‘I am responsible,’ I said, my voice unsteady.
‘No, you’re not! Grace Strachan was driving the car, not you. You didn’t even know she was still alive! I know it’s horrible, but blaming yourself isn’t going to change anything. If you want to blame anyone, blame her!’
‘Grace was ill.’
‘I don’t care!’ Rachel threw up her hands. ‘Jesus, how can you be so hard on yourself and still forgive an… an evil bitch like that? So she had a shitty life, so what? People do! Look what you’ve been through! And my sister was murdered — you think that was a barrel of laughs? People die, and yes, it’s awful, but guess what? We’re still alive. And you need to decide if you want to carry on living or… or act like you’re dead yourself!’
She got up and walked out, wiping at her eyes. I stayed at the table, knowing going after her now wouldn’t help. I could hear her banging about, but gradually the noise subsided and the sound of the bedroom door shutting — not quite a slam but not quietly either — told me she’d gone to bed.
After a while I got up and loaded the dishwasher. I poured myself a glass of bourbon and took it into the living room. I sat in the dark rather than switching on a lamp. The dishwasher had long since stopped, and the apartment’s quiet was broken only by the hum of the central heating when I went to a cupboard in the hallway. I’d left most of my case notes and files at my old flat, but I’d brought one box with me. Taking it out, I set it on the dining-room table and opened it up. The familiar pang returned as I lifted out the photograph albums. They were the usual chronicle of family holidays, birthdays and Christmases, what few of them we’d had together. They charted Alice’s growth from a tiny baby to a shyly smiling six-year-old the image of her mother. I went through them slowly, taking my time until I’d seen them all.
Then I carefully packed them back in the box and put it away.
The sky had started to lighten when I went into the bedroom. I sat on the edge of the bed next to Rachel. Sleep had smoothed away the stress of recent weeks and the earlier anger had left her face. A few dark curls had fallen across her cheeks, stirring slightly as she breathed. Resisting the impulse to brush them aside, I turned to look out of the window. The day was starting to come to life outside, shape and colour emerging from dark. A fresh start.
Something made me turn back to Rachel. She hadn’t moved but now her eyes were open, green and thoughtful as they watched me. I looked into them as I moved the hair from her cheek.
‘Will you marry me?’
Chapter 34
It felt like I’d passed through a crisis. As though a dam had burst, the negativity and depression that had gripped me since I’d left hospital were washed away. The guilt over what had happened to Adam Oduya and Daniel Mears was still there, but I was able to view it in context now. I wasn’t accountable for Grace’s actions. Whatever demons had driven her were there long before I came along. I’d just been the latest target, not their instigator.
Ward told me that Mears was conscious and out of danger, though not yet ready for visitors. I doubted he’d want to see me anyway, but I knew there was an account there still to be settled. It might not have been my fault, but he’d lost his leg because Grace had mistaken him for me. Like it or not, that was a connection I couldn’t ignore.
As often happens, my physical recovery seemed to keep pace with my emotional one. The electrical burns were healing well, my concentration levels had returned to normal, and I was able to do more each day without feeling tired. Rachel and I began going out again, and if the wet autumn weather hadn’t improved, then it no longer seemed like a cloud on my spirits.
We had Jason and Anja round for dinner and told them the news. Anja hurried to hug Rachel while Jason solemnly shook my hand, before throwing a bear-like arm around my shoulders.
‘You want my advice, do it before she changes her mind,’ he’d told me.
Their delight was genuine, but although they hid it well I could feel their surprise. Rachel and I hadn’t known each other very long and, except for one other ultimately failed relationship, I’d been alone since Kara and Alice died. They’d begun to see that as my natural state, and I suppose so had I.
But if there was one thing I’d learned from my work, it was that change is a part of life. My past was an integral part of me, but I’d long ago come to the painful acceptance that, while my wife and daughter were dead, I was still alive. Rachel’s words had brought that home. And after almost dying on the dirty floor of Lola’s house, I also knew how rare such second chances were.
They didn’t last for ever.
Even so, at times it didn’t seem real even to me. I’d find myself gripped by an almost out-of-body sense that this was happening to someone else, that I was an observer in my own body. Some mornings I’d wake with a vertiginous feeling of something like panic. Then I’d look at Rachel, sleeping next to me, and the feeling would evaporate like dew in sunlight.
We’d decided to stay on at Ballard Court for the time being. There was no point in moving back to my flat any more. Rachel didn’t have any love for a place where I’d almost died and where I’d once lived with someone else. The apartment was bigger and more comfortable, and with several months still left on the lease it made sense to stay there while my old flat went on the market.
I found myself getting quite used to it.
We spent the next few days making plans and debating where to live, trawling through estate agents and property-guide websites. I was happy to leave most of that to Rachel, but there was one odd moment. It came when we were discussing the merits of staying in the city as opposed to moving elsewhere.
‘I like London, but do we really want to live here?’ she said, flicking through the print-outs of available apartments and houses. ‘Neither of us are tied here by work, so maybe we should look somewhere else. Property’s cheaper pretty much everywhere else, and we could get somewhere much bigger in a catchment area with good schools.’
She broke off as soon as she’d said it, reddening as she looked at me. ‘Sorry, I’m jumping the gun a bit there, aren’t I?’
We’d never discussed starting a family, and I saw I’d been stupid not to realize Rachel would want to. Is that what you want as well? I thought about Kara and Alice, my daughter forever frozen in my mind at six years old. There was the familiar ache as an image came to me of her laughing, squealing as Kara tickled her. Bedtime. Say night-night to Daddy. For a moment a sense of vertigo returned, a sudden feeling of enormity. Then it was gone.
‘It’s something we need to think about,’ I said.
We’d settled on holding the wedding as soon as we could arrange it. Although there was no rush, there was no point in waiting either. We both preferred a small, civic ceremony with just a few friends. Jason agreed to be my best man, and Rachel’s young niece, Faye, would be the sole bridesmaid.
‘How about Vegas for the honeymoon?’ Rachel suggested. She grinned when she saw my face. ‘Kidding. Just so long as there’s a beach where I can sunbathe and swim.’
I could live with that.
A week to the day after I’d left hospital, Ward phoned with an update. They still hadn’t been able to locate Gary Lennox’s missing remains, but there had been another, separate development. Kent police had found a yacht drifting in Oare Marshes, a wetland nature reserve on the south-east coast. There was no one aboard, but Grace Strachan’s fingerprints were everywhere.
‘It’s been abandoned for quite a while. We’re still trying to trace her movements, but we think that’s how she got back into the UK and why she was able to avoid attention for so long. It looks like she’d spent the past few years in the Mediterranean, living on the boat and moving up and down the coast.’