Finn
I look around the table at them, thinking they’re having a joke. When I see that they’re deadly serious, I realise that Tony didn’t understand anything I told him. Irritated that I’m going to have to explain it all again, I cut to the best piece of evidence I have.
‘If you remember,’ I say, ‘Ellen saw Layla in Cheltenham.’
‘But you never actually saw her,’ Tony points out.
‘No, but Thomas did, outside the cottage at St Mary’s.’
‘Maybe it was Ellen he saw.’
I shake my head stubbornly. ‘Thomas wouldn’t have made that mistake.’
‘Ellen could just have pretended to see Layla in Cheltenham,’ Ruby says, almost apologetically.
I open my mouth, ready to protest, then close it again quickly. Ruby is right, it’s possible that Ellen only pretended to see Layla.
‘So how did the Russian doll get onto the car that day?’ I ask. ‘I dropped Ellen off at the hairdresser and she had only just finished having her hair done when I went back to pick her up.’
‘She could have nipped back after you left, pretended to the hairdresser that she’d forgotten to pay for the parking.’
I search my mind for something else. ‘Seriously, you expect me to believe that the emails I received, every single one of them, even the ones that told me to get rid of Ellen, came from Ellen herself?’
‘It’s possible,’ Harry says.
‘Don’t forget that she got a Russian doll in the post. She’d hardly have sent it to herself.’
‘Why not?’ Harry counters. ‘Surely it would be the sensible thing to do, to make it seem as if she was being targeted by Layla too.’
‘You’re mad,’ I tell them. ‘You’ve lost your minds. Of course Ellen isn’t behind this. And if what you say is true, how would she have got into the cottage? Only Layla and I had keys.’
‘Maybe Ellen found yours and had a copy made.’
‘Not possible – they were in a safe in the bank.’
‘Then maybe Layla had a copy made and sent them to Ellen before she disappeared.’
‘She would have asked me first.’ I look around the table at them. ‘Look, Ellen isn’t that kind of person. She’s not devious, or cruel. And she would have to be a bloody brilliant actress to pull it off.’ They still don’t seem convinced and because I trust their judgment, doubt begins to worm its way in. It would, after all, explain so much. It would explain how the dolls were left outside the house with such ease, without anybody seeing. The first doll that appeared, Ellen only needed to pretend that she found it on the wall for me to believe it, the second she could have put on the wall once I’d left to go to the village that morning. Ruby has already worked out how she could have got the third doll onto the car in Cheltenham. I continue onto the fourth, the one left in The Jackdaw. She could easily have slipped it on the plate before leaving for the toilet. The dolls that came in the post – she only had to walk down to the postbox in the village while I was in my office, a matter of ten minutes at the most. I wouldn’t have noticed that she was gone – hadn’t she reproached me for not noticing that she’d gone into Cheltenham those couple of times? And on the two Sundays, when there wasn’t any post, she had simply left dolls on the wall again, the first once I’d left to go to the village for bread, the second as we’d left together. She only had to lag behind me slightly and stretch out her arm. I wouldn’t have noticed a thing.
I continue rifling through my mind. What about the Russian doll I’d found on Pharos Hill, how had that one got there? Ellen had been at home when I’d left that morning. But I’d gone to the cottage in St Mary’s first, so she would have had time to get to Pharos Hill before I finally worked out that that was where I was meant to be. Had she been laughing when I’d hurried off for my secret meeting with Layla, knowing that I’d automatically assume she was referring to St Mary’s when she said that I had the address?
The odds that Ellen could be behind these nightmarish few weeks are stacking up against her. A wave of fury hits.
‘I’m going to check her computer,’ I say roughly. ‘See if the emails came from her.’
‘Do you know her email password?’ Ruby asks.
‘No, but I’m going to have a damn good try working it out.’ I get to my feet. ‘But if she’s as devious as she appears to have been, I doubt we’ll find anything.’
