But no.
It wasn’t Nick. This man had grey hair in a crew cut, and he was at least thirty years older. But she knew him. She knew his face. It was the face on the wall of the apartment.
It was Nick’s dad.
It was Duncan Clyde!
And the woman sitting next to him, the woman with short greying hair – was that Maggie? Her face was fuller, but it was the woman in the wedding photograph, wasn’t it?
Nick’s stepmother.
They were alive.
They hadn’t been murdered.
She didn’t stop to think about it. She dropped the pump, not even bothering to put it back in the holder, and jumped into the car. She would come back later and pay. Her feet slipped on the pedals, and the car kangarooed forwards as she steered to the exit and out into the queue of traffic.
Was it really them?
But how could it be?
As the traffic started to move, she was focusing so hard on the small silver car that she almost went into the back of the vehicle directly in front of her.
Duncan and Maggie. Could it be Duncan and Maggie, or was it just her drugged, battered brain playing tricks?
Wanting to be wrong about Nick?
Ahead of her, the silver car’s indicator flashed, and it turned off the High Street onto the bridge. Onto the road to Sunnyside. As she followed them out of the town, one crazy scenario after another chased through her head. They had been living in Langholm all this time . . . They had come back and murdered Yvonne for some reason . . . They had heard Nick was under suspicion and were here to make amends . . .
But soon they turned off the road, onto one Lulu didn’t know. She drove on autopilot, hardly conscious of the twists and turns of the road as they travelled through dank forests and fields and crossed bridges over muddy torrents. She was hypnotised by the red taillights of the car in front.
Eventually it slowed and indicated right, and turned onto a track signposted Rose Cottage with 4* Holiday Home underneath.
Lulu drove on past and parked as soon as she could, in the gateway to a field. Then she ran back in the soaking rain to the track entrance. It was a well-maintained track, more of a driveway, really, which wound slightly uphill amongst big old beeches and sycamores. Soon, she could see the cottage, a long, low, whitewashed building with a slate roof, the windows glowing a welcoming yellow, a wisp of smoke rising into the rain from a chimney. There was a pretty garden in front, a lawn and flowerbeds and some apple trees. To one side was parked a Land Rover, and the silver car was manoeuvring in next to it.
Lulu ducked down in the shelter of a sopping wet rhododendron as the door of the cottage opened and Michael appeared, hurrying along the path towards the two people who had got out of the car – a small, elfin woman with short grey hair and a strong nose, and a tall, older man with a salt-and-pepper crewcut in smart chinos and shirt, loping along behind her.
‘Maggie!’ exclaimed Michael, catching the woman in a hug before shaking the man’s hand, the emotion on their faces plain to see, even from this distance, as ‘Oh, Michael!’ the woman cried out.
Nick’s family.
It was Nick’s long-lost family.
Alive and well.
28
Maggie - June 2019
‘Come on in to the fire,’ went Michael, leading them along the path and into the cottage, and then footering about getting tea, the three of them rummaging in the kitchen for cutlery and mugs.
Maggie had forwarded Michael the details of Rose Cottage after they’d managed to get a last-minute booking, and he had come over here ahead of them and opened up and got the fire going.
Duncan had wanted to come straight back as soon as they’d heard Yvonne was missing, but Maggie had persuaded him against it. Then Michael had called in a terrible state, saying he’d had enough, he was going to confront Nick. They’d talked the stupid bugger down and made him promise not to do anything until they got there.
Once the decision to come back had been made, Maggie had wanted to get going pronto. They’d left their smallholding in Wales at mad o’clock, and Maggie was feeling like death warmed up. It felt like the right thing, though, being here. Maybe Duncan had been right and they should have come back as soon as Yvonne went missing, but what could they have done?
Yvonne was likely dead.
Nick had likely killed her.
But they owed it to Michael, to Yvonne, to be here. Yvonne had had their backs all these years, eh? Not that Maggie had always appreciated it. That fateful day they’d left Sunnyside, and Yvonne had appeared on the track in front of them, Maggie had yelled at her: ‘You daft cow! You scared the shit out of me!’
Yvonne had apologised and said she had to come and make sure they were okay, that she’d had the horrible thought of what might be happening if Nick had rumbled them.
And that was Yvonne all over.
Duncan had hardly slept since he’d heard she was missing, and Maggie was finding it hard too. Over the years, she and Yvonne had become pals. Most summers, they met up abroad, all five of them, for a week or two in the sun. Isla loved her Auntie Yvonne to bits and the big shocker was that Yvonne returned the sentiment. When Isla was wee they had this game they used to play, ‘naughty horsie’ – Isla would jump on Yvonne’s back and Yvonne would trot round the room neighing and pretending to try to buck Isla off, the two of them laughing their heads off.
Maybe Maggie was wrong about Yvonne being dead.
God, she hoped she was wrong.