Gabe, I noticed, was watching me warily now. ‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea, Amanda.’
‘Why not? Why shouldn’t I?’
‘Amanda.’ Gabe took a step towards me. ‘Take a breath. Take a minute to think about this.’
‘Max didn’t think twice before he betrayed me!’
I was talking a big game. It felt amazing. Suddenly I felt powerful – like I had control in a situation where I’d previously had none. But I knew, even then, that I would never turn over the USB to anyone. No matter what Max had done, I couldn’t do that to him. Loving and protecting him had become part of my DNA.
Gabe’s stance had changed now. Rather than the calm neutral man who’d appeared on the cliff, he appeared almost . . . predatory. It prompted a realisation. The type that comes out of nowhere and hits you forcefully. Of course. Max wasn’t the only one who could be hurt by what was on this USB. There was information on here that would incriminate Gabe. By the look on Gabe’s face, he’d realised this too.
He lunged for the USB.
For a moment, we both had it. I pulled it towards me, and Gabe pulled it back. I gripped it tightly and leaned back, all my weight in my heels. I really thought I had it. Then Gabe ripped it free, and suddenly I was falling.
Gabe tried to help. He lunged forward, his arms outstretched. He almost caught me. Then he stopped. He held his palms up flat; he stood upright. Perhaps he thought it was too late? Or perhaps he’d realised that if I went over the cliff, everything became simpler? I guessed I’d never know.
And so I plunged to my death. It’s probably a cliché, the fact that I was thinking about Max as I fell. Even though he’d betrayed me, I felt proud that, as I fell, I was taking Max’s biggest secret with me to the grave.
It served Gabe right that now he’d never know it.
84
AMANDA
AFTER
When Max told me about Gabe, it was late, and we were having one of our cheese platters. I don’t know why he chose that particular time to tell me. Perhaps it was because Gabe and Pippa had recently moved away and it felt safe to say it out loud. Maybe it was because, by that point, we’d never trusted each other more. At least that’s how it felt to me.
‘A few months after Harry died,’ Max said, ‘a young woman named Marina came to see my dad and stepmum. She was a girlfriend of Harry’s, apparently, although not one they’d met before. That wasn’t so strange; Harry had a lot of girlfriends. Anyway, she told them she was pregnant.’
Max was sitting in his armchair, holding a glass of red wine, but his gaze was far away. I sat forward and put my own wineglass on the table.
‘My parents were very wealthy, as you know, and Marina was . . . not. This is all second-hand information, of course; my parents only told me about it years later. They said she had no proof that the baby was Harry’s, and with Harry dead, she had no way of getting a DNA test to prove that it was his. It was determined – by my father, I guess – that she was angling for money. They sent her away.
‘It took me a year to track her down after they told me. That was before the days of social media. By then, Gabe was a teenager. I met Marina at a cafe and proposed we do a DNA test now. We could use my DNA to determine whether Gabe and I were related. I don’t know why I bothered, though; from the moment I saw his photo, I knew that Gabe was Harry’s son. The fact that he was already showing signs of mental illness made it even more obvious.’ Max stared into his wine, lost in the memory. ‘I wanted to meet him, of course, but since my parents had refused to acknowledge his existence, he wasn’t interested. According to his mother, he didn’t even want to know our names.
‘I offered financial support, and Marina accepted it. When she died a few years later, I quietly paid off the mortgage on her house so Gabe could keep living there. But it wasn’t enough. I should have done more.’
‘Did you reach out to him?’ I asked. ‘Suggest a meeting?’
‘My lawyers attempted to connect with him on my behalf, but he wouldn’t speak to them. So, I kept an eye on him from afar. When I discovered he’d become a landscape gardener, it was easy. I hired him to do the garden, and then I sat out there and struck up a conversation with him.’ Max smiled. ‘He was a shining light, Amanda. So much like Harry. I couldn’t stop staring at him. It was like watching Harry if he’d lived. I offered him at job with NewZ on the spot. I couldn’t resist.
‘Gabe had all of Harry’s magic. He had his darkness, too, but I told myself it wasn’t as bad in Gabe. I thought if I offered him a career, gave him a sense of purpose, it would help. I even spoke to his wife, Pippa, at the Christmas party and told her to call me if she ever needed anything.
‘Gabe had a picture of his daughters, Asha and Freya, on his desk. They are the most darling little girls; I can’t even describe it. I took a photo of the photo.’ He shook his head. ‘Freya is a dead ringer for my mother. And Asha, she has that cheekiness, you can just see it, even in the photo. I saved the picture onto my computer, and sometimes I would log on just to look at it. The sight of their little faces . . . often it brought me to tears.’
I thought of the time I’d seen Max looking at his computer, all misty-eyed. It all made sense now. He was looking at Harry’s granddaughters. His great-nieces.
‘Why didn’t you tell Gabe the truth about who you were?’ I asked.
‘I planned to, once we’d developed a relationship. I almost did, once. We were in my office, and he started talking about his wife and daughters. Conversation moved naturally to extended family, and I managed to ask about his father.’ Max sighed. ‘I’ll never forget the look on his face when he told me how his father’s wealthy parents had turned his pregnant teenage mother away. I thought it was the most disgusted a person could look. But then he told me about his uncle, who apparently became aware of his existence when he was a teenager. He talked about how his mum had made him do a cheek swab, which had confirmed that we were, in fact, related. He said, “Can you believe that? He’d only just discovered I existed, and instead of asking to see my face, he asked to see my DNA.”’ Max sighed. ‘That was the moment I knew that if I wanted to have my nephew in my life, I would have to keep our connection a secret.
‘When Gabe moved away, it was hard. I still worry about him every day. The same way I would have worried about Harry, I guess.’
He looked up, meeting my gaze for the first time since he’d started talking. ‘This is why I decided never to have children, Amanda. The mental illness that runs through our genes has taken so much from me. First Mum, then Harry. As soon as I’d confirmed Gabe’s existence, I promised myself I would look out for him. But I wouldn’t have children of my own. I couldn’t risk losing someone else I loved to this. It would have broken me.’
For a moment we just sat in silence, as I pondered everything he’d shared. Then Max said, ‘I’ve never told anyone about this, Amanda.’
‘Your secret is safe with me,’ I replied.
And, as it turned out, it was.
85
PIPPA
NOW
‘She said you were her soulmate,’ Gabe says.