The Night She Died

by Jenny Blackhurst

  ‘You know, I’ve never been to St James’s Park before,’ James said, pushing himself up onto one elbow. Evie sat up, pulling her top straight. ‘It’s nice.’

  ‘Will you come again?’ Evie asked, grinning.

  ‘If you insist.’ He grabbed her waist and pulled her down to kiss him again. ‘Actually, I’m not sure I could manage it again yet. I’m not eighteen any more.’

  ‘We’re hardly old fogies,’ Evie glanced at her watch. ‘Although it is past my bedtime. I need to get back.’

  ‘Don’t go back,’ James wrapped his arms around her waist, his full weight against her. ‘Stay with me. Tell whatshisname you’re staying with a friend.’

  Evie felt her stomach flip at hearing James dismiss Richard so casually. How could she treat him like this? He’d been there for her through so much, she’d never even looked at another man, and yet an hour in James Addlington’s company and she was having sex in St James’s Park. And it wasn’t even a weekend. She felt like a reckless teenager – she should go home right now and forget this ever happened.

  Except the minute she left that would be it, it would all be over. She couldn’t risk an affair; if Camille ever found out she would tell James about his father and he would hate her. She would rather never see him again than have him know the truth.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ he asked, stroking her hair.

  ‘Let’s do it,’ she said, looking up into his clear blue eyes. ‘Just one night.’

  75

  Evie

  James had wanted them to confront Dominic, to find out which of the two fathers, his or Evie’s, had written the letter that had allegedly come from Evie; whose idea it had been to use his phone to send the text messages that had led her to the clinic. But Evie knew they couldn’t, not if they wanted to keep things between them a secret. Besides, they were both equally to blame. It was ironic that two men who couldn’t stand to be in a room together could join forces to execute a plan so well – James Addlington Sr had been right to think that they would have been formidable business partners.

  She wanted to be mad at her father but her mother was so ill these days – finally both her liver and her mind were rebelling from years of abuse – and Evie couldn’t bring herself to add to his heartbreak. Things could have been so different if the two men hadn’t done what they had done – one of them would still be alive – and she would confront that with Dominic one day, but for now she had to support him through her mother’s illness. There would be time for angry confrontation another day.

  As for Evie and James, what she thought would be a one-night stand was never going to be enough. Despite her begging him to let her go, James had contacted her almost as soon as he got back to Wareham, and ever since they had talked whenever they could, though not enough to make Camille suspicious, and nowhere near enough for Evie’s liking.

  James hated it when she asked him about his marriage to Camille, especially as she refused to speak about Richard whatsoever – to do so almost seemed like a double betrayal – but she managed to glean that their marriage had never been a happy one. Despite what he had told Evie at their engagement party, it had been James Sr who had pushed their relationship forward at every opportunity, and Evie couldn’t work out why. Why he’d push his son together with a woman he couldn’t stand – was it just to keep him away from Evie? When she pushed James further, he admitted that Camille hadn’t been right for him from the start, but she hadn’t always been awful and he’d allowed himself to get swept along with the relationship, a few dates at first, then family holidays. It wasn’t until after they were married that Camille had shown her true colours. These days they were married in name only – they barely spoke to one another.

  ‘I stay with her now because I feel guilty,’ he admitted one night when he’d been late calling because Camille had got drunk and smashed all their crockery. ‘She’s always known that I was only with her because I thought I couldn’t have you. She hates you, you know. Her invisible adversary. She knows she can’t stop me thinking about you and it drives her crazy that she can’t control my thoughts. God knows she controls everything else.’

  ‘What do you have to feel guilty about?’ Evie asked. ‘You married her, she got what she wanted.’

  ‘Yes, but I never loved her, not like I loved you. Imagine knowing the person you were with was only with you because they couldn’t have someone else. It would drive you crazy too, I bet.’

  ‘What a mess we’re in,’ Evie sighed. ‘What are we going to do?’

  ‘I’m going to tell her,’ James replied. ‘Now we know we want to be together nothing has ever seemed simpler. She can have half of everything, I don’t care. We have no children, thank God that was one thing we agreed on. Bringing children into a relationship like ours would have been a disaster.’

  If only it was that simple. If James told Camille about them, who knew what surprises she would reveal in turn?

  ‘Wait a while,’ Evie found herself saying. ‘We’ve managed apart for this long – let’s make sure nothing goes wrong this time.’

  76

  Evie

  The first letter came on a Tuesday morning, as she was preparing to leave for the gallery. Richard usually worked from home on a Tuesday, but he was out of the house for an unexpected meeting, so it was Evie who found the small white envelope on the mat.

  I know what you did, it read.

  At first she thought it was referring to her night with James – but how could anyone know? Then she unfolded the second piece of paper that had been in the envelope, and dropped it to the floor.

  Her hands shaking, she picked it back up, hastily shoving it inside the envelope. The picture on the second sheet – a printout from the internet – burned fierce in her mind. An article about the Addlington fire. So Camille knew about her night with James, and was reminding her of the promise she had made to stay away from her husband. What would she do now?

  She was contemplating calling Camille, or perhaps James, when the phone rang, a sharp voice at the other end when she picked up.

