‘I’m so sorry we just – we just left you. To cope all alone.’
Nick shook his head. ‘You know what? Doesn’t matter. None of it matters now. All that matters is that –’ He gave another shaky little laugh. ‘I still can’t get my head round it! All that matters is that you’re alive. I hope . . .’ He looked, then, for the first time, at Maggie, his gaze dropping to her hands, which were clenched in fists, his eyebrows quirking. ‘I was going to say I hope we can move forward now, but looks like Maggie may have other ideas.’
Maggie was struck dumb.
What could she possibly say?
‘It must have been hell for you,’ Duncan got out. ‘We’ve put you through hell.’
‘Actually, it’s worked out fine for me. Uncle Michael here and Auntie Yvonne made sure I was provided for. And I’ve made a good life for myself. A great life, in fact. I’m a City trader, what you might call a high-flier. Penthouse apartment at Chelsea Harbour, villas in Italy and Greece.’ He turned to his wife and gave her a wee smile. ‘And this beautiful girl has made me the luckiest man alive.’ His face suddenly crumpled, and he stepped blindly across the room and into her arms.
The lassie held him, her chest heaving with sobs.
With a soppy look, Nick put up a hand to her face. ‘I’m sorry I accused you of lying. I’m sorry I lost it. But when you told me they were alive . . .’ She had told him? But how had she known? Maybe not such an airhead after all. ‘It was such a shock, I just . . . I thought you were lying to me, I thought you’d turned against me like everyone always does . . .’ He looked round at Duncan. ‘I know it was Maggie. She poisoned you against me.’ He stepped away from the lassie, turning his back to her, to Duncan, to give Maggie a cold, cold stare, the hatred suddenly naked in his face.
‘No,’ went Michael. ‘You did that all by yourself.’
Nick took a visible breath. ‘Okay. Look, emotions are running high, unsurprisingly. Can we meet up tomorrow, maybe, on neutral ground, and talk properly when everyone’s had a chance to calm down and get their heads round this?’
‘Yes.’ The word left Duncan’s mouth in a sort of sigh. ‘Okay. Let’s do that.’
‘Michael’s got my number,’ said Nick. ‘Think about it and let us know.’
And then he was leaving.
And he and the lassie had gone.
Had that really happened?
Nick had just been here?
Maggie’s head was spinning.
‘God,’ groaned Duncan. ‘Oh God.’
Maggie turned on him. ‘Are you out your mind? You’re buying that sob story?’
Duncan just lifted his shoulders.
For a long time, the three of them sat or, in Maggie’s case, stood frozen. Then Michael got up from his chair and went to stand over Duncan. ‘He’s playing you. Maggie’s right. You can’t let him mess with your head all over again.’
‘Aye, he’s playing us,’ said Maggie slowly. ‘But let’s us just go along with it, make him think we’re buying it. This could work in our favour. We arrange to meet him and Lulu tomorrow in a café some place, and Michael, you pretend to get a call from the police and say your piece about a lead. Then if Nick makes an excuse to leave without Lulu, we follow him. We can hire another car so he won’t recognise it.’
Michael nodded. ‘Good thinking.’
Duncan made a wordless sound of protest. ‘That boy hasn’t done anything to Yvonne! He’s not the person we thought he was. Isn’t that obvious? He’s a successful City trader, he’s married to that nice girl . . . Oh, God.’ He put his head in his hands. ‘We’ve wronged him – I’ve wronged him so badly!’
31
Lulu - June 2019
‘It’s been quite a day,’ said Nick, shovelling pasta into his mouth. ‘Come on, Lu, eat up. You’ll feel better with some food inside you.’
But Lulu couldn’t eat a mouthful. She pushed the plate away.
‘I can’t believe that Dad . . .’ Nick chewed, looking off. ‘Dad’s alive! It’s like all this time I’ve been struggling along with a huge weight pressing down on me, the thought of what must have happened to him and Isla . . . and all the time he was alive!’
‘It’s only natural if you feel anger towards him.’
Nick shook his head. ‘But that’s the thing – I don’t. I really don’t. It was Maggie, you see? All along, it’s been that bitch Maggie, getting inside his head, dripping poison. It’s not Dad’s fault.’ He sighed. ‘But that’s in the past. The important thing is that he’s okay, and now we have years and years to make up for lost time.’