You Can Trust Me (22 page)

I examine the jeans—they are barely worn, just like the three cotton tops of hers that I remove next from the basket. I shake my head. How can Hannah possibly have gotten through all these clothes since I last did a wash two days ago? She must have worn each item for about three hours.

I delve deeper into the basket, past Zack's pajamas and my own underwear, to the trousers Will wore on Sunday. I pat the pockets carefully, then examine the shirt that lies at the very bottom of the pile.

Nothing.

Frustrated, I turn to the towels that litter the bathroom floor. I had assumed they'd just fallen from their rails in this morning's scramble, but all four are damp and creased. Considering she was in here for less than ten minutes this morning, Hannah has outdone herself. I sniff the towels—two at least smell too sour to leave. Gritting my teeth, I chuck them into the laundry basket, pile everything else on top and take the whole lot downstairs.

I load the washing machine on autopilot. My mobile rings. It's Julia's brother, Robbie. I can't cope with him right now, so I turn the phone off without answering. Damian will ring soon as well, to discuss how we are going to track Shannon Walker down. It suddenly seems so unimportant. Whatever Shannon tells me when I catch up with her, it won't make me feel any worse than I do right now. Part of me just wants to walk out of the house—to leave Will. But what about our children? Can I do that to them? Anyway, it's more important to face Will down, to force him to confess before I take any definite action.

His angry words last night circle my head. How dare he say I'm deluding myself over Julia when he has been fooling me himself for goodness knows how many years? How dare he make me feel guilty for asking about that Honey Hearts form?

How dare he put me through all this? Again.

I reach inside the cupboard next to the washing machine, but the box of soap powder tablets is empty. Muttering under my breath, I stomp out to the utility room to fetch another pack. The door through to the garage is next to the shelf with the spare washing stuff. It's the only other place in the house where Will might keep confidential information. He's the only one who ever goes in there, to clean the car or add to his massive collection of classic motorbike mags, which I refuse to allow to clutter up the house.

I set the washing machine going, then head out to the garage. I'm not sure exactly what I'm looking for—maybe a perfume-infused shirt, shoved out of sight on a top shelf, or perhaps a gift buried under all the car-wash gear, ready to give to Catrina. Images of them together flash through my mind. All I can see is her face, tipped back in ecstasy and Will, intent on her, full of desire. Jealousy and hate course through me, as powerful as the life force in my veins.

I walk down the side of the garage, methodically pulling all the magazines on the three sets of shelves away from the wall, a section at a time. Nothing lurks behind or between them. I vaguely wonder if my old, once-prized Hasselblad is stashed out here somewhere. Who am I kidding? Even if I could lay my hands on it, I've got no idea what I would want to take pictures of—other than the kids, of course. It's another reminder of how my life has shrunk since I got married. I grit my teeth. I have sacrificed
so
much for Will, for our family.

I turn my attention to the shelves opposite where Will keeps the stuff he uses to wash and polish our car, as well as several piles of unexamined DIY brochures he downloaded back when he had vague plans to build a garden shed. Will is useless at practical stuff. He can just about change a plug or a fuse. The truth is that he's always eager to start a project, but loses interest long before it's over. It strikes me that this is a perfect metaphor for his attitude to our marriage.

I pull out the contents of each shelf in turn and examine everything carefully. There's nothing incriminating. I kneel down and peer under the bench that runs along the wall opposite the shelves. It's empty, apart from some boots. One pair—blue plastic with a picture of Thomas the Tank Engine—stand neatly upright under the bench. I draw them out. Zack grew out of these years ago. Behind the boots is Will's toolbox. He asked for it a couple of Christmases ago and, just as with the garden shed brochures, it looks as fresh as the day he unwrapped it. I open it up. Nails and screws, still in their plastic wrappings, meet my eye. I pick out the hammer and the screwdriver in turn, then finger the coil of copper wiring beside the tape measure. Something glints back at me.

My guts tighten into a knot as I take out what is lying beside the wire coil. Here, in my palm, is Julia's missing diamond and emerald ring.

