Gently, she turned him to face her. ‘But the world can be a wonderful place, too. Look at us. Look at how we found each other. I mean, what are the chances? If I’d chosen another island . . . if I hadn’t had my stuff stolen . . .’
‘You’re the only good thing in my life,’ he groaned.
‘Oh, Nick, that’s not true.’
And it was terrible, but a little surge of impatience went through Lulu as a reprehensible thought surfaced – that she missed the old, stoical, humorous Nick. The Nick who was so scathing about people ‘getting in touch with their feelings’.
Where had that come from?
She was a therapist, for God’s sake.
She should be glad that the barriers were finally coming down.
Maybe it was because the old Nick reminded her a bit of her dad, whose summation of Lulu’s whole client base was ‘load of whingers’. She knew there was a theory that some women used their father as a template for what a man should be and subconsciously chose the same type for their partner.
But it was more than that.
There was something about Nick’s extravagant emoting that was repelling her.
Nick took a deep breath and covered his face with his hands. ‘Are you regretting it?’ he muttered through them. ‘Encouraging me to let it all out?’ Sometimes it really was as if he could read her mind.
‘No, of course not!’
Karla used to warn her students that the natural human reaction to someone breaking down and letting out their emotions wasn’t necessarily to comfort, but to avoid. ‘It’s part of the self-preservation instinct,’ Karla had explained. ‘To put distance between yourself and someone in trouble. People with mental health problems are often isolated not only because they withdraw, but because those around them instinctively do so too. You need to acknowledge that you’re part of the human race with the same pre-programmed survival instincts, and it’s normal to want to avoid your clients.’ She had grinned round at the class. ‘But you need to let the rational part of the brain get on top of the amygdala and the primitive, instinctual response it’s trying to produce.’
Lulu, at the time, had smugly reflected that that advice wasn’t aimed at her, someone Karla had singled out as being worryingly empathetic. She had never felt repulsed by anyone letting out their emotions.
Until now.
Oh God!
What did that say about her? How could she feel nothing but sympathy when it was a virtual stranger pouring their heart out, but not when it was Nick, her own, beloved husband?
Maybe it was because this was so much more personal. Maybe her amygdala was dominating her rational brain because it was important, in the dim distant past of human evolution, for a woman to have a partner who was strong, who could protect her and provide for her. Evidence to the contrary could prompt her to shrink away from him.
She had to repress that primitive response.
She didn’t need Nick to protect her. She’d been raised on Braemar Station, for crying out loud, and she was one tough cookie. Mum and Dad had always instilled in her the belief that she could do anything she put her mind to. ‘The only limits are the limits you put on yourself,’ Dad used to say.
But what if Nick’s problems were a challenge too far?
No.
She could do this.
She could help him get through it.
And then maybe the old Nick will come back, said her treacherous amygdala.
Nick heaved in another breath. ‘I’m sorry.’ He took his hands from his face. ‘Didn’t mean to throw such a pity party.’
‘You don’t need to apologise, silly!’
‘What do you think’s happened to Yvonne?’ he said quietly.
‘I – I don’t know.’
Oh God, Yvonne!
Yvonne, lying out there in the dark, somewhere in that forest. Surely the police would find her tomorrow?
At dawn, Lulu and Nick returned to Craibstone Wood to help with the search. Lulu felt like a zombie after a night of sleeplessness and fractured dreams she couldn’t now remember, and Nick insisted that Lulu mustn’t ever be out of his sight – the latest in a new, long list of rules he’d started laying down that morning at breakfast.
‘Lu, please, you must promise. You mustn’t leave the house without telling me. You must always keep your phone on you, charged up and switched on, even when you’re in the loo. If Yvonne had had her phone with her . . .’
‘Okay,’ she had reassured him. ‘I promise.’
There was, she had to admit, something reassuring about Nick being right next to her as they walked through the gloom of the forest. Her throat was raw with calling Yvonne’s name, and it was much more tiring than you’d think, tramping through a forest where your feet were always slipping into holes or through rotten fallen wood, where you were always having to skirt round obstacles and duck under low branches.
They proceeded in a line, like on a TV drama, all dressed in yellow tabards. There was a huge turnout of local people, which was a surprise, as Lulu couldn’t imagine Yvonne being very popular. Carol Jardine was there. She caught Nick in a tight hug and introduced her husband, Steve, to Lulu, a bearded man in a waxed jacket.
‘Andy’s here somewhere, Nick.’
They met back at the car park for sandwiches and tea provided by one of the other farmers, a brisk woman who served everyone from the back of a pickup. As Lulu joined Nick in the Audi, her phone beeped. A London number she didn’t recognise.
‘Hello? This is Lulu Clyde?’
‘Mrs Clyde, good morning. This is DC Tariq Akhtar from the Met. I’m one of the team investigating Paul Montgomery’s death.’
‘Oh, right, yes. Hello.’
‘Would you have time to answer a couple of quick questions?’
Her heart plummeted. ‘Okay. Yes.’
‘Can I just ask you . . . did you take anything away from the scene?’
‘No. I don’t think so. I – I went into the kitchen and found him there, found him . . . hanging from the ceiling. I got up on the chair and tried to –’ Her throat closed up.
Lulu really didn’t want to be thinking about this.
And suddenly she was angry.