Molly could see the lie in the way Jack’s eyes were unwilling to meet hers, and in that slight restlessness that had him shuffle from foot to foot. She wanted to challenge him, but a wave of weariness swept over her and took all concern for him with it. Perhaps he’d stayed overnight in the office, trying to iron out whatever problems he was having. Maybe, despite his protestations, he had been with a woman.
Too tired and numb to deal with any more grief, she pleaded exhaustion and went back to bed. As she lay trying not to cry, she heard Jack moving about, the hum of the shower and the opening and closing of doors. Exhaustion, both mental and physical, had seeped into her bones and when the house quietened, she drifted off to sleep, waking confused a short while later. Checking her phone, she saw it was after nine. Using the same throaty voice she’d used before, she rang her office to say she was still unwell, hanging up before they could query when she’d be back. It wasn’t something she knew.
She lay staring at the ceiling, thinking. What did Stuart want to tell her? His voice had sounded worried, concerned even. It had to be something important; something to do with Jack’s troubles at work. The two men weren’t friends as such, but they were friendly in the way that work colleagues often were.
Colour rushed to her cheeks when she remembered thinking he was making a play for her. He and that stranger; she’d been wrong both times. A stupid self-deluded fool, desperately clinging to a version of herself that no longer existed.
Restless, she threw on a robe and went downstairs for coffee. She’d need her wits about her when she met Stuart Mercer, for whatever it was he was going to tell her.
When the doorbell chimed, she put her mug down and headed to the front door, hoping it wasn’t the police with yet more questions. She pulled the door open and immediately relaxed when she saw Amelia standing there. ‘Thank goodness it’s you,’ Molly said.
‘I did text you to ask how yesterday went but you didn’t reply. I was going to ring and then decided, what the hell, I’d come over.’ Amelia stepped inside and enveloped Molly in a hug. ‘I can’t stay long.’
Molly led the way back into the living room. ‘Have a seat. There’s coffee, or I can make tea?’
‘Coffee is fine.’ Throwing her coat on the back of a chair, Amelia sat and looked at Molly. ‘Tell me everything.’
Molly took another mug and poured coffee, placing it carefully on the table before sitting back against the cushions and telling Amelia about her visit to the police station the day before and Jack’s behaviour earlier that morning.
‘I don’t know what to say.’ Amelia shook her head slowly. ‘The man on the canal, the police think he was waiting for you?’
‘It looks like it,’ Molly said. ‘He has form for duping gullible older women. Pathetic women like me who were seeking something that doesn’t exist. I was an absolute fool.’
Amelia picked up her mug and took a drink. ‘It’s your friend with his amazing brown eyes who’s at fault, Mol, not you. You must stop blaming yourself.’
Molly’s fingers tightened on her coffee. Amazing brown eyes? Where had she heard that before? Then she remembered. During her interview at the police station, DI Fanshawe had mentioned a witness who’d commented on Lucien Pleasant’s amazing brown eyes. ‘Turquoise,’ she said softly. ‘He’d turquoise eyes, not brown, and they weren’t real. He wore tinted contact lenses and changed the colour to confuse his victims.’
‘I told you nobody really had turquoise eyes,’ Amelia said. She lifted her mug. ‘Is there more coffee?’
‘Of course.’ Molly stood and fetched the cafetière from the counter. She brushed the eye-colour error aside. It wasn’t important. After all, it wasn’t as if Amelia had seen his eyes. If she had she’d have remembered the colour. Molly filled both their mugs, wondering how much caffeine she’d need to ingest before she felt in any way alert.
‘You have to stop blaming yourself,’ Amelia said, adding milk to hers. ‘Eventually it will all blow over. Jack won’t stay mad with you, he’s not that sort.’
He’s not that sort. Molly picked up her mug and took a long drink to hide her annoyance. Since when had Amelia become an expert on her husband. For goodness’ sake, they barely knew one another. Over the years, they’d met maybe a handful of times and only on a couple of occasions since Amelia and Tristan had returned to live in London.
Molly lifted her eyes from her coffee to regard her friend suspiciously, remembering how pleased she was to see Jack mixing with her female friends at their party. Maybe it was only one he had mixed with, Amelia tossing her damn hair around and laughing at something he had said. And what was it she had said later… oh yes, that Jack was one of the sexiest men she’d ever met. Molly had thought she’d imagined the expression of lust on her friend’s face. Maybe she hadn’t.
‘Is Tristan still away?’ Molly asked, having a vague recollection he’d said he was flying somewhere after the weekend.
‘Yes, he’s in Berlin for a couple more days, endless meetings about something or other. I would have gone but Berlin isn’t my favourite city. And anyway,’ she said, ‘I’ve a lot on here.’