 

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I sit on the dusty garage floor, staring at the ring. There's no doubting what it is. Julia wore this almost every day. I know its tiny clusters of diamonds set around the oval emerald almost as well as the detail of my own engagement ring.

This is the ring that Joanie accused me of stealing. What the hell is it doing hidden in Will's toolbox in our garage? My mind races, trying to piece together all the separate elements:

• Julia hired an agent from Honey Hearts to entrap Will.

• Will slept with Catrina and, if Catrina, then probably others.

• Will has Julia's ring.

But why? How? Did he
steal
it? Why would he have done that?
When
could he have done it?

I think back to the night Julia died. The coroner's report said the actual death occurred between 10
P.M.
and midnight, and that Julia must have drunk the Nembutal about thirty minutes before dying of respiratory failure. We were at the Harburys until shortly before ten. Will came home with me, then set straight off to the airport. I don't exactly know when he got there, but his flight was just before midnight. Would he have had time to stop off at Julia's flat and slip a fatal dose of Nembutal into her whiskey?

It's ridiculous. Unthinkable. Insane. I think these words, yet the ring, hard and bright in my hand, tells me that anything is possible.

I make it back to the kitchen and sink into a chair at the table. What if Will and Julia were having an affair? Or what if Julia found out Will was having one with someone else?

Maybe he found out that she knew about it.

Maybe she confronted him directly.

Maybe she threatened to tell me about his infidelity.

Could Will have killed her to keep her quiet?

Could he have killed Kara too?

No.

There's no way Will is capable of either murder. He is totally nonviolent. He has never come near hitting me or even smacking our children. He traps spiders under a glass and tips them outside the window rather than harm them, for goodness' sake.

And yet the ring is here. Who else could have hidden it in Will's toolbox? Who could have taken it from Julia's flat? Apart from myself, only Joanie and Robbie had access. And no one apart from Will and I
ever
come into the garage.

My phone rings. It's Damian. I say hello in a kind of trance, but he doesn't seem to notice, asking eagerly what Will has said about meeting Shannon Walker.

I pull myself together. Before I talk to Damian about anything, I
have
to find out more about him. My mistrust levels are spiking anyway, and I need to know what lies behind his complete lack of a presence online.

“I've been meaning to ask…,” I say. “I Googled your name and I couldn't find
any
reference to you, not on social media and not as a graphic designer, either. If you have a job, it should be there.”

On the other end of the line, Damian is silent. After several long seconds, he finally speaks. “There's a reason for that, Livy.”

“Go on.”

“I will explain,” Damian says slowly, “but it's complicated.… I'd rather tell you face-to-face. Because you're right, it is odd. But there's a good reason.
Honestly.
”

I take a deep breath. “I'm sorry, but if you want me to trust you, then you need to tell me now.”

“Okay.” Another silence. “I use a different name at work,” he says. “I'm Damian Chambers there, it's called Gramercy Designs. You can check it out.”

“Okay…” I'm unsure how to respond. Why didn't he mention all this before? “Did Julia know?”

“Yes,” he says. “She knew everything about me. Honestly, Livy, I will explain properly. The whole thing. There are good reasons, I promise.”

He sounds so sincere that my anger fades. “Maybe Shannon had a good reason for leaving Honey Hearts too,” I say more gently.

“Maybe, but I doubt it.” Damian tells me about a friend of his who he thinks will be able to trace Shannon's unlisted phone number and address.

As he speaks, my thoughts turn back to Will. There is no good reason for
his
lies.

“I'm going to ask Gaz to take a look at that scrap of hard drive we found on Julia's computer as well,” Damian goes on.

“Right,” I say, my mind still on Will. “Good.”

“Livy?” Damian says, his voice full of anxiety. “You sound really weird. Look, I promise I'll explain all the name-changing stuff when I see you. It's nothing sinister, nothing to do with finding Julia's killer.”

