‘I wouldn’t mind a cutting sometime,’ DI Taylor said. ‘I have the perfect space for it outside my patio window.’
‘Of course.’ Alicia’s eyes filled up, despite her best efforts. Would she ever see it bloom again? See her daughter coming through the front door again?
They’d painted the outside of the house together, she and Justin. They’d chosen a cheery yellow for the door with a white trim to complement the red brickwork. They’d wanted something bold and sunny to brighten up the grey days. She could almost see Sophie coming through the door now. Dressed in her jeans, puffer jacket and a furry bobble hat, earphones strung around her neck and her phone in her hands, she was turning to chatter nineteen to the dozen to Justin, who was coming through the front door behind her. Listening attentively, he was wearing his patient expression, as ever, an amused smile playing around his mouth as he glanced towards where Alicia waited in her car.
They’d been going Christmas shopping, she remembered. They’d made it a rule, even in the midst of the Christmas madness, to spend family time together. They’d go out for their own pleasure only, browsing the shops, pointing out things they hoped Santa would bring them. They’d do lunch, stroll, take in the sparkling decorations and twinkly bright lights, refusing, just for one special day, to put themselves under any pressure.
They would never have that again.
Pulling in a shaky breath, Alicia attempted to suppress the tears that would come if she held on to the memory for too long.
‘I’ll let you get on,’ Taylor said, his smile sympathetic. ‘He’s inside.’ He reached to squeeze her arm, which, ridiculously, made her feel even more like crying. ‘You two should talk.’
Alicia smiled faintly and then braced herself and headed towards the house. The locks had been changed since the break-in. Justin had organised it. She hadn’t asked him for a key. In truth, she hadn’t wanted to ask, terrified that he might suggest she didn’t need one.
Answering it a minute after she’d rung the bell, Justin offered her a small smile. Alicia took some comfort from that, from the fact that he didn’t appear to openly loathe her.
‘Can I come in?’ she asked him, smiling hesitantly back.
‘Yes. Of course. Sorry. I, er…’ Looking distracted, as he perpetually seemed to be, and utterly exhausted, Justin stepped back.
He’d been in the basement. Alicia noticed the door was slightly ajar, the tool bag outside it. He’d obviously been working on the studio – Sophie’s sixteenth birthday surprise. Alicia’s heart wrenched as she looked back at him. ‘How’s it going?’ she asked, for something to say.
‘So-so,’ Justin shrugged. ‘It’s something to do.’
He didn’t want to talk about it. Of course he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t want to talk about anything to do with the house. The material things and joint projects they’d shared in it. The memories. Alicia cursed her insensitivity.
Dropping her gaze, she turned and walked to the lounge. She didn’t sit. She wasn’t sure what to do. She felt bereft, a devastating sense of sadness encompassing her again as she stood in the middle of the room that was truly the heart of the home they’d built together, that they’d lived and laughed in together. Her breath caught painfully in her chest as her eyes fell on the TV remote, abandoned where Sophie always left it: on the arm of the sofa at the end she’d always claimed as her own.
Alicia squeezed her eyes tight shut and tried to breathe. If she caught sight of anything of Lucas’s, her legs would fail her, along with her courage. She couldn’t.
‘Can I get you a coffee?’ Justin said, his tone awkward as he followed her in.
Alicia shook her head. Don’t be polite. Please don’t be polite, she begged silently. She couldn’t bear that he didn’t know how else to be. ‘No,’ she said quickly, her throat tight. ‘Thanks. I’m… not thirsty.’
Justin nodded, glancing down and back again. His eyes, finally meeting hers, were full of dark shadows, such insurmountable pain.
‘I didn’t realise DI Taylor was here,’ she said, again for want of something to say. The awful empty silence hung like a guillotine between them.
‘Jessica didn’t tell you he was coming then?’ Justin eyed her curiously.
Alicia shook her head. ‘No. It must have slipped her mind.’
His eyes narrowing briefly, Justin nodded, and walked past her to the window, where he stood with his back to her.
‘Justin…’ Alicia noted the stiff set of his shoulders, as if he too was bracing himself – for more hurt than had already been heaped on him, more weight that he couldn’t possibly carry. ‘I’m sorry,’ she blurted, the same two stupid, ineffectual words she’d uttered before. Words that could never communicate how desperately sorry she was.
Justin drew in a tight, ragged breath.
The tick of the carriage clock on the mantel grew louder in the heavy silence between them, punctuated by the scraping of the officers at work outside. Alicia was uncertain what to do, whether to go to him. Should she stay? What could she say? It was too late. There’d been no way for her to explain it years ago, and there was no way to explain it now. Whatever she said, she couldn’t undo the damage, the pain she’d caused him. She was supposed to be the nurturer, the carer for her family. She’d broken everything. And she couldn’t fix it.
‘Justin?’ She tried tearfully again, needing a response from him – accusations, questions, a release of the fury that was surely stuffed inside him. Anything.
‘Would you like me to go?’ she asked him, after another hour-long minute ticked by.
Alicia waited, working to stifle the tears he wouldn’t want to witness and with which he couldn’t possibly sympathise.
But still Justin didn’t answer.
He didn’t want to hear it. That was his answer. As the tiny sliver of hope to which she’d dared cling began to fade, Alicia turned quietly to the door. He could never forgive her. She’d finally lost him. He would never know that she would never be whole again without him.
‘Why, Alicia?’ Justin said simply, as she reached the hall.
Alicia’s heart lurched.
Stopping, she turned and walked slowly back. ‘I don’t know,’ she said, her voice barely a whisper.
‘I see.’ Justin shook his head.
‘I didn’t mean it to happen.’ Alicia took another step in. ‘I don’t know why I—’
‘How many times, Alicia?’ he asked. ‘How many times did you not mean it to happen?’
And there it was. Alicia closed her eyes. The reason he could never, ever believe she hadn’t meant to hurt him as cruelly as she had. It was impossible. ‘I’d been drinking. More than I normally would. I…’ She trailed hopelessly off, the ominous tick of the clock growing louder still as she struggled for any way to explain herself that didn’t scream her guilt.
‘I think it might be an idea if you did go, Alicia,’ he said, his tone hoarse.
And Alicia felt her heart fold up inside her. Swallowing, she half turned to the door, and then wavered. ‘I thought she would save you,’ she murmured. ‘Sophie. I thought she would give you something to live for.’
‘She did,’ Justin said throatily.
But Sophie wasn’t here any more.
And now he had nothing.
Fifty-Three
JUSTIN
Justin didn’t even hear the door close as Alicia left. He was deep in thought, his mind going back to the time he now guessed it had all happened: the nights she’d supposedly stayed at a girlfriend’s. To the first time she’d stayed, when she hadn’t been very well. A hangover, she said. She hadn’t looked well.