The Night She Died

by Jenny Blackhurst

  It still hurt to think of him, living life in her hometown with Camille while she was so far away, practically alone and still dealing with the emotional repercussions of their brief affair. That he could move on so easily stung, and that he had done it with the one girl he knew she couldn’t stand was like a blatant fuck you. She wondered sometimes whether they were even still together – a question that was answered for her one evening when she opened the door to her apartment.

  It had been a good day. She had been away from the classroom and on site finishing one of her projects, the title of which was ‘Light and Shade’. While most people in her class were focusing on the physical aspects of the brief, Evie had been looking at the socio-political slant on the topic, looking at issues of race in positions of power, the idea that so many people of colour were still in the ‘shade’ as it were, even in such a developed country as Britain. She had managed to set up interviews with some of the prominent black members of parliament to discuss the barriers they had faced in a political arena and intended to use her research to guide her photography, each picture telling a story of the underrepresented minorities in such a multi-cultural society. It was the kind of story she had longed to tell, the real reason she had taken up photography in the first place. The one and only time she had thought of James that day was to hear her own words to him: I want people to see the world through my eyes. She had discovered that showing the world through her own eyes wasn’t enough for her any more, she wanted to show it through the eyes of anyone who hadn’t had a voice, or who’d had their voice drowned out by the powerful majority. Her work was growing and her views on the world being tested – she thought he would be proud.

  Exhausted after spending much of the day absorbing the plights of others, as well as travelling around what felt like a small country – London was so big! – she had cancelled her plans with Rebecca and fallen through the door of her apartment, cringing as she did so at the hypocrisy of her longing for her comfy king-sized bed. So deep was her fatigue that she almost didn’t notice the letter underfoot. Reaching to pick it up, Evie’s eye was drawn to the handwritten address, which made her carry it through to the bedroom rather than deposit it next to the other unopened ‘To the Occupier’ letters in the post rack. Throwing herself onto her bed she tore the top off, hoping for a letter from Yasmin or maybe even her mother – if she was writing then that usually meant her mood was improving – but instead pulled out a page torn from a newspaper.

  The headline hit her like a punch to the stomach, but it was the photograph that made nausea rise in her throat. A couple, smiling happily for the cameras, him handsome in a suit and tie, her plain and small-looking next to the striking businessman, but beaming nonetheless. And why wouldn’t she be? For Camille, it seemed, had won again. She was to become Mrs James Addlington.

  44

  Rebecca

  When we arrive at the café I order us a sausage and egg sandwich each, already used to speaking for Richard as if we are a couple. I also ask the young girl who takes the order to instruct the chef to put on just the yolk of the egg in Richard’s sandwich, because I know he’ll only take the white off himself. That’s how well I know him, and for a split second I wonder if Evie would have known the same, if she would have bothered to make the special request to save the snotty bit of the fried egg touching his bread – he really hates that. I also do this knowing how futile it is: the state he’s in at the moment he’ll probably barely touch it anyway.

  I’ve noticed in the last few weeks that, when tragedy touches your life, one of the hardest things is knowing how to act, what is right and proper. Everyone expects you to be a certain way when your wife goes missing, for example, but when pushed the same people would say, ‘Oh gosh, I just don’t know how I’d react if it happened to me.’

  One thing they do not want you to do, is smile. Or laugh. What could you possibly have to smile about, when someone you love is in Mortal Peril? People don’t seem to realise that there might be whole minutes in an entire day, sixty seconds, when you almost forget that life is normal – but that’s when they will see you smile and they will know, irrefutably, that you don’t care that your wife/best friend/daughter/sister is missing. Maybe you even had something to do with it – especially if you can do something as normal as eat a sausage sandwich in a café, with another woman. Never mind that the other woman is the only person in the world who knows what you are going through, or the only person you can sit in silence with and not feel like you have to make conversation with, or even be particularly nice to.

  Not that Richard would be smiling or laughing right now anyway. Once he’d found those bloody letters in Evie’s wardrobe it was all I could do to drag him out of the house before he pulled the rest of it apart to find out what else she’s been hiding. Now he glances around us, as though he expects at any minute to be besieged by journalists waiting to make a headline out of his ‘intimate breakfast with another woman only six weeks after wife goes missing’. And I’m not surprised that he only picks at his sandwich, or doesn’t notice the trouble I went to with the snotty fried egg thing.

  ‘You look like shit,’ I tell him and he raises his eyebrows.

  ‘Cheers. What do you think—’

  ‘I don’t know, bloody hell, Richard, I’m as in the dark with all this as you are.’

  I wonder if I told him now, that Evie was having an affair, if he’d be able to get over her easier? If I told him the baby she was carrying probably wasn’t his? Would tomorrow bring a new man, freshly showered and shaven? Would he reclaim his life with the knowledge that Evie didn’t care enough about him to stay faithful? I could say the words now – I could change his life for the second time in six weeks. But would it be for better, or for worse?

  Instead I take the coward’s way out.

