‘I agree,’ Sally piped up. ‘It’s absolutely dreadful. I can hardly believe it. And you actually spoke to her before … Poor you,’ she said, locking tearful eyes on him. ‘If you need me to do anything, Jake, you only need to ask, you know that.’
Like offer him a shoulder.Despite the awfulness of the situation, Emily couldn’t help feeling immensely annoyed, particularly when Jake glanced awkwardly down and back. Of course, if she read anything into that, shewouldbe being paranoid.
‘Right, that’s it for now,’ he said. ‘We’ll clearly have to look at overhauling our systems and tightening protocol. Meanwhile, if anyone needs to speak to me, I’ll be here for a few hours this evening.’ He looked meaningfully at Emily. ‘And I’ll be in early tomorrow morning.’
‘Can I have a quick word now, Jake?’ Tom asked, as people made moves to leave.
‘Can you give me a moment? I just need to have a quick word with Emily.’ Massaging his forehead and now looking extremely stressed, Jake turned towards her.
‘Right. Yes, of course.’ Tom glanced warily between them.
Emily felt her heart drop. Was the breakdown of their relationship really that obvious? If so, it would certainly also be obvious to the woman who was intent on stealing her husband. Her eyes pivoted towards Sally.
‘Do you have a minute?’ Jake asked, as Tom headed off to his office, Fran heading purposefully after him. Emily tried to decipher the look in his eyes. He looked guarded, uncertain. Under the circumstances, he would be, but was his uncertainty about her?
‘Yes. I just have to check on Nicky and make sure the desk is cleared and the PCs are closed down,’ she said, wanting to remind him that that was what she did every single evening before she left.
Jake looked her over searchingly. ‘I’ll be in my office,’ he said.
Nerves knotted Emily’s insides as he turned away. Why was he being so formal? Of course he would be in his office. Where else would she find him?
In Sally’s, said a nagging little voice in her head.
Nineteen
Finding Nicky still upset, Emily sent her off home and did her usual checks. She was making Jake a coffee when Sally poked her head around the kitchen door behind her. ‘I have to dash. Dave will be wondering where I am,’ she said – something she said often. No doubt because Dave often had occasion to wonder where she was. ‘I’ll give you a ring later, hun.’
‘Don’t bother,’ Emily replied, more shortly than she’d intended. Forcing a confrontation now after the terrible events of today would be beyond insensitive. She didn’t want to do that. She was sorely tempted, though, to suggest to Dave that next time he was wondering where Sally was, he might find her tucked up with Jake, cosily reminiscing.
Stirring the coffee vigorously, and sloshing liquid over the sides of the mug in the process, she made a valiant attempt to be civil. ‘I’m out with Millie and Ben tonight,’ she said, and then cursed herself for announcing she was otherwise engaged, leaving the field clear for any extracurricular activities Sally might have in mind.
‘Oh. Right.’ Sally sounded taken aback. ‘Well, I’ll see you tomorrow, then.’
‘First thing.’ Turning around, Emily smiled brightly. ‘We’ll need to have a meeting before the surgery opens to discuss this vile correspondence someonehas been sending.’ She held Sally’s gaze for a second, then headed towards the door.
Sally looked at her uneasily as she squeezed past. ‘Yes, of course,’ she said, her eyes skittering down and back. ‘I’ll make sure Dave drops me off early. It’s dreadful, isn’t it, what happened to poor Zoe?’
‘Shocking,’ Emily agreed, carrying on to Jake’s office. ‘Just goes to show, no matter how well you think you know someone, you never really know what they’re capable of, do you?’
Glancing back as she tapped on Jake’s door, she noted Sally’s puzzled frown. She couldn’t say what she would like to – that she was fully aware of what herfriendwas up to. She wouldn’t, not with Jake and Tom – and worst of all Fran – in earshot, but at least she’d given the two-faced cow something to ponder. Hopefully Sally might glean that she should watch her back, since she seemed to have no qualms about digging the knife into other people’s.
Pushing into Jake’s office, she relaxed her face into a more genuine smile. ‘I grabbed you a coffee,’ she said. ‘I thought you could use one after …’ Seeing the steaming mug on his desk, she trailed off.
‘Thanks,’ Jake said, with a semblance of a smile in return. ‘Sally’s already brought me one.’
Emily drew in a breath. ‘So I see. That was very thoughtful of her, wasn’t it? I sometimes wonder what we’d do without Sally selflessly offering her shoulder whenever it’s needed.’
Clearly picking up on her facetiousness, Jake eyed her quizzically, and then got to his feet, walking around her to close the door, while Emily parked the coffee she’d made next to Sally’s.
‘So,’ he said, dragging a hand over his neck as he came back towards his desk, ‘I think we need to talk.’
Emily looked him over carefully. Was he going to confide in her? Confess to what he’d been up to? Or was he going to maintain it was all in her mind, which, if he was cheating on her, was possibly the cruellest thing he could do, amounting to emotional abuse in her book? And she knew about abuse; she had survived physical and emotional abuse that he had no idea about. She would fight back harder this time.
‘Would you like to sit?’ he asked.
This made her feel as if she were in the headmaster’s office, a place she’d often been as a teenager, pulled up for her waywardness, her inability to live up to being a replica of her perfect twin sister. She’d been frequently reprimanded for her failing grades and her inability to concentrate – which was due to the marijuana she’d smoked under the canal bridge with the man she’d thought she could be her true self with. Except she hadn’t been. She’d been who he wanted her to be. She’d done the same thing with Jake, she realised now. She’d tried to be someone she thought he wanted her to be: supportive, the perfect mother, the perfect wife. Quite clearly she wasn’t any of those things. She was imperfect.
‘These letters,’ Jake said, scrutinising her guardedly. ‘The information they contained obviously came from here.’
