Epilogue

Late one night a man came into my home, murdered my husband and made me watch.

He did it to teach us both a lesson.

It was a lesson we probably deserved.

Only JP Carney and I know the truth.

And that’s where I could choose to leave it. We could both try to get away with what we’ve done, as far as the law is concerned.

Two strangers, inextricably linked by brutality, lies and revenge.

Or I could tell the world what we did to his sister and what he did to my husband.

Does Carney really, truly want that? Or is he testing me?

Harry is gone. He was the love of my life, even if at times we ripped the very hearts out of each other. If he had lived, what would have happened? I don’t know. We wouldn’t have stayed together. But perhaps we’d have stayed in each other’s orbits. When you live a life together, can you ever really live apart?

And JP is wrong. Harry did one good thing. He took responsibility for Charlene’s death. He took it as far as I was concerned. He discharged me of my involvement.

‘I ruined your life,’ he said, that night after the Crimecall episode, when the full truth came spilling out. ‘It’s all my fault. How you acted that night, and that girl dying. I could have turned the wheel. I should have turned the wheel. I know you didn’t really want to hit her.’

‘I did, Harry. I did in that moment,’ I said. ‘I thought she was the girl from the dance floor. She was yet another woman you were looking at instead of me. Somebody else you might cheat with. The final straw. I wanted her to die, and I didn’t even know her. I was insane.’

‘It’s still my fault, Julie. Not yours. It will never be yours.’

Every day for the five years that followed, he tried to make it up to me for the bad times. It was as though if we could make our marriage work, that poor girl’s death wouldn’t have been for nothing.

Twisted, I know.

But the thing is, sometimes we were happy, despite the fraud charges and the court hearings and the publicity. We were happy the night JP Carney walked into our sitting room and attacked us. And that was wrong. We shouldn’t have been able to live with what had happened. None of it.

It was toxic, but it’s over now.

I know Carney will be stewing after what I said. If he believed me. He might be telling himself that I made it up, a nasty attempt at revenge on my part.

I don’t think so though. I think he could see in my eyes that I was telling the truth.

I could leave him suffering with that, the torture of thinking he had got it so wrong. I have the house. I have plenty of money. I’m still a relatively young woman. I could start again. Live a healthier, better life. If I got away with his sister’s death then, I could get away with it now.

But I know it won’t be like that. A life built on a glossy surface that’s rotten underneath? That could never last. All of my past experiences tell me that.

In the first instance, in a few years Carney will get out, and he will come after me. I know it for certain.

More importantly, there’s a young woman’s death to atone for.

Charlene Andrews did nothing to Harry and me. We killed her, and she never got the justice she deserved. Not even from her brother, who, instead of reporting the truth, took the law into his own hands.

Nina Carter never got justice.

Even the people who suffered because of Harry’s bank – they were left with the consequences.

Eventually, I make the decision. I will take responsibility for what Harry and I did to Charlene Andrews.

It will all come out. Everything. I’ll suffer. My family will be ashamed of me. My parents, Helen – I’ve let them down so badly. I can only hope they love me enough to stand by me.

Right up until she answers the phone, I consider changing my mind.

But no. It has to stop.

‘DS Moody,’ she barks.

‘DS … Alice,’ I say, forcing myself to speak. ‘It’s Julie McNamara. I need to talk to you. It’s about what JP Carney said to me when I met with him. It’s about his sister.’

And then the words come.

It strikes me, at one point during my monologue and her single-syllable responses, that she already knows. That she’s been waiting for me to call. She’s a smart woman; I wouldn’t be surprised if she got there before me.

It doesn’t matter. It has to be me who tells her. She won’t have to prove her case.

I’ll give it to her.

I’ll confess.