Jack never had said where he’d spent the night, could he have gone to Amelia, maybe to question her about the weekend, staying for the comfort she would have happily given? That Jack was her friend’s husband wouldn’t have stopped Amelia from taking what she wanted, especially if it wasn’t the first time.
Molly shut her eyes on the tears that had begun to gather as if it would stop them falling. It didn’t work, she could feel them squeeze their way out to tremble a moment in the corner of her eyes before gathering momentum and careering down her cheeks.
‘Oh, don’t cry, Mol!’
Amelia did sincere entreaty so well, Molly thought, opening her eyes. She brushed the tears away with her fingers and looked at her friend. She looked sincere too. But suspicions, once aroused, were hard to put to sleep. Amelia and Jack. Was it possible? And what about that amazing brown eyes remark? What was it the police had said, something about Lucien Pleasant liking rich, vulnerable women?
Vulnerable like her; rich like Amelia.
If Amelia had been one of his victims, Molly knew she’d never have told anyone. She’d certainly never have gone to the police to expose herself as such a fool. She’d have paid up and shut up.
Molly put her mug down and dragged a smile into place. ‘Tears come easily these days. I’ve an appointment myself at one,’ she added, looking at her watch. ‘I’d better go and get ready.’
‘You look worn out,’ Amelia said, ‘you should get a taxi to wherever you’re going.’
‘No, I’ll be fine. I’m meeting a friend in Casper’s, it’s only a few minutes’ walk from Victoria station. A taxi would take forever.’ She stood and gathered the mugs, hoping Amelia would take the hint. It would be a relief when she was gone. Molly was probably being ridiculous, but the life she had considered as mundane, almost boring, had become a crazy rollercoaster that sent her thoughts churning. Apart from Freya and Remi, who thank goodness, were away from it all, there appeared to be nothing solid, nothing reliable left in her life.
She swallowed the lump in her throat. Maybe the sudden inexplicable suspicion of her friend was crazy but when was it that she’d started worrying about Jack? Wasn’t it around the time that Amelia and Tristan had come back to London?
‘Okay,’ Amelia’s voice interrupted Molly’s thoughts, ‘I’ll head off.’ She looked at Molly with concern in her eyes. ‘You should try to get some rest when you get back, you look shattered.’
‘Always good to know,’ she said with an attempt at humour. ‘I’ll try to sleep later.’
Amelia put an arm around her, gave her a quick hug and picked up her coat and bag. ‘Why don’t we meet later for a glass of wine in O’Dea’s? Maybe around six?’
O’Dea’s? Why not? She could text Jack and get him to meet her there. ‘Good idea.’
‘Great, I’ll let myself out.’
There was a sharp clip-clip as Amelia’s stilettos crossed the wooden floor of the hall but it wasn’t until Molly heard the front door shut that she let out the breath she’d been holding and stumbled to the sofa where she sat and shut her eyes. It was over an hour before she moved. She didn’t want to meet Stuart. Any more complications and her brain might explode. But maybe, whatever it was he wanted to tell her, would clarify whatever was going on in Jack’s life. If she could be convinced all his problems were work-related and nothing to do with a woman, she might be able to think straight.
On that slim hope, she stood. She’d enough time to have a quick shower and dress.
Twenty minutes later, wearing heavier make-up than she’d normally do during the day, she pulled on her coat, grabbed her bag and headed out.
The rain had stopped, the day was blue-sky bright, but it didn’t lift her mood. She walked, eyes down, mind swirling with conflicting thoughts, one minute sure Amelia was having an affair with Jack and involved somehow with Lucien Pleasant, the next castigating herself for her crazy paranoia.
Molly reached South Kensington station in a daze, waited for the Circle line tube and ten minutes later was making her way through the crowds at Victoria station. Outside, the pavement was a heaving mass of people; fast-moving Londoners intent on their destination, dawdling, gawping tourists stopping abruptly to take photographs, selfie-sticks wielded like dangerous weapons forcing passers-by to duck and dive.
As a veteran London commuter, she weaved and dodged without much thought and with little attention to what was going on around her. Strange notions chased through her head and befuddled her brain. Nearer to the café, the crowds thinned. She stood at the roadside waiting for pedestrian lights to change, throwing a sympathetic glance at the woman beside her who was trying, unsuccessfully by the sound of the cries, to soothe a fractious child. When Molly looked back to the crossing lights, it was turquoise eyes she saw, and she closed her eyes briefly on the stupidity of it all. Maybe her sudden suspicion of Amelia was trying to deflect attention from her own idiotic behaviour. Tears welled as she watched the lights, waiting for them to turn.
A blow to the small of her back made Molly cry out as she was pushed forward into the moving traffic. She sought desperately to regain her balance, arms flailing, twisting her body so she was at an angle to the car that was bearing down on her. That one movement saved her from the full brunt of the collision but the contact was enough to send her flying.
