Possibly the most kidding of myself that I’m doing is in relation to Simon Waterhouse. I don’t know why I can’t shake the belief that he’ll fix it all. Desperation, probably.He has to.If I’m to get through the next hour, the next day, the next week, I have to believe he’ll be able to prove someone else killed Marianne, someone who’s nobody I care about. Then that person can be locked up instead of me.
‘Jemma?’ Ollie’s voice comes from behind me.
I turn, and the strangest thing happens: we hurl ourselves at each other, even though there are people watching: someone waiting to see one of Ollie’s Cedarwood Centre colleagues, the receptionist behind the desk. It’s as if Ollie and I decided at the exact same moment that we’d only survive if we clung to each other and never let go – either that or we didn’t decide at all, it just happened.
It’s been waiting to happen for years.
I don’t care that we’re kissing like shameless exhibitionists in the middle of the reception area. I don’t want it to stop. The Cedarwood Centre is my favourite place in the world and I want to marry Ollie right here, on this spot where we’re standing now.
And none of that means I’m going to let him get away with anything.
A few minutes later we’re upstairs in his therapy room. The heavy stone of dread that I’ve been carrying around inside me is back; it reappeared as soon as the kissing stopped. Ollie has made us a mug of tea each – I’ve got the ‘As I Suspected, I Was Right About Everything’ one that I saw when I came here in July.Talk about inappropriate.I’ve been wrong about so much.
‘You could get reported for snogging a client,’ I tell him.
‘I told Gayle you were a friend, not a client,’ he says.
‘We’re hardly friends. I’m sure you lied convincingly, though. Ollie—’
He raises a hand to stop me. ‘You don’t have to say it, Jemm. I don’t want you to have to say it.’
‘But I want to and need to.’ I take a deep breath. ‘You have to tell me everything: the locked room, the secret between you and Marianne, why your dad went to see her at Devey House. Anything you’ve ever kept from me—’
‘I know, Jemm.’ There’s a tremor in his voice. ‘I’d already decided before you got here. You’ll hate me once I’ve told you, and it’ll destroy me, but I still have to try. Just in case there’s a chance—’
‘If you tell me the complete truth, and if you love me as much as I love you, there’s more than a chance for us,’ I tell him. ‘And … if you can bear the fact that I may one day be convicted of Marianne’s murder.’
‘Did you kill her?’ Ollie asks.
‘No. I tried to do the opposite.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’ll tell you, but I’m not going first,’ I say. ‘I’ve waited long enough to hear the truth from you.’
He nods. ‘You’ve no idea how much I wanted to tell you at first. But then … November 2012 happened. After that, I decided I couldn’t. The chance had gone. Except it hadn’t.’ A look of disgust twists his face. ‘Even then, I could and should have told you the truth and trusted you not to … I don’t even want to say it.’
Not to tell the police I’d tried to kill Marianne –is that what he’s about to say? I steel myself to hear the worst, and know, at the same time, that it wouldn’t be, even if he’s about to tell me he was the one who picked up a knife and used it to slash my stepmother’s throat. None of that would be as painful as hearing him say he doesn’t love me any more.
‘I should have trusted you not to stop loving me,’ says Ollie.
‘I think …’ I begin slowly ‘… if there was any chance of that happening, it would have happened already.’
‘I know I have no right to ask for anything, but … will you promise to carry on?’ Ollie asks me.
‘Loving you?’
‘Even if you want nothing more to do with me once you know everything. It’s not an either/or, you know. You can love someone and not be willing to see or speak to them, or have them in your life.’ He sounds like he’s talking to one of his therapy clients.
It would be so easy to reassure him; it would only be telling the unedited truth. I won’t ever stop loving him. He could tell me it was him in 2012 and him now, a failed murderer and a successful one, and it wouldn’t kill my love for him. But I don’t want to say it. Not yet.
‘I’m not doing it,’ I tell him.
‘Doing what?’ he asks. ‘Jemma, I’ve loved you so much, for so long—’
‘I’m not reassuring you about anything or promising you anything until I’ve heard what you’ve got to tell me.’
Ollie nods. ‘Put down your tea. The truth is quite a bit worse than whatever you think it is.’