“It's not you.” Humiliation rises inside me again, a bitter taste in my throat. “It's
nothing
.”

“Come on,” he says gently. “I can hear there's something wrong. What have you found out? Did you talk to Will?”

I hesitate. “It's hard.…” I trail off, unable to speak my shame out loud.

“Okay, wait there.” Damian says firmly, “I'm coming over.”

I try, feebly, to protest but Damian won't listen. He hangs up and I sit, staring at the kitchen table. I can't seem to form a coherent thought; a jumble of confused images and ideas zoom around my head;
Catrina with Will. Julia with Will. Shannon with Will.

It's too much to take in.

I rouse myself sufficiently to do a search on Damian Chambers, and sure enough, there he is … a senior designer at Gramercy Designs, just like he said. Time passes. I have no idea how long I'm sitting there. Then the bell rings and I somehow drag myself across the hall to open the door. Damian strides inside.

“What is it, Livy? What's happened?” There is genuine concern on his face.

I turn away. I still don't want to admit what Will has done out loud, to make it real.

Damian pulls me to him, wrapping his arms around me. His hand rubs my back. I submit to the hug, too numb even to feel startled by the intimacy.

Then he draws back and looks into my eyes. “Talk to me,” he says.

A sob swells in my throat. “It's Will,” I say. I don't mean to tell Damian everything, but once I've started, I can't stop. It all pours out of me: how Will has renewed his affair with Catrina, how he has denied it, how I have found Julia's ring—and how I don't know what to do with the vortex of deep, dark fears and suspicions whirling around in my head.

Damian is shocked and confused by turns. He repeats his belief that Julia was not having a relationship with Will, but so what? It seems more and more likely to me that Julia must have found out Will was cheating on me with Catrina and hired Shannon from Honey Hearts to get proof.

Damian agrees. “It's really the only explanation that makes sense,” he says thoughtfully. “It explains why Julia went to Honey Hearts and hired Shannon. I'm guessing that before Shannon had a chance to approach him, Will found out Julia was investigating him. He probably went round to her flat to confront her, then…” He hesitates.

“No,” I say firmly, sensing where his thoughts are going. “No
way
.”

“Come on, Livy,” Damian says with a sigh. “It makes sense, especially now that you've found that ring. I don't expect Will actually intended to kill her in cold blood, just to frighten her, maybe, into keeping quiet.”

“What, and he just happened to have a lethal dose of Nembutal in his back pocket?”

“I don't know.” Damian fixes me with his gaze. “But when you take everything into consideration … I mean, Will goes abroad on business sometimes, doesn't he? He went to Geneva the night Julia died, you said.”

“Yes, but—”

“Well, maybe all this stuff has been going on for longer than we thought. Maybe Will got the Nembutal from one of his previous business trips. I looked it up after Julia died. It's not that hard to get hold of online or in lots of places outside the UK.”

“No.”
I have to stop this now. “You're just desperate to believe Julia didn't kill herself. You're twisting everything to fit that because you feel guilty and—”

“I'm not twisting anything!” Damian's voice rises. “
You
found Will's name on the Honey Hearts file.
You
found Julia's ring in his toolbox.”

We glare at each other. I'm reminded again of how little I know about him, of the facts he has kept from me.

“Why did you change your name?” I ask. “You said you'd tell me once we were face-to-face.”

Damian looks at me for a long moment, then gazes across at the bottle of wine, half-drunk and recorked, that stands on the kitchen counter.

“I couldn't do that,” he says.

“Do what?”

“Leave the bottle half drunk.” He meets my gaze, then takes a deep, shaky breath. “I'm an alcoholic, an addict. It's been five years and three months since my last drink, since I was using.”

I stare at him. Shame and pride burn equally in his eyes.

“So … so … Burton…,” he says. “I started using the name when I was first in recovery, after Richard Burton, you know, the actor?”

I nod.

“It was just a game. I still kept my real name for work and tax and all that stuff. My shrink says I did it to avoid intimacy. I don't know. I used it in social situations, with people I didn't know.”