The Therapist by B.A. Paris

Thirteen

‘Why did you want this house so much?’ I ask Leo the next morning. We’re standing in the kitchen. It’s spotless, because neither of us bothered to eat last night and the early morning light is bouncing off the pale marble surfaces.

‘Sorry?’ He looks tired, but not as tired as I do.

‘Yesterday, you said that the reason you didn’t tell me about the murder before moving in was because you knew I’d refuse to live here and you really wanted this house. I’m asking you why you really wanted this house. It’s a nice house but not so nice that anyone with a conscience would overlook a murder.’ I know I’m being harsh but I barely slept and fatigue is dragging me down.

He walks over to the black and chrome coffee machine.

‘Coffee?’

I’m dying for one. ‘No thanks.’

He makes his coffee before answering my question, as if he’s hoping I’ll tire of waiting. But I’m prepared to give him as much time as it takes.

‘I wanted this house because it’s in a secure environment,’ he says eventually. ‘I like that nobody can get in unless they live here, or they’re let in by someone who lives here. It makes it safer. And because I could afford it. I’d never have been able to afford it if it didn’t have a past.’

‘Since when have you become security conscious?’

‘Since I started getting harassed by clients.’

‘I wasn’t aware you’d been harassed by clients.’

He glances at me. ‘That’s because I chose not to tell you.’

‘I know you had unwanted calls,’ I say, remembering the times he answered his phone only to hang up straightaway, and the way he sometimes stared at the screen before deciding not to answer, then telling me it was a wrong number. ‘I didn’t realise they were from clients. But nobody actually came to the door, did they?’ I pause as a memory resurfaces. ‘Except that woman, the blond one, in Harlestone. I asked you about her at the time and you told me she wanted to know what it was like to live in the village. Was she one of your clients?’

‘No,’ he says. ‘The point is, if a client had wanted to find out where I was, they could have. I’ve never given anybody your address but if somebody had turned up in Harlestone looking for me, every single person in the village would have taken them right to your front door and on the way, told them what I’d had for dinner the previous evening.’

There’s something about his reasoning that doesn’t ring quite true. He’s not telling me everything – but what is it that he’s holding back?

‘But this – The Circle – is a small community in the same way that Harlestone is,’ I say, perplexed.

He gives a tired sigh. ‘That’s exactly why I chose it. I would have preferred an anonymous block of flats with a built-in security system, something like I had before. But you made it clear you weren’t going to live somewhere like that so I looked for a way to keep both of us happy. Here we have the intimate set-up that you prefer and the security that I need. It’s a compromise, Alice, another damn compromise.’

‘Isn’t that what relationships are about?’ I say, stung. ‘Compromise?’

He takes his cup from the machine. ‘I’ll let you have your breakfast in peace. If you want to talk, I’ll be in my study.’

Tears sting my eyes. I’d lain awake most of the night and I still don’t know what to do. I’m tempted to go back to Harlestone but if I do, I’ll have to ask Debbie if I can stay with her for the next few months, because I can’t move my tenants out without notice. But where will that leave me and Leo? He’s right, we’d have to go back to how we’d managed before, only seeing each other at weekends when the whole point of moving to London was so that we could spend more time together. And I can’t get what he said about making new memories for the house out of my mind. It’s created a feeling of obligation that I resent, because if I don’t take up the challenge, I’ll feel as if I’m turning my back, not just on Nina Maxwell, who I feel bound to in some inexplicable way, but also my sister.

‘I meant to ask.’ His voice comes from behind me and turning, I see him standing in the doorway. ‘You said a neighbour told you about the murder. Was it Eve?’

‘No.’

‘Who was it, then?’

I have no choice. I have to tell him what I told Eve.

‘It wasn’t a neighbour, it was a reporter,’ I say, horribly aware that there are too many lies creeping into our relationship.

‘A reporter? You mean, a journalist?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did they come here?’

‘No, it was a phone call.’

‘A man or a woman?’

‘A woman.’

He rakes his hair, a sign that he’s riled. ‘Did she say which newspaper she was with?’

I turn to the coffee machine and start pressing buttons. ‘No.’

‘Didn’t you ask?’

‘No, I was in too much shock to care.’

‘Did you get her name?’

‘No.’

‘What did she say, exactly?’

‘She wanted to know what it was like to live in a house where someone had been murdered.’ I stop abruptly, wondering if he’s noticed that I used almost the same phrase as he did when he told me about the woman who came to Harlestone – She wanted to know what it was like to live in the village. Which means we’re both lying.

‘Did she say anything else?’

‘No.’ I look at him curiously. ‘Why?’

‘No reason.’

He leaves and I sit down at the table. Something isn’t adding up. Leo seems paranoid about my fictitious reporter. And his behaviour yesterday when I first confronted him had been over the top. He’d looked as if he’d been about to pass out. But his reason for not telling me – that he wanted this house because it provided him with security – doesn’t stand up.

