‘You’re delusional,’ Matthew muttered.
Becky lifted her head and met his eyes. He thought he saw a flicker of something in her expression. He wasn’t sure what; it could have been a myriad of things – resignation, realisation, repugnance, even reluctant respect. She was quick to glaze over, practised at not letting him know what she was thinking. ‘Why would you think I’d interfered with the car?’ She asked the question quietly.
‘I have evidence. Security footage.’
‘That’s impossible. You can’t have footage of that. There are no cameras in the garage.’
‘Well, not of you loosening the wheel nut exactly,’ he admitted. ‘But footage that shows you going into the garage the night of the accident and then emerging a little while later with a tool stuffed up your jumper. I’ve given the footage to the police.’
‘You bastard.’ She said it gently, almost a caress. He’d expected more denials, more fury. She shook her head slowly, understanding everything now. She was quick, always had been. People underestimated her brain because of her beauty, but he knew that she would have made the leap, seen the end. ‘Yes, I went into the garage, but that was just to get access to the tumble dryer. I put her cashmere jumper in the dryer to shrink it. That’s all.’
‘That’s pathetic.’
‘Maybe, but that was all I was doing.’
‘I mean your excuse is pathetic, not shrinking her jumper, which you’ve obviously just made up.’ Although now he thought of it, that was pathetic too. Everything they had done. All the little cruelties, the nasty scheme to undermine, destabilise, destroy. How had he gone along with it for so long? ‘Why were you shrinking her jumper?’
‘I wanted her to think she’d done it when drunk, obviously.’
‘But you didn’t need to do that. She’d already lost the plot. She thought she was being haunted. Why were you still torturing her?’
Becky held his gaze. The years they had spent together spun across the table. All the love that had rolled between them, the hate that had erupted, the joy and pain they had brought to one another. He recalled the initial optimism that had been eroded by the endless disappointments; the poverty endured, rows fought, humiliations suffered. This was what all relationships amounted to in the end. A balance between the valuable, the miserable and the impossible. Their bad stuff had mounted up, ultimately outweighing the parts that made things worthwhile, or even bearable. The lies, deceit and betrayals had created a wall between them. He wondered, if he put out his hand, would he feel it physically manifested? What they had been, what they had become. There had been barricades and divisions in the past. Somehow they had always waded their way through, struggled on. But this time, neither of them had the energy to scramble over the wall, let alone knock it down.
Becky eyed him coldly. ‘Torturing is a very strong word. I can tell you what torture is. It’s spending your life with your nose pressed up against the window, watching others enjoy what should have been yours.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Emma’s wealth. It should have been mine.’
‘No it shouldn’t. Just because you want something doesn’t mean you’re entitled to it.’
‘She owed me.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Mum kept saying you were falling in love with her. I didn’t want to believe it.’
‘And that’s why you planned to kill her.’
‘No, I never did. You can’t think that about me. A murderer? No.’ The sirens of the approaching police cars were audible now. The blue lights flickered into the room. ‘Our plan was working. Emma would have gone down for killing my mother. Mum would have been entirely blamed for harassing her, and tampering with the car too. No one would have looked our way.’
Matthew didn’t have to answer. As the police banged on the door, he stood up and let them in.
46
One year later
Emma
The murder charge against me was dropped. Many people confirmed my account that I had no prior knowledge my parents had been murdered, let alone that Susan Morden, my ex-cleaner, was responsible. I had always believed my grandparents’ story that it was an accident. Matthew testified that Becky had created the searches about my parents’ deaths and Susan Morden’s involvement and imprisonment that were found on my computer. Without that prior knowledge, there was no motive for me to murder her. My lawyer hired a computer security expert to forensically explore my PC. The expert concluded that a hacker with a level of competency had made all the searches after the crash, while I was in hospital, unconscious. The timeline had been manipulated so as to fool the police when making their initial investigations.
No motive, no opportunity, no case.
Perverting the course of justice was added to the charges against Becky Morden, as the prosecuting lawyer declared that no one else could have been responsible for manufacturing evidence against me. In court, Becky’s defence lawyer pointed out that Matthew could have done it. This caused Heidi to mutter, ‘I wouldn’t put it past him. I just don’t trust him. Never have.’ She stopped short of saying ‘I told you so’. We both know she did tell me; I didn’t listen. I didn’t want to hear.
Ever reasonable, Gina added, ‘He’s owned up to his part in everything. It’s horrifying enough. If he was responsible for framing you, I think he’d say so. The defence lawyer’s job is to cast reasonable doubt on the charges Becky is facing. You don’t have to think the worst.’
I don’t express an opinion. Staying quiet, waiting to see what the court decides is an act of discipline. I have jumped to conclusions, drawn shaky suppositions and wanted to believe lies so often since Matthew came into my life, and doing so led to nothing other than trouble. I will wait to see what the outcome of the trial is. I will believe what is decided by judge and jury. That is the sane and measured thing to do. My talent used to be my discipline. I prided myself on being rational, thorough, careful. I’m looking for that again.
Heidi and Gina have been amazing throughout the trial. Despite their own busy lives and commitments, they’ve ensured that one or the other or both are always with me. It has helped, as I’ve been hit with endless complex and shocking revelations. I’m concentrating on restoring my equilibrium. I lost myself for a while and I need to find my routines and my reason; I need to concentrate on my relationships with my friends and their families. These are the things that have sustained me in the past. I need these tools to cope as I process the facts. I had rules and routines for a reason. When they are abandoned, things start to fall apart. Children of alcoholics know this better than most; how did I forget?
Matthew is not a widower. He is someone’s fiancé. Becky is not dead, yet she is still haunting me. Listening to her defence is devastating. If she is to be believed, she was in an active relationship with him throughout our meeting and our marriage. Both things were a sham, part of a long-term plan to defraud me of my wealth. Matthew told the police that he had not understood the ultimate endgame of the crime, but that the plan had been revealed to him in incremental stages that increased in seriousness and criminality. Apparently, he’d initially thought it was going to be a matter of a simple robbery; later that progressed into severe gaslighting, in order to have me committed so that he could take fiscal control. In court he said he wasn’t proud of that. ‘Things just got out of hand.’ I thought Heidi was going to leap out of her seat, jump over the viewing gallery balcony and throttle him with her bare hands at that point. She spluttered her indignation and disbelief when he insisted he’d had no idea that attempts were being made on my life.
Everything he ever said to me was a lie.
His claim not to have known that the plan was to kill me is something Becky also asserts. Nice that they have so much in common, I suppose. She admitted to several counts of aggravated trespassing, vandalism, breaking and entering, theft, and the desecration of my parents’ graves, but like Matthew she has continued to insist she is innocent in the matter of tampering with the car. Furthermore, she claims she has never physically harmed me.
‘Did you lock Ms Westly in her private sauna?’
‘I did not.’
‘Did you interfere with the ladder when Ms Westly was clearing the gutters?’
‘I did not. I was in London, with Matthew Charlton.’
‘Did you fill her bath with scalding water?’
‘No, I didn’t.’
