Page 69 of The Lucky Winners
A Day Later
Dev sleeps. His breathing is steady now, his face relaxed in a way I haven’t seen for a while.
I stay by his side, curled in the uncomfortable hospital chair, my fingers loosely laced through his. They’re keeping him in for two nights to monitor him – concussion, cracked ribs, a deep gash above his temple – but he’ll be OK.
That should be enough to let me breathe again, to let the tension in my chest unfurl. But my mind is restless, a tangled mess of everything that’s happened.
Dev and I have agreed to wait until he’s out of hospital before we have our talk – a warts-and-all talk – but there’s no stopping the thoughts that churn inside me.
Webb is in custody. The immediate danger is over. And yet I feel no relief. Only the weight of all that still needs reckoning.
The hotel room I’ve booked is beautiful, overlooking the vast stretch of the lake. I couldn’t go back to Lakeview alone, not until Dev and I have decided what we’re doing about it.
I sit here now, waiting for my two visitors. The water glistens in the morning light, calm and endless, stretching towards the tree-lined horizon. I sit by the open window, wrapped in a cosy blanket, my coffee cooling beside me.
For the first time since Beth died, I’ve found I can look at the lake and let myself think about her. Not just the way she died, but the way she lived. The laughter, the mischief in her eyes, the way she always saw the best in people – even in that old witch Mrs Webb.
If I’d been more protective, if I’d warned her, if I’d done something – anything – maybe she wouldn’t have fallen under his control that day.
The knock at the door startles me. I rise, discarding the blanket as I cross the room in jeans and a T-shirt with bare feet. When I open the door, DS Lott and DC Parsons stand in the hallway, their expressions unreadable.
‘Please, come in,’ I say, stepping aside.
We sit in chairs near the window, and I wait, gripping my hands together.
‘Webb talked,’ Parsons says. Her voice is flat, but there’s something grim in her eyes. ‘He confessed to murdering his landlady, a lifelong Windermere resident called Monica. Her son raised the alarm when he couldn’t reach her, and when officers entered the B-and-B, they found her body.’
‘That’s so sad.’
‘And they found something else, too.’ Lott exhales, rubbing a hand across her forehead. ‘Surveillance equipment. And a journal.’ She looks at me carefully. ‘Webb had written out, in excruciating detail, his plan to murder you. And his plan to take his own life alongside yours at the lake.’
A small sound of shock escapes me. I should have expected something like this, but hearing it still sucks the air from my lungs. I force myself to keep my breathing even.
‘There’s more, I’m afraid,’ Parsons continues. ‘We also found Webb’s mobile phone. On it were 535 covert photographs of you, your husband and your house.’ She pauses, then glances at Lott. ‘And something we weren’t expecting. A video.’
The room tilts slightly as a wave of dread hits me. Was it of me? Of Dev and me in a private moment? ‘What kind of video?’
Lott’s jaw tightens. ‘The murder of Sarah Fielder.’
That I did not expect. I clamp a hand over my mouth. My stomach lurches. ‘He – he recorded himself killing poor Sarah?’ My voice is barely more than a whisper. ‘Why?’
Parsons shakes her head. ‘Webb didn’t kill her.’
I blink, disoriented. ‘What?’
Parsons meets my gaze, her expression dark. ‘Tilda killed her.’
My entire body goes cold. ‘No,’ I say. An instant rejection of what seems impossible.
‘She used a steel umbrella to attack Sarah, then pushed her, unconscious, into the lake.’
I can’t breathe. Tilda.
‘You’re sure?’ I force out.
Lott nods. ‘We found the murder weapon. Or, at least, a key piece of evidence. A multi-coloured umbrella Sarah’s fiancé told us she took from Lakeview House. It was hidden in Tilda’s garage and had traces of Sarah’s blood on it.’
My umbrella! My shaking hands flutter to my face.
Tilda.
Not Webb.
But Tilda.
The weight of the knowledge is crushing.
I think of the things she’d said that Simon had told me were lies, the way she watched me.
The way we spoke about our marriages. Tilda had been asking questions about my past, feeding her own paranoia, twisting everything until she convinced herself of some imagined betrayal between me and her husband.
And then she killed an innocent woman. But why? What did Sarah ever do to her?
I feel sick, remembering how she’d watched Sarah like a hawk at the drinks party. Had Sarah been her new obsession? Webb had been feeding her notes to make her suspicious about me – but it must have set her spiralling, making her suspicious of everyone around her.
‘Tilda is on remand in custody pending further investigation,’ Lott says. ‘As is Webb. They’ll face trial when we have all the evidence in place.’
It doesn’t feel like enough. Justice will come, but it won’t bring Sarah back. And it won’t erase the horror of what’s happened for those left behind, Jack and Monica’s son.
Lott and Parsons stand, and I follow them to the door, my legs wobbly.
‘We’ll be in touch with more news as we have it,’ Parsons says. ‘Look after yourself.’
I thank them and they leave.
I have to look after myself because Dev is still in hospital, and a very important conversation is waiting for us. I have to be OK because Beth deserves to be remembered without the shadow of my misplaced guilt. The past will never be erased, but I refuse to let it define my future any longer.
Tilda and Webb will pay for what they’ve done.
And Dev will, I pray, forgive me for lying to him since the day we met.