It was the faces that Cat remembered most clearly. His, grinning: the cat that got the cream. The woman, wide-eyed. Shocked. Pained.
Scared.
Another photograph appeared straight after. The woman sitting in the corner of the lift, hands over her face. Knees pulled up to her chest. The man in close-up, his tongue poking out of his mouth in a suggestive manner.
Cat been stunned. But she’d acted quickly, screenshotting both of the images – before a few seconds later, they had both disappeared from their shared Cloud.
Rookie mistake, Paul, she thought, as she recalled it. Make sure you know where your phone is sending things.
‘Well done. That’s the hard bit over.’
She’d made it to the bottom.
She flinched as his hands touched her shoulders, steering her on to the flatter part of the path. The fresh memories had brought her revulsion back to the surface.
‘Look, Cat . . .’ He turned her to face him. ‘I know you want me to talk about all that stuff that happened at work, and I promise you, I will. But can we just get down, first? I think we’ve survived the tricky part, but it looks like there’s still a bit to go to make it to the bottom.’
She peered down at the winding, rocky path. She didn’t want to listen to his version of the truth, anyway. He’d had plenty of opportunity for that, and he’d lied. So then she had lied back, saying that the truth would set them free. Well, it wasn’t going to. She was stuck with him now, and they were going to have to stick to the same story to avoid both of them being arrested for murder – but that was where their relationship now lay. The thought of staying married to him made her feel sick.
The new plan that she had been formulating as she made the descent was starting to take shape in her head.
‘Sure,’ she said. ‘We can talk about it all later.’ She set off ahead of him, taking careful steps. There were lots of loose rocks on the path, which itself was slippery and uneven. The gradient was still fairly steep, too. She wished she could walk faster, but it was going to be an arduous journey back to base.
‘I mean, like I said before . . . it’s all in the past now, right? I left the job to make things easier. I didn’t want her feeling . . . I don’t know . . . embarrassed about it all. About her mistake.’
Cat kept walking. Heat was starting to build in her veins. He couldn’t even say the woman’s name. He wanted to keep her at a distance. The woman. That mysterious woman who had a few too many, and took the elevator with a colleague she thought she trusted. The nameless woman who would never stop blaming herself for the actions of one creep. One creep amongst many creeps. It was just the fucking way of the world. Not all men, no. But we don’t know what the bad ones look like.
‘Her name is Samantha!’ Cat wanted to scream it, but her voice remained low and steady as she fought to keep her anger in check. ‘That woman whose life you ruined, and who no one fucking believed, is called Samantha.’
Paul said nothing.
Cat’s head pounded with fury. Her vision blurred.
She stumbled.
Felt her ankle go. She reached out blindly, but there was nothing to grab on to. Dank air whooshed past as her centre of gravity shifted, and she fell.
And this time she had no little sister to reach out and pull her back to safety.
Forty-Four
SUNDAY MORNING
Cat had a vague sensation of falling and hitting her head, but when she opened her eyes, she was no longer on the mountain. No longer with Paul. She blinked a few times, trying to force herself awake. She knew she was dreaming, but she couldn’t lift herself out of it. She was vaguely aware of the sounds of the forest, and then she let herself succumb. Her eyes closed.
In her dream, Cat opened her eyes and found she was in a very different place. Morning sunshine hit her face and she lifted a hand to shield herself from it, rolled herself over. Her head was banging. Her mouth dry. She was desperate for a sip of water. A glass appeared in front of her as she tried to shuffle herself into a sitting position.
‘Morning, sleepyhead.’
Her dreamy vision swam, and it took her a moment to work out where she was. The voice that spoke to her was slightly unfamiliar. Unexpected. And somewhere far away, she thought she could hear another voice, too; a familiar one, calling her name. But then it was gone, and she was firmly back inside her head.
Dream Cat sat up and took the water, gulping it down, spilling a cold trickle down her naked chest.
‘Possibly the third bottle of fizz was overkill.’
She watched as Tristan climbed out of the bed, heading towards the bathroom. His arse was smooth and toned. His whole body was like that, in fact. So different to Paul’s. She finished the water and put the glass on the side table. The third bottle had definitely been too much.