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I can see the spark of defiance in her eyes. ‘Listen to me,’ she says firmly. ‘I will apologise to you all afternoon if that’s what it takes. I shouldn’t have taken advantage of having your phone to myself, and I have been feeling bad about it, if that’s any consolation. But I won’t apologise for any trouble Lee might get into. What he did was probably illegal, certainly immoral, and he screwed over my favourite sister, who is far too nice to exact the revenge he deserves.’
‘I’m your only sister, so don’t try and butter me up with that.’
‘It’s the thought that counts. Seriously, Ella, if he gets away with this scot-free, then there really is no justice in the world.’
‘It doesn’t change the fact that you violated my privacy.’
‘You read my diary when you were fourteen, remember?’
‘You shouldn’t have left it lying around!’
‘You shouldn’t have given me unsupervised access to a phone with incriminating evidence on it.’
‘Oh, no. You don’t get to play that card. We’re supposed to be adults now, remember? You know, able to tell right from wrong?’
‘It’s not that simple, though, is it? Yes, I was wrong to go behind your back, but it’s completely right that someone dobs Lee in.’
‘But that wasn’t your choice to make!’
‘You’ve already said that and I’ve already apologised. Look, I really am sorry, OK? But it’s done now. She’s got the recording and we can’t change that.’
‘How did you even know where to send it?’
Ava does have the decency to blush a little. ‘I, erm, had a little scan through your inbox and found her that way.’
‘Bloody hell. You are a piece of work, you know that? And I don’t mean that in a nice way. What else did you do, have a little mosey through my photos to see if there were any of Lee in the nude?’
‘Are there?’
‘Don’t change the subject. This is every bit as bad as me reading your diary. In fact, it’s worse, because you acted on what you found. At least I never told Reuben that you fantasised about him when you masturbated.’
She flushes scarlet. ‘You said you’d only just opened the diary and hadn’t seen anything!’
‘I lied,’ I smirk.
‘Look, I know you’re cross with me—’
‘Do you think?’ I interrupt. ‘Don’t worry, I’m still going to finish your garden. I just have to decide whether or not I’m going to chop you into small pieces and bury you in it when I’m done. Teddy would love it, digging up bits of you to eat. It would be like a treasure hunt for him.’
‘You’re disgusting, you know that?’ she smiles. Despite my best intentions, I can’t stay cross at her for long and I smile back.
‘One piece of advice, though, if I may?’ she asks.
‘It’ll be a long time before you earn back the right to give me advice.’
‘Fine. You’re welcome to ignore me, but if I were you, I’d probably delete the recording now, and the emails between you and the HR woman. Just in case.’
‘What, just in case Lee is a dirty little snooper like you?’
‘Something like that.’
She’s got a point. I unlock my phone and carefully delete the evidence, before changing the passcode.
13
When I arrive at the address given for my interview, my first thought is that I’ve somehow got it wrong. As Dad said, Alwoodley is very upmarket and, instead of an office block like I expected, I’m actually standing in front of a pair of wrought-iron gates. Behind them is a large, detached house, with a huge SUV and some kind of sports car parked on the driveway. Only the small brass plaque on the wall next to the gate with ‘Atkinson Construction’ engraved on it gives the game away. Having spent hours going through it with Ben, my head is now full of housebuilding terms such as ‘breaking ground’, ‘watertight’, ‘first fix’ and ‘second fix’. I know the difference between a chippy, a pipey and a sparky, and I’m probably as ready for this interview as I can be. That doesn’t stop the nerves, though. I hope they aren’t hand shakers, because mine are slick with perspiration.
I haven’t said anything about the interview to Lee; on reflection, I realised he’d scoff at the very idea of me applying for a job in construction, plus we’re not really speaking at the moment. We had a bit of a blow-up last night because I told him that I was applying for jobs in other cities, and he’d told me flatly there was no way he was prepared to move, and he wasn’t prepared to be a weekend boyfriend either. I countered with the fact that I’d been a weekend girlfriend more often than not, what with him doing his induction and being on site with customers, and it kind of escalated from there.
