‘We were never engaged.’
‘Still.’
‘Well who else are we supposed to get three quarters of a million quid from? Because that’s how much it’s going to cost us.’
‘I’m not asking Diana, if that’s what you’re hinting at.’
‘I never asked you to speak to Diana. In case you’d forgotten, you’re the one who wants the hotel. I was simply doing my best to make it happen.’
‘Well you could have told me you were meeting Alicia.’
‘You sound like you’re jealous.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she barked. ‘We’re friends. I thought we made that clear the other night on the beach.’
He looked at her and she was sure she saw a flicker of contempt in his gaze.
‘Can you remember what you were like when you came to Ko Tao? You were all wound up, snap, snap, snap, like a little crocodile.’
‘I never knew you had such a great first impression of me,’ she said sarcastically.
Liam continued. ‘It took you about six months to calm down, and when you did, you were a different person. Happier, more relaxed, better company. You were the real you, not this person. Angry, shouty, stressed, ungrateful . . .’
‘I’ve got a lot on my mind,’ she said, as if she was talking to a child.
‘Are you coming home?’ he said flatly.
‘I’ll get someone to drop me off later,’ she said sulkily.
‘I meant Ko Tao. You said you’d stay in London for two or three weeks when Diana came out to Thailand to get you.’
‘Well, I might be a little longer,’ she said without looking at him. She could feel the conversation spiralling out of control. She just wanted to stop it, take it back to the easy-going companionship that used to exist between them.
But you spoilt that, she told herself. You spoilt that on Sairee Beach.
‘Are you ever coming back, because if you’re not, you had better tell me now.’
‘I’ll be back, Liam, but I want to finish the job here.’
‘Job? Rachel, this is a fantasy,’ said Liam angrily. ‘Julian was found locked inside a house, the alarm on, CCTV showing no one going in or out. Now unless you’ve suddenly started to suspect that your sister is secretly a homicidal maniac with the ability to subdue a grown man twice her size, I’d say this idea that Julian was murdered is wearing a bit thin.’
‘But all the evidence . . .’
‘What evidence, Rachel? Okay, so Madison was pregnant when she died and maybe it was Julian’s kid but we don’t know for sure. Maybe she was run off the road in Maryland – maybe not. But then why haven’t all the other people making complaints about Rheladrex been silenced too? And Ross, perhaps he could have been beaten up for getting too close to the test clinic, I’ll give you that one – if the detective in Jamaica hadn’t called Diana to say he’d caught the culprit.’
He took a thin cardboard wallet out of his back pocket and gave it to her.
‘What’s this?’ she said without even looking at it.
‘A plane ticket back to Samui for a week’s time.’
She glanced down and saw something written on the back of it.
‘And that number. It’s for Kroll,’ he added. ‘I know some people in London who have used them. They are one of the best investigative and security services in the world. Give it to Diana. Tell her to call them up and let them take over the baton. If anyone’s going to turn something up, it’s them.’
‘You’re telling me to give up,’ she said incredulously. ‘You’re saying I’m not good enough to get the job done.’
‘You’re good enough to do anything, Rachel. You don’t need me to tell you that. What I am telling you is that I don’t think this investigation, or however you’d describe it, is helping anyone, least of all you. It’s not about Julian or Diana any more. It’s about you, trying to prove something to the world. And you don’t need to do that. You never have.’
‘Don’t tell me what I need to do.’
He stepped away from her, rubbing his handsome face.
‘Are you still okay to give me a lift to Heathrow? It’s an early flight, so I understand if you’re too tired or hung-over,’ he said flatly.
‘Yes, yes. Of course,’ she stuttered.
Liam’s face softened. ‘Thank you.’
‘Could you do me a favour?’
‘What is it?’ he said, going immediately on guard.
‘I haven’t really had a chance to scroll through all the security footage. I thought that while you were on a twelve-hour plane journey, you could take a look; in fact I left it on your bag in the bedroom . . .’
Liam shook his head. ‘You’re incredible.’ She knew he did not mean it in a good way.
‘I just thought you might as well make good use of the time.’
‘You’re obsessed, you know that?’ He was beginning to walk away.
‘Where are you going?’ she said, getting up to follow him. Her breath felt shallow with panic.
‘Back to the house.’
‘You can’t walk. It’s pitch black.’
A car stopped and tooted. The window of the Mercedes was lowered and they saw Mr Bills smiling at them. Diana was in the back seat.
‘Want a lift back, you two? Party’s almost over.’
Liam nodded, and they both got into the car in silence.
52
Diana sat in the doctor’s waiting room with a dog-eared magazine in her lap. Why did all the worst things in life always involve waiting rooms? Root canal, long train journeys, even a waxing session required you to undergo the ritual of sitting in silence, flicking through three-month-old copies of Country Life. They’d even made her wait on her own at the hospital before a nice young policewoman – God, she couldn’t have been more than twenty-six – came in to officially inform her that the paramedics had been unable to revive her husband, even though she had known the second she had opened the library door that he was dead.
