Rachel had gone pale.
‘Just think – all that time he was doing it right under her nose,’ she said, shaking her head sadly. ‘What are you going to do? Are you going to tell the police?’
‘No, she is not,’ said Adam, looking at me with a stern expression. ‘Izzy has done quite enough amateur detective work and she’s learned the hard way that it doesn’t do any good.’
‘Well…’ I said, considering it.
‘You cannot be serious! Izzy – tell me you’re not actually thinking of telling the police that you’ve worked out which hotel your brother-in-law was taking his mistress to?’ He started to laugh nervously. ‘What good would that do!? What does this even change, anyway?’
Adam hopped out of the armchair and onto the sofa beside me. ‘I know you’re angry,’ he said, winding an arm around my shoulders. ‘I know you’re looking for someone to blame, and I know you think Mike did something wrong – well yes, he did… But not that. You can’t decide that he murdered her just because he was cheating on her!’
The corners of my eyes started to blur with salty tears.
‘You’ve got to give this up, Izzy.’ Adam’s voice was softer now.
Rachel crouched in front of me, offering me a tissue. ‘Your sister would be so proud of you, you know.’ She put her hand over mine. ‘But Adam is right, you have to let this go. Let go of the anger. We all miss her. But this… It doesn’t mean Mike is to blame. Perhaps it was just an accident after all.’
The tears started to flow, and I couldn’t stop them.
Adam and Rachel went out for a walk while I took a nap, waking from an exhausted sleep when a wisp of cool air blew in from the window and tickled my cheek. The wind changed direction when the tide turned. Most people didn’t notice it, but for coast folk, the ebb and flow of the sea was like a sixth sense. The more time I spent in Seahouses, the more I felt myself growing back in tune with the water. I no longer had to look out of the window to tell if it was high or low tide – the sound of the waves and the smell of the air gave it away.
We’d planned to go over to Amy’s together that evening – safety in numbers, as Adam had murmured. I was desperate to see the kids. Just to make sure they were okay. And even though it had only been a day, I missed them.
Rachel was right – Amy would be proud of me. I’d done what she’d wanted me to do, made the sacrifice she had asked me of me.
At the beginning, I’d thought I’d be a burden on Mike, that I had so much to learn and that I would only get in his way. That between him, Auntie Sue and Mum, the children didn’t need me. I was starting to realise that I’d been wrong – they did need me, just as much as I needed them.
I had started to worry about how much they were eating and if they were getting the right nutrition for their growing bodies. Reflexively, I checked them every morning for signs that they were getting enough sleep. Whenever I wasn’t with them, I worried that they were safe and that they weren’t upset. For the second time in my life, I knew what it was like to have someone who was more important to me than myself. The first had been Amy.
When Mike had told me to stay away from the children, it had cut like a knife. Just thinking of him made my rage start to simmer, and I didn’t know why. Nothing had changed since yesterday – except that now I knew where he had gone with Julie. Now I had a location for his cheating, but did that make it any worse? It wasn’t as if Mike had lied to me – I hadn’t asked him where he had gone. And when I had confronted him with Julie’s name, he’d come clean right away.
Perhaps Adam and Rachel were right – maybe I just needed to get over this. I had already got it wrong twice, and at what cost? Having an affair did not mean that Mike had murdered Amy, and I had to stop looking for proof of something that clearly didn’t exist. The past was in the past, and we needed to forgive each other and move forward. Let the tide wash it all out to sea and start over.
Something else was niggling at me, too. I had replayed my discussion with Mike over and over in my head, and something didn’t add up. It was like a jigsaw, with a final piece that almost fit, but not quite. From afar it looked fine, but if you ran your fingers over it, you would feel a bump where the pieces didn’t quite belong. Was it my imagination, or had he admitted everything a little too easily?
Julie Knox. Julie Knox…
Why was the name familiar? Was she local? I’d read the tribute she’d written for Amy on Facebook, but I also had a vague memory of meeting someone called Julie Knox. Had she been at Amy’s funeral? No. It was long ago, a lifetime ago. I couldn’t put a face to the name. But there was an easy way to remind myself.
