I don’t know what reaction I expected. Handcuffs to be whipped out at lightning speed, perhaps? My rights to be read to me there and then before I was dragged away? Withholding evidence? Obstructing the course of justice? Was I guilty of both – probably. Actually, most definitely.
But DS Bradley didn’t arrest me. He told me seeing such an accident must have been very traumatic. I had given a sad, pathetic laugh. Even ‘very traumatic’ seemed like the biggest understatement in the world.
‘You will make a statement to the affect that you were not with Cian on the night Kevin McDaid died, won’t you?’ It was posed as a question but we knew the only answer I could possibly give was yes. I nodded.
‘You’re willing to put in your statement that you had only met him for the first time that afternoon?’
I nodded again. ‘He did message me that night. On Facebook. But we definitely did not meet up.’
‘But that’s good, isn’t it?’ Owen said. ‘Do you still have the message? It would prove you weren’t together. That would be enough, wouldn’t it? To get him?’ He looked at DS Bradley.
DS Bradley nodded. ‘It will certainly help us. Emily, we’ll need a copy of those messages. We’ve been moving as fast as we can but we’re getting knocked back at every turn. We’ve been able to rule out of a lot of McDaid’s cohorts – his friends and enemies – from the investigation. If we can use this to prove Cian has lied about who was with him that night, it puts a different slant on it.’
‘But it doesn’t prove he was responsible for killing Rose,’ Owen said, defeated.
‘No. It doesn’t. But leave that with us – we’ve a few other irons in the fire. We might know something sooner rather than later.’
‘Like what?’ Owen asked.
DS Bradley shook his head. ‘Look, I like you Owen and because of that, well, I’ve probably said too much as it is. I’m not saying anything else. Emily, can we take a written statement from you later – tonight or tomorrow?’
My head was still spinning and I wanted it to be clear. I wanted to get it right. I wanted to not mess this up – for Rose and for Owen and for Jack. But for me too. Because a little seed of anger was growing inside me that Cian had used me. Lied to me. Made me, briefly, believe that things could work out – and then snatched it all from me again.
‘Tomorrow morning?’ I said. ‘I can come in first thing. Will I need a solicitor or anything?’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t think that will be necessary. But I think it goes without saying that this information is kept from Cian? We need whatever element of surprise we can get.’
I nodded and felt myself exhale. Suddenly I wanted to cry. I felt it well up inside me but I refused to give in to it. While Owen saw DS Bradley out, I sat looking around this office – this place that had become so important to me and I thought of all the drama, the broken hearts, the lies, the secrets that were held within these walls.
‘Are you okay?’ I heard Owen ask. I looked up at him – at how wretched he looked.
‘About as okay as you, by the looks of it,’ I said with a weak smile.
I was met with one in return. ‘You know, if we get him – it will go a long way to making things easier,’ he said. ‘That’s all I want now for her – to have him done for this.’
‘You really do think it was him, don’t you?’ I asked.
‘I can’t think of any other plausible explanation,’ he said. ‘Maybe he found out she was leaving – maybe it was too much for his ego to take?’
‘And you think he killed Kevin McDaid too?’
Owen shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t put anything past him. Not any more.’
He offered me a lift back to my flat, but I said I would rather walk to try and lift my headache. He told me to be careful as he locked up and I made to set off. I was a few steps down the road when he called me back.
‘Emily,’ he said. ‘You should know that it was true. We were a happy place to work. These are good people. We watch out for each other. That part of her online persona was real – she was happy with us. And she, more than anyone, would understand why someone else would want to try and find happiness.’
I nodded and turned again to walk away.
‘Don’t be too late in tomorrow,’ he called after me. ‘As soon as you’re done with DS Bradley. We need you on our team.’
*
I sent Donna a text on my way back to the flat. Told her everything was okay and she was absolutely not to worry. I told her I hoped the boys were okay and that I would see her in work the next day. She responded with a ‘Thank you’ and a little kiss at the end.
It made me feel a little better and I did my best to hold onto that feeling as I climbed the stairs to my flat and let myself in. Although I was tired, I was a little scared to sleep after the dream about Rose the night before. I decided to try and unwind with a soak in the bath and when I was in fresh pyjamas, fluffy bed socks and had given my hair a very quick blow dry I heated some milk in the microwave. I craved the simple things. Comforting things. A book to read before bedtime and a cup of warm milk to soothe me. The same ordinary things that used to comfort me as a child. A part of me even craved my mother – a hug, the smell of her perfume, the feeling of being small and protected.
