---

‘Hi. Mia, isn’t it?’ Dominic offers his hand while I can only stare, open-mouthed, unable to form any words or take his hand. ‘I’m so sorry to just turn up like this, but I thought it would be better if we spoke in person. Is that okay?’ When I still can’t speak, he puts his hand down and continues speaking. ‘You probably don’t remember me, but I was a colleague of Zach’s. We spoke at the funeral.’

Finally, I find my voice, but the frown remains on my face. I know why he’s here – Alison must have told him I followed him home the other day, and he’s about to tell me to back off. ‘Yes, I remember. Um…’

‘I can see you’re confused, and rightly so, but could we just have a quick chat? I won’t take up too much of your time, I know how busy you must be. How is your little one? I remember her being about two, so she must be seven now?’

This is strange. It doesn’t add up; his voice is apologetic – kind, even – when he should be angry.

I tell him he’s right, that Freya’s seven now, but make no move to let him in. ‘What’s this about, Dominic?’

He lets out a heavy sigh. ‘I know Alison came to see you on Wednesday, and I just thought I’d better explain a few things.’

So he’s here to tell me what Alison meant about Zach. Nausea bubbles in my stomach. This is worse than I thought. ‘Okay, but let’s go across to the park.’ There is no way I will let him in the house.

Although Dominic seems surprised I’ve suggested this, he quickly agrees and less than a minute later we’re sitting on the bench I usually share with Freya, while kids flurry past us, their shouts and screams mingling in the air. At least we’re in public.

‘Before you say anything,’ I say, ‘I can’t discuss anything Alison said during our session, even if she doesn’t intend to come and see me again. You have to understand that.’

He nods. ‘Yes, I thought that would be the case. But I can talk to you about her, can’t I? You don’t need to tell me anything she’s said. Actually, I’m not even sure I want to know what she’s said, although I can hazard a guess.’

I’m not sure about talking to this man; it’s dodgy ground, a grey area I’ve never had to think about before, but if I tread carefully I shouldn’t get in any trouble. ‘What’s this about, Dominic?’ I know the answer but I can’t be the one to bring it up.

A dog runs past us, barking excitedly as it chases a tennis ball. ‘I think I might know what Alison said to you, and I’m so sorry, but, well, she’s a bit disturbed. And if I’m right, she should never have mentioned Zach like that.’ He looks at me and I give a small nod, even though I probably shouldn’t. Dominic takes it as his sign to continue. ‘Telling you he didn’t kill himself, it’s just awful. I don’t know why she said it, and I know you probably need some kind of explanation, but the best I can offer is that she doesn’t even know what she’s saying herself.’

My whole body tenses when I hear Dominic’s words. It’s bad enough that Alison said them to me but now I’m hearing it all over again. From another person I don’t know or trust. And if this man is abusing Alison, then it makes no sense that she’d talk to him about Zach. ‘How do you know what she did or didn’t say to me? Have you talked to her about what she’s claiming?’

He shakes his head. ‘No, but sometimes she mumbles to herself and I don’t think she even realises what she’s saying. She just blurted it out the other day. I don’t think she even knew I heard her.’

The more this man says, the more I struggle to believe him. ‘But why would she say what you’re suggesting?’ I ask. ‘She didn’t even know Zach. It doesn’t make sense.’

‘You’re right. She didn’t know Zach. Look, this is really hard to talk about, especially considering how you lost your husband, but, well, Alison has issues. She’s on heavy medication for depression and anxiety, has been for years and… God, I feel awful talking about her like this, but she’s been prone to concocting stories.’

It takes me a moment to fully understand what he’s saying, and even when I’ve got to grips with it, there is still so much not adding up. ‘But that still doesn’t explain why she would track me down.’

He raises his eyes. ‘Damn it, I probably shouldn’t be saying any of this, but I don’t know what else to do. Here’s the thing: when she was in her third year at university, Alison shared a flat with Josie Carpenter. The flat Zach was found in.’

The ground begins to sink beneath my feet. Hearing that name still cuts like a blade, even now. And this is just one more thing that doesn’t make sense. ‘No, you’re wrong. She couldn’t have. The police said Josie lived alone. She didn’t have a flatmate.’

