Wow.
‘No,’ Lulu said sternly. ‘Maybe he was a difficult teenager, but the Nick I know – and I do know him, although we’ve only been together six months – the Nick I know is a lovely man.’
Yvonne snorted.
‘He really is! He’s always surprising me with fun days out and weekends away. Just before we came up here, he booked a day at one of those adventure places and we were swinging through the trees and zooming down water slides like a pair of kids. I hadn’t had so much fun since I was a kid! You need to get to know him properly, Yvonne.’ She reached across the table and lightly touched the other woman’s hand. ‘It must have been hard for you, dealing with Duncan and Maggie and Isla disappearing like that, and Nick probably being a handful. There’s been a lot of water under the bridge since then, though, and I promise you, when you properly get to know Nick, you’re going to like him.’
Would he ever let Yvonne close enough to see the real Nick, though? Lulu pushed away the niggly little worry about how he was going to be when she got back. Would he give her the silent treatment for disloyally going out with Yvonne?
‘Lulu –’
‘Come to dinner!’ The suggestion was out of her mouth before she’d really thought it through. ‘You and Michael. Tomorrow night? Why not? Just a dinner?’
Yvonne wasn’t looking at Lulu. She was watching Pam collecting crockery from the table opposite. Finally, she met Lulu’s eyes. ‘Okay, fine. I suppose there are things we need to discuss, about the house.’
‘Great! Oh, and another thing I was going to ask you – do you have a phone number for Carol Jardine?’
‘Carol? Why do you want to talk to Carol?’
‘What you said just now about whether I was sure the therapy was working? When you’re dealing with trauma, it’s good to get independent confirmation that the person is accessing real memories. People with PTSD are at risk, sometimes, of producing false ones. Carol will be able to tell me if what Nick is apparently remembering is right or not.’
Yvonne plucked her phone from her bag and settled a pair of bright pink-framed reading glasses on her nose. ‘I think I have her number, yes. For all the good it’ll do.’
When Lulu got back to Sunnyside, she found Nick in the kitchen, washing up at the sink, and as he turned to her, she braced herself for the silent treatment. But he smiled as he dried his hands on the towel and asked, a little sardonically, if she’d had a good time with Yvonne.
‘It wasn’t as bad as I’d expected.’
‘What, so you were expecting it to be an ordeal, but anything was better than staying here with Mr Nutter? No, Lu, I don’t blame you! God, I’m such a pain in the arse these days.’ He came across the room and took her, very tenderly, in his arms. ‘I’m sorry for being such a brute. I’ve attempted falafels to make up for it – yes, from scratch, and with a lot of creative thinking required as we have none of the right ingredients. Do you think it’s acceptable to substitute sweetcorn for chickpeas?’
Lulu gurgled, ‘No!’
‘Yeah. I don’t expect you to eat them. It’s the thought that counts, though, yes?’
‘Yes.’ She reached up to put a hand through his hair.
‘Oh, and if you’re looking for Nero, forget it. I assassinated him. Drowned him in the loo.’
And the two of them dissolved in saving laughter.
12
Maggie - September 1997
Duncan was home!
Maggie had been thinking about asking Yvonne, after all, if she and Isla could stay at the farm, but now there was no need. Nick had worked out that CCTV outside a shop in Hawick could have caught Duncan’s car driving past, and sure enough, CCTV had captured a clear image of Duncan in the car, time-stamped 20:38 – and Hawick was half an hour’s drive from The Phoenix Centre in Langholm, even if Duncan had taken the most direct route possible. The police had found Dean’s body at 20:55, and the time of death had been estimated to be between 20:25 and 20:50. Dean would have died within minutes of being stabbed, so there was no sequence of events that could possibly place Duncan at The Phoenix Centre committing the murder.
The icing on the cake was that several locals had come forward to say that the so-called altercation between Duncan and Dean outside the newsagent had just been Dean kicking off and Duncan trying to calm him down and defend himself.
The authorities had had no option but to release him.
‘The hero of the hour!’ went Duncan as he dumped his holdall in the hall, throwing an arm round Nick, who went beetroot but insisted, ‘The plods would have got there eventually. I just sped the process up a bit.’
‘I don’t know that they would have. They weren’t looking at any alternative scenarios after they found out about that altercation I had with Dean in the street.’
‘Well, but they’ll have to now, won’t they?’ Nick looked at Maggie. ‘They’ll have to start thinking who else, maybe someone with a history of violence, could have been in the vicinity at the relevant time.’
‘Well, yes, hopefully they’ll find out who did it.’ Duncan took Isla from Maggie and lowered his face to hers, breathing her in. ‘Ah, it’s good to be home!’ He beamed at Nick. ‘You know what I’ve really missed? Our early morning runs. How about going for a run with your old man now? I’ve been hitting the gym while I’ve been behind bars, I have to warn you.’
‘Uh, yeah, but from the look of that belly you’ve also been hitting the baked goods section of the cafeteria pretty hard.’ Nick grinned. ‘All right, old man. Back here in five?’