‘Chloe? God, it’s been so long. You haven’t aged though. What you taking? I’ll have some.’ He smiled that familiar smile again, though it was quick to fall from his face. ‘Sorry. How are you? Stupid question, I suppose.’
Seeing him brought back a host of memories. He had always been so nice to her; so supportive, even though she had so often taken advantage of the fact. Chloe supposed there were a lot of things she had taken for granted back then. She’d had to grow up quickly – far too quickly – but despite her circumstances, her teenage naivety had been strong enough to blind her to the hardships that were yet to come. When it had seemed she had lost everything, she’d still had the person closest to her. The person who had made it possible to survive anything.
But once Luke was gone, Chloe had really known what losing everything truly meant.
Perhaps that was why she had lost touch with him. She couldn’t cling to the remnants of a past, not when the solid structure of it was no longer in existence. It was a shame, she thought, but life and everything it had thrown at her had forced her away from everyone.
There was also the issue of that awkward night she didn’t really want to remember.
She stepped aside and let him into the flat. He handed her a carrier bag. She peered inside. There was a bag of mixed salad, a packet of tomatoes, some spinach and ricotta ravioli and a bottle of non-alcoholic fruit cocktail.
‘Thought you might need some dinner. If you’re anything like me, you don’t bother cooking for one. You still a veggie?’
Chloe nodded. ‘Thanks.’ She stepped aside to allow him into the flat, but he hesitated.
‘I don’t want to be presumptuous. We can go out if you prefer, though? Might be good for you. The longer you stay in, the harder it’s going to get to go back out.’
Chloe realised this was probably right, but she couldn’t face the outside world just yet. She considered it for the briefest of moments, but it was far too soon. ‘I invited you over, didn’t I? Look, I know you’re right, but… not yet.’
What would other people say if they were to see her out with a man, just days after those photographs had been splashed all over the front of the newspapers? She would be adding fuel to a fire that, as far as Chloe was concerned, couldn’t die out quickly enough. Keeping a low profile would mean keeping herself protected to what little extent she was now able to. Surely it didn’t mean, though, that she needed to keep herself entirely isolated?
‘How long have you been living here?’ he asked, taking a look around the sparsely furnished living room.
It did look as though she had only just moved in and hadn’t yet had time to unpack any items beyond the basic furniture needed to make the space liveable, but this was exactly as Chloe had always liked it. She had never wanted to become fixed to any one place, presumably because being fixed had once meant being trapped. Since working with Alex – and now since meeting Scott – her ideas had altered. She felt a sense of belonging in her job, something that had previously been an alien sensation to her. Scott had been the first person in a long time with whom she could imagine something fixed, something permanent, and it was those very thoughts that had sent her running.
What must he think of her now?
Chloe followed her old friend’s eyes as they scanned the room, embarrassed suddenly by the sum of her life. ‘About six months.’ She took the bag from him and ushered him through to the kitchen. ‘Thanks for these.’
In the kitchen, she flicked on the kettle and took two mugs from the cupboard next to the fridge. For someone who had craved her own space, Chloe had found herself attacked by loneliness at a worryingly rapid rate. Isolation had been acceptable when she had chosen it. Once it had been forced upon her, it had quickly lost its appeal.
‘It’s good to see you.’
She turned from her task of making tea and shot him a smile. ‘You too.’
In a way, having him there made it feel as though the previous eight years of her life had never happened, as though she had been transported back to a whole other lifetime: one that despite being so relentlessly battered by sadness had been punctuated with the occasional moment of hope. Before Luke’s death, she had been happy, occasionally. Those times they had laughed together over something stupid – the times he had walked her home, deliberately extending the route taken in an unspoken effort to keep her a little longer from a flat he had always seemed to know she would never be able to call her home.
Would she want to be eighteen again? she thought.
Not the version of it she’d been given, certainly not. But in another past – in another life that had led down a path much different to the one she had been given – most certainly.
She turned to him. ‘Still take sugar?’ she asked.
He gave her a smile. ‘Good memory, Chloe.’
Chapter Sixty-One
The local press had been informed of the search for Adam Edwards and one of the team was updating social media websites with his image and a request for any member of the public who might see him to contact them immediately. If he was to gain knowledge of the fact that the police had identified him, there was always a chance he might give himself up. He had nowhere to go, and nobody could run for ever.
Alex had to acknowledge that the likelihood was slim. If the conditions Sarah Taylor had been put into the lake at Cosmeston offered anything by which they were able to judge this man, Alex predicted that he had come to view his criminal activity as some sort of game. It was likely he had known her body would be found, and sooner rather than later. He may have already known that the police were aware of him, probably enjoying this game of cat and mouse where he had, until now, exercised control.
Wading through Adam Edwards’s copious employment history for any clues as to his current whereabouts seemed a daunting task, one that Alex realised they had little time for. With Rachel Jones safely at her brother’s house in Bristol, she had no longer to fear for the young woman’s safety. But that wasn’t to say Adam Edwards hadn’t set his sights elsewhere.
While the rest of the team worked on contacting those who might have known or worked with Edwards, Alex paid a visit to the mutual friend who had referred Simon Watts to Adam when he’d needed electrical work on his house.