He nods. ‘She was living alone at the time. Alison had moved out a couple of months before. I guess the police didn’t think that was important.’

Every word he says pierces my gut, but I need to know everything. ‘So they never interviewed her?’

‘No. But why would they? She wasn’t friends with Josie, she hadn’t seen her since she’d moved out. She couldn’t tell them anything that would help.’

But this is not why I’m asking. It’s not Josie Carpenter I need to know about, it’s Zach. ‘So you’re saying I can’t believe anything Alison said?’

He turns around on the bench so his whole body faces me, and for the first time I notice specks of grey in his black hair. ‘Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. I’m so sorry, Mia. After everything you’ve been through, that must have been the last thing you needed to hear, five years later. I can only apologise for what she did.’

I shake my head, the one thing I need to know still pounding against my skull. ‘But why did she say it? It doesn’t make sense.’

‘That’s the trouble. Alison rarely does. And I should know, I’ve been with her for years, and she’s rarely been okay in that time. I mean there’ve been glimpses of hope when I thought she’d just… be all right, I suppose, but they’re always short-lived.’

‘How long have you been together?’

‘Three years,’ he says. ‘But I knew of her before that. She was a student at the University of West London when Zach and I were both there. I didn’t teach her, and neither did Zach, as she was studying environmental science. But I’d seen her around. She was hard to miss, with that red hair. It was wavy then, though she straightens it now, of course, and looks quite different, but I guess she was young. The same age as Josie Carpenter.’ His hand flies to his mouth, but the gesture feels fake. ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t keep bringing her up.’

When I don’t speak, Dominic fills in the gaps. ‘Don’t get me wrong – I wasn’t involved with her when she was a student. I was married at that time, but years later, after my divorce, I met Alison in a hospital waiting room.’ He pauses and his eyes flick upwards. ‘Oh, man, that sounds so bad, doesn’t it? But we’d both been in A&E for hours and once we’d realised she was a student when I was teaching there we just spent the whole time chatting.’ He holds up his wrist. ‘Turns out I’d broken this.’

‘Why… why was Alison there?’ It seems so much of a coincidence.

‘She… Well, it turns out she was feeling a bit low and thought she’d get checked out. Apparently she’d had thoughts of… harming herself. Sorry, Mia, that must be hard to hear after Zach.’

He doesn’t realise that in my job I hear this a lot, and I can’t think about myself at these times. ‘It’s okay.’

‘Anyway,’ Dominic continues, ‘at the time she told me she was there for stomach pain, which she thought might be appendicitis. I was even getting angry with the doctors, cursing them for leaving her waiting so long. So she was pretty much lying to me right from the start. But they say love is blind, don’t they? And it’s not her fault. She just needs help.’

Dominic’s story is convincing. Almost too convincing. How do I know he’s telling me the truth, and that it really is Alison who has been lying? How can I trust anything either of them says?

‘Sorry for rambling,’ he says. ‘Here’s the thing – I said this to you at the funeral, but I still don’t believe Zach had anything to do with what happened to Josie. I really don’t. I don’t know if Alison said anything about that to you – or what she might have said if she did – but I hope you don’t ever believe that Zach was guilty.’

I want to scream at him: How can you know that when you barely knew him? You were just colleagues, passing in the hallway and maybe saying hello to each other. You weren’t friends and he never once mentioned you. But I bite my tongue. If I’m to get information out of Dominic then I need to stay calm. ‘You weren’t close friends, though, were you?’

He shakes his head. ‘We spoke quite a bit. We were in different departments so it wasn’t that easy to find time to get together, but we always meant to go for a drink or something.’

And yet at the funeral Dominic had insisted that Zach was a good man, as if he had evidence of this and knew it without a doubt. But this type of thing is typical of certain people when someone they know dies. They want to be part of it, act as though the loss is theirs.

‘Why did you get divorced?’ I feel as though I’m interrogating him, as if I’m somehow investigating Zach’s death, but I just want answers.

He looks down and stares at his left hand, absent of any rings. ‘Yeah. I messed that one up. We divorced shortly after… you know.’

‘Elaine, wasn’t it?’