They follow me into Ellen’s study. I plug in her computer, sit down at her desk, start it up and log on using the Rudolph Hill address.
‘I can’t mess up the password or I’ll be locked out,’ I say, realising. ‘Any ideas?’
‘I don’t think she’d choose something abstract, I think it’s more likely to be something connected with everything,’ Ruby says.
‘Pharos Hill, maybe?’ Harry suggests. ‘Where you had the ceremony?’
‘Yes, but Pharos Hill what? A date?’
‘Try Pharos Hill and the date of the ceremony.’
‘OK.’ I type in PharosHill140413. It doesn’t work.
‘How about Pharos Hill and Ellen’s date of birth? Or Layla’s?’
‘We’re sticking with Pharos Hill, then.’
‘It’s probably our best bet,’ Harry says.
I type PharosHill in again. ‘Which date of birth?’
‘Layla’s,’ Ruby says. ‘It was her memorial.’
I add 260486. It doesn’t work.
I try to get myself into Ellen’s mindset. What other date could be linked to Pharos Hill? Other than the date of the ceremony, I can’t think of a single one.
‘Last go,’ I say. I type PharosHill. ‘Any suggestions for what comes next?’
‘Try the year of the ceremony, just the year,’ Tony suggests. ‘2013. People tend to use years, not actual dates.’
I tag 2013 onto PharosHill.
‘Oh my God,’ breathes Ruby. ‘It’s worked!’
‘It’s almost as if she wanted you to be able to access her emails,’ Harry remarks. He lapses into silence and stares at the screen. Because the inbox contains only messages from me.
My heart thumps dully in my chest. I don’t want to open the sent messages but I know that I have to. I click on the box, praying it will be empty. But there they are, in all their glory, each and every one of Layla’s messages to me.
The silence in the room is absolute.
I run a hand through my hair. ‘Fuck.’
‘I’m sorry, Finn,’ Ruby says quietly.
I look at the screen again. ‘No. This isn’t the Ellen I know. She’s one of the sanest people I’ve ever come across.’ I twist in the chair, search out Harry. ‘You know her, Harry. Do you think she could do something like this?’
‘Not really, no,’ he admits. ‘But how well did we actually know her? She had a troubled past, losing her mother, then Layla, then her father. Who knows how that affected her?’
‘We already worked out that whoever was behind the dolls and the emails was unbalanced,’ Ruby reminds me.
‘Yes, but to do something like this? I mean, why?’
‘I don’t know – revenge for Layla’s disappearance?’
‘Could be,’ Tony says. ‘In a warped kind of way. As in – you were responsible for her losing her sister.’
‘But I paid the price!’ I say, furious. ‘I already paid the price! Why make me go through it all again?’
‘To test you?’ Ruby says.
‘We’ll be in the kitchen.’ Harry puts a hand on my shoulder. They leave and I sit there in the office of a woman who in the space of a few minutes has become a complete stranger.
It’s a struggle to put aside my emotions but I don’t want them to cloud my judgement. I look at the emails again, thinking about what Harry said, about Ellen choosing a password that was easy to crack, as if she wanted me to find them. Because otherwise, she would have deleted them before she left. It’s why she unplugged her computer, to get me to look. So if she wanted me to find them, why? Because she was proud of what she’d done and wanted me to know how clever she’d been? Or out of kindness, so that I wouldn’t be left hanging? Was that why she left the doll on the landing upstairs, which led to me discovering the dolls in the chest? It seems she wanted me to know it was her all along.