I opened Facebook on my phone, scrolling though Mike’s friends until I found her: Julie Knox. Her profile picture was a flower. I was holding my breath as I clicked the thumbnail and her life unfurled across my screen.
My pulse thudded in my ears and my jaw dropped. I scrolled through her pictures, my eyes growing wider. Who was this? My head spun as I tried to make sense of what I was seeing.
Julie was in her seventies, a proud grandmother of five from Scotland. Not even one of those glamorous seventy-somethings but a proper old lady, with a silver perm set, shin-length skirts, and silk scarves knotted above her cardigans. Her Facebook profile was like a family photo album, including pictures with her husband. There was Julie at the WI, Julie at the church bake sale, Julie surrounded by her grandchildren.
No way was this woman having an affair with Mike.
I re-read the name to check I had the right person, and went back to the list of Mike’s friends to make sure I wasn’t missing something. How did this woman even know Mike and Amy? The text and photos started to swim on the screen in front of me. I clicked back to the top of her page and combed through her friends.
I opened the profile of her husband, Douglas Knox, and scrolled through his photos – and there was Mike. The two of them were standing with a third man on a golf course, smiling at the camera, squinting in the sunshine. The photo was several years old.
It didn’t make any sense.
More scrolling, back through the years, then I saw it – a photograph of the Knoxes at Mike and Amy’s wedding. And then I remembered – a vague, dusty memory, stashed away in the far corner of my mind, of being introduced to them. Douglas was a friend of Mike’s father, a business partner or something like that, and Mike’s dad had invited them to the wedding. He had already been a widower by then and had insisted on inviting some of his friends – Amy hadn’t been happy about it but had been persuaded by Mike.
I had, of course, been completely disinterested in meeting them at the wedding. I’d been merrily drunk, smiling politely and saying just enough to be charming, wondering how quickly I could get back to my champagne and my date and the dancing. I hadn’t thought of them since. Mum and Auntie Sue might remember more.
Not that it was important – this was clearly not the woman that we had seen with Mike in Newcastle. So why had he blurted out her name when I’d confronted him?
Or had he? Had Mike simply said the first name that popped into his head and I’d filled in the rest?
But he had admitted it was her.
Why had he lied?
And if it wasn’t Julie Knox he’d been having an affair with, then who was it?
Chapter Twenty-Four
I needed to stay calm. Adam had suggested meeting at the pub before we went to Amy’s and it seemed like a great idea. I was jittery, chewing on the inside of my lip now that there was nothing left of my fingernails.
My heart started to race whenever I thought of Richard. He would never be able to come back here, not after what he had done. Not after everyone found out. I had to keep telling myself that he had taken Amy’s phone, and he had been accessing her messages – he would have brought police attention on himself sooner or later. But I kept picturing Auntie Sue’s face and her look of disappointment in me when we realised that he’d been arrested for nothing.
At least Rachel was on my
side. If she was holding Phil’s arrest against me at all, she hid it well.
Phil must have known that it was because of me that he’d got arrested – and if he didn’t already know, he would soon. Nothing stayed secret in Seahouses. I hoped he would come home soon, and that he and Rachel could work things out. I would get on my knees and beg his forgiveness – do whatever it might take – to help them save their marriage. Rachel had lost so much already.
He’d clearly expected a little more from his wife – at least a public show of support. She hadn’t exactly leapt to his defence when he’d been accused, but we had all been so shocked, and in fairness to Rachel, she was also grieving for her best friend. Our entire worlds had been tipped upside-down and it was hard to exercise good judgement when you were so emotional. I had been quick to take the evidence at face-value, too. A wave of nausea washed over me as I remembered how easily I had believed that Amy had been unfaithful too.
