We look at her ankle. Bulbous! Wow. She has done a number on it. Though surely it wouldn’t have stopped her getting to the phone if she really loved her husband. I suspect she just gave up and let hysteria overwhelm her. My steely Jayne would never have done that.
Jayne and I help Emily up, and we move her into the cavernous kitchen, where she sits pale and beautiful on a designer couch beneath a vast abstract painting. When the sobbing escalates and becomes uncontrollable, I step back and let Jayne deal with it.
I observe their interaction closely, though, because I will need some of these sympathetic skills, even ones modeled by a rank amateur like Jayne, with which to comfort Imogen. I note how Jayne sits, that she leans in and holds Emily’s hand tightly.
Imogen is going to be very upset when her mother doesn’tcome home today. I plan to be there for her until it’s clear that Edie is not coming back, and I’ll remain by her side through the next difficult days and weeks—depending on how professional the investigation is—until it’s clear that Edie has most probably disappeared with Paul. Because if I’ve done everything right, that’s how it’s going to look.
It feels fitting, to have set this up to seem as if those two have gone off into the sunset together. They’ll be branded disgraceful, betrayers. It’s what they deserve.
I had no choice, really, but to make it this way.
I don’t know how, but Paul suspected that I helped Rob to his death and shared his suspicions with Edie. And his suspicions grew over the past few weeks until ten days ago, I learned, because I cloned their phones, that they were considering telling the police.
All of this was particularly upsetting since I only killed Rob because I wanted Edie, Imogen, and I to be a family together.
That was Plan A, but Paul ruined it for us.
It was heartbreaking, when I realized that both he and Edie had to die as a result. I was not going to go to jail.
I started cloning phones when I was at a low point, after Dovecote. It’s not difficult, if you know how. In retrospect, I was suffering a little paranoia because I felt like a failure when Dovecote imploded. I wanted to know what they were all saying about me.
But I learned so much more.
If I hadn’t cloned Rob’s and Edie’s phones, I’d never have seen the message where Rob mentioned his vasectomy, or his lack of a need for one. And I was also reassured that Paul hadn’t told Emily what he suspected because Edie begged him not to.
Let’s keep it to ourselves, she wrote. Until we’re sure. Of course, Paul obliged. “I won’t breathe a word,” he replied. I wasn’t surprised. None of us would think twice about lying to our wives for Edie.
It saved Emily’s life.
So, this, here, now, live in action, is Plan B. Me and Imogen.
But I’m happy with that.
Imogen will be devastated when she discovers that her mother has abandoned her and that’s a regret, but I will comfort and support her through her pain while she processes her loss. During that time, she and I will build our relationship as father and daughter. That’s the plan.
Jayne’s not part of the picture. But watching her now is helpful.
As Jayne and Emily talk, heads together, I zone out until they ask me to call the police. Paul should be reported missing, they insist. I don’t disagree, but I need to give a moment’s thought to how the optics work if it’s me who reports him missing and I decide that it’s fine but not before Jayne has snapped at me to hurry up in a way that I find unnecessary and unpleasant. Never mind. She’ll get her comeuppance soon enough.
I make the call. They want to talk to Emily, so I hand her the phone. She chokes out the story semi-coherently. Jayne and I sit and watch her, which gives us front-row seats when she says, “And also, I need to report an assault.”
Wow. It’s so unexpected that I wonder if I’ve misheard her at first.
Jayne and I exchange a glance. She’s as surprised as me to hear this, it seems.
“It happened at my home,” Emily says. “No, not a sexual assault. He attacked me physically.”
She nods as she listens.
“Yes,” she says. “It happened just now, about half an hour ago. He was out of control. Yes. It was a friend of my husband. His name is Toby Land.”
Ruth has finished the vodka. The empty bottle is on Toby’s desk, like a reproach.
She tries to breathe slowly. In through the nose, out through the mouth. She has a terrible idea in her head, and she can’t unthink it, even though it’s dizzying her, horrifying her.
As a doctor, it’s her job to pick up clues, big and small, from what a patient tells her and piece them together to reach a diagnosis. Sometimes, it feels like detective work.
Which is what she must do now. She looks online, typing fast, locating the link she wants after a bit of creative searching.