Hopelessness hits me in the gut like a physical force. It’s hard enough to accept not only that the relative happiness I’d found with Ellen has gone, but that it was based on a lie. If Ellen had wanted to hurt me, there’s no better way she could have chosen. And that’s hard too, because it doesn’t equate with the Ellen I knew. We had lived and loved together for a little over a year, just as I had lived with and loved Layla for a little over a year. Is it significant that I was with each sister for approximately the same amount of time? Was that the real timing issue? We – Tony, Harry, Ruby and I – presumed that it was the wedding announcement that had triggered the beginning of the ‘Layla is alive’ campaign. Maybe the two were linked – once Ellen had got me to propose to her, it was time to wind up our relationship. Even though she had in a way manipulated it, had she seen my marriage proposal as a betrayal of her sister? It would mean that our whole relationship had been some kind of test, and one I’d failed miserably. But to be that loyal to a sister, to go to such lengths, seems extraordinary.
A flash of anger ignites in my brain. I need to find Ellen. So where has she gone? Abroad? Not if she has Peggy with her. To the cottage in St Mary’s? Or somewhere else, somewhere she thinks I won’t be able to find her? If she left as soon as I went tearing off to St Mary’s, she could be halfway up the country by now. She wouldn’t have gone south, it wouldn’t be far enough away. She must have had a destination in mind, she wouldn’t be driving around aimlessly, not in the middle of the night. Is she in a hotel, sleeping the sleep of an innocent while I’m condemned to hell? On impulse, I pull her keyboard towards me and bring up her search history, hoping to find a link to Booking.com or some other accommodation website. There isn’t, but there’s a link to a CalMac Ferries website. I open it quickly and find they run services between the mainland and the Scottish Isles. And when I look further, I find the timetable for services between Ullapool and Stornoway, on Lewis.
‘Harry!’ I yell.
‘You OK?’ he asks, coming through in a hurry.
‘What’s the quickest way of getting to Lewis?’ I ask urgently. ‘Is there a flight or something?’
‘I have no idea. I don’t even know if there’s an airport on Lewis. Why do you want to go there?’
‘Because that’s where Ellen’s gone. She was looking up the ferry crossings, so she’ll have driven up, or got the train part of the way. But there has to be a quicker way.’ I go onto Google and type in: flights to Lewis. ‘Yes – there’s an airport at Stornoway. I can fly to Glasgow and take another plane from there.’
I start looking up flights, aware of Harry hovering uncertainly behind me.
‘What time is it now?’ I ask. ‘There’s a flight that leaves for Glasgow from Birmingham at eleven forty – can I make it?’
‘Maybe,’ Harry says reluctantly. ‘It’s only eight thirty. But even if Ellen is there, are you sure it’s a good idea to go charging up to see her?’
‘Definitely! I need to speak to her, I want to know why, why she set up this whole charade to make me believe Layla was alive. I want to ask her how she could be so damn cruel!’
‘So why not wait a few days? There’s no rush, is there? Why don’t we see what Tony says?’
‘No.’ I shake my head vehemently. I turn my attention back to the screen. ‘If I don’t make the Glasgow flight there’s another at twelve forty, to Edinburgh.’
‘You might not get a ticket for today,’ Harry warns, as if he’s hoping I won’t.
‘Then I’ll charter a plane,’ I say fiercely. ‘I’m going, Harry, and nobody is going to stop me.’
‘Then I’ll come with you.’
‘No – hold on, there’s a ticket for the Glasgow flight, just let me get it.’ It takes a while to complete the transaction and when I’ve finished, I raise my head and find him watching me. ‘Thanks, Harry, but I’m going on my own.’
‘Then at least let me drive you to the airport.’
I hesitate, then realise I’m too wound up to drive. ‘Thanks. But we can’t tell Ruby and Tony where I’m going, OK?’
The look of resignation on his face tells me he was hoping they’d be able to dissuade me but he nods his agreement. We go through to the kitchen where Ruby and Tony are sitting, their hands clasped around mugs of hot coffee, as if bracing themselves for the coming storm.
‘Good idea,’ Ruby says encouragingly, when we tell her we’re going for a drive to clear our heads, and Harry and I both know she’ll kill him when she finds out the truth.
I don’t even take a change of clothes with me. I don’t intend staying on Lewis. I’m going for one reason, and one reason only.