Someone behind her coughed all over her, and she shifted uncomfortably in her chair, pulling a hand sanitiser out of her bag and wiping her hands discreetly just as her name was called by the receptionist. The last thing she needed was a bout of the lurgy when she was feeling so rotten already. She had heard of the two-day hangover, of course, but this was ridiculous. It had been three days since the village fair and still she felt weak, curdled and nauseous.
She knocked on the door and pushed it open. She knew Dr Minas well. Her miscarriages and their aftermath had been dealt with by her obstetrician, but Dr Minas had provided support and had been sympathetic and helpful throughout her ordeals.
They made polite conversation, after which Diana reeled off her symptoms, told the doctor about the fair, speculated about the fruit punch and the hotpot she had sampled at the barn dance, then sat patiently as the doctor scribbled a few notes on the pad in front of her.
‘And how are you generally? I was sorry to hear about your husband,’ she said with feeling.
‘I’m seeing a therapist to talk some things through. Was,’ she corrected herself as she recalled her last meeting with Olga Shapiro. ‘At first it was as if there was this black fog hanging over me the whole time. It’s a lot better now.’
‘I wouldn’t be too hasty giving up therapy if it was working for you. These things take time, even when you think you’re on an upswing.’ More scribbled notes. ‘And are you sleeping?’
‘I can sleep for twenty-four hours and then not sleep for two days.’ Diana gave a nervous laugh. I sound like a crazy woman, she thought.
‘Could you be pregnant?’
Diana’s eyes opened wide. Pregnant? Immediately her mind pictured her with Adam, almost as if she were watching it on a dim TV screen.
‘Is it possible?’ repeate
d the doctor.
Clothes torn from each other, strewn on the floor, Adam climaxing inside her. They hadn’t exactly been thinking about birth control or anything else.
‘How quickly can symptoms appear?’ Diana asked slowly, anxiety creeping upon her.
‘It varies from woman to woman and from pregnancy to pregnancy,’ said Dr Minas. ‘When was your last period?’
‘I can’t remember exactly . . .’
Those words sounded so odd. When she and Julian had been trying for a baby, she had thought of nothing else, she had known every last detail of her menstrual cycle, when her peak ovulation time was, what her optimum temperature was, which foods she should be eating, everything. Diana’s cycle had never been the most regular of beasts, but to miss a period? Surely she couldn’t have missed one? But no – she genuinely couldn’t be sure. In the foggy haze after Julian’s death, she couldn’t be sure of anything. Nothing had mattered except getting from day to day.
‘Well,’ said the doctor briskly, ‘shall we do a quick test now? I’m sure you’re familiar with the procedure by now. You can go into the toilet there.’
But Diana sat there, rooted to the spot. She didn’t want to know. Her mind couldn’t cope. Pregnant? It just couldn’t be happening.
Dr Minas reached forward and put a reassuring hand over hers.
‘It’s normal to feel mixed emotions. And I imagine it’s particularly bittersweet in your case, given the circumstances.’
Julian. She was talking about Julian, of course. She assumed that Diana was pregnant with her dead husband’s baby, not his brother’s – why wouldn’t she? Anything else was unthinkable, repugnant.
‘Come on. Let’s try it,’ said the doctor with a kind smile. ‘Just a quick pee, then we’ll know one way or the other.’
Diana’s hand was shaking as she took the sample cup and went into the adjoining toilet. She sat down on the lid, putting her head in her hands. Breathe, she urged herself. You can do this. What if she was pregnant? Why now? After all those times she and Julian had been disappointed, it would be the cruellest irony possible. Julian’s brother. His brother. She bent her head lower, worried that she was going to be sick, breathing in through her nose, trying to clear her head.
‘Everything all right in there?’ called the doctor through the door. ‘Just relax, maybe run the tap if that helps.’
Diana could see that she was trapped – literally, in fact. There was no way out except through the doctor’s office.
‘Come on, Diana,’ she whispered to herself. ‘Be brave.’
The doctor was right, of course. There was no hiding from it – she had to know one way or the other. If she was pregnant, it wouldn’t just go away like the hangover she’d come here about. Quickly she flipped up the lid and mechanically went through the motions, carrying the sample out to Dr Minas. With a reassuring smile, the GP dipped a cardboard strip into the urine and waited, looking at her watch.
‘It’s positive,’ she said, smiling.
No, no, no. Diana couldn’t draw a breath. She felt as if she had pins and needles all over her body.
‘Really?’ she croaked finally. ‘Is it definite? I mean, are these tests a hundred per cent accurate?’
‘A blood test is the most accurate,’ smiled the doctor, nodding at the cardboard strip, ‘though false positives do happen.’
‘But in your medical opinion, am I having a baby?’ she said, stuttering.
The doctor clearly saw Diana’s pale face and leant forward to touch her knee.
‘I know there’s going to be conflicting feelings. But this is what your husband would have wanted, especially as you’d both tried so hard for a baby.’
Diana nodded dumbly. ‘How far gone am I?’
Dr Minas raised her eyebrows slightly and Diana saw a look of understanding pass across her face.
‘Well, we’d need to do a scan to tell you that. But these instant urine tests are usually effective from the first day after your missed period.’
