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The following day, Niall sits behind his desk, long after everyone else has gone home, overcome with shock and disbelief. He dreads facing his wife. He will have to tell her.
He knew something had been going on with Patrick – something more than just colicky twins. He was right – Patrick’s being blackmailed, by the very woman Niall had been sleeping with. And now he has to tell Nancy – it’s going to be in the news, their business will probably take a hit. And Nancy still hasn’t decided whether she’s going to divorce him.
Patrick doesn’t know Niall was sleeping with Erica, and Niall’s going to keep it that way. He’s horrified at the lies Patrick said she’s telling about him. Erica is a blackmailer – maybe it’s a good thing that Nancy discovered their affair on her own, before Erica had a chance to ask him for money to keep it to herself. All of it makes him terribly uneasy. Patrick and Erica had known each other all along and had pretended not to. And he’d had no idea.
Niall drives home and lets himself into the house. He finds Nancy in the kitchen, cleaning up. She turns around, and for the first time in days she actually has a smile on her face – until she sees him.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asks quickly.
‘We have to talk,’ he says, and sits down heavily at the kitchen table. She joins him, alarm in her eyes.
‘I’ve had some terrible news today,’ he says. He tells her in detail about the pending inquest, that a woman has been trying to blackmail Patrick, making up lies, accusing him of murdering his first wife, a death that was clearly an accident.
‘Oh my God,’ Nancy whispers, shaken. ‘Of course he didn’t do it. He did the right thing to stand up to her.’ She brings a hand to her mouth. ‘Poor Stephanie.’
Niall nods. ‘She’s telling terrible lies – but what if they believe her over him?’
‘They won’t – of course they won’t.’
He hangs his head, takes her hand in his. ‘Honey, there’s something you need to know.’ He can feel his face draining of colour, he feels light-headed, as if he might be sick.
She looks intently at him. ‘What is it? Niall, you’re scaring me.’
‘The woman who’s accusing him – it’s Erica Voss.’
Nancy stares back at her husband, speechless. She can’t quite get her mind around what he’s telling her. It takes her a few seconds to process what he’s saying. But it must be true because Niall looks awful. ‘How is that possible?’ she says stupidly.
‘I didn’t know, Nancy,’ Niall insists. ‘I had no clue about any of this! If I’d known what she was like, I would have stayed a million miles away from her!’
Nancy remembers then, her confrontation with Erica in her apartment, her sense that this woman was no pushover, like Anne O’Dowd had been. No, she’s something else entirely.
Nancy is struck suddenly with a horrible, overwhelming fear that crowds out everything else. She whispers to her husband, ‘Do you think she knows?’ Her fear is enormous – she can see it reflected in his eyes, and she knows he’s already arrived at the same terrifying thought.
‘No. She can’t. How could she?’ he says. But he looks petrified.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Six weeks later
CHERYL AND GARY have started to relax a little. They haven’t seen Erica since Cheryl found her sitting in a convertible outside their house several weeks ago. Maybe they’ll never see her again; that is what they both hope for.
In these last few weeks, Cheryl has begun to notice some subtle changes in Devin – moodiness, a certain self-centredness that she’s not used to. Kids go through phases, everybody knows that. But she’s keeping an eye on it.
She takes the newspaper and her coffee into the living room. Gary has gone to work and Devin has already left for school. She sees an article on the front page of the Denver newspaper: INQUEST TODAY INTO DEATH OF PREGNANT WOMAN IN SNOWBOUND CAR.
She reads the article with interest. She remembers the original story; it made all the Denver papers. It had resonated with her because the woman who died was pregnant. It was so sad. She’s startled now to see that there are some questions about it, that it might not have been an accident after all.
How awful, she thinks.
She’ll have to watch the news at six and get the details.
Patrick is wearing a well-cut navy-blue suit, a white shirt and a conservative blue tie. He has been advised by his lawyer on his attire, and everything else. He sits in the stopped taxi in front of the local courthouse in Creemore, Colorado, leery of the reporters standing nearby, waiting for him. The time has come. The air is brisk now; it’s mid-October, and it’s always cooler in the mountains. They arrived here last night, he and Stephanie, for what is expected to be a one-day hearing. The twins are staying in Aylesford with Stephanie’s friend Hanna.
It feels strange to be back here, in Creemore.
It’s been a hellish few weeks. The notification of the coroner’s inquest, the meeting with the lawyer in Denver, his concern about Stephanie. The twins have finally and rather suddenly got over their colic – the only good thing that’s happened in the last few shitty weeks. They now go down without too much fuss at around 10 p.m. and sleep until about 6 a.m. The screaming and crying stopped without warning, just like the doctor said it would. They couldn’t believe it, kept expecting the peace to end.
But it hasn’t been the blessing they hoped for, because Stephanie seems to have lost the habit of sleep. She is now plagued with insomnia, all, no doubt, because of him. She lies in bed staring into the dark, or wanders the house in the middle of the night like some tortured Lady Macbeth. She looks worn out, her shoulder-length hair limp, her skin pale, her eyes puffy. She no longer wears make-up, although she has made an effort today. His attorney had impressed upon her how important appearances are at times like this – she must look well rested, confident, and supportive of her husband. She looks none of these things, he thinks, glancing sidelong at her. He hadn’t wanted her to come. He thought it would be too much for her, and that she should stay home with the twins. But the attorney felt it was important that she be there.
And she’d wanted to come. In fact, she had insisted on it.
He desperately wants this to be over – for the jury to quickly find that the death was accidental so that they can go home and put this behind them. Stephanie will finally start to sleep again, she will regain her equilibrium and things will go back to normal. And Erica won’t be able to touch them.
They’ve sat in the cab for too long, and now the reporters are swarming around the vehicle. Stephanie looks at him, tense.
‘It’s going to be all right, Stephanie,’ he says. ‘After today, this will all be over.’ He reaches out and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and kisses her on the cheek. She nods at him and turns away to unbuckle her seat belt.
They get out of the cab and begin to walk. Television crews follow them, and reporters with large microphones. Of course. This is big news in this little town – and in Denver, and even across the state. He’d seen the paper at breakfast this morning in the hotel: INQUEST TODAY INTO DEATH OF PREGNANT WOMAN IN SNOWBOUND CAR.
He’d read the entire article and then passed it to his wife. It didn’t say anything they didn’t know already; there was nothing in the article about Erica and what she might say. The journalists shout their questions.
Was it really an accident?
Mr Kilgour, did you deliberately kill your wife?
Why do they even ask such questions, Patrick thinks bitterly, striding forward, holding Stephanie’s hand – do they expect him to answer?
Do you know what new evidence has been uncovered?
Do you have anything to say in your defence?
Stephanie stumbles twice, latching on to his arm for support. He helps her up the steps and inside. Somehow they make it without Patrick lashing out at anyone.
It’s a modern room with a dais at the front, a witness box, long tables for the lawyers. This is supposed to be a nonadversarial proceeding, a fact-finding mission, but to Patrick, it doesn’t feel that way. His eyes shift over to the jury box, now empty. He shudders involuntarily.