  ‘Were you there that night?’ It was James.

  There was only one night he could be referring to. So he had told Camille about them then, and this was her last-ditch attempt to keep them apart.

  ‘Yes,’ she admitted. ‘I came to tell you I loved you, and ask you not to marry Camille. She was there, she told me you’d told her about the baby and you hated me so I left without speaking to you. I should have said but I didn’t know how.’

  James groaned. ‘She’s saying you locked Dad in that study.’

  Evie let out a tiny gasp, but loud enough that James heard.

  ‘So it’s true. Why would you do that?’

  ‘I’d been drinking,’ Evie admitted. ‘He was coming on to me, he didn’t know who I was. So I told him to wait for me and I’d be back to give him what he wanted, then I locked the door on my way out. I thought it was funny – I had no idea he was going to set the house on fire.’

  ‘And you couldn’t have told me before now?’ James demanded. ‘These last few weeks, we’ve told each other everything – at least I’ve told you everything. Now I don’t know what to think.’

  ‘Please,’ Evie whispered. ‘It was an accident. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Camille is threatening to go to the police if I ever go near you again,’ James sighed. ‘I don’t know what to do.’

  The letters came with alarming frequency after that, and Evie waited and waited for the phone call from James that never came. And then the police arrived.

  77

  Evie

  She took a sip of her tea and flipped the page of the novel balanced on her knees. Richard was at the football for the afternoon – a fact that she hadn’t mentioned to Rebecca – and a lazy Saturday afternoon stretched out before her. She’d stayed in bed late after Richard had left, watching a drama on Netflix cuddled up under her covers, even falling back asleep for an hour. When Richard was there they both felt obliged
to do something, feeling that to stay in bed or read a book was wasting the weekend, so as soon as she had the place to herself all she wanted to do was waste time.

  She was so deeply engrossed in her book that she didn’t hear the knock at the door. After a persistent and louder second knock, Evie frowned and went to answer it.

  Her first thought, when she saw the two police officers standing on the doorstep, was that something terrible had happened. She’d watched enough TV shows to know that this was how they delivered bad news – in pairs – so that one could comfort her while the other one watched to see if her reaction made her a psychopath.

  ‘Is it Richard?’ she asked automatically, her mind running through all of the things that could have happened to him. Car crash? Stabbed in the midst of a fight between rival football teams? Heart attack?

  The police officer shook his head. He was young, she thought, too young to be doing a job like this, where you never knew where the danger lay. Where you never knew if the person you were talking to was a killer.

  ‘No, ma’am, no one’s hurt. Are you Evelyn Rousseau?’

  At the mention of her former name a different picture formed in her mind. A life in Wareham where Evelyn Rousseau was her only name. A picture of the letters burning a hole in her cupboard surfaced.

  ‘Yes. I mean, I don’t go by that name any more, I use my mother’s maiden name, White.’

  ‘Yes,’ the police officer replied. Of course they knew that – otherwise how would they have found her? ‘May we come in, Miss White?’

  Evie stepped to one side in silence, waving them through to the sitting room where her book and blanket lay discarded on the sofa. She moved them to one side to allow the officers to sit down and picked up her mug.

  ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ she asked, not really knowing what the etiquette was when the police turned up on a Saturday afternoon.

  ’No, thank you. Have a seat, please.’

  Evie sat down on the edge of the single-seater and looked at them in expectation. The second officer, who had yet to speak, looked at the first. Despite his youth, Evie assumed he was the senior in this relationship – he got all the speaking parts.

  ‘I’m PC Hollis, this is PC Gallow. We’ve been asked to speak to you, Miss White, regarding a party you attended six years ago.’

  ‘Well,’ Evie struggled to look casual. ‘I’ve been to a lot of parties and that’s a long time ago.’

  ‘This was an engagement party, one that resulted in a fire.’

  ‘Oh, you’re talking about the Addlington fire? That was horrible.’

  Evie’s heart was pounding. Was she overplaying the dumb blonde schtick? Cool it, Evie, don’t give them the rope to hang you.

  ‘The police force in Dorset received a call from someone who suggested that you may have been at the party, although you weren’t on the list of guests.’

  Evie tried her best to look puzzled, rather than petrified.

  ‘I don’t know why anyone would say that,’ she told them. ‘I wouldn’t have been at the party. James was an ex-boyfriend of mine, I would hardly celebrate his engagement to someone else.’

  Hollis nodded sympathetically and Evie could have cried with relief. Camille was crazy to think that anyone would look at Evie and think her capable of setting fire to a house.

  ‘Can you think of why anyone might have remembered seeing you there?’

  Evie nodded, as though something had just come to mind.

  ‘Yes – I went straight there after I heard about the fire. A lot of my friends were at the party and I wanted to see what was going on. A lot of people did the same. Someone might have seen me there afterwards and assumed I’d been to the party.’

  The officer nodded and Evie’s shoulders sagged as the tension ebbed away.

  ‘I’m sure that’s it,’ he said. ‘Thank you for your time.’

