The Therapist by B.A. Paris
Seventeen
I’ve barely begun working when the highlighter I’m using dries up on me. I know Leo has some in his study so I force myself upstairs. Living with Nina’s ghost isn’t easy. I pause, one foot on the next step. Living with Nina’s ghost.
After my sister died, there were times when I felt she was with me, times when I could feel her presence, especially in the quiet of the night or when I was feeling particularly low. It was as if she was letting me know that I wasn’t alone. I hadn’t been particularly spiritual before but, intrigued, I began to read about life after death and, because of what I had experienced in relation to my sister, I came to accept that sometimes, our spirit lives on, particularly when a person dies unexpectedly before their time. One of the things I read was the belief that if a death was violent, the spirit of that person might wait around until their murderer was brought to justice. It had particularly marked me because I hadn’t sensed my sister’s presence since the day her case was brought to court, and although I hadn’t been satisfied with the outcome, maybe my sister had been, which was why she had left. What if Nina Maxwell’s spirit is living on, here in the house, waiting for justice to be done?
The study on the first floor is Leo’s space and I’m always surprised at how tidy it is. There’s nothing on the desk apart from a wooden ruler and a couple of pens. I pull open the drawers that run down each side of the desk. The bottom one on the left-hand side is jammed full of pens, pencils and highlighters. I choose a yellow one and, as I take it out, the back of my hand brushes against something taped to the underside of the drawer above. Curious, I push the jumble of pens and pencils to one side and unpick the Sellotape with my fingers. There’s something metal underneath. I let it fall into my hand and see a tiny key, which I recognise as coming from one of those metal cash boxes that I used to save money in as a teenager. I turn it over, inspecting it. If Leo has gone to the trouble of hiding it, there must be something he doesn’t want anyone, including me, to find. Was that why he was so jittery when I told him I’d taken people upstairs to see the work we’d had done?
I turn to the grey metal filing cabinet that stands in the corner, where Leo keeps his client files. I tug at the top drawer but it doesn’t open. Neither do the other three; all the drawers are centrally locked. Puzzled, I go back to the desk, looking for another key, running my hand along the underside of each drawer in case Leo has hidden that one too. When I don’t find anything, I search the rest of the study.
I empty the pen holder on the desk, run my fingers over the little ridge above the doorway and come away with nothing but dust. I get down on my hands and knees and look under the desk, hoping to find the key to the filing cabinet taped somewhere on its underside. I turn Leo’s chair upside down, check behind his computer, under the keyboard and then repeat the whole process. But I can’t find the key. Frustrated, I stick the tiny key back where I found it and go back to work.
While I’m on my lunch break, I remember that before Thomas Grainger turned up yesterday, I’d been on my way to see Lorna. It’s early afternoon, so I’m not worried about her and Edward being in the middle of lunch. But no-one answers my knock and I don’t like to insist, because they might be having a nap. I turn to go home and see Will standing at the bottom of the drive, on his way out.
‘Hi, Alice!’ he calls. ‘How are things?’
‘Oh – you know. I was hoping to see Lorna but she doesn’t seem to be in.’
‘I’d suggest going to see Eve but she’s at her mum’s. She’ll be back around five, if you’re looking for company.’
‘Thanks, Will.’
He gives me a wave and I turn back to the door, because I can hear a lock being turned. The door opens, the chain still in place.
Lorna peeps at me timidly through the gap.
‘It’s only me,’ I say cautiously. ‘I didn’t mean to disturb you.’
‘I wasn’t going to answer but I heard your voice.’ She stares for a moment, as if deciding whether or not to let me in. She doesn’t seem to want to and I’m about to apologise and tell her I’ll call back another day when she begins removing the chain, slowly, as if she’s hoping I’ll get fed up waiting and go away.
‘Are you sure?’ I ask doubtfully, when she finally opens the door.
‘Yes, come in. It’s just that Edward isn’t here and I’m always more careful when I’m on my own.’
‘That’s very wise. How is he?’
‘Much better, thank you.’ She opens a door to the right and I follow her in to a cosy sitting room.
‘This is lovely,’ I say, admiring the delicate pastel tones. There’s the beautiful scent of lavender and I trace it to a crystal vase, sitting on a low table. Like ours, her sitting room looks onto the square and from the window, I can see our driveway perfectly.
We sit down.
Lorna gives me a nervous smile. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’
‘No, thank you. I just wanted to ask you something.’
‘It’s not about letting that man into your party, is it? I don’t know what came over me. I’m usually so careful.’
‘No, it’s not about that,’ I reassure her, sad at how much it has knocked her confidence, because she doesn’t seem quite as sharp as when I first met her, nor quite as smartly dressed. Although she’s wearing her pearls, her clothes – a camel skirt and blue patterned shirt – seem hastily put together, and her hair isn’t the same neat bob.
‘Have you managed to find out who it was?’ she asks.
I hesitate, because I know that if I tell her the truth, that the man is a private detective, she’ll feel better about having let him in. On the other hand, I’d have to tell her that he’s investigating Nina’s murder. She would ask why, and I’d have to admit that Thomas Grainger believes Oliver was innocent. I don’t want to open old wounds.
