‘Oh, Finn,’ Ruby says softly. She looks at me. ‘You really need to tell, Ellen, you know. It’s not fair on her.’
Aware that Ellen has moved to a table and is waiting for me to join her, I pick up the mugs of coffee.
‘Thanks, Ruby, see you later.’
‘Anytime,’ she says.
The huge breakfast takes the edge off the frustration I feel, and with Ellen reaching for my hand across the table, everything is soon alright in my world again. Breakfast over, we wander back to the house and get down to work. I spend a lot of time on the phone making introductory calls to possible investors, and even more time checking how competitors’ funds are doing. Later, as Ellen and I move around the kitchen making dinner, chatting about our day, a quiet contentment comes over me, making me determined not to let Layla destroy what I have.
While Ellen’s getting ready for bed, I take out my mobile to quickly check my emails, acknowledging that for the first time, I don’t want there to be one from Rudolph Hill. But there is. Heart in mouth, I open it.
TELL ELLEN, OR I WILL
THIRTY-THREE
Layla
I know I should stop what I’m doing. I need to accept that Finn is with Ellen now. But something won’t let me.
After my mother died, I used to hear her voice in my head. It was as if, in dying, she had left something of herself behind in me. Or maybe I couldn’t bear for her to be gone. I began to adopt some of her mannerisms and say things she would have said, which infuriated my father no end and Ellen would have to protect me from his wrath. Our mother died from pneumonia, brought on by living in our freezing stone house in the most desolate part of Lewis and never seeing a doctor. But sometimes I dream that he murdered her and buried her body in a peaty bog where it would never be found. I know it’s not true, though. It’s just my mind getting mixed up.
It got mixed up a lot after I disappeared. But once I arrived at my place of refuge, I quickly adapted. I had to, for survival. I did what I had to do – I hid my true self, banished my true voice from my head and became the person I needed to be. Eventually, it led to a happiness I’d never imagined finding again. It wasn’t the same kind of happiness I had known in my previous life – how could it be when I wasn’t the same person, when I had to live in secret? But it was good, solid happiness, one I could have lived with for the rest of my life. Then Finn decided to marry Ellen and everything changed. My true voice started to come back. ‘You’re never going to get your old life back,’ it taunted. ‘Finn loves Ellen now.’
The other day I asked Finn if he loved me and he said that he did. ‘That may be,’ said the voice. ‘But while Ellen is around, you’ll never get him back.’ And I realised that the voice was right.
I thought about what I could do. If Ellen left Finn of her own accord, it would make things easier. If she knew I was back, surely she would understand that Finn was rightfully mine and disappear from his life, as I had done all those years ago? It was a long shot, because I knew how hard she had worked to make Finn love her. But if I had to fight her for him, so be it.
THIRTY-FOUR
Finn
Layla’s last message made me jumpy, like I was losing control. She’d made it sound like some kind of test. What was she thinking – that if I told Ellen she was back, Ellen would move out so that she could move in? Or that Ellen, sure of my love for her, would ask me to choose between them? But how could I? I feel terrible, because it should be simple.
Looking over at Ellen as she gets dressed, I feel a stab of shame. I should have told her about Layla – but there’s no point now. A week has gone by since that last email and I haven’t heard anything since. I tell myself that it’s for the best. But how can I forget everything that has happened, go back to how I was before? It will be the not-knowing all over again – not knowing where Layla is, not knowing where she was, not knowing why she came back, only to disappear again.
‘Is everything alright?’ Ellen asks, and I realise I’ve been staring at her, except that I wasn’t seeing her, I was seeing Layla.
‘Yes, sorry. I was miles away.’
‘Well, now that I’ve got your attention, can I talk to you about something?’ She pauses, pulls a grey vest top on and picks up a pair of pale grey jeans, and I guess she’s going to ask me about plans for our wedding, because with it less than three months away, we need to get down to the technicalities, who we’re inviting and where we’re holding the reception. I had thought of holding it at The Jackdaw but something tells me Ellen is expecting more than steak and chips, and that the wedding isn’t going to be the simple affair I’d hoped it would be.
‘Go ahead,’ I tell her, determined to give her my fullest attention.
She finishes pulling on her jeans, takes something from the pocket and holds out her hand. ‘This came through the door yesterday.’ Looking down, I see a little Russian doll lying in her palm. Hiding my shock, I pick it up and make a show of examining it, giving myself time. Doll number seven – I have five and Ellen now has two. ‘I should have told you straightaway, I know, but . . . ’ her voice trails off.
I want to ask her why she didn’t but then I remember all that I’ve been keeping from her.
‘When you say it came through the door, do you mean it was pushed through the letterbox?’ I say, handing the doll back to her.
‘No, it came in an envelope.’
‘Who was it addressed to?’
She frowns at this. ‘Me, of course. I wouldn’t have opened it otherwise.’
I’m angry that Layla has done this, that she’s gone ahead and done what she threatened to do. ‘Was it typewritten or handwritten?’
‘Typewritten. The thing is . . . ’ She hesitates.
‘Yes?’
‘I guessed what it was before I even opened it. It wasn’t just the shape, it’s more that I’ve been expecting something like this.’ She looks at me defiantly. ‘I know you said it wasn’t Layla that I saw in Cheltenham that day but it was. I’d recognise her anywhere.’
‘Even after twelve years?’
‘Even after fourteen,’ she corrects, because she hasn’t seen Layla since she left Lewis for London. ‘She is my sister.’ There’s a fierceness in her voice. ‘OK, so I didn’t see her face. But there was something about the way she was moving through the crowd that told me it was her. And her hair. She can’t hide that – well, not unless she cut it off and dyed it. But she would never do that, she was always so proud of her hair. And now there’s this second Russian doll.’
‘Maybe you shouldn’t read too much into it,’ I warn gently. ‘It could just be someone having a joke. A sick one, maybe, but nevertheless, a joke.’
She shakes her head. ‘I don’t believe anyone would be so cruel. Anyway, nobody knows about the Russian dolls except you, me and Layla.’
‘And Harry,’ I remind her. ‘You told him about them, remember.’
‘Yes, of course, and Harry,’ she says impatiently. ‘But nobody else.’ She turns her green eyes on me. ‘You didn’t tell Ruby, did you?’
‘No,’ I say firmly.
‘It’s just that when I came looking for you at The Jackdaw the day you got back from seeing Grant, I saw a little Russian doll on the counter, before you put it in your pocket. I thought you’d been showing her the one that I found outside the house. But when we got home it was still there, standing on the side with the rest of the set. Which means the one you showed Ruby came from somewhere else.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I say, annoyed that she hasn’t asked me about it before, wondering why she didn’t mention it. ‘You’re right, it was a different Russian doll.’
‘But where did you get it?’