It was a few weeks after the accident when a strong scent jogged my memory. I caught a whiff of Margot’s perfume when she visited me in hospital and again a week or so later, when she picked up the twins to take them to nursery.
‘Coco Mademoiselle,’ she told me once when I complimented her on it. ‘Kind of my signature scent. Expensive, but gorgeous.’
A part of my subconscious brain was linking that smell to the muddied ditch I was left to die in. I assumed it was playing tricks on me until I researched it online.
‘Minimally conscious people can react to stimulus such as touch, light or smells,’ a psychology website told me. ‘Later whenthey awaken, they are sometimes able to recall little else but that scent.’
My next recollection was much more sudden and stronger but equally as vague. Something about a camera. I had the feeling I might have been wearing one when I was hit. I asked Brandon but he said no, I hadn’t, even though he’d been nagging me for ages to buy one. Yet still I wondered. Eventually I checked my Amazon account and there it was in the purchased items folder. A CamMe, delivered a day before my accident. The police hadn’t searched the ditch for it because they hadn’t known I was wearing one.
So where was it? Unless the culprit had taken it with them after they hit me, it was likely somewhere close to where I was found.
On crutches, it took me an age to reach that part of the road leading out of the village. And after a thirty-minute search, I found it, partially submerged, a good ten metres from where I landed. As I told Margot, I couldn’t get it to work so sent it back to the manufacturers. And weeks later, when it was returned, I plugged it into the mains and held my breath as it automatically uploaded all the recorded data to the cloud.
Then I pressed play.
If Margot was to ask this morning what the clip contained, I’d tell her it was footage of her walking from the road to the verge, stopping and standing over my unconscious body with her hands clasped over her mouth. The camera might have landed upside down and at an angle, but a quick editing-software toggle and the re-angled footage was presented in all its crystalline 4HD clarity.
I’d remind her how she searched my wrists for a pulse, my chest for a beating heart, and my mouth for breath. And when she assumed I was as lifeless as I looked, she scurried away like the rat she is.
I don’t deny that I cried when I watched it that first time. Had Brandon not tracked me down with the Find My iPhone app, he’d now be raising our children alone.
I thank God for that camera, because without it, I wouldn’t know who my friends really are.
I could have told Brandon what I discovered and given my evidence to the police. But I know from experience with my former banking boss Harrison that, sometimes, it’s best not to show all your cards at once. Keep some close to your chest in case you need to play them later. In Margot’s case, later is today.
But I’m saving the best for last. And Anna doesn’t have a clue.
Chapter 85
Anna
Drew’s voice is as sudden as it is direct.
‘Get out of there,’ he warns. ‘Remove yourself and Margot from the situation and don’t say anything you might regret. Give yourselves time to think it through and come up with an appropriate response.’
It’s unusually sage advice from my headstrong brother. Death has granted him some clarity, now that it’s of little use to him.
‘But Liv said she wants us both to invest,’ I remind him. ‘So what does she have on me?’
He doesn’t answer because he can’t. If I don’t know, then neither does he. But he’s right when he says I need to take charge, because Margot is as good as useless right now.
‘It’s been great to catch up, Liv,’ I say, ‘but Margot and I should probably get going. She promised to help me sort through a new delivery of gemstones.’
‘Of course,’ Liv says. ‘It’s great that we’re all so busy, isn’t it?’
She pushes back her chair and rises to her feet. Margot and I do the same.
‘Oh, while I remember,’ Liv says to me, ‘I have something I keep meaning to return.’
She opens a kitchen drawer and pulls out an object wrapped in tissue paper. She keeps it hidden in the palm of her hand before she presses it into mine. I unwrap it and immediately recognise it. And more importantly, I know what it means.
‘My wedding ring,’ exhales Drew.
It’s the one I made myself and that he wore when we pretended to be a married couple. I can’t tear my eyes away from it. I can just make out brown speckles on its surface. Dried blood, I assume. The last time I saw it was when I accidentally tore open the bag his body was wrapped in as I hoisted him up into the chest freezer. His fingers caught under the base and I heard a metallic clink, but I assumed it must be the ring hitting the freezer door. I didn’t realise it could have slipped off, otherwise I would have looked for it there and then.
‘She could only have found it if she’d been inside our garage,’ Drew continues. ‘A random ring won’t mean anything, unless she found something else in there. Me.’
I look to Margot, but she is unaware of its significance.