When the buzzer for my flat went, its shrill tone made me jump. It had gone 10pm. People didn’t call here after 10pm. People didn’t call here at all, really, and certainly not without messaging first to let me know. My stomach lurched as I thought it might be DS Bradley, perhaps back to arrest me for lying to him. Perhaps he was over the good cop thing and was now onto the bad cop bit.
I lifted the handset and said hello.
‘Emily. It’s Cian. I need to talk to you. Let me in.’
If the thought of it being DS Bradley had made my stomach turn, the thought of Cian Grahame, with all I now knew about him, made it do backflips. I took a deep breath. I had answered the damned door buzzer. He knew I was in. I looked across the room to where I left my phone. Should I call DS Bradley now? Tell him Cian was here?
What would or could he do anyway? I bit my lip, and tried to make my voice sound as normal as possible. ‘This is unexpected. Come up.’
I hit the door release button and listened for the sound of his footsteps tramping up the stairs towards me. If I could just concentrate on behaving normally, I would be okay.
I plastered a smile on my face and opened my door as I heard him approach. ‘This is a nice surprise,’ I said as he came into view. He wasn’t smiling – but then I realised smiling wasn’t something that came easy to Cian. He preferred mean and moody, sad and intense. If he smiled it always made him look a little less like him.
I moved to kiss him, even though Rose’s words were running around my head. Once she had only seen the good – then she could only see the bad. The mask had slipped and I didn’t want to breathe the same air as him, let alone kiss him, but I had to act as normally as I could.
As it happened he pushed me away – and walked straight into my flat, leaving me standing by the door wishing I had my phone in my hand after all.
‘Would you like a cup of tea? A glass of water? I’m afraid I don’t have much in,’ I said.
He shook his head and paced the length of my living room – pulling back the curtain and looking out of the window into the front street. When he turned to look at me it was as if I could see that switch hit again. Nice Cian was coming to play. Maybe.
‘I’m sorry for being brusque,’ he said, moving to sit on the sofa – beside my phone – which he lifted and sat on the side table before patting the seat beside him. ‘I’ve been trying to get in touch with you all day. You were so upset about work yesterday and I wanted to make sure you were okay.’
‘Well, I’m fine – you can see that. I just had a few things to do. Had to go and visit my parents,’ I lied. ‘And I forgot my phone here. I’m such an eejit.’
He patted the sofa again and I sat beside him. He took my hands in his – those hands of his that had made me so weak with desire – but now I wondered what on earth they were really capable of. Writing great books. Pinching someone tightly to inflict pain. Pushing. Shoving. Handing over cash to pay for someone to be killed? Killing someone?
‘You’re shaking,’ he said.
‘Am I?’ I said, trying to take my hands from his and finding them holding on tight.
‘You are. Maybe you’re cold. Let me warm them for you,’ he said, lifting his hands, cupped over mine, to his lips and blowing gently on them. It was an intimate gesture – the kind of gesture that would have made me go to pieces just a day or two before – but now it made me want to run.
‘You have to know, Emily, that you worried me. You can’t do that – behave that way,’ he said.
I looked at him blankly – afraid to speak in case I said the wrong thing.
‘Go missing. Not be contactable. It makes me uneasy.’
‘Sure it was only for a few hours and you’re here now. All’s well that ends well.’
‘Well I wasn’t to know that. All I knew was that I couldn’t get in touch with you. Not here. Not even on Facebook. You should have realised that would have me on edge.’ The warmth in his voice was tinged with something darker.
‘I’m sorry,’ I muttered.
‘You should be,’ he said, his eyes blazing. ‘The last time … the last time I couldn’t get in touch with someone – someone who should have been there for me always – was the day Rose died. I tried and tried to call her and got no response. None at all. No news until the police arrived at the book festival and broke the news. Didn’t you realise I would worry?’
He released my hands, brushed my cheek with his fingers, twisted a lock of my hair around them before pushing the hair behind my ears – his hand then moving to the base of my neck. He moved closer still, his eyes locked on mine. I felt his breath on my face – a faint trace of whisky assaulting my nostrils. I willed myself not to pull away – not to react to the flight signals my brain was sending me. He moved his other hand to the centre of my chest – placed his palm flat against me. ‘Your heart is beating too fast,’ he whispered, his voice husky.
‘It’s you,’ I said, forcing a tone to my voice that I did not feel. ‘You do things to me, Cian, you know that.’
