Evie looks up sharply, her eyes wide and terrified. ‘I didn’tmeanit,’ she cries, her gaze pivoting to Jack and then to me. ‘I thought she was trying to split Dad and Kara up. I like Kara. I don’t want her to leave like Mum did.’
SEVENTY
For a second, I can’t catch my breath. She didn’t want me to leavelike her mother did?No. I force the thought from my head. She didn’t mean in the same way. Did she?
‘It was a turn of phrase.’ Jack addresses DI Blake, his tone growing more agitated by the second. ‘People use it all the time.’
‘You can see how someone on the receiving end of such a threat dying shortly afterwards might pose cause for concern, though, Mr Conley?’ DI Blake asks.
Evie glances feverishly from Jack to DI Blake. ‘I was only trying to warn her off.’ She looks at me imploringly. ‘I didn’t want her todie.I don’t have many friends,’ she goes on, hot tears of fear and confusion now streaming down her cheeks. ‘They all hate me. They call me a freak. Immy didn’t. She was myfriend.I thought she was. But then she said my mum had topped herself because of me. She said she’d gotten off with my dad and that I was a complete fuck-up, and I knew she wasn’t my friend then. But I didn’t want her dead.’
DI Blake gets to her feet as Evie emits a raucous sob. ‘Okay, Evie, I’m going to have to ask you to come to the station,’ she says gently, and my heart sinks to the pit of my belly.
‘Are you arresting her?’ Jack asks, his voice somewhere between shock and incredulity.
‘Dad?’ Evie jumps to her feet. ‘I didn’tdoanything.’ Her gaze swivels to me, petrified. ‘Ididn’t.’
‘I know you didn’t, sweetheart.’ Jack goes to her, tries to put an arm around her, but Evie only pulls away.
‘I didn’t kill her,’ she cries.
Seeing her eyes flick towards the hall, I fly across to her, wrapping my arms around her and hugging her tight. If she runs, I dread to think what might happen.
‘I didn’t,’ she murmurs gutturally, sobbing hard into my shoulder.
‘We just need her to make a statement at this stage,’ DI Blake says, looking between us almost apologetically. ‘It will be a formal interview, however. As such, she will be cautioned and the interview will be recorded.’
‘Not without me present,’ Jack says, his face ashen.
‘We will need a statement from you too, Mr Conley,’ DI Blake informs him, ‘regarding the events today and also the events leading up to Imogen’s death. For clarification,’ she adds, as he stares at her with a mixture of anger and incomprehension. ‘You too, Mrs Keenan, if you wouldn’t mind.’ She smiles shortly in my direction, then looks back to Evie. ‘Evie?’
‘Uh-uh.’ Jack moves towards her. ‘There’s no way she’s going without me.’
‘If you could follow in your car.’ DI Blake addresses me. ‘And it might be a good idea if you think about some legal representation,’ she suggests with another stiff smile.
‘I didn’t do anything, Kara,’ Evie repeats, her voice ragged.
I brush her hair from her face, hold her closer. I don’t know whether she did this. I do know that she’s suffered more than a girl her age ever should. My promise to Jack wasn’t a hollow one. Evie needs professional help. Whatever happens, I will bethere for her. ‘We’ll be right behind you,’ I tell her, attempting a reassuring smile.
‘Dad!’ Evie cries desperately, as DI Blake takes hold of her arm.
Jack breaks away from PC Patel, skirting around him and racing after Evie as she’s led to the police car. ‘Don’t say anything until I get there,’ he yells. ‘Do you hear me!’
SEVENTY-ONE
I wait for an agonising eternity in the designated waiting room. Jack’s sitting in on the interview as Evie’s appropriate adult and I’ve been allowed no contact with either of them. I’m terrified there might be other evidence we don’t know about. I’m assuming they’ve found incriminating shoe prints, that they will endeavour to establish that the trainers that left them belong to Evie. How will she cope if they charge her?
I’m distracted by a text from Jemma asking me if we could meet up to talk. Does she think it might be therapeutic? Anger writhes inside me as I recall how she’d held my hand, telling me that I deserved happiness, that Jack did too. How she’d looked at me in astonishment when I’d asked whether she thought he might have cheated on Natalia.He’s just not the type, she’d said.If he did, it certainly wasn’t with anyone local.Bare-faced lies. Jack didn’t cheat on me. He was involved with Jemma while he was with Natalia, but still I feel betrayed. She should have told me.Heshould have. I squeeze back the tears that are threatening. We still have to have that painful conversation, assuming things aren’t overtaken by events. If there’s the slightest hint of a lie then, though, it will be over between us. There’s another child’s life at stake here, my baby’s energetickicks remind me of that. I will try to be there for Evie if she wants me to be, but I won’t put my baby’s welfare at risk.
Vaguely, I wonder how Lina is. I need to find her alternative accommodation. I’m not heartless; I will make sure to check on her, but I can’t give her all the help she’ll need, especially with my own future so uncertain.
My thoughts go to Natalia, the way she died. She’d fallen twice, possibly pushed the first time and surviving against the odds only to die so tragically right in front of Evie’s eyes. Evie had seemed possessed by such visceral anger she was like a different person, raging at her mother, calling her evil, yelling at her that she was the liar. But when Natalia had reached beseechingly out to her, Evie’s mood had changed as if a switch had been flicked.
I ponder the genetic link both Natalia and Jack had spoken of, intimating that Evie’s mood swings were inherited. Imogen had died from a fall. Could that really be a coincidence? What had Natalia been going to tell me about Jack’s parents before the breath left her body? I have to ask him. However traumatising his childhood must have been, he has to tell me everything. He must realise that.
I’m wondering how to broach the subject when he comes through the door. His face is haggard, dark shadows under his eyes, in his eyes, and my heart wrenches for him. I can’t help it. You can’t just unlove someone. For all her rage, I believe Natalia still loved Jack. That in a way, it was her love for him that fuelled her rage. I believe that he had loved her too. If it turns out that he did push her from the clifftop, if any of what she said about him turns out to be true, what then?
‘Are they charging her?’ I ask, my heart stalling as I wait for him to answer.
