‘I ignored the first one – I thought it’d just been sent to the wrong email address by mistake or something. I got the second one the other day, again from the same email address.’
‘This could refer to anything.’
Chloe looked at Alex as though she had physically harmed her.
‘Someone knows something. If I can find out who murdered Emily, I can find who was responsible for my brother’s death. Someone killed him, I know it. Either that or he was being blackmailed, something, but I know he wouldn’t have killed himself. I have to find out what happened, but I don’t think I can do this alone. I know I’m asking a lot, but there’s no one else.’
Alex put a hand to her forehead and dragged her fingers through her hair. How was she supposed to tell Chloe that neither of them could go through with this – that if they couldn’t get permission to reinvestigate the case then going ahead and doing so anyway might potentially mark the end of both their careers?
It turned out she didn’t need to say anything. Chloe had read the response stamped on her face.
‘I’m sorry. I’m asking too much.’
‘I understand why you want to do this. Well,’ she hastened, knowing she could never truly understand what Chloe must have felt, ‘not understand, obviously, but I can appreciate how difficult this all must be. I just want you to think very carefully before you make any next step.’
Chloe gave a wan smile, sat back and drained the last of the coffee from her cup. ‘I will.’
She didn’t need to say any more. They both knew she was going to go ahead, with or without the help of Alex.
Chapter Fourteen
Connor knew Sarah’s shift pattern because he regularly met her once she had finished work. They would meet a few streets away where he would abandon his own car to get into hers. That day, he waited for her to finish her shift and approached her in the car park, taking her by the arm and trying to lead her around the side of the building. His fingers dug into her skin and she yanked herself away from him, voicing angry protestations.
‘What the hell do you think you’re playing at?’
‘What are you trying to do?’ Connor hissed.
‘Well, I was trying to get in my car and go home.’ She shoved her handbag back up on to her shoulder and pushed her long hair from her face.
‘I thought we talked about this at the pub the other night? I thought we were going to leave it there.’
‘If by “it” you mean “us” then we were,’ Sarah said. ‘And I have.’
She flicked a length of blonde hair from her face and Connor tried to ignore the reaction that stirred inside him. He didn’t need any psychologist to tell him that he’d found a counteraction to his anger through sex – he’d worked that much out for himself, much earlier. The only time he didn’t feel angry – the only time he found himself able to block out all the things that had gone before this and the life he’d left behind on the dirty ground of a foreign country – was when he was having sex.
His therapist had told him he should talk about how he was feeling with his family, that they would understand the complications he was facing. What the hell would he know about it, sitting there in his nice office never having done a proper day’s work in his life? All he seemed to do was repeat back what Connor said to him, occasionally altering his words with a slight change in phrasing.
Would his wife understand his need to have sex with other women? He wasn’t prepared to take a bet on it.
‘So what was that text yesterday all about then?’ he asked Sarah angrily.
‘What text?’
Connor felt anger crawl up into his chest. He could usually control it – he’d been controlling it for so long now – but more frequently, it caught him with a need to suppress it, and an even greater desire to let it do as it pleased.
The only way he could release it would tear his life apart, if his family were ever to find out the truth. Even now, whilst so angry at Sarah – whilst hating her – he wanted to push her into her car and take her clothes off.
‘You know what bloody text,’ he said, shoving the car door closed as Sarah once again tried to open it. The shove was stronger than either of them expected and the door slammed shut, narrowly missing Sarah’s fingers. She shot him a glare.
‘I’m sorry,’ he snapped, not sounding sorry at all. ‘It’s just…’
He glanced to the far side of the car park, where a woman was standing at the corner of the building. She was holding a black bin bag in each hand and wore a net on her head to keep her hair in place. Once the woman realised she’d been caught watching them, she turned away from Connor and Sarah, busying herself at the industrial-sized wheelie bins that were separated from the car park by wooden fencing.
‘Here,’ Connor said, showing her the message he’d received.
Sarah looked at him defiantly. ‘Well, I didn’t send it.’
Why should she care? She wasn’t the one who was married and had kids. He had ended it – whatever happened next was his problem.
‘Have you tried texting back?’ she asked sarcastically.
‘I tried calling. It keeps going through to answerphone.’
‘Well, it wasn’t me,’ Sarah said quietly between gritted teeth. She pulled her arm away from Connor, opened the car door and threw her bag inside. ‘You said it was over. It is.’
She got into the car and slammed the door shut. Connor stood in the car park, fists clenched by his sides, and watched as she drove away.
When she got back home, Sarah planned on going straight to her bedroom in a bid to avoid Grace, her flatmate. The plan failed: Grace was coming out of the bathroom as Sarah reached the top of the stairs and, as always, Sarah was unable to hide her feelings from her face.
‘What’s happened?’ Grace asked. She flicked the bathroom light switch and stepped out on to the landing. ‘You OK?’
Sarah shrugged. ‘I’m fine. I just want to get showered and out of these clothes.’
Grace folded her arms across her chest. Sarah was a terrible liar; she always had been. Grace had known her long enough to know when she was trying to hide the truth.
‘It’s him again, isn’t it?’
Sarah rolled her eyes, unable to hold back the reaction. ‘Not everything has to be about him, you know.’
‘But I’m right, aren’t I?’
Sarah sidestepped her friend into the living room and threw her bag on to the sofa. ‘Everything’s always on his terms.’
Grace stood in the doorway, watching as Sarah sat down to take off her shoes. How many more times were they going to have this same conversation?
‘Of course it is. That’s how affairs work.’