The One Day You Were My Husband (99)

“It’s…it’s Johan, actually. He flew back to England with me. To help.”

“Oh! Well, you’re in very good hands. I’m glad he’s there with you.”

I smile faintly, thinking about how hard Mum tried to stop me going to Stockholm in case I bumped into him.

“And, look,” she says. “I’m sorry. I should have made the connection. I should have found out who Robin was; I should have done some background checks when you met him…you were just so happy. And Robin seemed so straightforward. So pleasant.” She pauses. “I mean, not my cup of tea, if I’m honest, but—”

“Mum,” I interrupt. “You couldn’t possibly have known about Robin. No matter what CIA-style activities you carry out when you’re trying to bring down the powerful and corrupt, you had no reason whatsoever to do that with Robin. And even if you had, you’d never have managed to connect him to Johan.”

“I very much could,” she retorts. “Anyway. I want to leave my bathroom and watch over your children.”

And with that, she rings off.

“OK?” Johan asks. The letters release warm steam into the air.

“Yes. Actually, no.” My eyes fill with tears. My babies. My poor babies. Our family unit is their world.

“I think I need to drive back to London. I need to be with my children, I can’t…”

“We’re both far too tired to do that drive again,” he says gently. “It would be dangerous.”

“Well then, I’ll pay for a taxi. I don’t care about the money. I have to be with them. It’s been more than a week since I saw them, I…I actually have to.”

He reaches for my hand. Even now, the feeling of his skin on mine burns through everything else. “OK. Let’s go in and find you a taxi. But, Carrie—I know you’re in shock. And that you’re trying to process more in one day than any one person should have to process in a lifetime. There’s one more thing I need to tell you, though.”

“Can it wait? I don’t…I just don’t think I have any space left.”

“You do, for this.” He lets go of my hand and turns to face me. I give in and look straight at him.

“Carrie, it was your mum who I have to thank for my royal pardon.”

I stare.

“There were many people involved—and I mean, many—but it was your mum and her circle in Thailand who kept working on it until the right people were listening. They put pressure on the right people. And those people put pressure on the justice department and other government ministers. And then the pressure ended up at Valentin Meyer’s door. Some kind of deal was made, at a very high level. But the end result was that they provided evidence that I was deliberately misled and I was stripped of all responsibility. I’ll never know what Meyer received in return, but it worked, and here I am. I don’t think your mum was ever planning to tell you that, but I think you need to know.”

I exhale slowly. After a while I look up at the stars again. A slow mesh of translucent cloud slides silently over the space above us, blocking all but the brightest stars.

“Are you serious?” I ask, but I know the answer already. I know my mother; I know that she has never given up on anything. I was foolish to assume she’d given up on Johan and me back in Thailand. She’d just needed time.

“I’m deadly serious,” Johan says, and I allow myself to look back at him again. His eyes. “I imagine it was guilt that drove her, just as it did when I got out of prison and asked if I could contact you. But, very quietly and determinedly, over many years, she’s been trying to put it right.”

“Mum,” I whisper.

Johan nods. Then he says, “But I see it. I see how many people have lied to you, kept things from you, made decisions about what you should and shouldn’t know. And it kills me that I’m one of them.”

“Dad never lied to me,” I say after a pause. “But yes. It’s a poor record. And the stuff of nightmares for someone with control issues.”

He smiles.

I look away. The smile is almost too much. “I’d actually really improved. That’s the sad thing. Living here—me, Robin, the kids—I’ve felt very stable, the past few years. It’s been wonderful.”

“But you weren’t yourself. You were being kept.”

I sigh. “I know.”

The owl hoots again, although I’ve never thought hoot to be the right word. Their calls are melodic, beautiful: soft flares from dark corners.

Johan’s looking at me. We stare at each other for so long, I lose track of time. Then he reaches out and touches me. A single stroke down the side of my neck, from my jawbone, like that very first time he touched my skin.

“I’m sorry,” he says softly. “For all of it.”

Now, like then, my entire body responds. For a moment I allow my head to fall sideways, my cheek in his hand. Things move deep within me. I close my eyes, as if to wish away everything but this.

After a few moments, I shift away. “Johan, I can’t.”

“I know.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to.”

“I know, Carrie. I get it. I’ll be gone in the morning.”

I sigh. “Does Freja know where you are?”