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‘I’m sorry for intruding. I didn’t know he’d still be here.’
She smiles again. ‘Neither did I. Anyway, it’s fine – come in and meet Dean. Finally. You’ve heard enough about him all these years, so this is long overdue.’
I’m about to tell her that I need to talk to her urgently, but she’s already hurrying to the living room. ‘This is Dean,’ she says, smiling proudly. ‘Dean, Hannah. My closest friend.’
He’s older than I’ve expected – at least in his late forties, and it occurs to me that I’ve never asked Sarah his age. Or much else about him. I dismissed him in my mind as soon as he cut her out of his life. There’s an air of confidence about him, and I wonder if this is what attracted Sarah to him. She’s so used to looking after people, being the one in charge, I wonder if he made a refreshing change for her. Someone who can clearly look after himself.
‘Good to meet you,’ Dean says. ‘I’ve certainly heard a lot about you today. From both Sarah and Ivy.’
It hits me hard how awkward this is. What am I supposed to say to a man who’s never bothered to see his daughter until now? For Sarah’s sake, I force a smile. ‘Sorry to turn up like this. I just needed to talk to Sarah quickly. It’s kind of urgent.’ Again, I smile at Dean.
‘No problem,’ he says, standing up. ‘I need to get going anyway.’
‘Oh.’ Sarah’s smile disappears. She’d never admit it, but she’s not going to thank me for interrupting her evening.
‘You don’t have to leave,’ I say. ‘I can quickly talk to Sarah in the kitchen.’
But Dean is already pulling on his coat. ‘No, no. I’ll get out of your way.’ He smiles at Sarah. ‘I’m sure you’ve got a lot to talk about.’ He kisses her cheek. ‘I’ll see myself out.’
Despite this, Sarah goes with him to the door, and they speak in hushed voices before I hear the door close.
I wait, pacing the living room, wondering how I’m ever going to get these words out.
‘What’s happened?’ she asks, when she joins me in the living room.
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realise I’d be interrupting?—’
‘Oh, forget that. He was probably about to leave anyway. And Dean’s not important right now.Youare. Come and sit.’ She flops on the sofa and pats the cushion next to her. ‘What is it, Hannah?’
I’m not sure I want to sit; moving is helping me to stay calm. I hesitate for a moment before joining her on the sofa.
‘Okay, now you’re scaring me. What is it?’ Sarah urges. ‘I know something awful’s happened for you to be here now.’
And when I speak, the words tumbling from my mouth like a waterfall, it feels good to finally be confiding in Sarah. I start with the key card, sparing no details as I fill her in on everything that has happened since that night.
She listens carefully, and even though her mouth opens to ask a question several times, she waits until I’ve finished to speak. There’s shock and disbelief on her face, and she stumbles on her words. ‘I…I don’t know what to say,’ she says. ‘I knew something was wrong. I’ve been asking you for weeks!’ She quickly apologises. ‘This isn’t about me, sorry. I can’t believe it.’
‘Taylor’s been lying to me since the second I met him. But why? What does he want?’ I stand up. ‘I know he must have been a friend of Alice’s – I’ve seen photos of him and her mum knew him. So that much couldn’t have been a lie.’
Sarah frowns. ‘I don’t get it. But it sounds like he wanted to get to Max. Ruin his life because he lost his job.’
‘But how does Alice fit in?’ I’m struggling to fit the pieces together – too many of them are missing.
‘I don’t know. But what if this Taylor has?—?’
‘Shane,’ I correct. But how will I ever get used to calling him that? It sickens me to think that I was beginning to trust him. That somehow, despite the harrowing circumstances surrounding how we met, he was getting under my skin.
‘Shane,’ she says. ‘Do you think he was trying to frame Max? Could he have put the key card in Max’s pocket? I don’t believe for one second Max could have killed anyone. What if it was Shane who killed Alice?’
And now, in light of what I’ve learnt about Taylor, my belief in Max’s guilt is wavering. ‘Max did have an affair, though. Paula saw him. And I saw photos of him with Alice.’
‘On that man’s phone. How do you know they’re even real? Could have been a deep fake? It’s easy to do.’
Sarah’s right. I don’t know they were real. And conveniently, those photos don’t exist any more. Stolen, supposedly. Was Taylor lying about that attack? And the time he ran after the man in the Golf and we had to go to hospital? Was that something to do with him as well? Did he plan all of that?
‘What if Max wasn’t having an affair with Alice Hughes?’ Sarah suggests. ‘What if it was someone else?’
I don’t know whether this makes me feel better or worse. ‘So much still doesn’t make sense,’ I say.