  ‘Will you tell the police about the blackmail letters?’

  If Richard goes to the police of his own accord they might tell him about Evie’s affair, absolving me of the responsibility. I know, I know, cowardly. Evie would hate me for throwing her under the bus like this but I know that if I’m the one who tells him then he will associate the news with me, maybe even blame me. He’d almost definitely want to know how I knew, and Thomas told me days ago – even if I hadn’t known before then I’ve still had plenty of time to be truthful. That’s been my problem all along, never knowing when to tell the truth or keep my mouth shut.

  ‘We don’t even know why she was being blackmailed.’ He loses interest in the barely touched sandwich but does pick up the tea I’ve poured him. Tea is an acceptable outlet for grief – everyone knows that.

  ‘I think I can help with that.’

  The voice from behind me is now instantly recognisable, and I close my eyes and let out a breath. Like an angel of death this man always seems to turn up when I least want him to. Hasn’t he got bigger cases to work on than following the husband of a suicidal woman?

  ‘Detective Thomas,’ Richard frowns but nods to the empty seat. ‘Please, sit down. What do you mean, you can help?’

  ‘I think I know why your wife was being blackmailed, although I didn’t know she was. Why didn’t you tell the police about the letters?’

  ‘I just found them about half an hour ago,’ Richard’s face is stony – he doesn’t like the police officer, and I can’t say I blame him. He’s brought us no answers, only suspicion and more questions. ‘Why do you care? It’s just more evidence for your suicide theory.’

  ‘I’d appreciate if you brought those letters into the station. Try not to handle them any more than you already have, put them into a plastic bag if you have one. If Evie was being blackmailed then that person could be charged with manslaughter.’

  ‘Will you DNA test them?’ I ask.

  Thomas shrugs. ‘Not my call, I’m afraid. DNA testing is expensive and it might not be thought to be in the public interest if the letters aren’t seen as malicious. I’ll know more once I’ve shown them to the DCI.’

  ‘
You said you knew why she got the letters?’ Richard says.

  Thomas nods. ‘I think so. When I got back to the station after seeing you in Lulworth I ran Evie’s name through the police computer. Her father’s name, not her mother’s, which I understand she went by at university.’

  ‘Why?’ I could have answered Richard’s question myself. Thomas was looking for domestic violence reports, to see if Evie had ever reported her husband for anything. I stay silent and Thomas is more diplomatic.

  ‘It’s a formality, and in murder cases would be the first thing we did. It actually was the first thing we did, but only a cursory search was done under her maiden name, White. The search I did included Rousseau, a name I’m told she went by before she moved to London. I take it you weren’t aware that Evie was visited by police a few months ago with regard to a closed case from a few years ago?’

  ’No,’ Richard looks at me. ‘Did you know this?’

  ‘No. Of course not,’ I lie. ‘Why would they visit Evie?’

  ‘There was an anonymous tip-off to the local police that Evie had information about a fire that killed a man during a party years ago. It was deemed an accident – Evie’s name wasn’t even in the initial witness statements and there was no evidence she’d been at the party. To tell you the truth, we only followed up on the call because of the recent Newland case.’

  Richard nodded. The case he was referring to was a young man who had been shot six months ago – apparently there had been a call to the police station to say he was involved in something that was going to get him hurt which had been put down to a crank call due to lack of resources. Now, it seemed, local police followed up every call – a well-known fact.

  ‘According to the officer who visited she got very upset, was visibly shaken, but had no new information and denied ever being in the area before the fire – although she admitted that her father had driven her there when she’d had a message from a friend to say there was a fire. Apparently she knew the couple who were getting engaged that evening. As far as our records go there was no further action taken.’

  ‘But you think that may be the reason she was being blackmailed? That she knew more about this fire than she let on?’

  Thomas looks at me. He knows I haven’t told Richard his theory about Evie having an affair and is probably wondering why, although I’d have thought it obvious for a man of his intelligence. Is he going to tell him now?

  ‘Can you think of any other reason?’

  Obviously not. Why doesn’t he just tell Richard what he thinks he knows? That there is more than one reason my best friend, his wife, might have received letters saying ‘I hope you didn’t think you’d got away with it.’ Maybe he has no proof of this supposed affair, maybe it was a bluff to get me to admit that I knew, a stab in the dark.

  Richard shakes his head. ‘She never said a word to me, about the letters, about the police visit, about this fire. Why wouldn’t she tell me if there was nothing in it? Why wouldn’t she tell you?’

  He directs this at me, almost an accusation, as if it’s my fault that Evie didn’t entrust me with the information.

  ‘Because it didn’t mean anything,’ I lie. ‘Did you ever find out the source of the tip-off?’

  Thomas shakes his head. ‘I got the impression that they thought it was probably a member of the deceased’s family, trying to give them a reason to reopen the case. Someone who didn’t like the original accidental verdict clutching at straws.’

  ‘There you are then,’ I say, as though that closes the matter. ‘Evie wouldn’t have given it a second thought, I’m sure. And if there is no question of her involvement then it can’t have anything to do with why she . . .’

