‘Half-brother,’ said Lulu.
‘I thought it would be really traumatic, you know? Hearing it all over again, what he did to Dad. But I’ve been playing it over and over in my head for so long, it’s like – hey, nothing new. You know? Every single hour of every single day, I’m there, in that cottage – even though I wasn’t there – seeing Dad . . .’ Her mouth wobbled.
Lulu nodded.
Isla took a breath. ‘It’s like, finally, everyone else is hearing about it, the jury are hearing what he did. The whole world knows now. It’s like, I don’t know . . . Oh God, I’m not going to say closure!’
‘But it is. Of course it is. He’s being brought to justice. You have to . . .’ Lulu stopped and looked at this girl who was rapidly becoming one of her best friends. ‘You have to try to consign those images, those thoughts of what happened to your dad, to the past. I – I wouldn’t be able to offer you therapy myself – we can’t treat family – but I can point you in the direction of a couple of really good people.’
And thoughts of Paul suddenly came into her head.
She’d been having nightmares about Paul, about what must have happened when Nick arrived at his door, having found out his address, presumably, by snooping through the files on Lulu’s laptop. She should have known that it was all wrong, the idea that Paul would have killed himself in front of Milo. He’d have found another home for the little dog he adored, surely, before doing it, or at the very least have left him with a friend.
The police in London were putting together a case against Nick. He’d been caught on CCTV a couple of streets from Paul’s house on the morning of his death. It was hoped that there would be enough evidence for another trial. And they were looking again, too, at the sudden deaths of two of his girlfriends. The police in the Borders were also re-examining Dean Reid’s murder in the light of what Andy Jardine had told them about being forced by Nick to provide him with a false alibi.
‘Aw, thanks, Lulu!’ Isla reached out to touch Lulu’s arm. ‘You’re the best!’ But she was looking at Lulu in the way Lulu was beginning to know well.
‘Out with it.’
‘It’s just . . . you know, Mum? I think Mum . . . she had bad experiences with counselling and stuff when she was young, and it’s kind of put her off. But if you were the one suggesting it and recommending someone . . . I think she needs to talk to someone about Dad. About Nick. About everything. Probably Michael does too. In a way, it’s worse for him, isn’t it, not even having Auntie Yvonne’s body?’
‘When Nick’s been convicted and sent away, it’ll be better for both of them. But yes, I’m sure they would benefit from therapy. The right kind of therapy.’
They returned to the court house to hear the start of the case for the defence. As the doors were opened, the others filed in, but Maggie drew Lulu to one side, beyond a seating area and a big potted fern.
Maggie was neat and smart in a navy skirt and jacket and a white silk blouse. As the last witness for the prosecution, Lulu hadn’t been in court to hear Maggie’s testimony, but Mum had told her that Maggie had stood up to the defence advocate’s cross-examination with quiet dignity. When the advocate had suggested that Maggie, not Nick, had killed Duncan, Maggie had said she might have a chequered past, but thanks to Duncan she had turned her life around and would hope no one would judge a respectable woman in her fifties on what she’d done as a troubled teenager who’d been abused as a child.
Now, Maggie fixed Lulu with a hard stare.
‘You didn’t know he had done it,’ she said in a low voice. ‘When you arrived at Rose Cottage. You couldn’t have known that Nick killed Duncan. He’d set it up that carefully. The ruse with the text message, telling you Duncan had messaged him saying I’d gone psycho – you couldn’t have known he was lying. He was dead convincing. And he was your husband, for fuck’s sake.’
Lulu considered what to say. ‘I was pretty sure.’
‘Aye, but even so. You were taking a massive risk, eh, accusing him in front of the police, when you could have been wrong? You could have been condemning an innocent man, and not just any innocent man. Your own fucking husband that you fucking loved, God help you. There was more to it, aye?’
Maggie was sharp all right.
‘It was a test,’ Lulu admitted. ‘Denouncing him like that was a test. I knew how obsessed he was with Duncan. And he was obsessed with me too, wanting me all to himself like I was his possession. When he found out that Duncan wasn’t dead, that you hadn’t killed him like he thought – it turned his world upside down. The fact that his beloved dad had abandoned him, rejected him, betrayed him, as he saw it . . . it was completely devastating for him. I thought, if the only other person he loved betrayed him in the same way . . .’
‘If you rejected him the way Duncan had done, he wouldn’t be able to stop himself going for you?’
‘That was the test,’ Lulu agreed. ‘If he was innocent, if he hadn’t killed Duncan, he wouldn’t react that way. He’d be shocked and upset, but he wouldn’t –’
‘Try to kill you.’
‘He couldn’t control himself.’ Lulu shuddered. ‘He snapped. I guess he just couldn’t understand what he had done to deserve such treatment from the only two people he had ever loved.’