‘The police have found Monica.’
He wished he could take his eyes off the road, give her some sort of comfort. ‘Why didn’t you say anything?’
‘I wanted to but I can see you’ve got a lot to deal with, with Beau, Lucinda.’
‘Doesn’t mean I can’t fit you in too.’ He indicated to take the next turning on the right. Something was wrong; she didn’t seem overly happy despite the news her sister had been found. ‘What aren’t you telling me?’
‘The police found Monica, but she told them she was fine and she’d take it from there. Archie has heard nothing from her since.’
‘She hasn’t been in touch?’
‘No. And the police wouldn’t tell Archie where she is either. They’ve done their bit, she’s an adult, she’s okay and still pregnant. They shared that much. Archie told me she went overdue with Giles so maybe this pregnancy has gone the same way. I think Archie is hoping she’ll contact him soon. He’s terrified of her going into labour when her head is still in a bad place.’
‘He must be in pieces.’
‘Yes.’
‘And you?’
‘I’m okay.’
‘Do you want to see her?’ he asked. ‘I know you two have a complicated history, but you were a mess when you thought it was your sister in the accident. That tells me no matter that you turned your back, you’d at least like to face her now.’
‘I don’t know. Yes. No. Maybe. I’m not sure how I feel. All I know is that I’m scared she’ll do something awful.’
‘But she’ll know you’re both looking for her. Surely she won’t do anything drastic when she knows people care so much.’
‘I’ve no idea. I don’t know her any more. But if she does something awful, it’ll all be my fault. She came here for me, she left her husband and child to find me, because I was so stubborn that I cut all ties.’
‘You did it with reason. I understand why.’
She didn’t say anything else on the drive to the house and soon they pulled in at the kerb.
They sat in the car for a moment. ‘This is going to be horrible.’ Nadia tipped her head back against the headrest, looked up and out of the sunroof at the vast expanse of sky beyond. ‘I can’t imagine what these parents are going through. And here we are to make it even more real.’
‘They’ll be going through hell, but in my experience, they’ll want to know more about the medical side of what happened, what help their daughter had, whether she suffered. It’s part of the closure they’ll need and sometimes, it can be a comfort even when it’s unbelievably painful.’
He took the keys from the ignition but Nadia stopped him before he opened up his door.
‘Just another minute here. Before we go in.’
They sat side by side, quietly.
‘There’s more, you know,’ she said, looking across at him.
‘More what?’
‘More to my story, more to what I told you yesterday.’ She turned in her seat so she was facing him. Her eyes had lost their dancing sparkle; her face didn’t have the usual glow.
‘I not only left Switzerland; I made it so that nobody could find me.’
He smiled kindly. ‘I worked that out for myself.’
‘Part of me wonders whether that’s why I got married to Jock so quickly: so I could become Nadia Sutton rather than Nadia Fischer. My mum had gone, it was just me and Monica, but I couldn’t bear to be around her. My own sister. I was grieving and we couldn’t even comfort each other. She tried to talk to me, so did Archie, but I walked away. I shut them both down.
‘Mum didn’t have a lot to leave us and the formalities were sorted out via a solicitor. I couldn’t bear any contact with Monica because I was so angry, about the way she was when she was growing up, how she demanded all of Mum’s care and attention, the way she’d taken my best friend from me.’
Nadia took a deep breath, blew out her cheeks. With all the revelations, it was easy to forget they were working, here to talk to parents about an event so devastating, those people sitting inside the unassuming house on a beautiful tree-lined street, on what was otherwise a very ordinary overcast June day, would never get over it.