  ‘Why she killed herself?’ Thomas asks. He looks at me as though he can see inside my mind, as if he is taking every thought out and flicking through them like a case file. ‘If she killed herself, that is. Did you find her passport, by the way?’

  Richard screws up his nose. ‘That’s what I was looking for but when I found the letters they shoved it right out of my mind. I’ll get on it when I get home.’

  He looks like he’d rather chew the detective’s toenails than start rifling through Evie’s things again. Thomas just nods. I’d give anything to know what he’s thinking at this very moment.

  45

  Evie

  The text she’d sent Rebecca was inadequate, and Evie had known she’d either have to give her friend a better explanation of her disappearance or turn her phone off. She chose to switch it off – she’d told Becky that her mum was ill and she’d had to return home for the weekend, perhaps longer and she’d text her soon.

  It would have been enough for some people, but she knew her friend better than that. She’d want to know if Evie needed anything, if she should come with her, if she should let her tutors know she wouldn’t be in, and on it would go. Evie simply didn’t concern herself with all the things Becky did – God, if she had to think so far ahead all the time, map out every eventuality, plan for everything that might go wrong, her head would explode. She knew the only difference between her and Becky was confidence. Evie didn’t have to plan so far ahead because she had perfect confidence in her ability to think on her feet – she knew that if something in life went wrong she could deal with it there and then, instead of mapping out possible problems and their solutions in advance.

  Which was why she hadn’t given a second thought to packing a suitcase and jumping in a taxi to the train station when she’d seen the news of James and Camille’s engagement. Did she know exactly why she was going home? No. Did she intend to speak to James, confess her undying love to him and beg him not to marry the only girl she had ever hated? Probably not. That sort of thing happened in the movies. Much more likely she would bump into him in the town or the supermarket when she had no make-up on and was wearing a tracksuit.

  She’d texted Harriet to ask if she could stay over – instinct told her not to go home and to alert as few people as possible to her presence in Wareham. If she turned up at home there would have to be a meal, probably a ridiculous fuss because she’d been away a whole six months – although given she’d spent the last seven years boarding you’d think they’d be used to it.

  Evie scanned the departures board for the next train to get her anywhere near Dorset. Another thirty-five minutes to the next one, for a journey that would take her over two hours. Then she’d have to get a taxi from the station – it was times like this she wished she could just call Phillip to come and pick her up.

  She dragged her suitcase over to the café, stopping to slip her headphones in on the way. Music filled her ears, which would likely be enough to stop her brain from spending the next two hours telling her she was making a big mistake.

  46

  Evie

  ‘Thank God your hair grew back,’ was the first thing Harriet said when she opened the door to her over two hours later.

  ‘Seriously?’ Evie snapped, hauling her suitcase over the front step and dropping it unceremoniously at her friend’s feet. ‘Six months away and a long train journey suffocating in other people’s body odour and all you have to comment on is my hair?’

  ‘Well, obviously it’s good to see you,’ Harriet grinned and wrapped her arms around Evie. ‘Jesus,’ she wrinkled up her nose and pushed her at arm’s length. ‘You smell like public transport. I’ve set you up in the main guest bedroom, there’s an en-suite. Once you smell civilised again I’ll be in my room waiting for you to tell me that it’s pure chance that your secret visit coincides with James and Camille’s engagement party.’

  Evie emerged from Harriet’s guest room showered and wrapped in a dressing gown that would make a sheep jealous and threw herself on her best friend’s bed.

  ‘Party?’ she said, her eyebrows raised.

  ‘Oh, don’t tell me you didn’t know,’ Harriet grinned. ‘You turn up here on some secret squirrel mission and expect me to believe you aren’t here to put a spanner in the works? Come on, Evie,
I know you better than that.’

  ‘Honestly, I didn’t know there was a party. Where is it?’

  Harriet snorted. ‘Okay, I’ll bite. They’re throwing an engagement party at Casa Addlington tomorrow night. Our invites got lost in the post.’

  ‘Since when did you ever need an invite?’

  Harriet smiled. ‘I wish I was going now, just to see Camille’s face when you turn up. You are going, aren’t you?’

  Evie bit her lip and nodded. ‘Wouldn’t miss it.’

  47

  Rebecca

  The news of the police’s visit to Evie has hit Richard harder than I’d expected, and I’m not sure whether it’s because it’s yet another betrayal – that he had to find out more about his wife’s life from a police officer – or if it is Thomas’ parting words: If she killed herself.

  It is obvious he thinks she didn’t jump off that cliff voluntarily now, and it’s equally as clear that he suspects Richard is hiding something – which he is, I suppose. Richard didn’t tell Thomas that Evie was pregnant, and if the detective hadn’t overheard us I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have told him about the letters he found. I can understand his explanation about the letters: he wouldn’t want the police to think that they were a reason for her to commit suicide. But her being pregnant? Well, didn’t a baby give her everything to live for? Didn’t that argue against suicide?