‘In the far north of Scotland,’ Edgar says. ‘Really remote. Wilderness. I got funding from the Ministry of Justice. Told them it was a research experiment. We sent a regular supply of food. The basics. Essentially off-grid living, so she could live in peace.’
‘You’ve always loved killers more than anything else. You’re obsessed with them.’ Rachel takes a deep breath. ‘You still haven’t explained how Marie fits into this.’
‘I thought she’d be able to help. Plus I felt responsible for her.’
‘She murdered your wife,’ Rachel says, her lips almost white with tension.
‘We know about the notebook,’ Lucy adds.
Edgar doesn’t react to either of them. ‘I shouldn’t have encouraged her. I knew she had feelings for me. I didn’t have the heart to tell her to leave me alone. It was my fault. I didn’t think about the consequences.’
‘Nothing’s changed there, then,’ Rachel says, as if she can’t help herself.
Lucy feels the words like a whip crack across her face, so strong she nearly flinches. She takes a deep breath. ‘I told them about the notebook, Edgar. Rachel knows.’
‘Just leave it tonight, will you?’ Edgar says. He sounds so weary now, tiredness seeping out of his voice. He slumps again. The brief spark of life he’d showed when he was describing the house has disappeared. He turns back to Rachel. ‘I got Marie out early, so that she could look after the woman.’
‘You didwhat?’ Rachel spits out the words. She stands, pushing her chair over, slamming her hands on the table, full now of furious energy. ‘Why, Edgar?’
‘You heard me. I got Marie out to look after the woman. She’s elderly. And it had been so long since she’d lived in the outside world. She’d never have coped on her own.’
‘But why Marie? There are hundreds of other women who could have done the job just as well.’
‘This will sound mad, but I felt sorry for her. She lost control that night. And yet, at the same time, I wanted to keep her away from us. I didn’t want you to be at risk.’ He reaches out his hand to Rachel and after a moment, she takes it. ‘I thought it would be a way of helping her while keeping her away. I thought it was the right thing to do.’
Thought.Past tense. Lucy can’t help but pick up on the word. Does he still think so? Surely not, looking at the mess around them.
‘I don’t think you were thinking at all,’ Rachel says. ‘I can’t believe you’d be so stupid. Did anyone know about it?’
‘I couldn’t tell anyone what I was doing. I can’t now,’ Edgar says, and his voice is so full of pain. ‘I’ll lose everything.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I stretched the truth to get the funding. I created the impression that this was a fully staffed project. I couldn’t tell anyone the whole point was that I was letting these women out without direct supervision. I overrode probation, filed false reports with them for years about what the women were doing. If it comes out that I was gaming the system to favour two murderers . . . You know how much criticism I get as it is. The university is full of people who want to destroy me.’
Confirming what Soraya said to her at that Formal Hall. It feels like a lifetime ago. Lucy isn’t surprised to hear he’s made enemies. Anyone that prominent would be bound to have antagonised people. But she can’t begin to get her head round the idea that he’d have manufactured a research project in order to benefit a child-killer and the woman who murdered his wife.
Rachel seems to think the same.
‘You are the most arrogant bastard I’ve ever met,’ she says. ‘This is fucking unbelievable.’
‘I was trying to do the right thing,’ he said, piteously. ‘I was trying to keep you safe.’
‘Don’t even start,’ Rachel says. ‘You wouldn’t know the right thing if it bit you in the arse. You weren’t trying to look after me. You were trying to show how superior you are to everyone else. How above them you are.Ooh, look at my superior ability to forgive and rationalise evil, ooh.’
Lucy almost laughs, the mockery so skewering of the academic ego. But the savagery behind it takes any humour out of it. Rachel is glaring at Edgar like she wants to kill him.
‘Also, how is treating people like that “doing the right thing”? Forcing them to go and live off-grid goodness knows where, totally dependent on you? That’s just playing God.’
‘It wasn’t like that,’ Edgar says.
‘It was exactly like that. What did Victor have to say about it?’
There’s a very long silence. Edgar looks fixedly in front of him.
‘Edgar, did you talk to Victor about it?’ Rachel says. ‘Is that what you and he were arguing about in Cambridge? Lucy said that you were arguing.’
Edgar goes brick red. He gets up and strides over to where Lucy is sitting. She’s nearly knocked out by the reek of alcohol that comes from him.
