Perhaps Adam and Rachel were right – maybe I just needed to get over this. I had already got it wrong twice, and at what cost? Having an affair did not mean that Mike had murdered Amy, and I had to stop looking for proof of something that clearly didn’t exist. The past was in the past, and we needed to forgive each other and move forward. Let the tide wash it all out to sea and start over.
Something else was niggling at me, too. I had replayed my discussion with Mike over and over in my head, and something didn’t add up. It was like a jigsaw, with a final piece that almost fit, but not quite. From afar it looked fine, but if you ran your fingers over it, you would feel a bump where the pieces didn’t quite belong. Was it my imagination, or had he admitted everything a little too easily?
Julie Knox. Julie Knox…
Why was the name familiar? Was she local? I’d read the tribute she’d written for Amy on Facebook, but I also had a vague memory of meeting someone called Julie Knox. Had she been at Amy’s funeral? No. It was long ago, a lifetime ago. I couldn’t put a face to the name. But there was an easy way to remind myself.
I opened Facebook on my phone, scrolling though Mike’s friends until I found her: Julie Knox. Her profile picture was a flower. I was holding my breath as I clicked the thumbnail and her life unfurled across my screen.
My pulse thudded in my ears and my jaw dropped. I scrolled through her pictures, my eyes growing wider. Who was this? My head spun as I tried to make sense of what I was seeing.
Julie was in her seventies, a proud grandmother of five from Scotland. Not even one of those glamorous seventy-somethings but a proper old lady, with a silver perm set, shin-length skirts, and silk scarves knotted above her cardigans. Her Facebook profile was like a family photo album, including pictures with her husband. There was Julie at the WI, Julie at the church bake sale, Julie surrounded by her grandchildren.
No way was this woman having an affair with Mike.
I re-read the name to check I had the right person, and went back to the list of Mike’s friends to make sure I wasn’t missing something. How did this woman even know Mike and Amy? The text and photos started to swim on the screen in front of me. I clicked back to the top of her page and combed through her friends.
I opened the profile of her husband, Douglas Knox, and scrolled through his photos – and there was Mike. The two of them were standing with a third man on a golf course, smiling at the camera, squinting in the sunshine. The photo was several years old.
It didn’t make any sense.
More scrolling, back through the years, then I saw it – a photograph of the Knoxes at Mike and Amy’s wedding. And then I remembered – a vague, dusty memory, stashed away in the far corner of my mind, of being introduced to them. Douglas was a friend of Mike’s father, a business partner or something like that, and Mike’s dad had invited them to the wedding. He had already been a widower by then and had insisted on inviting some of his friends – Amy hadn’t been happy about it but had been persuaded by Mike.
I had, of course, been completely disinterested in meeting them at the wedding. I’d been merrily drunk, smiling politely and saying just enough to be charming, wondering how quickly I could get back to my champagne and my date and the dancing. I hadn’t thought of them since. Mum and Auntie Sue might remember more.
Not that it was important – this was clearly not the woman that we had seen with Mike in Newcastle. So why had he blurted out her name when I’d confronted him?
Or had he? Had Mike simply said the first name that popped into his head and I’d filled in the rest?
But he had admitted it was her.
Why had he lied?
And if it wasn’t Julie Knox he’d been having an affair with, then who was it?
Chapter Twenty-Four
I needed to stay calm. Adam had suggested meeting at the pub before we went to Amy’s and it seemed like a great idea. I was jittery, chewing on the inside of my lip now that there was nothing left of my fingernails.
My heart started to race whenever I thought of Richard. He would never be able to come back here, not after what he had done. Not after everyone found out. I had to keep telling myself that he had taken Amy’s phone, and he had been accessing her messages – he would have brought police attention on himself sooner or later. But I kept picturing Auntie Sue’s face and her look of disappointment in me when we realised that he’d been arrested for nothing.
At least Rachel was on my side. If she was holding Phil’s arrest against me at all, she hid it well.
Phil must have known that it was because of me that he’d got arrested – and if he didn’t already know, he would soon. Nothing stayed secret in Seahouses. I hoped he would come home soon, and that he and Rachel could work things out. I would get on my knees and beg his forgiveness – do whatever it might take – to help them save their marriage. Rachel had lost so much already.
He’d clearly expected a little more from his wife – at least a public show of support. She hadn’t exactly leapt to his defence when he’d been accused, but we had all been so shocked, and in fairness to Rachel, she was also grieving for her best friend.
