‘Four years in prison?’
‘Yes. Which is why I’m not overly keen to involve the police.’
‘I simply can’t believe this…’ I’m trying to wrap my head around what he’s saying, but it feels as if I’m watching us on TV. ‘We’re actually having this conversation? And you’ve obviously talked to Dan about all of this too. You seem to know an awful lot of detail that I can’t think you would have been aware of in advance of pulling a stunt like this. At least, I hope not.’
‘Yes, I spoke to Dan. Off the record, obviously. He hasn’t and won’t tell anyone, not even my sister.’
‘Doesn’t that compromise him horribly?’
‘I asked him hypothetically. And he hypothetically told me I’d been a fucking idiot, which, of course, I know now. I thought it would be a simple solution – that Louise would stop when she realised what it felt like to be threatened, but without anyone actually getting hurt.’
‘What if she’d just gone to the police herself, then and there, after your “bloke” left. Did you think about that?’
‘I knew she wouldn’t. She’d already threatened you with a knife years ago, and attacked you in her house. Only people with no secrets to hide go to the police.’
‘I should have said I wanted to press charges after she went for me at the viewing,’ I realise aloud. ‘And then we wouldn’t even be having this conversation now. I just didn’t want to prolong any more contact with the Strallens. I wanted to walk away.’
‘Yeah, well, like I said, going to the police isn’t an option any more. Sorry. I can’t explain to you what I was thinking. I just wanted to keep you and James safe… but we’re going to have to deal with whatever has started now ourselves.’
‘“We’re going to have to deal with it”?’ I repeat in disbelief. ‘What does THAT mean? You said to me, categorically, you wouldn’t do anything without talking to me first. I can’t even… I don’t know how to process this.’ I lean my head on the wall behind me. ‘You genuinely sent someone to rough-up Louise Strallen?’
‘Please try and keep your voice down,’ he pleads. ‘No, not to “rough-up”, to warn her off. She threatened you with a knife!’
‘She was a drunk, someone to pity! A desperate woman!’
‘Exactly! The more desperate someone is, Jess, the more dangerous they become.’
I throw back the duvet, revealing my bare legs. ‘You know, I was terrified last night when I thought history was repeating itself. What happened the morning Beth died was real – that woman on a bike had a warning for me. For years afterwards I worried that I had some sort of gift, or insight that I wilfully ignored that morning. Then earlier, after those clocks were all set to five past ten, I realised this was about something else entirely; someone trying to play on that guilt and fear I’ve had all this time, by pulling something personal, nasty, and vicious… only for you to now tell me there’s nothing I can do to protect us from whoever is doing this. How can you have made such a huge mistake? This wasn’t something you did in the heat of the moment; this took effort, premeditation. I get that you were trying to protect us, but my God, Ed… what were you thinking?’
‘I get it, Jess. I fucked up. Surely you of all people understand that? Look at what you did to Ben.’
I turn to ice. I am actually unable to speak for a moment.
‘That was a little different,’ I manage eventually. ‘I was 19, recently bereaved, heartbroken and pregnant.’
He sits up alongside me. ‘I’m not judging you, Jessica. I’ve never judged the choice you made. You thought at the time you were doing the right thing. That’s all anyone can do. It’s what I did. I can’t even explain how much you and James mean to me. I’d do anything to keep you safe.’ His voice trembles slightly. ‘I was very, very scared and it seemed like a solution when I didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t stop thinking about that woman Dan prosecuted who just turned up on the doorstep of her ex-partner’s new wife and stabbed her. Tell me you can see where I was coming from?’
I just sit there, shivering in the cold, and he reaches out for my hand. ‘I’m not saying it wasn’t fucking stupid. I’ve been having nightmares ever since about Louise Strallen, about being locked up. I feel like I’m having a heart attack every time I so much as see a police car… I don’t know how people who do this sort of thing properly live with the pressure.’ He closes his eyes and rubs his head exhaustedly, as if he’s trying to force the thoughts from his mind.
I hesitate, watching him visibly struggling. ‘Yes, Louise was unstable. Yes, she probably found out where we lived. Would I do anything to protect James? Of course I would,’ I admit eventually. ‘And yet to hear you say you actually sent someone round to their house, like something out of a movie, and on the night she died… I genuinely don’t know what to do with that. It’s too surreal.’
‘I should never have done it. It was wrong,’ he says. ‘But let’s also keep everything that’s happened here in perspective. Nothing has actually—’
‘Ed, someone was hanging around outside the house, gave our au pair what could only be a message for me, almost certainly stole my keys from my bag – which meant they followed me and James into the town, stalking us for want of a better word – possibly loosened a mirror while we were asleep, which almost fell on James, then came back to the house and, while I was out, changed all of the clocks to the time of my 5-year-old daughter’s death. Exactly what part of that do you want me to keep “in perspective”?’
‘What I’m trying to say is that no one has been actually hurt, and whoever it is can’t get in any more, not without breaking in, and they’ve already proved that’s not their style. Get back under the covers for a moment, you’re shivering.’
‘No. I want to go through to James now.’
‘OK, OK. But before you do, I want to say I think you’re right. They’ve made this very personal and it’s not aimed at hurting James or Sandrine. It’s all designed to get your attention. Isn’t it obvious who it is?’
‘Go on?’ I look at him quickly.
‘Well, Simon has already been here, hasn’t he? He knows where we live.’
‘Simon would never do anything to hurt me,’ I say immediately. ‘I’m sorry, Ed, but he just wouldn’t.’
‘Hold your horses, I didn’t say it was meant to hurt you, I said it was designed to get your attention. Everything that’s happened has some reference to Beth and her dying, things that barely a handful of people would know – and you might feel compelled to go and ask him about, maybe?’
My mouth falls open slightly.
‘It’s not that crazy an idea, Jess. I was thinking about it earlier while you were giving James his tea. What does he have to share with you that I can’t, that no one else can? Your daughter; his and your daughter. If something bizarre started happening involving Beth, isn’t it natural that you’d want to go and see if anything similar had been happening to him too, or at least discuss it with him?’
‘To do something like that just to get my attention, and draw me back into contact with him, would make him not only very cruel, but completely mad. And Simon is neither of those things. I know you don’t like him, and I understand that completely, but he’s just not that person.’
‘OK, then maybe it’s Ben.’
‘Ben?’ Now I really am astonished.
‘Maybe he’s finally somehow found out that you’ve been lying to him all this time, he’s flipped, and this is his way of punishing you – and telling you he knows.’
‘Even if that were true, and he was somehow deranged with grief and anger, he would never hurt James. Not in a million years. That falling mirror could have killed him.’