‘Sure.’
Gabe follows me back to the car. I wait until we’re in the garage, standing in front of the open boot, before I say, ‘A man approached me in the supermarket car park.’
The colour drains from Gabe’s face. ‘What?’
‘I was putting the bags in the car, and he came up and insisted on helping. He was enormous. Clearly some kind of thug. He had a tattoo on his neck.’
Gabe frowned. ‘What kind of tattoo?’
‘A snake. Why? What difference does that make?’
He shakes his head. ‘What did he say?’
I stare at him for a second. ‘When he’d put all the grocery bags in the boot, he gave me my handbag and told me he needed to return it because it’s important to return things to their rightful owner.’
Gabe closes his eyes.
‘Then’ – I clear my throat, which is suddenly dry – ‘he said something about strawberries being Asha’s favourite.’
‘Fuck,’ Gabe says.
‘I’m worried that he’ll send that man to our house. What if the girls are here? You need to call Max, Gabe. Tell him we don’t have the USB.’
He hesitates. ‘I’m not sure that’s the right move.’
‘The right move,’ I say, my voice rising, ‘is whatever protects our children from danger, Gabe!’
‘All right,’ he says. ‘I’ll take care of it.’
‘How?’ I ask.
The look on his face says he doesn’t really know.
66
AMANDA
BEFORE
‘We will never know the number of lives we have saved.’
Max was standing on the podium in his dinner suit, sombre-faced and commanding. All eyes were on him, and not just because he was giving the speech. All eyes had been on him since the moment he arrived. They always were.
We were at a black-tie dinner. We didn’t go to many of these anymore; Max generally delegated them to younger executives. The only ones we did attend were the fundraisers for mental health and suicide prevention – and even then, he’d just pop in, do his part and duck out again.
Tonight, Max had been complaining of a sore neck before we’d got here, and he’d taken a muscle relaxant. We joked that he would slur his way through his speech, but he sounded as impressive as ever.
‘We do know that because of your generous donations, we have been able to provide counselling for thousands of men and women. People who might not be here today if it wasn’t for your generosity.’
I was seated to the side of the stage, having joined Max for the early part of the evening – the handshaking and photographs. After his speech, though, his obligations were fulfilled, and we were free to leave.
‘What now?’ I asked him.
He draped his jacket over my shoulders. ‘Lovely night for a walk.’
Indeed it was. We strolled out into the mild night air, waving away the waiting car. Baz followed a short distance behind us. Since Arthur Spriggs’s murder, we’d upped our security again. Now we had a guard at the front gate as well as at the door. We even moved into our penthouse apartment in the city for a while – it had a private elevator and only one entry point, which made it easier for Baz to see who was coming and going – but when a few weeks passed without incident, we felt safe enough to move back home. Still, I knew the whole matter weighed on Max. He might have been ruthless when it came to business, but he had never meant for anyone to die. If Gabe hadn’t jumped in, I doubted he’d even have hurt Arthur very badly.
‘But what’s done is done,’ he’d said. And so it was. We all just needed to move on.
We walked to a boutique restaurant where we ate mussels and drank pinot grigio. Over dinner, Max told me he’d had a difficult day. Gabe Gerard had showed up at the office in a state, unaware or refusing to acknowledge that he’d been let go. Apparently, he’d had some sort of episode, yelling and screaming and throwing furniture around.
‘What did you do?’
‘I wasn’t there.’ Max sighed. ‘Someone called security. When I heard about it, I drove around and tried to find him, but he was long gone.’
‘You drove around looking for him?’ My tone gave away my surprise.
Max shrugged. ‘He’s clearly unwell.’
‘Clearly,’ I said. ‘But you don’t drive around looking for every person who has an emotional breakdown, do you?’
Max looked at me for a long moment, as if contemplating something. Then he reached out and took my hand. ‘I need to tell you something. But first, there’s something I want to show you.’
I had to admit, I was intrigued as he led me along the river. It was a beautiful clear night, and the stars were out. We walked in silence as Baz maintained a respectful distance. After several minutes we came to a bridge running over the river, and here Max stopped.
‘You see that bridge?’ he said. ‘That’s the bridge my brother jumped from when he was seventeen.’
I knew Max’s brother had taken his own life, of course. I’d heard Max tell the story countless times during fundraising events. But Max had always said that Harry overdosed on pills and their father found him.
‘I know,’ Max said. ‘It’s not the story I tell. But when I started the foundation, I knew I’d have to retell the story of Harry’s death over and over, and I didn’t think I could do that to myself. So I made one up. That way, it feels like I’m talking about another person. I don’t know if I’d get through it otherwise.’
I nodded, reluctant to speak in case I broke the spell. Max so rarely spoke about his brother, and he never did so unprompted. There was something so fragile about it. I was almost afraid to breathe.
‘Harry was a golden boy,’ Max continued. ‘You know the type? The kind of kid that actually glows. He was so good-looking. Whip-smart. Creative. And charming!’ This part, like the information about the bridge, was new and pure – not the broad strokes he normally painted Harry with: ‘a straight-A student’， ‘full of potential’。 I knew without asking this was the real story, the real Harry. ‘Everyone loved him. Teachers. Girls. No one had a bad word to say about Harry. I adored him too, of course.’ Max’s eyes were misty now. ‘I must have been around eleven or twelve when I started noticing that something was different about him. I don’t even know how to explain it. It was little things. He’d talk a bit too fast. Or he’d jump from one topic to the next without any discernible connection. It was like his brain worked faster than everyone else’s. He knew what was going on in his head but no one else did.’
Max was gazing out across the water. I squeezed his hand.
‘He felt everything more than other people, you know? Some days he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders and he didn’t understand how others weren’t carrying it too. One night I got home and found a letter on the kitchen counter. He said he couldn’t take it anymore. It was too much. He’d decided to jump off this bridge. There was more in the letter, but I didn’t read it until later. Mum and Dad weren’t home, and we didn’t have mobile phones back then. I jumped on my bike and pedalled here as fast as I could. I was at this very spot when I saw him jump.’ He pointed to the ground where we stood. ‘I screamed out to him as he fell.’