‘But why say you were hired as a hit man?’
Another grin. ‘I knew I would get convicted for my assault on Carla, so I figured I might as well try to take her down with me.’
‘But it meant you got a longer sentence,’ I whisper.
‘Yeah. Well.’ He shrugs. Joe looks embarrassed. ‘Let’s just call it my penultimate act of love for the woman I could never have.’
‘Penultimate?’ I whisper.
‘Yes. And this is the final one.’ He leans closer. ‘Carla was convicted for killing Ed because she plunged the knife into him. Wasn’t she?’
I nod.
‘But the knife was found on the ground.’
I think back to the questions in court when this very point had been raised. Yes, Carla had said at last. She had knifed Ed. She couldn’t remember what had happened next. It was all such a muddle …
‘When I went round that night, Lily, the knife was still sticking in Ed’s leg.’ Joe is speaking very slowly. Very deliberately. ‘The silly woman had just left it there. You’re not meant to pull a knife out without the right medical knowledge. Did you know that? It can cause far more damage.’
I can hardly breathe.
‘I went back. After I saw Carla drop the gloves I returned to your house. I needed to find out if there was anything that could incriminate me. I waited outside behind a hedge for a few minutes, but no one seemed to have noticed the door being ajar. That’s the great thing about those big houses. They’re set back from the street. Perfect targets for burglars.’
He says this so flippantly, I can barely disguise a shudder.
‘I went in. Couldn’t resist a look at him. Then I realized he was still breathing. I kept thinking about how much he had hurt you. So I did it. I yanked out the knife. Blood shot out. He made this weird gurgling noise …’
I look away, choked with distress.
‘Then I scarpered. Later, I burnt my clothes and gloves – I’d brought my own of course. And waited for the police to track me down.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘I couldn’t believe it when she was arrested. And then I heard you were defending her. For a while I thought you were playing the system. Trying to make her look innocent but using that bumbling brief to discredit the case and make sure she got convicted. I sent you Carla’s gloves to help you. But because, as it turns out, you didn’t use them, she got off.’
‘So you really killed Ed,’ I say slowly.
‘You could say that all three of us did.’ His black eyes are trained on me firmly and squarely.
I wince again.
Joe is stretching out his hands to me now. I hesitate. Then I allow the tip of my finger to touch his. Just briefly. Much as I might try to fight it, Joe and I will always be bound together because of our shared history. He may have been in prison when we first met while I was on the outside – just dipping my toes into this new, scary world of double-locked doors, long corridors and prison guards. But because I was trying to get him out of there, it had felt like us against the rest of the world.
Add our one stupid tryst on the Heath, Tom’s birth, Ed’s murder, Carla’s conviction. You can see why the lines between right and wrong have become so blurred.
‘I love you,’ he says with those black eyes focused firmly on mine. ‘I love you because you understand me.’
Daniel used to say the same.
But look what happened.
‘I can’t …’ I begin.
‘I know.’ Joe’s grip tightens on my hand.
I tug it away.
‘You’ve more strength than you realize, Lily.’ Joe seems almost amused. Then his face saddens. ‘Take care of my boy.’
I think of Tom’s wonderful drawings. The way he only has to look at something for it to appear on paper. It’s a new skill. One that I didn’t know he possessed until a new art teacher, fresh from college, appeared at his school. It’s amazing what a difference a supportive teacher can make. Someone who really understands a child with (and without) Asperger syndrome.
Gifts like that are usually inherited. Or so the teacher says.
Joe is still looking at me. ‘I’ve been thinking about it. I don’t want another DNA test. I need to pretend that Tom is mine. It will help me to keep going. And don’t worry about me. It’s only right that I should be back here in prison.’
‘Time!’
Joe drops my hand. I feel a quick sense of loss, followed by an overwhelming wave of freedom.
Then Joe’s voice changes. ‘Don’t come back, Lily.’ He’s looking at me as if memorizing every part of my face. ‘Don’t come and visit me again. It wouldn’t be fair. On either of us. But have a great life.’
Those black eyes lock with mine for one last time. ‘You deserve it.’
Epilogue
Summer 2017
MARRIAGES
The wedding between Lily Macdonald and Ross Edwards took place quietly on 12 July …
‘Happy?’ asks Ross as we walk back to the house after the church blessing.
Yes – Ross and I. It happened so naturally that I wondered why it hadn’t done so before.
Mum is wearing a rose silk suit and a delirious expression on her face. Tom is holding hands with Alice (their relationship is still going strong). My son looks just like Ed did at that age, according to the photograph albums which my former mother-in-law left me when she died. I feel more confident about caring for Tom now. No longer do I fear that I might tip him over the edge, as I did Daniel.
Meanwhile, Dad is overseeing the barbecue.
We could be just another couple getting married in midlife. There are plenty of us. Carla isn’t the only one to be getting married in prison. So, apparently, is Joe. There was a picture of his bride-to-be in the paper. I recognized her instantly as my old secretary who had announced her engagement so excitedly in the office. The one with the sparkling diamond on her left hand. He put the ring in the Christmas pudding! I almost swallowed it.
So she had been Joe’s source! All the time he claimed to have an obsession for me, he was playing her too. And she had apparently decided she still loved him, despite his being a murderer.
Proof, if any, that I need to move on. Ahead is a clean slate. I make a promise every day to let go of the past.
Yet the guilt still sometimes comes back to haunt me in the form of thrashing nightmares. If I told the police what Joe had told me about pulling out the knife, it is possible that Carla might have her sentence reduced. But Joe is unpredictable. I know that. And if the case is reopened, there is the possibility that Joe might tell the court about the key and claim that I as good as hired him, as he previously claimed Carla had done.
It’s a scenario I can’t even consider. How would Tom cope without me? How would I cope without him?
So Carla remains in prison for my son’s sake.
None of this sits easy on my shoulders. Trust me.
Since Ross and I have got together, I’ve done a lot of thinking. He’s helped me to forgive my younger self for my relationship with Daniel. I can see now that I made mistakes because I was young. Vulnerable. Daniel made me feel good about myself at a time when I was bullied at school for being fat. Yet ironically, as Ross has gently pointed out, my adopted brother was a bully himself. ‘It’s sometimes difficult to see that at the time,’ he told me kindly. ‘Especially when you love someone. His difficult childhood, before your parents adopted him, couldn’t have helped either.’
Very true. Sometimes people are just different, regardless of whether they do or don’t have a label like Asperger’s.
Ross has also helped me come to terms with my behaviour on the Heath that night, after I’d won Joe’s appeal. ‘You were on a high after the case,’ he said. ‘You thought you had no future with Ed. Joe reminded you of Daniel.’
Ross is a good man. He always sees the best in people.