Kristin walks into the kitchen with a triumphant expression. ‘I’ve found it. It was bundled up under her bed. I’m afraid it needs washing.’ She hands the drawstring bag to Emilia. Her smile slips. ‘Are you okay? You’ve gone really pale.’
Emilia takes the bag. ‘I, um, I’ve been having a hard time lately. Has Jonas told you what’s been going on?’
Unease passes across Kristin’s features. ‘He has. I’m sorry you’re going through all this. It sounds frightening.’
‘Have you read my new book yet?’
‘I finished it a while ago. I really enjoyed it.’ She folds her arms across her chest.
Emilia indicates the troll doll squashed against the side of the plastic box. ‘Where did you get that?’
‘That doll thing? I dunno. So much junk ends up in that box. It must have been from when Jas was younger.’
Emilia narrows her eyes at Kristin. ‘That one – or one just like it – was found hanging from the tree in my front garden last month.’
Kristin’s body stiffens. ‘And you think I put it there?’
‘I don’t know what to think.’
Kristin takes a step back. ‘You obviously think I’m capable. It’s written all over your face.’ When Emilia doesn’t speak, Kristin lets out a sharp, sarcastic laugh. ‘Oh, I see. I stole your husband so therefore I have no morals and am capable of anything. Is that it? I’m capable of putting my stepdaughter – who I love, by the way – in danger. I’m capable of stalking and obsessing about you. Is that what you want to hear? Because I’m sorry, Emilia, but I don’t care that much about you to go to so much trouble to frighten you.’
Pent-up anger and resentment rises within Emilia. She slings the PE kit over her shoulder. ‘If you care so little about me, as you say, then why call Ottilie up to question her about me? Why bother Louise at my launch when you’d never even met her before? She told me you were asking about me and Jonas. Do you really think I’m shagging him behind your back? Behind Elliot’s?’
Kristin’s critical gaze trails over Emilia’s body, taking in the jersey dress that shows off her lumps and bumps. ‘No, I don’t think you’re having an affair with my husband.’
Emilia knows she needs to leave before she says something she regrets. She stalks out of the kitchen and into the hallway. She can sense Kristin behind her.
‘Wait!’ Kristin’s voice is desperate, and Emilia stops, her hand on the front-door knob.
She spins around. ‘What?’
‘I am sorry,’ says Kristin. ‘I know we’ve never talked about it. I tried to ring you so many times after it happened. To explain. But you never wanted to speak to me.’
‘Can you blame me?’
‘Of course not. My apology seems meaningless now, all these years later. But I am sorry for what happened. I wish we’d been honest with you from the beginning. Jonas was going to tell you about us, and then … and then you fell pregnant.’
The truth slaps her in the face. ‘You and him … it happened before … before …’ She can’t bring herself to say it.
Kristin hangs her head but not before Emilia notices a cruel glint in her eye, and she realizes that Kristin wants to feel powerful, to have something over her. Kristin knows Jonas has a wandering eye and she wants to make clear to Emilia that she wins. That she’ll always win. That Jonas chose her. ‘He was going to leave you. Back in 2006. He was going to leave you and then you fell pregnant.’
Her stomach curdles as she remembers their rushed wedding at the local register office with just Ottilie, and Jonas’s best mate, Dan, as witnesses, and Jonas’s parents as guests. Her dress that strained across her belly, at that stage of pregnancy when she didn’t look like she was carrying a baby but had simply put on too much weight. She didn’t even tell her parents about her pregnancy until afterwards.
‘You could have had anyone,’ says Emilia, sadly. ‘Why him?’
Kristin twirls her platinum wedding ring. ‘I can’t explain it. I just loved him. I still do. You can’t choose who you fall in love with. Anyway, you’re happy now, with Elliot. Aren’t you?’
‘Of course I am.’ Kristin still doesn’t get it. ‘It’s not about Jonas. I’m not harbouring any feelings for him. But you. What you did. You ruined our friendship.’
So many unspoken words float in the silence between them. Things that Emilia will never be able to say, like how much she misses their friendship, their girls’ nights out, sitting up to 3 a.m. with Kristin and Ottilie, chatting about everything, laughing until their sides ached. She swallows the lump in her throat. ‘I need to go,’ she says, her voice thick.
‘I promise you, I’m not behind this “campaign of terror” or whatever is happening. I’ve no reason to do that.’
Emilia stares into Kristin’s face, trying to see whether she’s telling the truth. The competitive side to Kristin will always show through. If she really thinks Emilia is having an affair with Jonas, who knows what she’s capable of? There is a steel core running through her former friend. There always has been. It’s just that Emilia had never wanted to acknowledge it before.
Without another word, she leaves, closing the front door firmly behind her.
It’s not until she’s driven out of the road and around the corner that she pulls over underneath a big oak tree and calls DC Haddock, her hands shaking.
‘I don’t know if it means anything,’ she says, as soon as he answers the phone, ‘but my ex-husband’s wife, Kristin Perry, has a troll doll in her possession that matches the one found on my tree. I thought you should know.’
31
On Thursday morning, as Emilia is standing at the kitchen sink spooning muesli into her mouth, her phone buzzes with a message from Gina Osbourne.
The story is in today’s paper.
Emilia puts down the bowl and scans the newspaper’s website. Sure enough, there it is. It feels weird to read it in black and white, as though it’s happening to someone else. She’s still reading it when Elliot storms into the kitchen, his face like thunder.
‘What’s wrong?’ She wonders if he’s seen the Mirror piece too and is annoyed about it. Although she did tell him she’d spoken to Gina.
‘My fucking bike’s been stolen.’
She stares at him in surprise. ‘What?’ Her breakfast curdles in her stomach. ‘From the porch?’
‘Yes. Did you lock the front door last night?’
‘Of course. I always lock it now.’
‘Are you sure? There’s no sign of a break-in.’
‘Have you checked the app?’
‘Of course I have.’ He shoves his phone under her nose. ‘It looks like it was taken in the early hours of this morning. It’s still dark.’
She watches in horror as the grainy footage shows someone dressed head to toe in dark clothes walking down their driveway, between their two parked cars, brazenly opening the front door, stealing the bike and riding it away. ‘But …’ She can’t believe what she’s seeing. How easy it is. ‘What about the alarm? Why didn’t it go off? And the door … I definitely locked it.’