‘It’s all right, love, you’re safe,’ says Elliot. He’s holding her hand, reminding her of her last memory: Ottilie’s hand, warm and sweaty in her own.
Her mouth feels dry and she tries to speak. ‘Here, have a sip of this,’ says Elliot, gently guiding a clear cup of water towards her.
She takes a sip. ‘Where am I?’
‘You’re in the hospital. But you’re okay. You’re going to be fine.’ The relief in his voice is evident and she wonders if there was a point when they didn’t know that this would be the case. She tries to sit up but discovers she can’t. Elliot pushes a button on the bed and it moves so that she’s more upright. ‘Is that better?’
She squeezes his hand. ‘You’re out …’ she manages.
And that’s when she sees the concerned faces of her parents behind her children. She blinks again.
‘We were all so worried,’ her mother says, patting the regulation hospital blanket over her knees. ‘You’ve been out for nearly twenty-four hours.’
Drugged. Ottilie had drugged the hot chocolate she’d given her. No wonder she’d felt so out of it. That was why her thoughts had been all over the place. Had Ottilie been planning to kill her but hadn’t given her enough?
‘Where’s Ottilie?’
‘She’s … gone, sweetheart,’ says Elliot. ‘The police are looking for her, but she’s probably already left the country.’
Emilia can feel tears on her face. Elliot bends over and kisses her forehead. ‘You gave us quite the scare. Thank goodness you’re okay.’
She reaches out, her fingers finding Wilfie’s soft curls and then Jasmine’s hand. ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ she says.
She has to stay in hospital for a few days to check that she doesn’t have organ damage. She can hear the traffic outside, the beep of horns, the blare of sirens, and it’s strangely comforting. She still feels woozy from whatever drug Ottilie had given her – the doctors had told her, but it had a long name and Emilia can’t remember in her haze, but apparently it’s easy to get on prescription. Elliot has stayed with her while her parents took the children home. She hadn’t wanted to let Wilfie or Jasmine out of her sight, but she could see they were tired and, once they’d understood she’d be okay, bored. What if Ottilie came back to finish her off? She expresses this fear to Elliot, who hasn’t left her side since she was brought in, so the nurses have told her.
‘There is no way she’d risk coming back to London,’ he says. ‘She’ll be far away by now.’
She tells him about the beanie. ‘Ottilie planted it in the house. I still can’t believe it was her who killed Louise. I knew it couldn’t have been you.’
‘How could you ever have thought it was me, with my trustworthy face?’ he jokes, but she can see the toll the last few days, weeks and months have taken on him. He’s aged and she knows she has too. ‘I’m just so thankful you’re okay.’
Then she remembers the cat. ‘Hamish. The cat. Where is he?’
‘Don’t worry, we’ve got the cat. DI Murray found him in Ottilie’s apartment after you were taken away in the ambulance. I said we’d look after him.’
She stares at Elliot in shock. ‘But you hate pets.’
‘I don’t hate pets.’ He laughs. ‘And just because I’m a neat freak I don’t expect you to be too.’ His voice catches. ‘It’s my issue, Em. Not yours. Or the kids’。 It just gives me the feeling of control, I suppose, of safety. It’s silly …’
She squeezes his hand, remembering the anxiety that sits beneath his surface, which he tries so hard to control, more even than she’d realized. ‘It isn’t silly. I get it.’ She sighs, picturing Ottilie and their last conversation. A tear slips down her cheek. ‘I’m not great at choosing friends, am I?’ First Kristin, then Ottilie, and Louise. Although Louise, it seems, chose her. She closes her eyes. Her head hurts and, despite everything Ottilie has done, grief sits heavily on her chest. She’s grieving for the old Ottilie. The person Emilia had always thought she was.
She must have dozed off because when she wakes up the room is dim and Elliot isn’t beside her bed. Instead, a woman sits on the chair, flicking through a magazine. It’s DI Murray.
She moves her chair closer. ‘Hi, Emilia, how are you feeling?’
‘Still a bit groggy. What day is it?’
‘Monday. Did Elliot tell you what happened?’
‘That you found me? Yes, he did. I can’t thank you enough. You probably saved my life.’
DI Murray grins. It softens her. ‘I’m sorry about Ottilie. And I’m sorry it took me a while to realize what was going on.’
‘I’m relieved that you did, and that Elliot was released. And poor Trevor. I owe him an apology.’
‘I’m sure he’ll understand. I can see why you thought it would be him. I did too for a bit. We’ve caught the praying-mantis murderer. A man named Martin Butterworth.’
She remembers DI Murray mentioning him before. ‘So it was him who killed Louise’s mum?’
DI Murray hesitates. ‘Ottilie’s father did have an affair with Louise’s mother. That much is true. We’ve spoken to him and he’s admitted it. He left the force not long after Jennifer Radcliffe was murdered. Took up a post abroad when Ottilie recovered from her breakdown and went back to boarding school, only returning to the UK now and again, staying in his Devon house or in London when he did. Louise wasn’t wrong about seeing him with her mother. But in terms of the murder, it bothered us that Jennifer wasn’t tied up or that her house hadn’t been broken into, despite other aspects matching the serial killer. For a while I wondered if it had been the work of someone else, just trying to make it look like she was a victim of the serial killer. But now I’m not so sure. It’s a possibility, of course, but I think what probably happened is that Charles left Jennifer that night, maybe not locking the door behind him, and Martin Butterworth was watching the house, let himself in and killed her while poor Louise was upstairs asleep. That’s why there was no sign of a break-in, like with the other cases. Maybe he didn’t have time to tie her up. I don’t know. Anyway, Butterworth is denying all of it but we have proof of the latest murder, at least, thanks to his DNA found at the scene. But the markings tie all of the crimes together, so we hope it stands up in front of a jury.’
‘So all those years Louise wrongly believed Charles was the killer, not only of her mother but of the other women too?’
‘Yes. But he was untouchable. Living abroad. She tracked down Ottilie instead, and when she found out she was a friend of yours she inveigled her way into your life.’
‘I wonder if she always planned to get me to write about it. Or whether that was just luck.’
DI Murray shifts in her chair. ‘I think she used you to get to Ottilie at first, and then, when she learned the murderer had struck again – thanks to Saunders telling her about it – she thought she needed to act. And luckily that coincided with you having a dry patch creatively. But there’s something else that the post-mortem threw up. Louise was gravely ill.’