The Woman Who Lied(46)
‘Wait!’ Kristin’s voice is desperate, and Emilia stops, her hand on the front-door knob.
She spins around. ‘What?’
‘I am sorry,’ says Kristin. ‘I know we’ve never talked about it. I tried to ring you so many times after it happened. To explain. But you never wanted to speak to me.’
‘Can you blame me?’
‘Of course not. My apology seems meaningless now, all these years later. But I am sorry for what happened. I wish we’d been honest with you from the beginning. Jonas was going to tell you about us, and then … and then you fell pregnant.’
The truth slaps her in the face. ‘You and him … it happened before … before …’ She can’t bring herself to say it.
Kristin hangs her head but not before Emilia notices a cruel glint in her eye, and she realizes that Kristin wants to feel powerful, to have something over her. Kristin knows Jonas has a wandering eye and she wants to make clear to Emilia that she wins. That she’ll always win. That Jonas chose her. ‘He was going to leave you. Back in 2006. He was going to leave you and then you fell pregnant.’
Her stomach curdles as she remembers their rushed wedding at the local register office with just Ottilie, and Jonas’s best mate, Dan, as witnesses, and Jonas’s parents as guests. Her dress that strained across her belly, at that stage of pregnancy when she didn’t look like she was carrying a baby but had simply put on too much weight. She didn’t even tell her parents about her pregnancy until afterwards.
‘You could have had anyone,’ says Emilia, sadly. ‘Why him?’
Kristin twirls her platinum wedding ring. ‘I can’t explain it. I just loved him. I still do. You can’t choose who you fall in love with. Anyway, you’re happy now, with Elliot. Aren’t you?’
‘Of course I am.’ Kristin still doesn’t get it. ‘It’s not about Jonas. I’m not harbouring any feelings for him. But you. What you did. You ruined our friendship.’
So many unspoken words float in the silence between them. Things that Emilia will never be able to say, like how much she misses their friendship, their girls’ nights out, sitting up to 3 a.m. with Kristin and Ottilie, chatting about everything, laughing until their sides ached. She swallows the lump in her throat. ‘I need to go,’ she says, her voice thick.
‘I promise you, I’m not behind this “campaign of terror” or whatever is happening. I’ve no reason to do that.’
Emilia stares into Kristin’s face, trying to see whether she’s telling the truth. The competitive side to Kristin will always show through. If she really thinks Emilia is having an affair with Jonas, who knows what she’s capable of? There is a steel core running through her former friend. There always has been. It’s just that Emilia had never wanted to acknowledge it before.
Without another word, she leaves, closing the front door firmly behind her.
It’s not until she’s driven out of the road and around the corner that she pulls over underneath a big oak tree and calls DC Haddock, her hands shaking.
‘I don’t know if it means anything,’ she says, as soon as he answers the phone, ‘but my ex-husband’s wife, Kristin Perry, has a troll doll in her possession that matches the one found on my tree. I thought you should know.’
31
On Thursday morning, as Emilia is standing at the kitchen sink spooning muesli into her mouth, her phone buzzes with a message from Gina Osbourne.
The story is in today’s paper.
Emilia puts down the bowl and scans the newspaper’s website. Sure enough, there it is. It feels weird to read it in black and white, as though it’s happening to someone else. She’s still reading it when Elliot storms into the kitchen, his face like thunder.
‘What’s wrong?’ She wonders if he’s seen the Mirror piece too and is annoyed about it. Although she did tell him she’d spoken to Gina.
‘My fucking bike’s been stolen.’
She stares at him in surprise. ‘What?’ Her breakfast curdles in her stomach. ‘From the porch?’
‘Yes. Did you lock the front door last night?’
‘Of course. I always lock it now.’
‘Are you sure? There’s no sign of a break-in.’
‘Have you checked the app?’
‘Of course I have.’ He shoves his phone under her nose. ‘It looks like it was taken in the early hours of this morning. It’s still dark.’
She watches in horror as the grainy footage shows someone dressed head to toe in dark clothes walking down their driveway, between their two parked cars, brazenly opening the front door, stealing the bike and riding it away. ‘But …’ She can’t believe what she’s seeing. How easy it is. ‘What about the alarm? Why didn’t it go off? And the door … I definitely locked it.’
He runs a hand over his unshaven chin. ‘I don’t know. I don’t understand it. It’s like the alarm’s been disabled or something. I’ll have to ask my dad. But, Em,’ he glances at her with suspicion in his eyes, ‘it doesn’t look like the porch was locked.’
She locked it. She knows she did. She would never forget, not after everything that’s happened. She tries to keep her panic in check as she asks Elliot to replay the footage again, peering more closely at the screen this time to try to get a better look. ‘Here,’ she says, pausing the recording, adrenaline pumping, ‘the beanie … that badge on the front. I recognize it.’