Epilogue
~
Chloe marches up the drive. Kevin opens the front door before we reach it and scoops her up into his arms.
‘Daddy,’ she coos, giving him one of her slobbery kisses.
‘I like your dress,’ he says. She insisted on wearing her Elsa from Frozen costume, complete with blue gloves and tiara. ‘And who’s this?’ He points at the teddy bear tucked under her arm.
‘It’s Sorbet,’ she announces.
‘Sorbet, huh? That’s a good name for a bear.’
‘I don’t know how she came up with that one,’ I say, although I suspect her granddad has been spoiling her with ice cream and sweets behind my back. He looks after her on Mondays and Thursdays, the two days I’ve been working at the university since I went back, part-time, a few months ago.
‘Have a nice time, Kaitlyn,’ Kevin says.
I grunt. I’m dreading this. I don’t know why I agreed to do it.
‘Yeah, try not to tread on too many people’s toes,’ says Hannah, who has appeared behind Kevin and is ruffling Chloe’s hair.
I’m a few minutes early when I pull into the car park of the new Mary Rand Sports and Fitness Centre just down the road from Kevin and Hannah’s terrace house, but Teddy is already there. I spot him standing on the steps, exhaling vapour from his electronic cigarette as he waits for me.
My heart skips a beat, but I remind myself that I’m not ready for romance. For the moment, I just need a friend. And Teddy and I have become very good friends over the past eighteen months or so. His daughter, Olivia, dotes on Chloe, who adores her, and the four of us spend a lot of time together.
Just before I get out of the car to join Teddy, my phone pings with an incoming text. I read it.
I smile at the three ‘fingers crossed’ emojis at the end of Nikki’s message as well as at the news. I’ll be relieved to be shot of that house and all the bad memories it holds. When the High Court officially declared Alex presumed dead, as Alex’s widow, I inherited the Old Vicarage. For that, I’m glad, although I have no intention of ever setting foot in that place again.
The official date on Alex’s death certificate is Monday 4th September 2017, the day he fell from Hurlstone Point. On Tuesday 4th September 2018, a year later to the day, Nikki and I had the ground under and around the damson tree dug up. Just to check. No bones were found, no human remains, nothing. This hasn’t shaken Nikki’s belief that Alex killed Melanie, Poppy and Violet, but I harbour the hope that they got away. Sometimes I wonder if they ever existed at all. I’ll probably never know for certain. Just one of the many secrets the Old Vicarage keeps within its walls.
Then Nikki put the house on the market and once it has been sold, I’ll pay off the rest of the mortgage. There are surprisingly few monthly payments left. And, although Nikki doesn’t know this yet, I’ll not only pay her estate agent’s fees, but I’ll also pay her back every single penny that Alex stole from her. With interest.
If my calculations are correct, I should have enough money for a deposit on a property in the Porlock area. At the moment, I’m still living at Dad’s, and he has been wonderful to Chloe and me. But I’m looking forward to being fully independent again soon.
I’m still smiling as I walk towards Teddy, despite the butterflies flapping around in my stomach. I’m not sure if all that fluttering is because I’m in Teddy’s company or if it’s nerves about this first lesson.
‘I was worried you’d change your mind,’ Teddy says, kissing me on the cheek.
‘I’m not sure about it, but this is a free trial lesson, right? If one of us decides we don’t like it, we don’t have to sign up.’
‘Exactly. We can just go out for a meal every Friday night instead.’
‘OK. I’ll give it a go. But I’ve warned you, I’ve got two left feet.’
That’s not quite how I phrased it last time and I grimace at my choice of words. Two left feet. That’s the exact phrase Alex used at our wedding to describe my lack of coordination on the dancefloor. I’m well aware that part of the reason I let Teddy persuade me to take ballroom dancing classes is to spite Alex. He’ll never know about this, so he won’t feel at all peeved, but I feel a wonderfully perverse sense of satisfaction.
Before we get started, I look around at the other dancers in the group. Most of them are wearing jeans, like Teddy and me, but one older woman has a sequined dress on and a younger woman is sporting a grey T-shirt with ‘I carried a watermelon’ on it over Lycra leggings.
As the instructor takes us through the basic steps for the waltz, I relax and realise I’m enjoying myself. We start to move on the dancefloor, clumsily at first and then more smoothly.
Suddenly, I freeze. I feel cold fingers running up my spine and then an icy hand on the back of my neck. I shiver. A pang of guilt stabs my conscience. And then the feeling dissipates.
He would have killed me, I remind myself, continuing my steps. I was never going to get away. Not if Alex lived. It was always going to be him or me. In the end, I’m the one who has survived. I’m the one who, quite literally, gets to dance on his grave.