When Leanne was roused abruptly from sleep, she realised she may have spoken too soon about not getting calls at an indecent hour. Grabbing her phone before it danced off the shelf, she retreated beneath the warm covers and blinked until her eyes adjusted to the glow of the screen. It was half past two, but she was ready for this. When she had left the Bridgewater Inn the previous afternoon, she had spent the rest of the day formulating a plan, and she suspected her mystery caller had a part to play.
‘Please don’t hang up,’ she said as soon as she accepted the call. ‘If you are who I think you are, then I have some news. The last time we spoke, I threw a lot of what-ifs at you, mainly because I was trying to make sense of it myself, but now I think I have. She did have one of those key rings on her, didn’t she?’
When no answer came, Leanne held her breath. She couldn’t be sure it was Beth on the other end of the line and if by some chance it was Claudia, she didn’t want her to know how far her lies had unravelled. That conversation would come soon enough.
‘Are you still there?’
The line was cut.
Leanne pushed her head into her pillow with a groan, but she didn’t let go of her phone and she didn’t fall back to sleep. Ten minutes later, the screen lit up again. She connected the call, but this time she waited for the caller to speak.
‘You have to stop this.’
The stranger’s voice gave Leanne a jolt. It wasn’t Beth, nor was it Claudia, but the accent was familiar. ‘Is that you, Karin?’
‘You’ve made everything worse,’ she replied. Her words were slurred and wet with tears. ‘Why couldn’t you leave us alone?’
‘Are you OK? What’s happened?’
‘I don’t have to tell you anything!’
There was the clink of a glass being lifted or put down, but no other background noise. Karin was presumably at home, but she wasn’t being quiet or secretive. She was alone. ‘Where’s Beth?’
‘Gone,’ Karin said. ‘She’s better off without me, everyone is. You know, I wish I’d been left to burn in the fire along with Declan. I wish I’d never woken up.’
Leanne had a horrible vision of a bottle of pills next to Karin’s glass. She had no desire to take on the responsibility of someone else’s life, but she couldn’t ignore the desperation in Karin’s voice. ‘Do you need me to come over? I realise you don’t know me, but it might help to talk to someone.’
‘A reporter?’
‘I didn’t mean like that,’ Leanne said. She was surprised that tears had sprung to her eyes. ‘You’re not the only one who wished they’d died in the fire. I lost someone too, my best friend, Lois. She was everything I wanted to be. She was the nicest person I ever knew. She could walk into a room full of strangers and leave having made friends for life. I felt so special because she called me her best friend, and when she died, I was a nobody again.’
The outpouring came from nowhere and took Leanne by surprise. She was huddled beneath the covers in an otherwise empty boat, in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere, and she understood exactly how alone Karin felt. There had been times when she had thought she wouldn’t make it, but she had, and she wanted to believe it had been for a purpose. Karin might be part of that purpose, and Leanne wasn’t going to lose her now.
‘I want to make things better, for me and for you,’ she said, sharpening her words to pierce the silence on the other end of the phone. She strained her ears and picked up the faintest of breaths. ‘Please, Karin. Talk to me.’
‘I’m sorry your friend died.’
‘I didn’t tell you so you’d feel sorry for me. I just wanted you to know that you’re not the only one who wonders if it should have been them who died. If you need me to come over and sit with you, I promise, I’ll leave my notepad at home.’
‘It’s OK. I’m drunk, but I’m not about to do anything stupid. I just want all the noise in my head to stop.’
‘Is that why you’ve been phoning me? Do you think I can help?’
‘You’re the only one who’s still looking for answers.’
‘I am, and I’m getting closer to the truth,’ Leanne promised. Karin’s call had reminded her that this wasn’t simply a story to be written and shared. The characters were real, and what had happened to them would affect the rest of their lives. She wasn’t going to give up on them, not ever. ‘I’m here to listen whenever you’re ready.’
‘I don’t think I’ll ever be ready. My mind’s broken, and what memories I have can’t be trusted.’
‘I wouldn’t be too sure about that. We can work with whatever fragments you have left of that night.’ Wanting to give Karin hope, she added, ‘A while ago Beth said you had dreams about seeing Declan.’
‘Sure, I still get them, but they’re mixed up with other things.’
‘I’ve spoken to a woman who heard him calling out to you,’ Leanne said. ‘Her name is Carole and she was with you and Beth as you fought to get out. She saw him up in the circle and my guess is you saw him too.’
‘I didn’t just see him, I saw him fall,’ Karin said in a hushed whisper as if she were sharing her worst secret. ‘I mean, I picture him falling. The doctors say my memory won’t come back.’
