Only Hannah had the presence of mind to scoop up the things I needed for my pitch and pass them to me as we filed outside the front door, a motley crew straggling along the garden path, shell-shocked and shoeless.
‘Mike, come on, please don’t do this,’ I tried one last time.
He glared at me and slammed the door closed.
I pounded my balled fists against it, pleading. ‘Please, Mike. Please!’
But I knew it was futile.
I collapsed downwards, folding in on myself like a concertina until I landed in a crouch on the doorstep, sobbing into my knees, my arms wrapped around my legs. The village rumour mill would be sent into overdrive, but I didn’t care who saw or who heard any more; they could talk about us all they wanted. I had thought before that I’d lost everything – now I realised how losing everything really felt.
Jake crouched down beside me, folding me into his strong arms. I fell against his chest and he whispered into my hair, words that I couldn’t hear over my sobs. My face was a gluey mess of tears and snot and something inside me – something that had been stretched and twisted and borne more weight than it was designed to hold – finally broke.
I tried to stand, but couldn’t feel my legs. I didn’t want to move, anyway – maybe Mike wouldn’t let me in, but I could sit here on the doorstep all day. Stay close to the children, be ready when they needed me.
How long would he keep me away from them? Did I have any legal rights to see them? The panic was rising in me, a flutter beating in my chest.
Maybe if I closed my eyes and wished very hard, I could transport myself away from here – to another time, another place. Another life. It had been a favourite game of Amy’s. We would crawl under the bedsheet with our torches, our heads making a tent peak, close our eyes, and focus on the place we wanted to go to.
I wished myself away from there, away from the shouting and Mike’s fury, away from Seahouses, away from the people and places where everything reminded me of Amy. Away from Phil and Richard and the mistakes I’d made. From my failure to make everything better. From all the pain I had caused.
Jake was still at my side and he was trying to talk to me – I could hear him, but his words didn’t make sense. None of it made sense. Everything was spinning.
And then another voice.
‘Dear god, Izzy. Could you not have just answered your bloody phone?’
And there, at the garden gate with an overnight bag at his feet, was Adam.
Chapter Twenty-Two
‘I’m not calling this an intervention, but I need some time alone with Izzy.’
Adam sent Rachel home and told Jake to go back to the office before whisking me off to the pub and installing me at our usual corner table. Only by the second glass of Sauvignon Blanc did my teeth finally stop chattering.
‘What are you doing here? You’re not due to visit until the end of the month.’
‘I got so worried when you stopped taking my calls that I had to change my flights. Looks like I got here just in time,’ he said, looking me up and down.
I took stock of my appearance. My hair badly needed some maintenance. I had gained at least three kilos and tiny threads of wrinkles were now creeping from the sides of my eyes and across my forehead – a combination of the emotional strain of the last two months and being long overdue for my regular Botox appointment. I had bitten my nails into short, frayed stubs that would have horrified the old me. My make-up routine had dwindled to the most basic – a lick of mascara and a swipe of lip balm.
Two months ago, I would have been embarrassed for Adam to see me looking like this – for anyone to see me like this, for that matter. Now, I couldn’t care less.
‘So apart from your family imploding on itself, what else have you been up to?’
Where to start?
I quickly filled him in on everything – going to the police with the evidence I’d discovered of Amy and Phil’s affair, who arrested him – only to release him when I realised that he and Amy hadn’t been involved after all, and that it was Richard who had Amy’s phone all along and had been reading her messages, and then seeing the police release him too – and my underlying suspicion that Mike was hiding more than an affair. And now Phil was nowhere to be found and Richard’s life was probably ruined.
‘OK,’ said Adam, taking a deep breath. ‘Tell me – have you found any time at all for quiet, reflective grief? Quality time with your family, with the children?’
I ignored him.
‘The worst part is I know Mike is covering something up – I’m not saying for sure that he killed Amy, but he had the biggest motivation and Phil was framed. Who did that, if not Mike? I need to find the woman he was having an affair with. There’s more to that than he’s letting on.’
I chewed on a fingernail. Finding Julie Knox – that was my next step.
‘Would you listen to yourself, Agatha Chr-Izzy! Why don’t you leave the detective work up to the professionals? You have enough on your plate, and this’ – he motioned towards me – ‘this is not healthy. You’re drinking far too much, and you’ve become obsessed with Amy’s accident. Your family are worried about you.’
I scoffed. ‘No, they’re not.’
‘Auntie Sue is. She said you’re constantly drinking and the accident is all you talk about, that you’re convinced Amy was murdered and it’s eating you up.’
‘Auntie Sue? When did she say that?’
‘Oh, all the time.’ He waved a hand
