‘Struggling a bit today?’
I mumbled something that sounded like agreement while biting into my sandwich.
Rachel reached out and took my hand. ‘We’re all devastated about Amy, but drinking doesn’t heal the pain, it just delays it for another day. And drinking alone is never good.’
I didn’t know if the delayed pain part was true – my head still hurt. Anyway, I hadn’t been alone.
‘Jake Ridley called in,’ I said. ‘The solicitor.’
Rachel’s eyes grew wide.
‘But it’s not what you think!’
‘I didn’t say anything at all!’ she chuckled, holding her hands up in surrender.
‘He just came by to give me news on the investigation.’
Rachel stopped laughing. ‘So they are investigating it? They really think it might have been more than just an accident?’
A young woman pushing a pram walked past outside, distracting me for a second. ‘Some things just don’t look right,’ I said, keen to leave it at that.
I tried to change direction and asked how Phil was. I was hungry for any details she could give me, anything that might tell me why and how he and Amy had become involved.
Rachel just shrugged, but I pressed on. ‘We should get out to the pub one night, drag Mike and Phil along. I owe him a beer to say thanks for the car.’
She pushed the remnants of her roll around her plate. ‘That would be nice. We haven’t been to the pub for a while. Not since before Amy…’ Her eyes filled again and she looked away. Only the ticking of the carriage clock filled the silence.
‘It would do Mike some good,’ I said, watching her over the top of my cup. ‘I know how close you all were.’
‘Yup,’ she said with a sniff. ‘Me and Amy – well, we were best friends. And we dragged the boys along with us most of the time, so yeah – we were quite the foursome.’ She sipped her tea, holding the mug with both hands.
‘Phil must be upset about Amy too,’ I said.
Rachel looked at me I had just said the dumbest thing in the world. ‘He’s devastated. He adored your sister.’
Her words hung in the air between us. There was no way she knew what was going on between them. The poor woman was completely oblivious to the betrayal right under her nose. What a mess.
I headed home, pulling my coat tight against the chill. Jake called me again, and I let it go to voicemail. The phone pinged with the arrival of a message from him:
I need to speak to you. Can you please call me back when you get this?
I cringed. What had got into me last night? Jake’s ‘no hard feelings’ chat would have to wait until tomorrow, when I had the emotional strength to cope. Right now, I just wanted to eat crisps and wallow in my own self-pity from the safety of Puffin Cottage.
As I walked, though, I was hit by a sudden urge to see Phil. I wasn’t sure how helpful it would be to just look at him, but it felt like the only constructive thing I could do right then. Or was this the action of a woman who was slowly going mad? Was this how an obsession started? I was almost at Sea Street. I pulled my beanie further down and carried on walking in the direction of the caravan park.
Phil’s garage was busy. There were three or four cars parked out on the road and two inside that he was working on. From my vantage point across the street, I watched as he took a payment from a customer and handed back her keys with a smile.
So, this was the man that Amy had risked her marriage for. Had he been worth it?
He was chatting to his colleague now, a streak of grease on his cheek. He did have a nice smile, I supposed. Even from here, I could appreciate his rugged masculinity. Not that it was my thing at all, and I didn’t think it had been Amy’s thing either. But how well had I known my sister lately?
Phil had spent weekends here as a child, but I didn’t remember him. Had he and Amy experienced a flash of recognition when they’d met again as adults? Or had he just been there, in the background, when she’d befriended his wife?
Where had they had their affair? Had he popped over to the house when Mike was away on business, or had Amy visited him at the garage? How often had they met; where had they had sex; how had they avoided being caught? Why had they ended things? Had Mike found out and wanted to hurt them? I had so many questions. I needed to know everything.
A memory hit me on the short walk back home. Me and Amy, standing in front of the school on a cold and dark evening. It had been after a rehearsal of Much Ado About Nothing, and we’d been waiting in the small carpark for Dad to collect us.
But Dad hadn’t shown up. Mrs Wheeler had offered to take us home, telling us to stop making a fuss when we’d insisted that we were fine. These things happen all the time, she’d said.
The lights had been out when we got back. Mrs Wheeler had got out of the car with us to make sure everything was OK. I’d known it wasn’t, but she wouldn’t leave us alone. We hadn’t had a key, so the three of us had walked around to the back of the house to retrieve the spare from under the flowerpot. When we’d got to the back garden, the lights were on in the living room and the curtains were open. Dad was asleep in the chair, inexplicably wearing a bobble hat, his head thrown back, roaring snores. A drink stood on the table in front of him.
Mum had been away for a couple of nights, probably at
