At the end of the second week, he got a call from Luke. “All right, stranger? Where’ve you been hiding? What you up to this weekend?”
“Oh, you know . . . work. Not really got any plans, why?”
“It’s my dad’s birthday this weekend. Me and Clara are going up there for the party. You fancy it? I know you said you were planning on going up to see your mum soon anyway. Clara was only saying this morning that she misses you. Come, it’ll be fun.”
—
He realized as soon as he got to the Willows and saw Clara that it had been a mistake to go there. She looked incredible. He wasn’t even sure what it was about her that pulled her to him so. She was nowhere near as beautiful as Hannah, yet she was everything. When she saw him, she gave a cry of delight and went to hug him, her familiar scent filling his nostrils, the feel of her compact little body in his arms. It was agony. He’d hoped that the short time away from her would have helped, but he realized he just loved her more than ever.
Toward the end of the evening he’d stood at the edges of the party, drinking solidly, morosely, by himself. When Luke bowled over to him, bright-eyed and flushed with drink, enthusiastically slapping him on the back, he had looked at him and said quietly, “What’s happening with that girl from work? Sadie? Did you really finish it with her?”
Luke’s eyes had widened. “Yes! Of course I bloody did! Jesus, Mac, I told you that. It was one night, months ago, the worst mistake I’ve ever made. I just want to forget it ever happened.” He’d glanced around himself uneasily.
Mac had nodded. “Yeah. Okay, I wanted to make sure.”
But still, anger had burned inside him as he’d watched Luke wander off to where Clara was talking to his mother, draping his arm around his girlfriend’s shoulder with casual propriety. When an extremely drunk Oliver had approached Mac a few minutes later, wine bottle proffered to top up his glass, Mac had said, raising his voice over the music and other voices, “Oliver, do you know anyone named Nadia Freeman?”
And the expression in Oliver’s eyes had told him all he needed to know. “What?” he said, the color instantly draining from his face. “What did you say?”
“Natalia,” he had almost shouted. “Natalia Fellum. Just a girl I met in London the other day, said she used to live locally. Oliver? Are you okay?”
“Yes, yes, sorry, I thought . . .” He took a large gulp of wine. “Um, Natalia? No, doesn’t ring a bell, I’m afraid,” and with that, he’d patted Mac on the shoulder, then staggered drunkenly off. But Mac had seen it: that initial reaction of pure, unbridled fear. He had seen it, and he had known.
—
In the days that followed, his thoughts kept returning to Hannah. He was surprised how much he missed her; there had been a connection between them, a sympathy, a sense that she was as alone as he was in her own way, that they shared a singular misery, a longing to make peace with something impossible. Since the party he found himself brooding on Luke’s selfishness, his undeserved good fortune, more and more. Finally, late one night when he’d been drunk and wretched, he’d texted Hannah. What did you want me to help you with? he wrote.
Her reply had been instant. Can we meet?
—
At first the plan had sounded so outlandish that he’d refused point-blank. “Are you joking? No fucking way.”
“Three days,” Hannah had said. “It’s only three days. Long enough to teach Oliver a lesson, that’s all, make him see that I haven’t gone away, that I’ll never go away.”
“Hannah . . .”
“He threw me away, Mac. Like rubbish. He threw me away and my mother too. She died because of him.”
“Yes, but . . .”
“Listen. You love Clara. Don’t you?”
And he’d looked at her, the only person in the world he’d ever admitted that to. “Yes, yes I do.”
“And Luke cheated on her, treated her like shit. The woman you love. Do you really want Clara to stay with him? With Luke out of the way, you could be alone with Clara, let her find out about Sadie, show her how much she means to you.” Tears had filled her eyes then. “Please, Mac, please. You’re my only hope. I feel as though I’ll never get closure on this if I don’t do something.”
Mac had thought about the guilt that had been plain to see on Oliver’s face and put his arms around her. “It’s okay,” he said. “It’s okay. Take it easy.”
“Look, I’m not going to hurt him. I only want Oliver to admit the truth, jolt him out of his smug little life, make him face up to what he did.”
“How are you going to get Luke to your flat?”
“You don’t need to worry about that,” she’d said. “I just need your help with a few things first.”
And he hadn’t asked too much, because he hadn’t really wanted to know. The next night he’d gone round to Clara and Luke’s flat, and while Luke had cooked them dinner, he’d sat with Clara, listening as she talked about the holiday they were saving up for, how wonderful it was now that they were living together. The next morning he had phoned Hannah. “Okay,” he’d said. “I’m in.”
It had begun to go horribly, terrifyingly wrong, very quickly. After Luke went missing, Hannah seemed to change overnight. Gone was the hurt and vulnerable woman he thought he knew, and in her place was someone very different. After the second day he had phoned her. “Is he okay? Are you going to let him go tomorrow like you said? Rose and Oliver are
