I follow him into the hallway, where he sits on the stairs to put on his shoes. He stands up and kisses me on the forehead.
‘It’s time to let this go, Carla,’ Ash says. His voice is firm, as if he’s issuing an order.
I open the front door for him and watch him walk away from me and get into the car. Then I close the door behind him and lean against it. I just need to keep telling myself what Ash told me earlier.Tomlinson is dead. This is over. Time to move on.I repeat it to myself, over and over, like a mantra, until I almost believe it.
Chapter 40
Ash
NOW
Ash gets a chance to talk to Olly a few days later. Olly is on his half-term break and Ash is taking the week off work. He knows Olly and Iris don’t need babysitting, but he hopes they’ll come round to Mayflower Farm if he’s there. At Ash’s request – well, insistence, really – Olly has come round to help him do a bit of DIY. It’s about time Ash got the Mayflower looking ship-shape, so to speak. Ash was doubtful Olly would actually show up. When he asked for his son’s help, he got a noncommittal grunt in reply.
Ash has decided to install a shower in the downstairs toilet. Although it’s a large room for a lavatory, it’s going to be cramped as a bathroom. But when Olly and Iris stay over – and, more recently, Liv, too – one bathroom simply isn’t enough for all of them. The girls each spend an inordinate amount of time in there, drying their hair and putting on make-up. Olly spends nearly as long, although the transformation is less apparent when he emerges.
‘I haven’t got long, Dad,’ Olly says, by way of a greeting as he slopes into the house, hands thrust deep into the pockets of his jeans. He has cycled over from Holtleigh. ‘Liv’s picking me up.’
‘Sit down a sec,’ Ash says, pointing at the bar stool in the kitchen. ‘Do you want something to drink?’
‘Nah. I’m good.’
Ash takes the stool next to Olly’s and waits for his son to look at him, to establish eye contact. Then he takes a deep breath and says, ‘Olly, your mum knows.’
‘Knows what?’
Ash waits for the penny to drop. It only takes a second or two. Olly’s eyes widen and his mouth forms a large ‘O’, but no sound comes out.
‘Shit!’ Olly says at length. ‘Did you tell her? Or did Iris?’ His tone is accusatory.
‘Neither of us,’ Ash says. ‘She worked it out by herself, sort of put two and two together.’ He pauses, hearing the words as they leave his mouth. Carla sometimes points out that he uses a lot of mathematics idioms. It’s a stand-in joke between them. The thought makes him smile wistfully in spite of everything. ‘I didn’t confirm it,’ Ash continues. ‘In fact, I did my best to convince your mum she’d got it wrong.’
‘So she doesn’t reallyknow, then,’ Olly says.
‘No, you’re right,’ Ash says. He should have planned what he was going to say before his son arrived today. ‘She suspects you had something to do with Josh’s death. Let’s put it that way. I just thought I’d give you a heads-up. You know, in case she brings it up. I don’t think she will, but if she does, you’ll be ready. I didn’t know everything either.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You didn’t tell me it was Josh who drugged and raped Liv. You let on it was some random guy she didn’t know at a party. But it was his party, his drugs; it was him.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Did you know all along?’
‘What? No. I found out … it’s the reason why … he thought it was …’
Olly clearly isn’t going to finish any of his sentences, so Ash says, ‘It’s what made you lose it, isn’t it? That day in the woods.’
‘Yeah. So now you know.’
‘You could have told me.’
Olly shrugs. ‘Does it matter? Liv didn’t want anyone to know she was raped.’
Ash ponders that question. He understands Olly’s motive better now. As Carla said, he was avenging both his sister and his girlfriend. And it matters that his son didn’t think he could confide in him. But he leaves the question unanswered.
Ash’s mind takes him back to that evening, which kicked off with a phone call from Iris, who was clearly very distraught. He set off immediately in the car and picked up Olly and Iris from Lower Buryknoll Wood. They were soaked to the skin – it was raining heavily – and Olly’s clothing was bloodstained. Iris said they hadn’t meant to kill Josh; they’d wanted to threaten him, to get the truth out of him. Ash had believed her. He’d assumed she meant the truth about the video, that she’d wanted him to admit he did it. It didn’t occur to him there might be more to it.
Ash’s immediate instinct was to cover for Olly. It’s what Iris was insisting he should do, even though they were all aware that suspicion could fall on her. Ash was ready to provide an alibi; he washed the knife on the highest setting in the dishwasher and instructed Olly to put it back where he’d found it at the earliest opportunity; he disposed of Olly’s clothing – and Carla thought she was the one getting rid of evidence! Ash tells Carla everything. It’s the one and only secret he hasn’t shared with her, partly for her own sake, but mainly because Iris swore him to secrecy.
