Downstairs, Arthur already had his coat on and was waiting by the front door like a small child who’d been promised a trip to the park.
‘We’re giving Arthur and Marisa a lift back to their hotel in Bloomsbury,’ Win said, which was the polite thing to do when it was getting on for six and dark outside.
‘I said that there was no need, but Win wouldn’t take no for an answer. I hope he doesn’t boss you around this much,’ Arthur said to Zoe.
‘He likes to try,’ Zoe said, shooting Win an amused look.
‘And I hope you don’t mind me taking Libby’s diary.’ Arthur patted his bag because apparently it was very much a fait accompli and now the look she gave Win was more wounded, more how could you?
Marisa and Arthur, as if they sensed an atmosphere, chattered non-stop on the drive into town about their plans while they were in London. Then, as soon as they’d dropped them off outside their hotel in Bloomsbury, Zoe turned to Win.
‘That diary holds every clue we have to finding out what happened to Libby,’ she burst out. ‘I can’t believe that you let them take it!’
‘But how could I say no when Arthur asked for it?’ Win protested as they drove back to Highgate. ‘I think, legally, it’s theirs anyway.’
‘It’s not the point,’ Zoe said. ‘Without it, we’ve got nothing. It’s like Libby was never there.’
‘But we do know what happened to Libby now,’ Win pointed out softly. ‘And anyway, we extrapolated all the relevant information. It’s on a spreadsheet.’
‘Of course it is,’ Zoe muttered. She decided that she didn’t have the energy for an argument and now that she knew the truth about Libby, what good did it do to pore over the woman’s diary? All those words, giddy with love for Hugo, for the baby – never imagining she’d be dead before the year was out. Zoe remembered an artist friend of hers who’d put together an exhibition of the last photos taken of people before they died. A man on Death Row faced with an inevitable demise. A 1940s’ Hollywood starlet papped on Santa Monica Boulevard who’d be shot by her gangster lover that evening. Selfies taken by partygoers minutes before the building was engulfed in flames. Death sneaked up on you when you were least expecting it.
‘Maybe it is best to have it out of the house,’ Zoe said. ‘We should have given them the suitcase too. Just to be free of it.’
They were both silent after that until they reached Elysian Place and Win carried on straight up Southwood Lane, instead of swinging right.
‘Hey! You missed the turning,’ Zoe said. ‘We’ll have to see if we can work our way round.’
‘Backseat driver.’ Win caught her eye in the windscreen mirror. ‘I want to… there’s somewhere I think we should go, OK?’
‘OK.’
Win sounded so grave, his mood infecting Zoe so that they drove on in silence.
They passed through Highgate Village then along Hampstead Lane. Zoe knew this route very well. Had walked it with Cath and Florence so many times, except they always turned down a little path that led straight to the grassy outer fields of Hampstead Heath.
Still, they drove. Waiting to let the oncoming traffic through when the road narrowed down to one lane outside the famous Spaniards Inn, onetime haunt of highwaymen.
They took a left and travelled along the little twisting roads between the heath and Hampstead High Street until they came to a stop in a pretty square of stucco-fronted houses. In the middle of the square was a little green with a bench at the centre, where on sunnier days people could sit and watch the world go by.
The evening air was cold and biting but once Zoe and Win got out of the car, they walked over to the bench and sat down. They could see number 17. Or rather, they could see that someone was home in one of the top-floor flats because the lights on a Christmas tree twinkled through the murky gloom of the November evening.
‘Oh God, what kind of people put up their Christmas tree in mid November?’ Win asked with genuine alarm. ‘It will be shedding needles by the beginning of December. Come Christmas Day, it’s going to be as bald as Bruce Willis.’
‘Win!’ Zoe looked up at the house again and her expression grew serious. ‘What are we doing here?’
Win took Zoe’s hand. ‘We’re here because it seems fitting for what I want to tell you. That the difference between you and Libby is that you have me. You will always have me.’ Win threaded his fingers through Zoe’s. ‘I know I drive you bonkers. That I’m a control freak who’s obsessed with making lists, never leaving anything to chance, panicking if our bank account dips below a certain amount, but it’s my own peculiar way of taking care of you.’ He tightened his grip on her hands as if he’d never let her go. ‘In a way that my dad never took care of us.’
Zoe tugged her hands free so she could put her arms around Win and kiss his cheek. ‘I really wouldn’t have you any other way.’
‘So, you understand why I am like I am?’
Zoe realised that she’d still been harbouring her resentment at Win for his transgressions of the last year and that in order for them to really move forward, she had to let her resentments drift off in the night breeze. ‘You wouldn’t be you without your lists, and colour-coded wall planners and your one-year and five-year and ten-year plans and I love you.’ Win was funny, kind and he had two smiles in particular that made Zoe’s pulse race and he was also uptight and unyielding and drove her bloody mad on a daily basis. That was love. You loved someone because of all their best qualities and in spite of their worst ones. ‘Besides, I don’t follow your plans unless they fit in with my plans.’
‘I had noticed that.’
‘But you don’t have to take care of me all the time, Win,’ Zoe said gently. ‘We can take it in turns. And I’m sorry if I shut you out but I was so sad about the baby, so bloody sad, that all I could focus on was how I was feeling. I never stopped to wonder how you might feel.’
‘Truthfully, it’s only these last couple of months that I’ve been able to grieve for the baby. Before that, all I could focus on was how I’d nearly lost you because without you… I wouldn’t even be me any more. Sometimes, I still can’t quite get my head around the fact that you love me even a fraction as much as I love you.’ Win stroked Zoe’s cheek with the back of his hand, then looked over at the house. ‘So, for the record, unlike Freddy or Hugo, I’m not going anywhere.’
‘Glad to hear it,’ Zoe said, because she was. ‘I might let you go away for the odd stag weekend or work trip, but that’s about it.’
Win put his arm round Zoe and hugged her tight against him. ‘And we will raise a happy family,’ he promised. ‘When I really thought about babies and the having thereof, the one thing I knew with any certainty was that you’ll be an amazing mother.’
‘And you will be the best dad, I have no doubts about that. Kind, caring, excellent at helping with maths homework, king of the birthday cakes.’ Zoe could have continued for several minutes listing all the ways that Win would make an exemplary father but the man himself pulled a face as if he was yet to be convinced.
‘Who knows? Not like I had a great paternal role model growing up.’ Win sighed as if he were about to slide into despondency all over again. ‘We should get back. You know Florence doesn’t like being left on her own after dark.’
Zoe nudged him. ‘See! Nothing wrong with your dad gene. Nothing at all.’
‘I thought we agreed that Florence wasn’t a child substitute,’ Win said sternly but he was smiling as he got to his feet and held out a hand to Zoe to haul her up too.
‘Hate to break it to you, but she is our dog daughter,’ Zoe said and Win moaned in protest, any dark thoughts banished now.
Before they went back to the car, they both stood and looked at number 17 for a moment. Funereal, Marisa had called it, but Zoe prayed that amid all the tragedy, behind that gate, between those four walls, Libby had laughed and loved and at the very end she’d gone gently into the good night.