and him just attacking you randomly.’ He hangs his head. ‘I needed to know. I thought you must have had some kind of relationship with him, and that maybe you’d killed him out of revenge for…for grooming you. I just needed to know the truth. And you’d never talk about it. I wanted to help you.’

‘I was never seeing him,’ Kate says. ‘It was nothing like that.’

‘I know that now,’ Ellis says. ‘But remember you’d never talk about it? It was eating away at me. But now I know it wasn’t you who was seeing him.’

Kate stares at him. ‘How?’

Ellis explains that Jennifer Seagrove showed him the letter from the girl Graham was supposedly sleeping with. ‘It wasn’t your writing, Kate. Do you know who wrote that letter?’

She nods. It’s time Ellis knew the truth. ‘I’m sick of all the lies. My whole life since I was fifteen has been a lie.’ She hesitates. ‘Apart from you and Thomas.’ Kate tells him the truth about what happened that day, when Graham White threw her and Mona in his van. And how Kate has kept Mona’s secret until now.

He listens, open-mouthed, until she’s finished. ‘Why would you protect her all these years? Everyone in your life believed you’d killed someone!’

‘Because she blackmailed me. And threatened me. Plus I didn’t know the truth. Initially I thought I was protecting her – she needed a break in life. She’d had a rough childhood, and then I thought she’d been raped by him. But I just found out that was all lies – he hadn’t laid a finger on her. Mona had met him in the park and become obsessed with him, but he was having no part of it. It made her angry and she waged a hate campaign against him.’ Tears slide down her cheeks. ‘And I helped her, because I thought he was a paedophile.’ Kate swipes at her tears.

‘But he did kidnap you,’ Ellis says. ‘He hit you. Why did he do that? Maybe he did want to?—’

‘No, I think he’d just reached the end of his tether. Because of what Mona had done. He was desperate.’ Like Rowan, and Jamie too, people do desperate things when they’re pushed to their limit. ‘I really believe he was just an innocent man. He took us away in his van to scare us, to tell us to leave him alone.’

Ellis listens, chewing over her words. ‘Do you think Mona was lying about it being self-defence?’

‘I’ll never know. She’d never admit that now. And the only person who can answer that is dead.’

‘But the truth has to come out, doesn’t it?’ Ellis says. ‘For Jennifer’s sake too. She needs to know that the man she loved was innocent.’

Kate knows this. ‘I’ll find a way,’ she says. Her head flops back against her pillow.

‘Speaking of the truth,’ Ellis says, chewing his lip. ‘I need to tell you something.’

Kate closes her eyes. What is she about to hear?

‘I’m the one who put that photo of Jamie in Thomas’s school bag for you to find. I did it after I picked him up so I knew he wouldn’t see it.’

Kate stares at him. ‘Why?’

‘First, I was angry with you for ending our marriage over my affair, when I thought you’d had one yourself. But then I kind of hoped you’d be so worried about it that you’d confide in me. I just wanted you to talk to me about what was going on.’

‘Does Harper know it was you who sent it?’

‘No. I never told anyone. I’m sorry, Kate.’

What does it matter now? ‘Well, we’ve both lied,’ Kate says. ‘Let’s just move forward. All I want right now is to be with Thomas.’

‘I’ll bring him to see you in the morning,’ Ellis promises. ‘They said you should be able to go home tomorrow afternoon.’

Home. I no longer have one. ‘And where exactly is home?’ Kate says, more to herself than to Ellis.

‘My home. It’s always there for you and Thomas. I know there’s no going back for our marriage, but we can move forward with a different kind of relationship. As Thomas’s parents. That’s all I want.’

Kate smiles, and prays Ellis means this. ‘Me too. Maybe you and Maddy can?—’

‘No, that’s not what I want. I’m moving forward, Kate. Do you want some water?’ Ellis doesn’t wait for a reply but pours water into Kate’s cup and hands it to her. ‘Harper said she’d like to visit this evening. Is that okay?’

Kate nods. It’s more than okay.

Harper hovers in the doorway, waiting for Kate to beckon her in. ‘I wasn’t sure you’d want to see me,’ she says. ‘It’s hard to know anything really after all that’s happened.’

Kate pulls herself up. Her pain medication is starting to wear off and she’ll need more soon if she’s going to get through the night. ‘We’re in this together, aren’t we?’ she tells Harper.

Harper comes in and sits by Kate’s bed. ‘But I wasn’t there for you when you needed me. I’m sorry we didn’t get to you in time. If Rowan’s wife hadn’t left her phone behind…’

‘It’s best not to think about that,’ Kate says.

Harper nods. ‘Actually, I think you would have handled him. You’re a fighter, Kate. A survivor. And now everyone will know you didn’t kill Graham White. Or Jamie. I’ve just read a post from Faye Held’s younger sister – she’s planning to take over the Beneath the Surface podcast in memory of her sister. I’ve already messaged her to see if she’ll re-examine the Graham White story. Because of Mona’s confession to Kate. And then there’s Jamie too. Everyone should know who was responsible, even if the police will never be able to prove it.’

‘But we have to be mindful of Daniella,’ Kate says. ‘She didn’t deserve to be married to such a psychopath.’ And Kate will always feel guilty about her affair with Rowan.

‘People might wonder how she didn’t know how disturbed he was,’ Harper says. ‘But I know from Jamie that people are too good at hiding what they don’t want others to see.’

‘I don’t think it’s as straightforward as saying Rowan was a psychopath,’ Kate says, reaching for her water. ‘I think he was just faced with losing everything in his life, and he did what he thought he had to, to keep it. My blackmail pushed him to his limit.’

‘But there must have been something always there for him to have snapped that badly,’ Harper counters.

‘Yeah, you’re right,’ Kate agrees. Unless we’re all just close to the edge. ‘I’m sorry about…about me and Jamie.’

Harper sighs. ‘You don’t need to say that. Jamie was never mine. And actually, Dexter and I were never his, so it’s all fine.’

‘What do you mean? Dexter’s his son.’

‘That’s a story for another day,’ Harper says. ‘If you don’t mind?’

Kate frowns, searching Harper’s face. Perhaps she doesn’t want to know – she’s had more than enough of lies and deception.

Harper stays for a couple of hours, filling Kate in on what Thomas and Dex have been doing on their extended playdate. ‘They’ve really hit it off,’ she says. ‘We’re doing homemade pizzas for dinner tonight. Hope that’s okay? They never got to have them last time.’

Kate nods. ‘Thank you.’

‘And I…I asked Ellis if he’d like to stay for dinner too. I hope that’s okay?’ Harper’s cheeks flush.

Kate smiles. ‘Of course it is,’ she says. Harper deserves some happiness.

Harper nods, and a silent exchange takes place between the two women. ‘Well, I’d better go and make myself presentable.’

‘Okay,’ Kate says. ‘Maybe wear your hair down.’

Harper nods. ‘One step ahead of you,’ she says, smiling.

And when she leaves, Kate finally lets herself exhale.

Now she truly is free.

* * *

If you couldn’t put The Last One to See Him down, then you will love The Girl with No Past , another gripping, page-turning domestic thriller from Kathryn Croft.