“He always complained about that car, it was always breaking down,” she said as it rounded the corner, “he wouldn’t have wanted us to keep it.”
“He had it for a long time. Since I was a teenager, I think,” Paige added. They knew they’d made the right choice, but the speed with which everything was changing was dizzying. Paige thought back to when her dad died – he was ill for years, but his death seemed to go so quickly. One moment he was laughing and joking with them from his hospice bed, and the next they were packing up boxes of his things to go to charity shops.
At least with her dad, they had a detailed will to follow. Eddie Webb was a stickler for detail and had made sure to write a will as soon as he had been diagnosed. They had followed it to the letter – which items were to be sold, which were to be kept or passed to other family members.
He had left no room for family arguments. His mum, his sister, his niece and two nephews, were all taken care of to help Paige and her mum as much as possible after he had gone.
Tom hadn’t made a will. All of his things, his savings, his records, had all gone to Paige’s mum. He had no siblings and his parents had died decades ago. Paige wondered if he had even considered the fact that he might not grow old with her mum. Had he presumed that he would die of old age?
Paige’s mum was distraught, as anyone would be. Tom’s death was doubly painful for her and it had destroyed another link to Eddie. She was losing a part of him as much as she was losing Tom.
Three days after the funeral, Paige had run out of ways to keep her mind from Tom’s death. Being at home with her mum all the time was weighing on her mind heavily and she couldn’t bear going through any more boxes of Tom’s belongings.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The next day, after several hours of daytime TV and re-ordering the spices, she decided to return to the Ecklands, feeling that she needed the stability to anchor her back to real life. She got the bus just as she had before and worked throughout the day on Eckland’s essays and writings, pretending she hadn’t heard all that she had read about Eckland.
Even though she was burying any thought of Ella and Eckland’s association with her, she still felt herself being a little colder with him. He gave his usual flamboyant rant every morning when she arrived, but instead of smiling politely and trying to guess his quotes, she had taken to giving the most basic greeting and heading up the stairs to the study. She had no interest in pandering to anyone right now, least of all him.
A week or so into returning to work, Paige finished her work at 5pm, declining Arlene’s dinner offer as she had done every day since returning and walked out onto their road. After Tom’s death, she had gotten into a habit of leaving at this time to ensure she could get the 5.05 bus home in time to have dinner with her mum at 6pm. The routine brought her some comfort.
Sitting on the wall of the Ecklands’ front garden, was Rufus. His hair was unwashed, and he had straggly stumble across his face. Paige had not considered the possibility that she would ever see him again and anger pulled her up the road and away from him.
“Paige,” he said, genuine fatigue and guilt clouding his voice, “It was an accident, I promise. You will never know how sorry I am. I just need you to hear me out, please.”
“Get the FUCK away from me,” she blurted out, tears breaking into her speech.
“Please...” he begged.
Heart hardened by the experiences of the past month, Paige blanked out his pleas by placing her headphones on and playing a Spotify mix as she continued walking to her stop. Through the pounding beat of “Don’t Stop Believin’” by Journey, she could hear sporadic words as Rufus followed her: “It was an accident... I didn’t mean for Tom... he was... I couldn’t... Marie... it’s not what you think... that girl, I was... Hate me if you like... the hotel... we talked, that’s all!” He was really shouting now, so Paige turned up the music, walking faster so that she reached in the bus stop in less than a minute.
Why won’t he leave me alone? Paige thought, biting her lip against the rising sobs, Why isn’t he in prison? How did he get released?
“... named Jade... make you believe me!” She could still make out the faint sound of his voice. A few hundred yards away from her stop, her bus rounded the corner. She ran to catch it, hoping to get away from Rufus. Scanning her return ticket, she leaned panting against the rail of the luggage area, noticing he hadn’t kept up to her. Looking out of the side window, she could see Rufus running up the road, screaming his pleas to her, and finally sinking to his knees as the bus pulled away.
She paused wheezing in her breath, partly from the adrenalin. She could feel the rings on her fingers shivering against the cold metal of the rail and her heart banging against her chest.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
WHAT HAS JUST HAPPENED... she thought, Rufus was arrested for manslaughter. We gave statements. They took DNA from the scene.
Almost falling into a young woman with a pushchair in the standing area as the bus lurched around a corner, Paige decided to head to the upper deck to find a quiet seat.
There, in a window seat, was Leo, furtively looking through his phone.
“Leo...” Paige said gingerly, walking up to him. Their encounter in Starbucks may have
