THE ORCHARD, WEYFIELD HALL, 10:02 P.M.
• • •
Emma walked back from the bungalow, a torch lighting her through the mulchy orchard. Phoebe had refused to sleep in the main house. Emma knew it was because Jesse was there, though Phoebe hadn’t said so. Why else would she want to sleep alone in the poky bungalow? As it was, Jesse had hidden in the Rose Room all afternoon, only joining them for supper, when he’d barely eaten. He’d apologized for speaking out of turn—and Emma didn’t doubt he was sorry. But still. Her spring of forgiveness was starting to run dry. It was agonizing to see her youngest so miserable. She wished Phoebe could still be comforted with hot chocolate and Harry Potter.
Passing the remains of the bonfire, something made Emma pause. She remembered what a jolly time they’d all had there yesterday. That had been the last time they’d stood together as a family of four—the last time they ever would, in a sense. Just us, she thought. Blissfully ignorant. Or, rather, she and the girls had been blissfully ignorant. Who knew what Andrew had been thinking, with Jesse’s e-mails on his conscience. Nicola’s question from the other day came floating back. “Had Andrew been behaving unusually?” Because now that Emma thought about it, standing in this spot again, she had noticed Andrew seeming not quite himself by the bonfire. All that stuff about writing a book—a novel she couldn’t remember him ever mentioning before. And he’d kept patting his pockets, the way he did when he was looking for something, so that she’d almost asked him what he’d lost. But she’d been distracted by Phoebe limping up with her sore foot, and then by the fun of the fire, and then it had begun to rain, and then—well, then Jesse had appeared and she’d forgotten everything else. Thinking back, though, Andrew had seemed nervy yesterday. It reminded her of the way he’d come rushing into the attic on Boxing Day, and grabbed his briefcase from her. She hadn’t thought anything of it at the time. She’d had no reason to, then. But he’d looked rattled, which wasn’t like him. And what had he been doing in the little garret afterward? He’d stayed in there for ages. She stood staring at the heap of ash and charred wood, mulling it over. And after a while, the urge to go and look in the briefcase—right now—became impossible to ignore.
• • •
The attics were as cold as the garden. In the near darkness, she almost tripped over the zigzag of boxes still on the floor of the main room. Andrew had taken the briefcase into the righthand garret, hadn’t he? She walked into the tiny tent-shaped room, shutting the door behind her, and switched on the top light—its shade flecked with dead moths. Scanning the floor, she saw the briefcase immediately. It was under the bed, just in view between her old school trunk and some gummed-up tins of Farrow & Ball. She swallowed, throat dry. What was it doing there? Why try to shove it out of sight? She’d known she was right. Feminine intuition. For all they might have drifted, she could still tell when Andrew was hiding something. The thought gave her a kind of grim satisfaction.
She took the briefcase from the floor and sat on the bare mattress, the case on her lap. The feel of its smooth sides and sharp corners took her back to another era—when she seemed to be permanently standing in the hall in a dressing gown, handing Andrew his work things and restraining an infant Olivia. Was that when things had started to go wrong? Something like sadness heaved inside her. She realized she was still rather tipsy from all the wine at dinner. Her fingers fiddled with the brass catches, as she pondered what she might find inside. Adoption papers for scores of other bastard children? Fistfuls of photographs of Jesse’s beautiful, exotic mother? Or perhaps something more prosaically sordid—a spare mobile phone, the better to lead a double life. She bent closer, to see the little combination locks. One nine five zero—even her soupy brain knew it would be his birthdate. The catches clunked open. She parted the case, breath suspended. And then—nothing. It was empty. She picked it up by one handle so that it flopped fully open, then took both handles and turned it upside down with a shake. Then she laid it flat out on the bed and rummaged through every pocket. Still nothing. All she found was a crumpled receipt from Boots, Gatwick, dated 1987. She sat back on the bed, feeling a total fool. It was like that scene in Northanger Abbey, she thought, when Catherine Morland opens an old, Gothic chest and finds nothing but bed linen. Who had she become, first checking Jesse’s passport, now snooping through her husband’s briefcase? She didn’t want to be this woman. Damn Andrew. This was what his hiding Jesse’s e-mails had turned her into—a jealous wife. She felt almost tearful as she relocked the case, and put it back exactly where she’d found it. Walking through the main attic, she stopped to ram all the boxes on the floor against the wall, out of the way. Why didn’t the girls ever tidy up after themselves? It was only when she was halfway down the back stairs that she remembered the briefcase had a secret pocket in the lining.