Tris took the walkie-talkie from Alfie. ‘Well done.’
‘What happens now?’ Alfie sat down at the kitchen table, and twirled the spoon in his mug of hot chocolate.
‘We wait for your mum to come,’ said Tris.
‘And what have you told everyone at home?’ asked Zoe.
‘Nothing. Just said I’d be staying at a mate’s house.’
‘And Colin didn’t mind?’ Zoe had switched to mum mode and it was irritating Tris.
‘Leave the lad alone,’ he snapped. ‘He gets enough of this crap from his own mum, he doesn’t need it from you too.’
‘I can’t help it,’ replied Zoe. ‘Sorry, Alfie. I know you’re nearly eighteen. I keep forgetting you’re one of the older ones in the year, whereas my Ben is one of the babies.’ She looked over at Tris. ‘August birthday.’
‘Ah, right, gotcha.’ He smiled at Zoe and motioned for her to go upstairs. ‘Erm, right, Alfie. You OK there for a while? I’m going to give Zoe a hand sorting the beds out.’
‘Oh, I can kip on the sofa,’ said Alfie. ‘To be honest, I don’t want to sleep in someone else’s bed, not without clean sheets anyway.’
‘Listen to you!’ Tris laughed. ‘You’ll be asking for Egyptian cotton sheets next.’ He gave the lad’s shoulder a squeeze. Maybe a little harder than necessary, but he wanted Alfie to know who was in charge. ‘OK, you stay here. I still need to sort a few things out.’
They left Alfie in the kitchen listening to music on his iPod.
‘What the hell are we going to do now?’ hissed Zoe once they were in the bedroom.
He put his finger to his lips and closed the door. ‘Keep it down,’ he said. ‘It’s fine. Don’t worry about anything. Alfie being here is working out well. He’s the one thing that will make Carys come back. We’ve got to get her to trust us. What sort of friends would we be, if we weren’t concerned for her?’
‘I’m not following.’ Zoe dropped down on to the bed and Tris sat beside her, putting his arm around her shoulders.
‘Listen, I’ve got it all planned.’
‘You’re not going to do anything to hurt Alfie, are you?’ Zoe looked genuinely concerned and it reminded Tris of all the reasons he loved her. She was so much more sensitive, kind and loving than Joanne ever was. Zoe had a vulnerability about her that he’d never seen in his own wife. Joanne had never needed him. Sure, she had wanted him, but never needed anything. She was always self-sufficient, independent and capable. All the things that made him feel inadequate. No, Zoe brought out the best in him. She allowed him to be the man, to wear the trousers. She wanted looking after and he wanted to be the one to do it. He kissed the side of her head and she moved her face up to him, their lips meeting.
Zoe pulled away first. ‘I do love you,’ she said. ‘You know that, don’t you?’
Tris side-stepped the pang of guilt. He held his hand to Zoe’s face as if drawing on her inner strength. ‘Yes, I know that. And I love you too. Very much.’
‘What happened with Joanne, I know it’s truly awful,’ said Zoe, her eyes firmly fixed on his, ‘but, in a way, it’s a good thing.’ He felt her jaw move against his hand as she swallowed hard. ‘I mean, something good can come out of something bad, can’t it?’
‘Yeah, sure it can.’ He kissed the top of her head again, breaking eye contact and, thereby, negating the possibility his doubt might be seen on his face.
‘I hope Carys doesn’t fuck everything up for us,’ said Zoe, with uncharacteristic bitterness. ‘She might tell the police that one of us killed Joanne. You can bet that’s what she’s thinking, why else would she have run away?’
‘She won’t. Look, Carys was the last person to see Joanne alive. She has the motive and the opportunity. She’s on the back foot here.’ Tris pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes tight in a bid to quell his emotions over his wife’s death.
‘Are you OK?’ asked Zoe. ‘Come on, Tris. Keep it together.’
‘Yeah. Sure. I’m OK.’ He dragged his hand down his face and as he opened his eyes, his attention was caught by the objects on the dressing table: three mobile phones, lined up alongside each other on a blue cloth bag. ‘What are they?’ he asked, nodding in the direction of the dressing table.
‘Er … mobile phones?’ Zoe replied, hanging a questioning inflection on the last word.
Tris threw a scowl her way before speaking. ‘Whose are they?’
‘Mine, Carys’s and Andrea’s. We had to hand them over when we were first picked up. Joanne said she was keeping hold of them so we couldn’t use the map app to pinpoint our location.’
‘Where did you find them?’
‘In her bedside drawer. I had a look earlier. I didn’t tell the others though.’
‘Why not?’
Zoe shrugged. ‘I’m not sure. I was frightened after what happened to Joanne. I thought one of them might be up to something. I didn’t know who to trust.’
Tris eyed Zoe speculatively. He couldn’t follow her reasoning but decided to let it drop for now. ‘Best put them back where you found them. We’ll leave them there for the police to find. You can tell them how frustrated Carys was about not having her phone.’
‘That’s actually true,’ said Zoe. ‘She did tell Joanne she wanted her phone, but Joanne wouldn’t hear of it.’
‘Make sure you tell that to the police. They need to know how upset and frustrated Carys was about the no-phone policy. That she was clearly agitated and frustrated by Joanne’s behaviour.’
‘I wish I’d gone downstairs and broken the argument up, then none of this would have happened,’ said Zoe, putting her arms around him. ‘You could have left Joanne, but instead you’re having to deal with her death. I’m so sorry for you.’
Tris took a moment to compose himself. He was finding it hard to process the welter of conflicting emotions. At no point had he told Zoe he was going to leave Joanne. To do so would have been financial suicide. But now that she was dead, he stood to benefit from the insurance as well as the funds in her personal bank account. He clasped Zoe’s hands, taking in her delicate features which had always seemed somehow at odds with her toned body and above-average height. ‘Things don’t always go to plan, Zoe. We have to adapt and make the best out of a bad situation. What was it you said, something good out of something bad …?’