‘A couple of his old colleagues,’ she said vaguely. ‘I’ll get on to them tomorrow.’
She realized that she couldn’t quite face telling Mac what Jade had told her. He would, she knew, be as horrified and shocked as she was, yet she also knew that his loyalty to Luke might lead him to defend his friend, suggest that the girl was exaggerating perhaps, or even making it up, and though part of her was desperate to believe that, to be persuaded that the person she had loved for three years was incapable of behaving so badly, she also couldn’t quite face hearing it brushed aside, denied or disbelieved either. She watched as Mac got up and began to clear the plates away, and when he smiled at her, she smiled too, before turning back to the TV.
She thought about Luke, about his exuberance, his easy charm, how she and Mac had always laughed at the way luck seemed to follow him, wherever he went, how he always seemed to get what he wanted, always came out on top. It suddenly didn’t seem so funny any more. She thought about Amy and Jade and Ellen and the way Luke had treated them. Excuses could be made, of course. He was young and frightened when he’d got Amy pregnant. Perhaps Ellen had been exaggerating. Why then, did she feel so utterly sick to her stomach? Again she thought of the emails Luke had been sent. You think you’ve got away with it. Think again, Luke.
Who’d sent that email? She was pretty certain it was neither of the women she’d met over the past few days. The woman, Ellen, who’d made the accusation at university was living in Hong Kong now with a new baby, according to her check-ins and photos on Facebook, so was unlikely to be driving Luke around Britain in a stolen van. And Amy hardly seemed like a revenge-crazed psychopath either. She felt drained by the impossibility of it – there could be countless women that Luke had wronged in some way, women she had no hope of knowing about, let alone tracking down. It was hopeless.
19
London, 2017
A few days after they’d met at the bar, Emily contacted Clara again, asking if she could meet her somewhere private. And though she was elated to hear from her, Clara’s heart sank when she realized that the only possible place she could take her to was her own flat – Mac, after all, was not supposed to know about their meeting. The memory of her last visit there, that strange, eerie sense of being watched, the sudden, terrifying burst of music exploding down the stairwell still haunted her, and she sat for a long moment in Mac’s living room, staring down at Emily’s message before she typed her reply.
She was grateful the following afternoon as she let herself into her building that Emily had at least agreed to meet in daylight. When she reached her door she paused and listened, glancing fearfully up to Alison’s floor, but all was silent now. She busied herself with tidying up, thankful that she wouldn’t be alone for too long.
Sure enough, Emily arrived on the dot of two. When she opened the door Clara was struck afresh by her similarity to Luke, the almost identical way they smiled; the exact shade of their eyes. She watched Emily as she moved around the living room, her fingers trailing over shelves and ornaments as she drank everything in. When she came to the photograph of Luke and Clara, she picked it up and studied it. ‘Tell me about my brother,’ she said. ‘Tell me what he’s like now. He was such a lovely little boy, so kind and funny and loving. Is he still like that?’
And Clara heard herself replying, ‘Yes, yes he is,’ because, despite the disturbing things she’d learnt about him over the past few days, the Luke she’d known had been kind and funny and loving – at least to her.
‘We were so close when we were kids,’ Emily said wistfully. ‘What sort of man is he now?’
So Clara told her everything she could think of: how Luke had travelled around Asia in his gap year, the university he’d gone to, the friends he’d made, his career, the music and books he liked. She told her about the Luke who made the best roasted sea bass she’d ever tasted and did the worst impression of Michael Jackson she’d ever seen, the Luke who cared about his friends and his family, and her.
Emily listened avidly, her legs curled up beneath her where she sat on the sofa next to Clara, her head resting on her arms, her quiet, thoughtful gaze upon her face. ‘You love him very much, don’t you?’ she said, and mutely Clara nodded. Outside on the street the thudding bass of a car stereo swelled then faded, a child cried out one long, plaintive wail, yet up here all was quiet and still.
She felt strangely shy in Emily’s presence here in her flat, far more so than she had at the bar. She wasn’t entirely sure what Luke’s sister wanted from their meetings, sensing that there was something more to it than the simple desire to keep abreast of the search, and she could only conclude that talking to her somehow made Emily feel closer to her family, a connection to her parents and brothers after so many years apart. But that, too, didn’t seem quite right. Hoping to get her to open up, Clara asked tentatively now, ‘What was it like growing up at The Willows? It’s such a special place – it must have been idyllic.’
Emily’s eyes lit up. ‘Oh, it was! Mum and Dad built such a wonderful life for us, you know? That big lovely house, so full of people, so many parties, they’d both met so many interesting people through their careers, and they welcomed everyone – you’d be just as likely to be sitting down to dinner with the local dog walker as with the local MP.’ She paused, lost in thought. ‘But I think Mum, despite her career and devotion to Dad, loved more than anything just being our mother. Her family has always been everything to her, she put so much love and time into making our home beautiful for us all. It was perfect.’ She smiled sadly, ‘You’re right, we were very lucky.’
‘They’ve always been lovely to me,’ Clara told her. ‘I was so nervous before I met them, I was afraid they wouldn’t think I was good enough for Luke, but I couldn’t have been more wrong.’ She paused, remembering the talks she’d had with Rose over the years, how sometimes Rose had felt more like a mother to her than her own ever had. It struck her now for the first time that perhaps Rose had had similar thoughts, substituting Clara for her own lost daughter, that it was Emily she’d been thinking of when she’d wrapped Clara in one of her warm hugs or given her advice while they’d cooked or gardened together.
She glanced at Emily and the sadness on her face made her catch her breath. ‘It must be hard for you to talk about them,’ she said.
But Emily shook her head. ‘No, I want to.’ She looked at Clara. ‘They were always very close, Luke and my parents. Are they still?’
‘Incredibly so. That’s what makes it all the more heartbreaking, seeing Rose and Oliver so desperate.’
Emily nodded and, unable to stop herself, Clara leaned forward and said, ‘You obviously love your family so much. What made you leave? You said it would be dangerous to go back to them now, but—’
‘Clara …’ Emily began, a warning in her eyes.
‘I know, I know. I’m sorry, I know you don’t want to talk about it, but if you’re in danger still, if you think your parents might be in danger … surely we should go to the police? I can help you!’
But Emily looked away and a silence stretched between them, before Clara pressed gently, ‘Why did you want to meet with me? I mean, I know you wanted to talk about Luke, find out how the search is going, but … I get the impression there was another reason …’
Something in Emily’s face altered and Clara understood that she was right. Carefully she reached out and touched Emily’s arm. ‘If there’s anything you want to talk to me about, you can. I want to help you.’