  Evie sat on the floor of the empty house, her back slumped against the sofa and her hands over her face. The minute the police had left the house she’d started shaking uncontrollably, she was cold and her chest was tight, as though an elastic band had been wrapped around her ribcage. She wondered if she was going into shock. Wrapping her arms around her knees, she leaned forwards and started taking slow deep breaths until the shaking stopped and she began to calm.

  It was fine – James would sort this out. She thought of the pregnancy test in her bag and said a silent prayer that his anger at what she’d done would subside. She couldn’t lose him again – not when she was carrying his baby for a second time.

  78

  James

  ‘You still want her, don’t you? After everything I told you.’

  James turned, cringing to see Camille leaning against the doorframe, her cheeks red and her eyes glassy. He could see straight away she was drunk.

  ‘Even knowing she’s responsible for your father’s death, she’s still a better prospect than me. So shall I just wait it out? Or you think you’re going to leave me for her, is that it?’

  She moved towards him, stumbling slightly.

  ‘Millie, please, you’ve had too much to drink. Let’s discuss this in the morning.’

  He didn’t want to do it like this, not when she was drunk. There was a side to drunk Camille that James neither liked nor trusted. She could be quick-tongued and cruel, especially where Evie was involved.

  ‘There’s nothing to discuss. You aren’t leaving, James, there’s no way you can.’

  ‘You can move on, you can find someone who loves you the way I love Evie.’

  Camille laughed. ‘Look at you! Look at you, all pathetic because you think you’re in love. You say you’ve never loved me like you love her but I bet you’ve never hated anyone as much as I hate the pair of you. I should have told you this years ago but I thought she was going to stay away, after I told her I knew the truth about what she did to your father. But that girl’s like a bad smell, just when you think you’ve got rid of it there it is again.’

  ‘I think you should go to bed. You’re too drunk to know what you’re saying and—’

  ‘Know what I’m saying?’

  She leaned in so close that her face was inches from his. He could smell the expensive perfume he had bought her as a birthday gift, mingled with the smell of white wine. Far too much of it. She swayed slightly in front of him.

  ‘I’m saying what should have been said years ago,’ she spat. ’You and Evelyn Rousseau won’t ever be together and I know why.’

  79

  Evie

  The call came in the middle of the night. Evie was to return to Wareham – her mother was ill and this time it was serious. Richard had dropped everything to come with her, despite her father’s apathy towards him on the few occasions they had met. Evie could tell he had wanted more for his only daughter, but if James hadn’t been good enough, who on earth would be?

  The room already smelt like death when she walked in. Even though her mother was still alive, breathing noisily through her mouth, as though every breath was a struggle; she sucked in air as though it was heroin.

  Evie could hardly bear to look at her, her beautiful young mother now aged twenty years in just a few months. Her skin was sallow and paper-thin; there was barely any flesh underneath and the effect was of looking at a living, breathing skeleton. Monique’s teeth were black and her mouth hung open, her glassy eyes barely seeing her daughter.

  ‘Oh Mama,’ Evie breathed, sitting in the chair next to the bed and taking her mother’s hand in her own. It was cold and had no weight to it, like the hand of a child.

  It hurt more than she could express to see her mother this way. She had been ill before, Evie’s whole life in fact, but her bouts of depression had kept her away from the family, locking herself in her room for days on end, refusing to see anyone except Yasmin; or gripped by mania, dressing in elaborate cocktail outfits for breakfast and calling everyone ‘daaarling’.

  It had even been funny when Evie was very young, she would hide her gi
ggles behind her hand while Mama seized Papa’s hand at the dinner table and tried to make him dance with her. If he caught her laughing he would look at her sternly, then give her a secret smile – he must have known how funny they looked, waltzing around the dining room with no music save for that in Mama’s head, but Mama was ill and you weren’t allowed to laugh when people were ill. And now laughter was the furthest thing from Evie’s mind and she thought she would give anything to go back to the times when she would watch her mother and father dance to imagined music.

  ‘I brought you some audiobooks,’ Evie said, pulling CDs from a plastic bag and stacking them by the bed. ‘The nurse can put them in your CD player for you.’

  Her mother squeezed her hand and Evie smiled.

  ‘I knew you’d like that. Do you remember, Mama, when you used to read to me? Stories about heroic girls who were stronger than all of the boys around them. I used to think it so strange, that you loved these stories about girls who didn’t need any help from boys so much when it was clear that all you wanted in life was for Papa to love you and only you,’ she lowered her voice, even though she was certain that none of the nurses were listening. ‘But now I understand. You can still be a strong woman, even if you crave the love of a man above all else. I understand, Mama, because I am in love.’

  Her mother turned her head slowly to look at her, and the corners of her mouth attempted a smile.

  ‘Richard,’ she said, even that one word a struggle in her breathlessness.

  Evie shook her head. She did love her fiancé. Only she loved him in the way she might have loved a brother, if she’d ever had one, in the same way she had loved Rebecca, only probably less still than that. But he had made her feel safe, like he would never abandon her, or cheat on her. Like she would always be his number one, never his bit on the side, never his mistress. She had thought she would marry him, and be perfectly happy, have a family, a nice house. Maybe she would own her own gallery one day, just like she’d always dreamed.