His eyes widen. ‘Yeah. Do you know her?’

An image of one of the website links I found flashes into my head. ‘She’s an estate agent, isn’t she? With her own business?’ I have no idea whether or not this is the right woman I’m talking about, but it’s worth taking a chance.

To my relief he nods, seeming not to notice I’ve avoided answering his question. ‘Yep. I helped her set it up and then a few years later she was forcing me to sign divorce papers. But, looking back, she did me a favour, because now I’ve got Alison. I know she’s got her issues but I do love her.’

His face lights up when he says this, and it’s impossible to picture him as the man Alison described, but I can’t simply trust everything he’s telling me. Though when I picture Alison in my office the other day, how bizarre her behaviour was, I can’t help but lean towards him.

‘So you have no idea why she’d say that about Zach?’

‘I wish I could tell you, Mia, I really do. And again, I’m so sorry for her dragging all this up. Look, I’ll talk to her and make her promise to leave you alone, but I just had to come and speak to you personally. I kind of feel responsible. I told her to come off her medication against the doctor’s advice because she was just so sick on it. But maybe this is worse.’

I don’t say anything; I’m still taking it all in and trying to make the pieces fit together so I won’t just blindly believe every word he says.

Dominic shifts forward on the bench. ‘Listen, I’d better get back. Alison was quite agitated this afternoon so I don’t want to leave her on her own for too long.’ He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a business card. ‘Here’s my number, though. My mobile. Call me any time if I can help with anything.’

As I reach for the card, I think how unusual it is that a university lecturer has a business card. Zach never did – at least not that I knew of. But there were lots of things I didn’t know about you, Zach, weren’t there?

Dominic reaches for my hand before standing up, and this time I shake it, his firm grasp catching me off guard. And as I watch him walk away I remind myself not to be fooled, no matter how genuine he seems. People are good at masking things when they have to.

---

As evening draws in I realise that I don’t feel any better after Dominic’s visit. Although a lot of what he said could explain Alison’s behaviour, he still couldn’t give me a reason for why she came to me, so now I have a whole new set of questions. But, without realising it, he has told me exactly where I can find his ex-wife, and she might shed some light on whether or not I can trust him. I won’t be able to let this go until I know for sure that Alison is safe, and what she thinks she knows about Zach’s death. The fact that she so quickly retracted her statement – pretended, in fact, that she hadn’t said anything at all – only makes me believe that she’s scared. But of whom? And why?

These are the questions I need answers to, and my starting point is finding out whether it’s Alison or Dominic who has things to hide.

It’s too late in the evening to track down Elaine Bradford today, and most estate agents’ offices are closed on Sundays, but on Monday I will see if she can provide me with any answers. Until then I have to sit tight, knowing that, for now at least, there is nothing more I can do.

Although it’s nearly 8 p.m. it’s still warm outside, so I sit in the garden while I attempt to write up some notes for my client files. The neighbours to my right are having a barbeque and their guests are already raucous, so I eventually give up trying to get anything done.

Will calls as I’m about to go inside, and asks if I’m okay. ‘No more fainting episodes, I hope?’

I assure him I’m fine and distract him from worrying by asking what his plans are for tonight.

He hesitates. ‘I have to meet a client. She’s having real problems with her tax return and her business is in a huge mess. It’s the only time she could meet so I couldn’t say no.’

A lump forms in my throat but I will not give in to fear. I won’t ask him where they’re meeting or what she’s like because Will is not Zach and I refuse to mistrust him, unless I ever have evidence that he doesn’t deserve my trust. But still, it’s hard not to feel a pang of pain. That it could be happening all over again.

‘You don’t mind, do you?’ he asks.

‘No, of course not. It sounds like she needs help so that’s what you’ve got to do. I think I’ll just have an early night.’

‘Get some rest,’ he says. ‘I’m still worried about you. I’ll see you on Monday. And Mia? Don’t forget I love you.’

---

I go to bed, comforted by Will’s words and assurance, laying my head on my pillow and drifting off with thoughts of him, thoughts of our future together. But when I wake suddenly in the middle of the night, my body drenched in sweat and tears sliding down my cheeks, it is Zach I have been dreaming about.