She and, she suspected, Michael were one hundred per cent sure that Nick had done something to Yvonne, but Duncan didn’t want to believe it. In the last twenty-two years, he’d had regular mad turns when he’d had doubts about Nick’s guilt and wanted to contact him.
At first it had been fine. In those early months of their new life in Wales, Duncan had never even mentioned Nick. He’d spent all his time fussing round Isla, his wee princess. Eventually, though, he’d started wondering aloud how Nick was getting on. They had always said it wouldn’t be forever, that Duncan would go back sometime and try to help him. Maggie had had to play the ‘Isla and I need you more’ card, and point out that Duncan didn’t know how Nick would react if he turned up again in his life – and if anything happened to Duncan, what would become of Maggie and wee Isla? Duncan loved the two of them to pieces, so this argument had always won the day. Maggie had also played on the fact that Nick, according to Yvonne and Michael, was doing well. It wasn’t healthy for him to have Duncan in his life. ‘He’s better off without the warped obsession he has with you, eh?’
Duncan hadn’t needed too much persuading.
But, from time to time, she’d find him going through an old album Yvonne had given him, smiling over the photos of Nick as a toddler and young child.
‘So full of life and fun,’ he would sigh.
Maggie could see what he was thinking: Could Nick really be such a monster? Have we made a massive mistake and done him a horrendous injustice?
And she’d have to get in his face, remind him of everything Nick had done, get him back in that moment when he’d stopped the pram. ‘Isla would have been killed if you’d been a second later!’
Now, she could see she was going to have to get the wee boy Duncan had left behind out his head and get psycho Nick back front and centre.
She went, ‘Are you conveniently forgetting what he did to Isla?’
Duncan sighed.
While Michael made his call, Maggie put the kettle back on and brought them all more tea. Then, as Michael sat back in his chair, Duncan said, ‘Well?’
‘The DC said they’ve already looked at the tracking data for Nick’s phone. The phone was in the house, in Sunnyside, the whole time.’
‘The clever bastard,’ went Maggie.
Michael nodded. ‘He must have left his own phone there and used a burner to make those trades.’
Maggie sat down, straight-backed, like a chairperson taking a meeting. ‘Right, so the bottom line is, we’ve got nothing to take to the police but suspicions.’
‘So what do we do?’ Michael was looking at her like a wee rumpled kitten, and she wanted to reach out and smooth his hair for him.
And then, suddenly, Michael was up, making for the door, muttering about how he wasn’t having this, he was going to go and see Nick and –
‘No!’ Maggie rapped out. ‘Michael, get back here! You are not going to confront him. What good will that do? Best case, he’ll laugh in your face. Worst case, you’ll end up like Yvonne. Michael! Come and sit down, eh? Aye, he’s a clever bastard, so we’re going to have to be clever about this too.’
29
Lulu - June 2019
Lulu sobbed as she drove. She sobbed until she could hardly see, blinking in time with the wipers, as if the whole world consisted of layers and layers of tears.
Nick.
Her darling.
How could she have suspected him of something so terrible? Of murdering his entire family? And how could they have done it? His stepmother and his own dad, the father Nick adored? They’d left him behind; left him to think they were dead, that psycho Maggie had maybe killed Duncan and Isla and then either killed herself or disappeared.
Why?
And where the hell had they been?
Was Yvonne’s disappearance connected to their reappearance?
None of it made any sense.
It was going to be such a shock for Nick to find out that they were alive after all. A wonderful shock, but still a shock.
At last, she turned off the road up the drive to Sunnyside. She didn’t return the car to the garage. She continued round to the front door. There was glass on the gravel from the window she’d smashed. How could the discovery of that second phone have sent her into such a ridiculous spiral of paranoia, just like Andy, picking up on one little thing and constructing a nightmare around it in which Nick was some sort of psycho? There was obviously an innocent explanation for the phone stuff. Maybe he’d started using a new phone and then realised it would look bad that this happened to coincide with Yvonne’s disappearance. So he had hidden it. If there really was anything sinister about it, he’d have disposed of it, wouldn’t he, not just shoved it in a cupboard?
Last night, he must have seen how agitated she was and decided to slip some zolpidem into her hot chocolate to make sure she got a good night’s sleep – which was not acceptable, but the idea that there was a sinister intention behind it was laughable. If he’d intended to harm her, he could have done so at any time.
What must he be thinking? He must be sick with worry.
Had those people any idea what they’d done to him?
‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ she was already saying as she ran through the rain to the door, expecting to find it locked, but it came open when she turned the big brass doorknob.
She opened the door, but she didn’t step inside.
What was she going to say to him?
She would have to explain how sorry she was for ever even countenancing Andy’s stories and Yvonne’s dark hints that Nick had murdered his family. Andy was obviously disturbed. And as for Yvonne – she just didn’t like Nick, pure and simple. What kind of a shock would it have been for Michael when Duncan and Maggie contacted him out of the blue?
Or maybe Yvonne and Michael had been in touch with them all this time. Maybe Yvonne and Michael had described what an emotional mess Nick was and the therapy Lulu was trying with him. Maybe that had pricked their consciences, and that explained why they were back?