‘Auntie Izzy, what’s your Instagram?’ Betsy asked, her sulk seemingly forgotten.
‘You’re a bit young to be thinking about things like that.’
‘Obviously, I’m not on Instagram.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Like, I’m not allowed to post anything, but Mummy lets me look at hers.’
‘Wait – what? Your mum was on Instagram?’
‘She doesn’t post anything, it’s just so she can look up other people.’ Betsy giggled. ‘And she lets me look up people, too. I love Ariana Grande.’
I looked down at my phone, wondering if Amy had ever looked up my profile too. ‘Do you know her password?’
‘Yeah, of course. She keeps the same password for everything. Which you’re not supposed to do, by the way.’
‘Do you want to log into your mum’s Instagram on my phone?’ I tried to keep the urgency out my voice.
Betsy enthusiastically grabbed the device from me, giving me just enough time to watch over her shoulder as she carefully punched in the password – 150694. The date Dad died.
I was itching to get into Amy’s emails. I told Betsy she had ten minutes of Instagram time before she had to get back to work. Once she was safely distracted, I sat at the table and opened my laptop.
The password worked for Amy’s email account. My pulse fluttered as I pulled up her inbox. There were dozens of new messages, and none of them had been read since the Friday she had died, which had to be a good sign – it suggested nobody had accessed her mailbox.
A quick scroll revealed nothing out of the ordinary. In fact, it seemed to be that with Amy, what you saw was what you got. Almost all of her emails related to the kids, their school stuff and activities, the community groups she was involved with, as well as the usual marketing promotions. There were a few messages that she’d exchanged with friends, longer catch-up emails, but nothing in them suggested she had any worries at home. I combed carefully through each email, making sure I wasn’t missing something.
What else? I looked at my own phone for inspiration. Facebook!
The password worked. Amy’s page was full of condolence messages that people had posted, and I couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Then I noticed she had several unread messages.
Three of them were from Phil Turner – Rachel’s husband.
A chill shivered through me. My hand shook as I opened the first message:
Dear Amy
I can’t go on like this, my heart is broken. Every time I see you with him, I have to bury my feelings. I can’t pretend any longer. I need to be with you. I want us to be together. Please, leave him and come to me. I can make you happier than you know.
What. The. Actual…? I tried to swallow, but my mouth had gone dry.
Are you there? Sorry I haven’t seen you for a few days. I’ve missed you so much. I know you said you wanted to break things off, but I can’t. I don’t want to lose you. Please, let’s find a way to make this work.
I felt sick. I opened the third:
I love you, Amy, I love you so much and I can’t go on like this. I have to have you. We have to be together. Please, I am a desperate man.
My heart pounded.
I slowly closed the lid of the laptop. It took all my concentration to stand up and walk into the living room. The walls were squeezing in towards me and the ceiling was a crushing weight above my head. My stomach was a pit of caustic bile and I had to get to the bathroom before I threw up, but my legs were numb and everything was slowly spinning…
‘Auntie Izzy, are you OK?’
Betsy’s voice was faint. Where was she? She sounded so far away, but no, there she was, on the floor, getting up, moving towards me with her arms out as everything went blurry, then dark.
When I came around again, Auntie Sue was crouched over me, mopping my brow with a flannel. Betsy was sobbing, snuggled up on Mum’s knee in the armchair.
‘You fainted and hit your head,’ Auntie Sue said, very matter-of-fact. ‘Not too hard, it seems – thanks to Betsy, who managed to help you fall mostly onto the sofa. Her lightning-quick reflexes probably saved you from a concussion.’
I smiled at Betsy. Poor thing, I must have given her quite a scare.
‘We’ll take over here, and you’re getting yourself off to bed.’
‘Honestly, there’s no need…’ I started to say.
I would have to tell the police that there had been something going on between Amy and Phil Turner. It either gave another motive for Mike to want to hurt her – or gave them a new suspect.
And poor Rachel! When she had said she thought Amy wanted more, had she ever have imagined it was this? Her husband cheating with her best friend?
How could Amy have done this? The dizziness was back, my head spinning with what this potentially meant.
‘Not another word, young lady. Get up those stairs and get into your pyjamas. I don’t want a discussion.’
Auntie Sue always did have a way of speaking to me that made me do exactly as I was told.
I lay back in bed. The sheets were crisp and cool, and the weight of the blankets was reassuring. Even though I’d insisted I wasn’t tired, Auntie Sue had taken my phone from me and tucked me in, promising to wake me up in forty-five minutes. I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep – I was picturing Amy and Phil together, and couldn’t get the image out of my mind. How could she? And what consequences had it led to?
But the next thing
