Then Mum and Dad and Dennis and John were hugging her too, and Mum was fussing, guiding her along the corridor and out into the freezing January air, and chiding her for not being able immediately to find her gloves, as if Lulu were still a child. And Dad took her arm as they made their way down the historic High Street of Edinburgh’s Old Town to the café where they’d booked a table for lunch.
Maggie and Michael were coming along behind, deep in conversation, and Isla was running back and forth between the two groups like an eager puppy. The thought reminded Lulu of Milo. She hoped he was okay.
‘Does it seem like I’m enjoying this too much?’ Isla said, as if reading Lulu’s mind, as the two of them stood studying their reflections in the mirrors of the café’s loo. Isla looked nothing like Nick, thank God, apart from her height. She was tall, with Maggie’s strong nose, but where Maggie was, as she said herself, no oil painting, Isla’s features were in proportion, with those huge green eyes and wide cheekbones. She had the striking looks of a model, completely at odds with her bouncy, rather gauche personality. She seemed much younger than twenty-three.
‘Oh, I’m going to enjoy it too, now that’s out of the way,’ said Lulu, using a damp tissue to wipe the make-up from her sweaty face. ‘It’s been a long time coming.’
Isla sighed. ‘But, I mean – this is my brother’s trial for murdering my dad and my auntie!’
‘Half-brother,’ said Lulu.
‘I thought it would be really traumatic, you know? Hearing it all over again, what he did to Dad. But I’ve been playing it over and over in my head for so long, it’s like – hey, nothing new. You know? Every single hour of every single day, I’m there, in that cottage – even though I wasn’t there – seeing Dad . . .’ Her mouth wobbled.
Lulu nodded.
Isla took a breath. ‘It’s like, finally, everyone else is hearing about it, the jury are hearing what he did. The whole world knows now. It’s like, I don’t know . . . Oh God, I’m not going to say closure!’
‘But it is. Of course it is. He’s being brought to justice. You have to . . .’ Lulu stopped and looked at this girl who was rapidly becoming one of her best friends. ‘You have to try to consign those images, those thoughts of what happened to your dad, to the past. I – I wouldn’t be able to offer you therapy myself – we can’t treat family – but I can point you in the direction of a couple of really good people.’
And thoughts of Paul suddenly came into her head.
She’d been having nightmares about Paul, about what must have happened when Nick arrived at his door, having found out his address, presumably, by snooping through the files on Lulu’s laptop. She should have known that it was all wrong, the idea that Paul would have killed himself in front of Milo. He’d have found another home for the little dog he adored, surely, before doing it, or at the very least have left him with a friend.
The police in London were putting together a case against Nick. He’d been caught on CCTV a couple of streets from Paul’s house on the morning of his death. It was hoped that there would be enough evidence for another trial. And they were looking again, too, at the sudden deaths of two of his girlfriends. The police in the Borders were also re-examining Dean Reid’s murder in the light of what Andy Jardine had told them about being forced by Nick to provide him with a false alibi.
‘Aw, thanks, Lulu!’ Isla reached out to touch Lulu’s arm. ‘You’re the best!’ But she was looking at Lulu in the way Lulu was beginning to know well.
‘Out with it.’
‘It’s just . . . you know, Mum? I think Mum . . . she had bad experiences with counselling and stuff when she was young, and it’s kind of put her off. But if you were the one suggesting it and recommending someone . . . I think she needs to talk to someone about Dad. About Nick. About everything. Probably Michael does too. In a way, it’s worse for him, isn’t it, not even having Auntie Yvonne’s body?’
‘When Nick’s been convicted and sent away, it’ll be better for both of them. But yes, I’m sure they would benefit from therapy. The right kind of therapy.’
They returned to the court house to hear the start of the case for the defence. As the doors were opened, the others filed in, but Maggie drew Lulu to one side, beyond a seating area and a big potted fern.
Maggie was neat and smart in a navy skirt and jacket and a white silk blouse. As the last witness for the prosecution, Lulu hadn’t been in court to hear Maggie’s testimony, but Mum had told her that Maggie had stood up to the defence advocate’s cross-examination with quiet dignity. When the advocate had suggested that Maggie, not Nick, had killed Duncan, Maggie had said she might have a chequered past, but thanks to Duncan she had turned her life around and would hope no one would judge a respectable woman in her fifties on what she’d done as a troubled teenager who’d been abused as a child.