“Billie. It’s Hamish.” He pulled her close to his chest.
She clung to his shirt and sobbed. She cried for Wilz and the love she’d lost. She cried for the trauma she’d been through and how she was going to go forward from here. Most of all she cried for the time she’d lost and the damage it could have done to her son.
“Shh, it’s okay. I’ve got you.” He continued to hold her and stroke her hair until she calmed down.
“I thought I might have been imagining it all, you know? So I asked for the clothes I was brought to the hospital in.” She poked at the bag, let it fall to the floor. “I had to remind myself that it happened, that you really did pull me out of the lake. For a moment I thought it was all a horrible dream but it wasn’t. I was back there, Hamish, as soon as I smelt the mud from the lake on my clothes, it all came back to me. He did try to kill me. Wilz’s father killed her because he was crazy and she dared to tell him that, dared to hope for a better future with the man she loved.”
“I believe you. So does your mother. I think that’s why she was so upset. It would be hard to live with that kind of knowledge after keeping it buried for so long.” He pushed her back and cupped her face in his hands. “You have to get it all out so you can move on. I don’t want this coming back to haunt you, day after day. It’s been a traumatic experience anyway. You need to put it behind you and move on.”
“Tomorrow. I can do that tomorrow when I pay a visit to the house.” Billie sniffed, reached for a tissue. “And I need Lucy to tell me everything so I can make sense of what’s happened.”
Chapter 26
Singleton 1980
“Poor Primrose. She’s devastated and I don’t blame her.” Hamish held Billie’s arm as they walked back out to the car. Lucy had asked for Frederick and Alex to help her at Foxborough Hall where they were boxing up the items she wanted to keep and Hamish had offered to play driver for Billie. He hardly left her side and she wasn’t unhappy about it either.
“I hated doing that to her, but I couldn’t leave it. She knew something didn’t add up and it was only fair that I tell her the truth.” Billie got in the car for the short drive over the other side of town to visit Eric in his rose-filled garden. That was going to be painful for boht of them.
When Hamish pulled up outside, the old man was in the garden, clippers in hand, pruning his beloved bushes.
Billie reached out and touched his sleeve. “Would you mind staying here?”
“Of course not.”
She opened the door and got out, watching Eric carefully. The slant of his cheekbones, the way he stood over his roses, fixated on the flowers and oblivious to everything around him. Billie stepped up to the gate, lifted the latch and stepped into his garden.
He raised his head and the hazy image of a young Eric flashed before her. Her heart raced, her stomach a mass of butterflies fighting to be free.
“Eric.” Her voice sounded strange to her own ears and she fought to stay in the present.
“Wilz.” He dropped his tool, stepped forward and paused, scrutinized her face, shook his head in confusion.
“It’s Billie.” She reached for him, pushing back the memories of their last night together, the love, the plans for the future, Wilz’s unborn child. “I came to tell you what happened to her, Eric.”
“When I first saw you, I knew there was something. You remind me so much of her.” Pain etched the lines in his face. “She left. Without a word she left me.”
Billie touched his cheek, the familiar contours warm under her fingers. “She didn’t mean to go. She had no choice.”
“But why, what happened?” His eyes filled.
“Her father found out. Wilz fought for you and your child, but he was too strong. I’m so sorry to have to tell you this.”
Tears coursed down his cheeks. Her own heart breaking, Billie wrapped her arms around him, the familiar smell of pine and soap enveloping her with memories, almost bringing her to her knees.
They held each other as sobs racked his body. She brushed her hand over his back, soothing him. I would give almost anything to not be the one to cause you so much pain.
It took a while but eventually he calmed. Billie glanced around the garden while he apologised and tried to get a hold of his emotions. He stepped back, reached into his pocket for his handkerchief and wiped the tears in his eyes. When he met her gaze again, there was a hint of a smile on his lined face.
“I knew there was something about you the day we first met.” He took Billie’s hand and touched the watch on her wrist. “Gave that to her, I did. Birthday present when we first, you know, got together. To start with I wasn’t sure, thought that perhaps it was a coincidence with the younger generation’s need to resurrect antiques, but it was hers.”
“I found it among my mother’s things when I moved into their house. She was given a box of belongings from Wilz that the Red Cross held until she came back from overseas. I think her father orchestrated that part of it to show her he still had control. That was the reason she disappeared.” With a sense of loss, she unclipped the diamante watch. “Would you like it back?”
He shook his head. “No, I’m sure she would have liked you to have it. After all, it was