Witnesses, she was told later, said she’d landed with such a thud they thought she was dead. She thought so too as she lay unable to move, shouts and screams swirling above her, darkness creeping around the edges of her vision until it was all gone. Later, she remembered there had been a millisecond of relief that she’d no longer have to worry about anything.
For the next twenty-four hours, she was vaguely aware of voices; some were reassuring, some demanding, others questioning. She ignored them all, choosing consciously or not to stay in the comforting darkness, the steady beep-beep of a monitor close to her right ear telling her all she needed to know. She was in a hospital and she was alive.
It was curiosity that finally opened her eyes. She was alone. Turning her head slightly, she could see the monitor; she thought the squiggles that raced across the screen looked okay. On the other side of the bed, tubing ran from a bag of fluid into her left hand. She watched it closely for a few seconds; it was dripping very slowly. She decided that was a good sign. Squeezing her eyes shut, she tried to remember what had happened. Had she stumbled into the traffic? There had been a scream, then a blow that had sent her sailing through the air, a faint memory of feeling weightless before she hit the ground and the world dissolved into pain. A car, she guessed, although she wasn’t sure; she felt like she’d been trampled by a herd of elephants but unless there was a serious problem in London Zoo, she doubted there were many of them on the streets of London. She distinctly remembered being confused about the lights; hadn’t she seen turquoise eyes? Maybe she’d stupidly walked out onto the road at the wrong time.
Panic started to build then, how badly hurt was she? She didn’t seem able to move. Nor was she in any pain. Oh God, she couldn’t feel anything, maybe she was paralysed. The beeping of the monitor increased in speed and escalated her fear, a spiral that might have gone on if the door hadn’t opened and a kindly face appeared looking down at her from what seemed to be a great height. A soothing hand on her arm gave instant relief, she could feel it. She swallowed the lump in her throat.
‘You’re going to be fine,’ the woman said, her voice soft and calming. ‘I’m Edel, your nurse. Are you in pain?’
Molly gave the question some thought. ‘No.’ The word came out a husky croak.
‘Good. You’ve had some pain relief, but we can give you more if needed. You’re in Guy’s Hospital, Molly, okay?’
Guy’s. A good one. ‘Am I paralysed?’ Better to know than keep guessing.
‘No, you were very lucky,’ Edel said with a smile. ‘A broken rib where you collided with the ground and a lot of bruising. You were unconscious for a while and then semi-conscious for the last several hours, so you’ll be kept in for observation. That’s standard with any concussion, but all going well, you’ll be fine.’
Molly’s lips were dry and her tongue felt too big for her mouth. ‘Can I have a drink?’
Edel used the bed control to sit Molly more upright, pushed a bed table within reach and put a glass of water in her hand. ‘Take it slowly,’ she advised.
Even a little drop made a difference. ‘How long have I been here?’
‘Almost twenty-four hours. It’s Saturday afternoon.’ The nurse fussed around the monitor for a while, then fiddled with the intravenous line in Molly’s left hand. Finally, she wrote something on the clipboard that hung on the end of the bed and looked at her with a serious expression. ‘If you’re up to it, a couple of policemen arrived a few minutes ago. They’ve been in and out a few times since yesterday hoping to have a word with you. I said no, but perhaps now you’re awake you would prefer to speak to them.’
It was the last thing Molly wanted. ‘Absolutely n…’ She stopped. ‘Yes, okay.’ If they wanted to speak to her about the accident it was probably better sooner than later. ‘Is my husband here?’
‘He was here yesterday evening holding your hand for hours and again this morning. When you didn’t wake, he said he had to leave and would be back later.’ The nurse refilled the water glass and left.
Molly couldn’t remember Jack being there and tried to rationalise his absence; he’d probably gone for something to eat. Perhaps she should have insisted the police waited until he came back before speaking to her.
She was debating ringing the call bell to tell the nurse she’d changed her mind when the door opened. When she saw who entered, she groaned.
DI Fanshawe, about to speak, stopped and stared at her, his forehead creasing in what she guessed might be concern. ‘The nurse said you weren’t in pain, that you agreed to speak to us.’
‘She didn’t tell me it was you,’ Molly said, uncaring if she sounded rude. ‘Are you the only two coppers in London? Why are you looking into an accident? Shouldn’t you be looking for the man who killed…’ She searched for the man’s name, shaking her head when it wouldn’t come to her. ‘…what’s his name?’
‘Lucien Pleasant,’ Fanshawe provided calmly. ‘We are, Mrs Chatwell. That’s why we’re here.’ Fanshawe pulled up a chair and nodded to DS Carstairs to do the same. ‘It looks very much like someone tried to kill you.’