The one question Diana wanted to ask she knew would have to go answered. However understanding Dr Minas was, she couldn’t bring herself to say it: ‘Could I be pregnant by the man I had sex with ten days ago?’
‘After you conceive, the body produces a hormone called hCG,’ explained the doctor. ‘Around two weeks in, there’s enough hCG in your system and that’s what the tests are picking up.’
‘Two weeks?’ she said slowly. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Could be as little as a week. As you’ll know, a woman conceives when the egg and the sperm fuse to become a zygote. The zygote travels to the uterus – which can take up to nine days – where it implants itself, and the body starts producing the hCG. As I said, it varies from woman to woman. It’s not an exact science, I’m afraid. We won’t know for sure until we have a proper scan.’
The tears were rolling down Diana’s face now, plopping into her lap.
‘Oh my dear,’ said the doctor. ‘Whatever is the matter?’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Diana, taking a tissue from her. ‘It’s just as you said – it’s bittersweet, that’s all.’
But Diana felt as if she had been plunged into a living nightmare.
53
Rachel stared listlessly at her computer screen. In theory, she was trawling through the hours of security footage from the Notting Hill house. But in reality, all she could think about was Liam. It had all ended so badly. That moment outside the barn on Saturday should have been exactly that. A moment. Liam had been racing around London trying to raise the money for her hotel venture, and that had to count for something. She should have thanked him, kissed him, told him how she really felt, given it one last shot to find out once and for all what they meant to each other. Instead she had insulted him, abused him. Told him to go back to Ko Tao where girls in bikinis were snaking round the block for him.
A sharp tap at the door jolted her out of her thoughts. She turned to see Adam Denver grinning through the glass, and suddenly she felt a little better.
‘Adam! What the hell are you doing here?’ she said, opening the door of the Lake House and welcoming him in.
‘Sorry, did I startle you?’ he said, clearly amused at her reaction. ‘I didn’t realise you’d be deep in thought.’
‘I was just doing some work,’ she said, snapping her computer shut.
‘Yeah, yeah,’ laughed Adam. ‘Work that involves looking at expensive shoes, I’ll bet.’
‘So are you here to see Diana?’
‘No, not today. I was in the area, thought I’d check you were all right out here in the woods now that you’re all on your own again.’
Rachel glanced around the little room. Actually, the Lake House did feel lonely without Liam. She hadn’t realised how much she had enjoyed having him in the next room, or humming to himself as he shaved, or leaving his dirty running shoes next to the door for her to trip over. Not that she was about to tell Adam that.
‘I’m managing,’ she said. ‘Some of us independent young women don’t actually need a man all the time, you know. We can choose the TV channel on our own.’
‘Believe it or not, I always had you down as a very capable woman. This place is great, isn’t it?’ he said, walking to the window and staring out over the lake.
‘Have you never been here before?’
‘Julian got very excited about building these things and then grew bored of them pretty quickly . . . Do these windows open?’
‘Sure, give it a tug.’
‘Wow, you can dive straight into the water from here.’
‘Tempting, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, I remember Jules saying that when he showed me the plans. I don’t think he ever did it.’
‘No. Funny, it was the first thing I thought when I saw it, but I have never got round to
it either.’
‘Better late than never,’ he said, drawing the window right back so that a soft early evening breeze floated into the room.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Go on. If anyone should do the inaugural dive from the living room into the lake, it should be you.’
‘Stop it, it’s late,’ she chuckled.
‘It’s not even seven o’clock, and it’s still twenty-five degrees out there,’ he said, leaning out and peering down into the green water. ‘How deep is it?’
‘Don’t know exactly. At least ten feet. Maybe more.’
‘You’ve checked?’
‘Well, yes, sitting here with the sun on me, I’ve often—’
Adam turned and pulled his T-shirt over his head.
‘Adam!’ she gasped. ‘What the hell are you doing?’
‘What do you think?’ He laughed, undoing his belt.
‘This is crazy,’ she said as he wriggled out of his jeans, unable to keep her eyes off his shapely bum.
He looked back at her. ‘Sometimes crazy can be good, Rachel.’
He opened the floor to ceiling doors, and with a whoop, plunged into the water.
‘Adam!’ she cried, then broke out into a belly laugh. She ran to the window and looked out just as he surfaced, his dark hair slicked back.
‘Wow! It’s lovely,’ he called, his arms spread wide. ‘And I can’t touch the bottom either!’ He turned and did a somersault, the water glistening off his back like a pale fish. ‘Come on,’ he laughed as he came up for air. ‘I thought you were the champion swimmer. What are you, chicken?’
‘No,’ she shouted back, feeling herself rise to the challenge.
‘So jump in, then,’ he grinned.
Shaking her head and laughing, she peeled off her jeans, but kept her T-shirt on. She thought about jumping straight in, but part of her wanted to do it with more panache than Adam, so she stood on the edge and executed a perfect dive into the lake.
The shock of the cold water pushed the air from her lungs.
‘Show-off,’ he shouted, lifting his hand and splashing water all over her.
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