I nod, and he leans around me to reach for it. His arm around my shoulders tightens as he scans the scrawled words.
“He signed himself E. Did he usually do that?”
I shake my head. That had struck me as odd.
“Perhaps it was his way of trying to cover their tracks. Anyone reading this would assume I sent it. Anyone except you and me, of course.”
“Maybe. Why did you want to see Mike?”
“I asked him if I could borrow Carrie’s phone back. And her iPad.”
I peer up at him, my gaze watery and unfocused. I must look a mess. Neither one of us cares. “Why? What do you want those for?”
He turns me toward the table and gestures for me to sit. I do, and he takes the chair opposite.
“You want to know, right? You want to know what happened?”
I nod, fresh tears flowing now.
“Me too. For your sake rather than mine. We need to find out, and then we move on. Right? Whatever we might uncover, however much it hurts, we learn it, and we leave it. Carrie and Ed, they’re in the past. It’s just you and me now.”
I frown at him, not convinced that’s going to be possible. He reaches for my hand.
“Faith, promise me we’ll get past this. Together. Look at me, Faith.” He waits until I raise my eyes to meet his. “Do you trust me?”
That’s a question I can answer without hesitation. “Yes. Yes, I do, sir.”
“So…?”
“So we’ll learn it and leave it.”
He squeezes my fingers between his. “Right, I’ve been giving this some thought and it seems to me that if Ed was writing birthday cards to Carrie, he was probably texting too. Or there might be emails. Facebook messages. Something. Did you ever read his Facebook?”
“I don’t do Facebook. I don’t think Ed did either.”
“Carrie did. A lot. Even if she wasn’t directly in touch with Ed, she might have mentioned him on there. It’s worth checking. Wait there.”
He stands and goes into the hallway, returning moments later with the iPad I last saw peeking out of one of Mike’s boxes. He attaches the charger and plugs it into the mains.
“Battery’s dead, obviously. It may take a while to get it started. Meanwhile, I’ve had her phone on charge in the car.” He pulls that from his pocket and lays it on the table. “Shall we?”
“I still have Ed’s phone, somewhere.”
“We might want to look at that after. If they were texting each other though his texts will be on here as well as hers.”
“She might have deleted them. I know I would if… if…”
“She had no reason to. She knew I never looked at her phone and she wouldn’t have expected you to in the normal run of things. Even if she had meant to cover her tracks, she died so suddenly that she probably wouldn’t have had the chance. My guess is that there’d be something on here.”
“Have you already looked? Is there anything?”
He shakes his head. “I think we should do it together. So, would you do the honours or shall I?” He shoves the phone across the table to me.
I pick it up and press the on switch on the side. Caroline’s security screen comes up. “Do you know her passcode?”
“She used her date of birth. Not very original, or secure. Try five five eight five.”
I key in the numbers, and the home screen appears. I look up at Ewan. “So far, so good.”
