Page 51 of The Lucky Winners
Dev
He shows the detectives out and the front door closes with a soft thud when they leave. The house falls into an uneasy silence. He lingers in the hallway, listening to Merri pacing up and down the living room. It’s the only sound to break through the stillness.
The detectives’ voices still echo in his head – measured and impersonal, loaded with questions designed to uncover potential lies and misdirection. He keeps replaying the moment Merri had to tell them about her falling-out with Sarah.
In the kitchen, Dev fills the kettle, his hands moving on automatic pilot. Tea always makes things better and, besides, it gives him something to focus on.
While the kettle comes to the boil, Dev cracks open the glass door and steps just outside. The terrace and garden are cloaked in a deep, impenetrable black. It’s the kind of darkness that conceals everything familiar and instils unease in him.
It occurs to him that, at this time in the morning, the air feels different.
It presses against his face and arms like a clammy second skin that feels unnatural.
He really should get back to bed, try to rest, but he stays put, staring into the black void outside, catching the odd glimmer of blue lights and the sobering flash of pale forensic hazmat suits.
The kettle clicks off, and Dev steps back inside, locking the door. He pours boiling water over the two teabags, then removes them, adds milk and takes the mugs into the living room where Merri sits, morose and silent.
‘I can’t believe this is happening,’ she says finally, her voice low and hoarse. ‘Sarah’s dead. And now, after that argument, it’s going to draw attention to me. I could look guilty in the eyes of the detectives.’
Dev frowns. ‘Guilty of what? She’d been drinking and could’ve slipped into the lake with all that rain, Merri.
That’s nobody’s fault.’ He waits for Merri to nod and gather some reassurance from his words, but her expression remains troubled.
‘You clearly had nothing to do with Sarah’s death and that will become obvious to them very soon. ’
He regards her silently. The look on her face …
He can’t explain it, but it seems very much to him that there’s something she’s not telling him.
Of course Dev knows for certain his wife had nothing to do with Sarah’s death – and she can’t be arrested for having an argument – but her growing anxiety seems to suggest that she’s worrying about something else she hasn’t voiced yet.
The police presence down by the lake feels like a living, breathing thing with the power to take over their lives, but Dev is hoping things will look better in the morning.
‘We can take our tea back to bed, if you like. We’re not going to solve anything sitting here staring at each other.’
Merri looks back at him blankly. ‘I can’t believe Sarah is dead. I feel like we contributed to it through setting her up and then –’
‘Don’t even think of it like that.’ Dev cuts her off. ‘We don’t have all the facts yet, do we? Neither do the police. Things will become clearer, I’m sure.’ He reaches for her hand. ‘This terrible thing that’s happened isn’t our fault, Merri. Just remember that.’
He watches as she twists her fingers together again, looking away from him. ‘Maybe you’re right,’ she murmurs.
‘I can’t help wondering about Jack in all this,’ Dev says. ‘Surely he would’ve contacted us if Sarah had gone missing after running off down towards the lake.’
Merri doesn’t answer immediately. She stares down into her tea.
‘We didn’t check on her, though, did we?’ she says quietly. ‘We knew how upset she was, but we didn’t think to check with Jack whether Sarah was OK. You know, send him a text before we went to bed or whatever.’
Her words land like a punch, the truth of them undeniable. Dev’s jaw tightens. It was true they hadn’t checked. He could’ve sent Jack a quick text following up, but he didn’t. What crap friends they were turning out to be.
In the chaos of the night – Merri’s anger, Sarah’s storming off, tense goodbyes from Tilda and Simon – he’d been glad to get rid of everyone and lock the door.
‘And now it’s too late to make amends.’ Merri’s shoulders draw in tightly as she rubs her upper arms.
‘You’re shivering,’ Dev says.
‘I’m fine.’
He doesn’t push her. He knows better than to do that when she’s on the defensive.
There are parts of Merri she has kept locked away.
She’s always been clear that she had a very unhappy childhood, including losing her younger sister, and that she’s never had any desire to discuss it.
Dev suspects she has a very big, tangled mess to unpick one day, but he’s never been invited to help her try.
Dev watches his wife carefully. He knows her face, her expressions. The way her thoughts pull her back to a time long ago and he’s not allowed to follow.
Suddenly she speaks, her voice sharper than before. ‘Do you think it was her, Dev?’
Dev blinks. ‘What’s that?’
‘Do you think Sarah was behind the Facebook page and posted the photographs?’
Dev exhales slowly and puts down his mug. ‘Maybe she did, maybe she didn’t. But that hardly matters now, does it?’ He meets her gaze, wondering how she can even worry about this stuff in the light of such a tragedy. ‘Sarah is dead, Merri, so if it was her you can let it all go.’
‘We can’t let it go, Dev. If it wasn’t Sarah, there’s someone else out there who wishes us harm. Someone who might be willing to do much, much worse than just post photos.’
‘I’m going back to bed,’ Dev says quietly, standing up.
Merri doesn’t move.
He pauses in the doorway, looking back at her. ‘You should try to get some rest, too.’
‘I will. I’ll be along soon.’
He hesitates a moment longer, then turns and heads down the hallway. The walls are closing in. Sarah is dead. The police are circling.
Dev stops walking as a fleeting memory flashes through his mind. He woke up briefly in the night and Merri wasn’t beside him in bed. It was way before he saw the activity down at the water, way before the police rang the bell.
He’d flung his arm across her side, checking she wasn’t there, and then had given in to the soporific effects of the alcohol he’d drunk.
He hesitates, almost turns back to speak to her about it. But now is not the time to try to fix this puzzle. They’re both exhausted and he has a feeling that a long day lies ahead of them.
Dev walks slowly back to the bedroom. There are lots of unknowns, lots of details to be unravelled about exactly what happened last night. But he’s certain now of one thing.
Merri is holding something back from him and the time has come for him to find out exactly what it is.