His lips brushed with mine – again I tried not to recoil. Tried to respond to him. I needn’t have worried too much – his lips may have grazed mine but he quickly moved his mouth to my ear. I felt him wind my hair around his fist at the nape of my neck. I heard his breathing grow more urgent – as if he was turned on, as if he needed me desperately. I took a deep breath, which I let out in one loud, sharp gasp as he pulled my hair violently, jolting my head backwards while he whispered in my ear – so close I could feel the specks of spittle land on my skin, turning my stomach. ‘Never do that again, Emily. Do you hear me?’
I couldn’t find my voice, so I tried to nod but I couldn’t. His grip was too tight – so tight it brought tears to my eyes.
‘You do hear me, don’t you, Emily?’ he asked.
I choked out a yes and as quickly as he had pulled on my hair, he let it go and my head fell forward – a tear plopping onto my pyjama bottoms.
‘Good girl,’ he said, his voice immediately softer. ‘Oh Emily, Emily, please look at me?’
Afraid to defy him, I lifted my head to look at him. He lifted his hand again and as much as I tried, I couldn’t help myself but flinch a little.
Stroking my cheek, brushing my tears away, he spoke softly. ‘Oh Emily, don’t cry. Don’t be upset. All’s well that ends well, isn’t it? That’s what you said. You’re okay. You were only away seeing your parents. It was maybe a little silly of me to be so worried – it’s only because of what has happened with Rose. You understand that, don’t you? You understand why I would get so upset and why you should’ve been in touch?’
‘Yes,’ I said, fake smile plastered on again.
‘Good. Good. Because when you move in, you can’t have me worrying about you. Or about Jack.’
It struck me that it was late.
‘Where is Jack, anyway?’ I asked, hoping he wasn’t outside sleeping in the car. It was too cold – he would be too vulnerable.
‘I got someone to mind him,’ he said.
Something in me wanted to ask who – was that mad? Even though he had just hurt me, even though I knew who he was, I felt possessive and, dare I say it, angry at the thought of someone else being with Jack. I didn’t ask him though – didn’t want to give him anything else to feel angry about. This – this walking on eggshells – I knew how to do it well. When I was with Ben, I had become adept at causing as little damage as possible to any and all eggshells I walked on. I hated the person I was then – and that familiar self-loathing wasn’t far from my sights right now.
‘He missed you today,’ Cian said. ‘That’s another thing, Emily. If you’re going to be in his life, you have to be a constant. You have to put him first. You know that, don’t you? I mean Rose – I loved her so much. I do love her – but she didn’t put him first … not when she was working.’
‘At least she was handing in her notice,’ I said, watching his face carefully for a response.
A moment of nothing, of indifference even, before he nodded. ‘Yes. Of course. To spend more time with Jack and our new baby, whenever we would be blessed. The thought of Jack growing up as an only child, or with too much space between him and a brother or sister, it makes me sad, you know?’
He looked at me and I wished things were different. I wished he was the man he made himself out to be. I wished what happened to Rose had been nothing more than a very tragic accident. I wished what he was telling me now was true. That he wanted me to be everything to him and to Jack.
‘Cian,’ I said, desperate to have him out of my space. ‘I’m very tired. It’s been a long day you know – visiting mum and dad. There was the driving, and the weather was bad so the roads were horrible. I was just going to bed when you called round. Would you mind if I just went to sleep? I’ve a bit of a headache.’
He looked at me as if he couldn’t quite get a read of my face. The Emily he knew would probably be doing everything she could to get him into bed. She was a bit of a desperate character, if the truth be told.
‘You’ll come and see us tomorrow?’ he asked.
I nodded. ‘Of course. I look forward to it.’
‘Can we expect you first thing?’
‘I have a doctor’s appointment. I’ll see you around 11am maybe?’ It surprised me how easy I was able to lie to him.
‘Okay. Okay, that sounds good,’ he said, still looking at me strangely. He leant towards me again and I closed my eyes until I felt the softest touch of his lips on the tip of my nose. ‘Sleep well, sweet girl,’ he said, standing up and walking over to the door, letting himself out.
I sat, frozen to my sofa, until I heard the sound of a car engine starting and him driving away. It was silly of me to tell him I would see him tomorrow. I didn’t have a notion of how I would get out of that – but I knew I didn’t want to be with him again. I never wanted to see his face. I never wanted to feel his touch. And as for my dream of a happy ever after with him and Jack? That was well and truly gone and my heart ached with loneliness and disappointment.