‘Maybe those doctors don’t know everything. What else do you remember?’
For a while, the only thing Leanne could hear was the sound of water lapping against the side of the boat.
‘Can I really trust you?’
‘Look, I know Beth told you not to talk to the press, but—’
‘It wasn’t Beth.’
It was Leanne’s turn to leave a pause. ‘Claudia?’
‘She came over the day after we saw you. That’s what started the argument with Beth,’ Karin said. ‘She doesn’t think Claudia … Actually, I don’t know what she thinks.’
‘Beth doesn’t trust her,’ Leanne surmised. She would have punched the air, but she was too nesh to raise an arm outside the duvet.
‘You told her Declan was having an affair with Claudia, but Claudia said it was Phillipa. Now she says forget all about it, let Dec keep his secrets, but I can’t. I need to know what happened that night.’
‘The difference between me and Claudia is that she will tell lies and make you believe them. I can only give you my best guess. I can’t prove that Claudia was having an affair with your brother, but she knew things about him that no one else did, like the fact that he’d slept with his sister-in-law.’
‘What— What did you say?’ Karin stammered. ‘How did you … No one was supposed to know about that.’
‘Is it true?’
Karin groaned as if her thoughts hurt. ‘He was so ashamed. He made me promise not to breathe a word of it to anyone. And I didn’t, not even to Beth.’
‘And his ex-wife still doesn’t know, so I doubt her sister’s been talking. Declan only told the people he thought he could trust.’
‘And he trusted Claudia? But she said she didn’t know him. How could she lie to my face like that? And not only that. You think she gave us our tickets?’
‘Yes, and that’s not a guess. It’s a fact.’
‘Claudia knows you’re on to her, doesn’t she? That’s why she took my pendant.’
Leanne bit down hard on her lip to stop herself swearing. ‘Claudia took your necklace? The one with the initial?’
‘She gave me some massage oil to try, so I took it off. I did think it was weird but, you know, I thought she was a friend. It was just a trick, wasn’t it? I watched her put the chain down, but when I looked later, the pendant was missing. I searched everywhere. I was on my hands and knees on the kitchen floor looking under the cupboards. I even emptied the bin,’ Karin babbled. ‘Beth wouldn’t help. She says Claudia stole it, but she doesn’t know why. Do you? Is it because Declan gave it to me? Why would Claudia be that cruel? It means nothing to anyone else.’
And it shouldn’t mean anything to Claudia, thought Leanne. Unless she knew it was Karin who saved Amelia.
‘I thought she was a good person,’ Karin continued. Her words remained slurred, but there was an edge to her voice. Confusion had been replaced by anger.
‘So did I once,’ Leanne said.
There was a gulp as Karin downed more of her drink. ‘It’s wrong, it’s all so wrong.’
Leanne wasn’t sure how much more information Karin was capable of absorbing, but she couldn’t be allowed to talk herself out of her fury. Leanne had to keep up the momentum. ‘Did Beth mention what else we discussed?’
‘Is this about the torch thingy? You know I had one,’ she said. ‘But why does it matter?’
‘Why do you think it matters?’
‘I don’t know,’ Karin said too quickly. ‘I lost mine. Guess I used it in the theatre. I didn’t have my phone with me, but I remember light being flashed in my eyes. It could have been a paramedic, I suppose, or someone at the hospital.’ Her voice was growing louder. ‘I don’t know. I can’t remember!’ She released a howl of frustration.
‘It’s OK, Karin, I will help you get there,’ Leanne promised. ‘If you’ll let me, I’d like to introduce you to someone who remembers you. She’s recognised the pendant Declan gave you.’
‘Who?’ Karin said. ‘Is it the little girl?’
‘You remember her?’
Karin refused to answer.
‘She’s real, Karin. That memory you’re pushing away is real.’
Again, Leanne was met with silence. Karin needed time to sober up. ‘Can we talk again tomorrow?’
‘I need to speak to Beth first.’
‘Would it help if I spoke to her? Could you give me her number? I bet she’s as confused as you, but together we can work out what is the most likely truth. It’s the best I can offer.’
‘You want Beth’s number?’ Karin repeated numbly.
‘Please.’
When Karin reeled off the eleven digits, Leanne had no choice but to jump out of bed to grab her notepad. She was dithering as she scrawled down Beth’s number with only the light from her phone to illuminate the page. She squinted as she repeated it back to Karin. There was no answer. The line was dead.
The painful frost stole Leanne’s breath and sharpened her wits. When Karin sobered up, she would phone one of two people, and if Beth wasn’t speaking to her, the next person she would try was Claudia. Leanne would have to act fast, she wanted that pleasure for herself.