‘I can’t tell if you’re serious or joking,’ I told him.
‘I can’t either,’ he said. ‘Anyway, I didn’t join in the end. I looked up where the Church of Latter-day Saints headquarters in Cambridge was, and it’s one of my least favourite roads, so … that was that.’
‘Mormon-y God must have been so impressed by your dedication,’ I told him, thinking that I could stay married to Paddy for the rest of my life and he would never say anything so bizarre or entertaining.
Yes, there are moments when anger blazes through me and I fear nothing will be left of my love for Ollie by the time it’s done – because he kept all those secrets for so long, lied to me for so long – but I’m starting to realise that none of the pain takes away any of the love. None of it stops my heart from soaring with joy when he says the things only he would ever say. On Saturday, after I saw him in Cambridge on Friday, he messaged me saying:‘You’re wrong. Us starting again is not Back to Square One. It’s Forward to Square Two.’You know you’ve got it bad when you’re dizzy with desire from the way someone uses capitalisation.
I force my attention back to the conversation I’m supposed to be part of. ‘So the superintendent still doesn’t know who killed Marianne?’ Dad is saying, as if he and Simon are old friends, or work colleagues catching up. What else did the two of them discuss this morning that Ollie and I weren’t privy to, apart from Dad wanting us all to come for lunch?’
‘And she never will,’ said Simon. ‘She rejected the terms we offered, so we kept the information to ourselves. And will continue to do so.’
‘But will you lose your job?’ Dad asks.
‘No idea, but … I don’t think so,’ says Simon. ‘I’m quietly hopeful – and that’s not my natural tendency, believe me. But we were all told to sit by our inboxes and await career-ending news … and no such news has arrived. Not yet, anyway. And yesterday, at the end of the day, the chief constable turned up at The Brown Cow – that’s the pub we go to, me and my team – and asked us if we knew where the super was, if anyone had heard anything from her. We hadn’t, and we told him. Seems like she’s gone AWOL. No idea what that means for the plan to move my DI and our skipper to Lincolnshire. My wife keeps trying to make deals with deities she doesn’t believe in: if by some miracle we survive this, we’ll do everything by the book from now on, that kind of thing. She tries to rope me in, too: no more the-rules-don’t-apply-to-us, no insubordination.’ Simon looks unimpressed by that prospect.
‘Anyway, we’re not here to talk about my dog’s breakfast of a career,’ he says, evidently embarrassed to be the centre of attention. ‘I’m here to say: whatever happens to me and my team, the truth about who killed Marianne, and who tried to in 2012, won’t be going any further, ever, than me, my team, and the three of you. I’ve made sure it can’t.’
‘What does that mean?’ I ask him.
‘You don’t want to know, and I’d rather not tell you,’ Simon says bluntly.
I wonder if he’s destroyed evidence. He must have, if he feels able to promise that.
‘The way I see it, both incidents were self-defence,’ he says. ‘Prison time, for either …’ He shakes his head. ‘Doesn’t feel right. And I want to keep my word to you, Jemma.’ To Dad and Ollie he says, ‘Jemma’s told me things she wouldn’t have told me if I hadn’t promised her it would stay off the record.’
‘Thank you,’ says Ollie.
Simon gives Dad a pointed look.
Dad clears his throat. ‘Sweetheart …’ He looks at me. ‘There’s something I need to tell you.’
‘I know what you’re going to say, Dad.’ The truth is, I didn’t – not before he said that. I had a funny feeling, though, and tried to persuade myself it was nothing.
My hands feel shaky and alien … as if they might detach from my body and float away. I want to grip the table, but I can’t. I can’t move …
‘It was me, Jemma,’ says Dad. ‘I killed Marianne.’
Breathe. Breathe.
Seeing I’m unable to speak, Ollie comes to my rescue. ‘Gareth, Jemma understands better than anyone what hell you must have had to live—’
‘Oh, no. No, no.’ Dad looks troubled. ‘No, it wasn’t that at all. She was going to kill Jemma. That’s why I did it.’
‘Marianne was?’ Ollie sounds as shocked as I feel.
Has someone thrown me across the room? No, I still haven’t moved.
Shock on top of shock on top of shock …
‘Marianne was going to kill Jemma?’ I can hear from his voice that Ollie doesn’t believe it, and won’t – not without arepeat and a lot more detail. I half expect him to ask Dad to name the prime minister, just to check he hasn’t lost it completely.
I believe it. A large part of my wanting to kill Marianne was a fear that something like this was going on in her mind.
‘Or have her killed,’ says Dad. ‘If she could find the right person to do it. But if not, she told me she’d … she’d do it herself if she had to.’ His face crumples and he starts to cry. ‘It was never part of my life plan to become a murderer, Jemm.’
‘You aren’t a murderer, Dad,’ I tell him. ‘Not in your heart.’And you don’t have to plead with me as if I’m some kind of judge. Remember what I was planning to do to Marianne? I’m in no position to judge anyone. Neither is Ollie, and neither is Simon, who encouraged me to commit murder and advised me on how to get away with it.
I wonder if he’s told Dad about that: what he said to me on Monday; our non-disclosure pact and all it entailed.