But someone had wanted me to think that. Someone had planted those messages to frame Phil and gone back later to delete them – making it look like I had faked the whole thing. Someone wanted me to look paranoid, delusional. And that same someone had planted the medication at the garage for the police to find. I had no doubt that Mike was behind it. I just needed to prove it.
I went to the pub early and got myself a glass of wine. It was funny, I thought, how I was habitually late for almost every meeting or appointment except those that involved alcohol. The strength of my craving was frightening, enough to scare me into not touching my wine. I needed to get a grip – on my drinking and on my nerves.
Everything was becoming clearer. Mike had killed my sister, then set me up to frame someone else for it, and I was being forced to play happy families with him until the police figured this out. My legs trembled under the table.
By the time Adam and Rachel got to The Ship, I had bitten the inside of my lip so hard that it was bleeding and the shaking in my legs was almost uncontrollable. Adam clocked the full glass on the table but said nothing.
My mind was spinning – one thought had not finished before another began. Everything came to me in a jumble, my thoughts jumping from Mike to Amy, to Phil and back to Mike, from the funeral to the reading of the will and Amy’s car in the garage and that small grey room in the police station, everything blurring and blending into one.
There should have been an outcry, we should be protesting, banging on the door of the police station and demanding that they do more, dig deeper. Yet here we were, in the pub making chit-chat, while my sister’s murderer was free.
Adam asked how the kids were doing and Rachel answered before I could open my mouth – I suppose she still felt like she knew them better than I did. She was probably right. Besides, that wasn’t the most important thing right now.
I tuned out their conversation and let the thoughts come to me, trying my hardest to focus.
Mike was lying – he had been lying all along. He had lied so much, it was difficult to know where his lies ended and the truth began, like a tangled ball of string. Lies stacked on top of lies – all in an attempt to cover up what he had done to Amy. But this – Julie Knox – this was the first time I had caught him out and could prove it. This was a cold, hard, fact – a bare-faced lie that I could prove was untrue. This was my starting point – the end of my string. From here, this was where it would all unravel.
The Stables. Jennifer – she would be able to help me.
An idea hit me, and I gasped. Adam and Rachel stopped talking and stared at me.
‘Are you OK?’ said Adam. He didn’t wait for an answer, glancing anxiously at his watch. ‘That’s probably enough for now. I’ll settle up so we can get going.’
As soon as he was out of earshot, I grabbed Rachel’s arm. ‘It was Mike,’ I said, breathless. ‘Mike did it, I know he did.’
She sank in her seat, shaking her head. ‘You’ve got to let this go…’
‘No, listen – I know Mike is hiding something and I can prove it. But I need your help.’
I looked over Rachel’s shoulder to the bar, where Adam had been sidetracked into a conversation with Gina and a man in fishing overalls. Rachel twisted around to check that he wasn’t listening, and leaned in towards me.
‘What’s happened now? I thought you said you would leave it up to the police?’
‘Yes, yes. I know. But Mike lied about cheating on Amy, and then he lied about who he was cheating with, and I’ve thought of a way to find out who it was! And if we know that, then we can start to piece the rest together.’
She looked over her shoulder again, and I saw the desperate hope in her eyes for Adam to come back and talk some sense into me. ‘I just think…’ she began.
‘Rachel!’ I hissed. ‘You have got to help me. If I get this wrong again, he’ll cut me off from the kids for good. I just need to do this one thing and then I’ll hand everything to the police, I swear. Just cover for me while I make a phone call. Tell Adam I’m talking to Jake or something.’
She bit her lip and gave a resigned sigh. ‘All right. But keep it quick. I’m rubbish at lying.’
I slid out of the booth and slipped out of the pub’s side door into the street. It was a warm spring evening by Northumberland standards, but my teeth were chattering. I paced from foot to foot and wrapped my arms around myself as I dialled Jennifer Wheeler’s number.
She was surprised to hear from me, but she listened patiently as I explained the stalled investigation into Amy’s death. It didn’t take much to convince her how important it was to find out who Mike had stayed at the hotel with. She promised to head over to the hotel right away and call me as soon as she had checked the records.