I go to my study, closing the door behind me. Since last night, it has become not just my workplace, but my haven. The bed is now a sofa again, the quilt folded neatly into the bottom of the cupboard, because I can’t work in a mess. I sit down at my desk. I need to phone Ginny, and a message has come in from Eve, checking that I’m alright. I text Eve back and tell her I’m fine, and that I’ll see her after the weekend. If you need me before then, just let me know xx she replies and I feel lucky to have made a friend so close to home. Home. Again, the word resonates in my brain. Can it ever be my home now?

I call Ginny.

‘How are you?’ she asks.

‘Not good.’

‘Did you speak to Leo?’

‘Yes, he said he didn’t tell me because he really wanted the house and he knew I wouldn’t want to live here once I knew about the murder. He was right about that.’ I pause. ‘It’s the reason he gave for wanting the house that doesn’t ring true. He told me it was because it’s in a gated residence and nobody can get in unless they are let in by a resident. He said he’d been harassed by some of his clients.’

‘Do you mean he’s received threats of some sort?’ Ginny asks.

‘I don’t know. He’s never mentioned being harassed to me. I know there were some phone calls that he didn’t answer, or where he hung up straightaway. And once he got annoyed with a woman who tried to speak to him outside the cottage in Harlestone. He said she wasn’t a client, but he was more annoyed about it than he should have been.’

‘How have you left it with him?’

‘Well, I slept on the sofa bed in the study and I’ll be sleeping there again tonight.’

‘I’m really sorry, Alice.’

‘Thank you, but it’s fine. Or it will be.’

I hang up, wondering if it will ever be fine between me and Leo. I know I’ll never be able to sleep in the bedroom again, not now that I know what happened there. That in itself isn’t a problem as we can move into the guest bedroom, and Leo can put his gym equipment in our bedroom instead of in the garage, where he usually works out. But for the moment, I can’t think about sharing a bed with him. And why is Thomas Grainger investigating the murder, anyway? He said he was working on behalf of his client, and then something about their brother being accused of a murder he didn’t commit. His client must be Oliver’s brother or sister, which makes me slightly dismissive about his miscarriage of justice claim. It’s normal for close family members not to believe their loved ones are capable of murder. It doesn’t mean they didn’t do it.

I search on my phone for the screenshot I took of Nina’s photo. Her long blond hair is gathered into a messy bun and thin gold hoops hang from her ears. She looks happy and carefree and I’m hit by a familiar wave of sadness.

‘Who killed you, Nina?’ I murmur. ‘Was it Oliver?’

She stares back at me, a smile at the corner of her mouth. That’s for you to find out, she seems to be saying.

I study her photograph, looking for a trace of my sister. There isn’t; my Nina was darker than this Nina, darker than me. My sister who wanted me to be called Nina like her. She was three when I was born and very insistent, so my parents told her she could choose my name. She chose it from her favourite book, Alice in Wonderland.

The rest of the weekend passes with me and Leo avoiding each other, moving to different areas of the kitchen if we happen to be there at the same time and being extra polite, like two almost-strangers. When he tells me that he’s off to play tennis with Paul, I have to hide my surprise. In his place, I’d be too embarrassed to show my face. But then I realise that apart from Eve and Will, no-one from The Circle knows that he didn’t tell me about the murder.

I use the time to catch up on the work I didn’t do on Thursday and Friday, and by the time Sunday evening comes around, I’ve finished the first read-through of the book.

I’m pulling out the sofa bed when Leo knocks on the door.

‘Thank you for not leaving,’ he says, helping me move the cushions.

‘I still might. I haven’t decided what to do yet.’

He nods. ‘I’m going to commute to Birmingham this week, so that you won’t be alone in the house at night – if you decide to stay,’ he adds.

‘Thanks,’ I say, because I’d forgotten that I was meant to be by myself until Thursday. We make up the bed and I close the door behind him, struck by the irony of the situation. This was meant to be a new start, a chance – once his current contract was finished – for us to live as a normal couple where, after a day’s work, we would meet again in the evenings – every evening – to chat about our day face to face. Even if we can get over this, what if it doesn’t work out? What if we find we can’t live together day after day? Maybe our relationship only worked until now because we lived apart for most of the time.

I’m almost asleep when I remember I need clothes for the morning. Since Friday, I’ve lived in clothes pulled from the ironing basket but they’re now back in the wash. My clean ones are in the bedroom, where I don’t want to go.

I text Leo.

Before you leave, please get me some clothes from the bedroom and leave them on the chair in the hall. My white shorts, my red dress, a pair of jeans, two white T-shirts, two navy T-shirts and four sets of underwear. My white trainers and the blue sandals with the gold bar. And socks. Thanks.

I turn off my phone and go back to sleep.