Am I?Is there a simple explanation to it all? Do I really think that Nick, my husband, would do this to me? My head is throbbing and I don’t trust my thoughts anymore.
‘Maybe you’re right. It would be good to have a couple of days off.’
‘Try to rest. Everything will be okay. You’ve been under such a strain.’
I close my eyes. I don’t want to talk to him. As he closes the door my mind goes back to that dreadful time after Jamie, the boy in the class I was teaching, almost died.
I was a mess. I wasn’t sleeping. I couldn’t focus on anything. I wasn’t fit to look after Isaac. I squeeze my eyes as I remember the day I put Isaac out in the garden in his pram to sleep and forgot about him. Then thought someone had taken him. Another day I was watching a film when Mum came round and Isaac was screaming his head off in his cot upstairs, long overdue for a feed and with a nappy that needed changing. I was so sleep-deprived, so riddled with guilt that I barely got through each day. I left doors unlocked, put food on the cooker and let it overboil. Left the iron plugged in and switched on, forgot to put the shopping away and left it on the kitchen table to thaw. Whole hours were lost.
Am I doing that again? Did Alison coming back into my life drag everything back up, make me have another breakdown?
I try to process it. Is it really all in my head?
I shake my head. That receipt is real. The jar of peanut butter is real.
Even if the kids picked up the peanut butter in the supermarket, how did the receipt get in Nick’s pocket?
And why, when he was the one who found the back door open, and he’s the one who’s being framed, isn’t he as concerned as I am?
It’s almost as if Nick doesn’t want me to believe it’s true. As if he’s hiding something.
57
NICK
My first thought is that the anonymous text was Ian. He’d made a point of saying how much I’d benefitted from Arthur’s death when I bumped into him at Leeds. But I don’t see how it could be him. He wasn’t in the office the day Arthur died. Only Alison and I know what happened that night, so it has to be Alison who sent me the text, she must have another phone that she’s texting me from.
Did Alison buy the peanut butter too? And did she sneak into our house last night and slip the receipt in my pocket? It would be easy for her to get hold of Judith’s key and do that.
When Lizzie and I had our heart to heart, promising each other that there would be no more secrets, I felt bad because there’s one secret I’ll never tell her. I can’t. It would destroy her, and our marriage. At the time, Alison and I vowed to never speak about it again, but that was easy when we thought we’d never be seeing each other anymore. Now it seems that Alison wants paying to keep that promise.
Everything is falling apart around me and I’m desperately trying to keep it all together. Lizzie is struggling, and the way she’s going she will lose her job, and things are getting difficult at work too. We’ve lost a couple of tenders just lately and profitsare going down. Then there was that emergency at the site in Leeds, which was far more serious than I let Lizzie and Judith know. And lost us a potentially lucrative contract.
I wish that Alison would go back to Spain and then I could forget all about this nightmare. I wish that Judith had never met George. Everything has gone wrong since they got married.
The business started getting into difficulties before then, though, I have to admit. I ponder for a moment, trying to recall how long. Just after Judith met George. And that couldn’t be anything to do with Alison, as she was living in Spain.
But this text must be from her. Pay-as-you-go phones are cheap enough, she might have got one so she could text me anonymously.
I have to deal with this situation before it gets worse. I need to meet up with Alison and find out what she’s up to because if she reveals everything she knows about me then my whole world will come crashing down.
Lizzie will never forgive me and neither will Judith. But it was a tragic accident, one that I couldn’t possibly have foreseen, and the consequences of which I’ve had to live with ever since.
My mind goes back to that dreadful day.
58
NICK
Nine Years Ago
I liked Alison straight away. She was pretty, good at her job, and fun. We were both in our early twenties, the youngest two in the company, and soon got into the habit of bantering with each other whenever we met, then sharing our breaks together. We chatted about everything, our hopes, our dreams. I wanted my own company one day. Alison wanted to be a nurse but planned on having a gap year first. She wanted to travel, see a bit of the world, she said. I admired how confident she was. We got closer and closer as the weeks went by.
Soon it was Alison’s last day, she was off travelling the next day with some mates, so we decided to have a drink together after work. George had left early and asked me to lock up. As I unplugged the photocopier I felt a small electrical shock run up my arm. We’d been having a bit of trouble with that extension cord the past couple of days. It must be faulty, I thought. We were closed for the weekend and no one was likely to use it, but even so I’d better put a warning sticker on it. It was companyprocedure and someone might come in early on Monday morning and go to use it.
‘Are you ready?’ Alison asked.
I looked around to see her leaning seductively against the doorpost, the top couple of buttons on her blouse undone, handbag slung over her shoulder and holding a bottle of wine in her hand. My pulse raced.