We walked along the road in the direction of Amy’s. Adam kept checking his watch, and I realised he had probably coordinated with Auntie Sue to make sure that everyone arrived at the same time. For him this was a peace-keeping mission, and we were envoys heading into hostile territory.
I understood why everyone wanted me and Mike to smooth things over – but they didn’t know what he had done. They would be devastated when they found out, and this was one time that I wouldn’t enjoy saying ‘I told you so’. An image came to me, of Mike standing at Amy’s funeral, his arms around the kids, a solitary tear rolling down his cheek.
That bastard.
The fury was bubbling and rising inside me like a vat of boiling oil. I took a deep breath and visualised a giant pot on a stove. I turned down the heat, the flames flickering smaller and smaller, and I carefully put a lid on. I instantly felt better.
I was so busy concentrating on my visualisation that I hadn’t noticed a figure waiting on Amy’s doorstep.
‘Jake! Fancy seeing you here!’ Adam exclaimed, giving Rachel a theatrical nudge and wink.
They fell about giggling and Jake blushed, looking bashfully at his shoes before glancing up at me. I gave him a weak smile and wondered if he knew he had been invited to make sure I behaved myself.
‘Uncle Adam!’ Lucas squealed as he answered the door, wrapping his arms around Adam’s waist.
Uncle? I glanced at Rachel, who shrugged her shoulders.
Adam hadn’t even made it into the hall before Betsy hurled herself on him too, and even Hannah was uncharacteristically affectionate, greeting him with a tender hug. He revelled in his hero’s welcome, inching his way towards the kitchen with all three children draped from him and jostling for attention. The three of us followed, trudging down the hallway after them.
‘You’re popular…’ I said to Adam, muttering as we shuffled into the kitchen.
He turned and raised an eyebrow.
‘Just because Auntie Izzy won’t take my calls doesn’t mean I’m not regularly checking in on my tribe.’
Everyone crowded around the table. Mike started busying himself with drinks for the newcomers, looking thankful to have something useful to do. He fidgeted with cutlery and napkins, making only fleeting eye contact with me and Rachel as he handed us our glasses
. I forced myself to smile at him. It left a bitter taste on my lips.
Mum was resplendent in a matching kaftan and turban, and I wondered who she had dressed to impress – Adam or Jake? Auntie Sue was cooking at the stove with Lucas by her side, and I could tell from the angle of her head that she was keeping one eye on dinner and one ear on the room. She had spoken to Mike and smoothed things over – I just hoped he didn’t think it was necessary to talk everything out. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to say sorry, it was that I would sound so wholly unconvincing he would suss me out right away.
Nor did I want to hear his apologies – he could keep all of that, for all I cared. I would keep my cards close to my chest until I had an answer from Jennifer and could work out my next step.
Jake fit in seamlessly, and I watched as he chatted comfortably with Mum and Auntie Sue. I wondered if Amy would have approved of his boyfriend potential. Not that anything was going to happen. Not until all of this was over, at least.
‘What’s on the menu tonight, Jamie Oliver?’ Adam leaned over Lucas’s shoulder to see what he was stirring.
‘Ham and mushroom risotto,’ said Lucas with a wide smile.
‘Well that sounds straightforward enough…’ Rachel mumbled to me and Jake.
‘Only, instead of rice, we’re using porridge oats.’
The three of us gave a collective wince and Auntie Sue offered an apologetic shrug.
Adam, on the other hand, loved the idea. ‘You’re a genius, my boy, a genius! Is that one going in the book?’
Lucas nodded excitedly.
‘What book is this?’ I said, taking a sip of water, trying to sound casual.
Lucas shook his head and looked down, hiding a shy smile.
‘Lucas is writing a recipe book,’ said Adam. ‘Amazing Amy’s Adventures in Alimentation. Working title, anyway. It’s going to be a tribute to his mum, with all of her inspired inventions and her twists on the classics.’
Salt Sisters Page 25