‘Not yet,’ I say, making a quick decision. ‘But I’m not worried about him and I hope you aren’t either. I know how upsetting it must be after what happened to Nina,’ I add, pleased to have found the perfect lead into the conversation I want to have with her.
Lorna raises her hand to her pearls.
‘It was terrible,’ she says, her voice barely a whisper. ‘Truly terrible.’
‘I didn’t know about it, I only found out a few days ago.’
Lorna looks shocked. ‘Oh Alice, that’s awful. But – I don’t understand. Why didn’t you know?’
‘Because Leo chose to keep it from me. He was going to tell me, but he hoped that by the time he did, I’d have grown to love the house as much as he does and wouldn’t want to leave.’
‘Do you want to leave?’
‘It’s so difficult. I’m not sure how I feel about the house, but I love The Circle, everyone has been so welcoming and I know I’d make friends here. I wanted to leave, but then Leo said something that I can’t get out of my mind. He said that the house deserved to have new memories, happy memories.’ I pause, working my way through my feelings. ‘It’s not that simple, though. Leo and I aren’t really speaking at the moment because I can’t forgive him for not being upfront with me before we moved in. It’s all a bit of a mess, to be honest.’
‘I can see that,’ Lorna says, and I smile gratefully at her. It’s a relief to be able to pour out my heart to someone with life experience who, like me, has lost someone she loved.
‘I don’t have any family apart from Leo,’ I say, on impulse. ‘My parents and sister were killed in a car crash when I was nineteen years old.’
Lorna’s hand moves to her heart.
‘You lost your sister and your parents? Your poor thing, how did you cope? To lose three loved ones – it doesn’t bear thinking about.’
‘If it hadn’t been for my grandparents, I’m not sure I would have coped. They were so strong; they’d lost their only son, their only child—’ I stop, halted by the look of desolation clouding her face. ‘I’m so sorry, Lorna, that was clumsy of me. I know you lost your son too.’ Lorna doesn’t say anything; her fingers pluck at the material of her skirt and I hate that I’ve upset her. ‘It must have been so hard for you.’
‘Yes, it was,’ she says, her voice almost a whisper. ‘Any loss is terrible, however it happens.’
We sit in silence for a moment. I wonder if I should leave her in peace but I want to find out what I can. ‘I was wondering – would you be able to tell me about Nina? Maybe if I knew a little about her, if I could make her real to me, it would help.’
Lorna eyes dart, as if she’s looking for a way out. Then she nods and squares her shoulders in acceptance of my request.
‘She was lovely,’ she says. ‘So was Oliver. He was like a son to us, he would help us in the garden, cut the hedges, mow the lawn, that sort of thing. That’s why I still don’t understand what happened, why it all went so wrong between them. One minute they were the happiest couple in the world and the next – we heard them arguing one evening, it was awful. Oliver sounded so angry, which was strange, because I’d never seen him get cross about anything. But they say that, don’t they, that sometimes, when easy-going people explode – well, they really explode. Edward and I didn’t know if we should go over, or call the police. We were so worried for them.’
‘And did you? Call the police?’
‘No, because everything calmed down. Oliver was still angry but he wasn’t shouting.’
‘Did you hear what they were arguing about?’
A frown comes over her face and I realise that, like with Tamsin, I’ve crossed some sort of invisible line.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say hastily. ‘I don’t mean to pry.’
Lorna’s internal struggle is visible on her face as she tries to work out how much she should tell me. Her shoulders sag.
‘Edward said I shouldn’t talk about it, but nobody does and somehow, it makes everything worse.’
‘I can understand that,’ I say gently. ‘When my sister died, people stopped talking about her, they thought it would upset me. But it upset me more when nobody mentioned her at all, as if she’d never existed for them.’
‘I’m not allowed to talk about our son, or have photos of him anywhere in the house.’
‘That must be hard.’
‘It is.’ Tears fill her eyes but before I can say anything, she blinks them away. ‘But back to Nina and Oliver,’ she says, giving me a wobbly smile. She pauses a moment to recall everything. ‘I went to see Nina the next day, the day after we’d heard them arguing. I waited until Oliver had gone to work. She was in a dreadful state, very tearful. She was mortified that Edward and I had heard them fighting. She said it was her fault, that she’d been having an affair and that Oliver had found out.’
‘Did she say who she’d been having an affair with?’ Appalled that I’ve been so brusque, I rush to apologise. But she takes my question at face value and carries on talking.
‘No, but she said she was going to break it off with him. And then, that night, just hours later, Oliver—’ She stops. ‘I still can’t believe it.’
‘Maybe it wasn’t Oliver,’ I suggest carefully. ‘Maybe it was the man Nina was involved with. You said she told you she was going to tell him it was over. I’m sorry, but why couldn’t he have been the one to have killed her?’
She fishes a tissue from her sleeve. ‘Because Oliver lied to the police and that proved his guilt,’ she says, wiping her eyes. ‘I wish I’d known, I wish I’d known what he was going to tell them because – I know I shouldn’t say this – I would have lied – not lied exactly, but I would have told the police I hadn’t seen anything. But when they came to see us that evening, I had no idea that Nina had been murdered and they didn’t tell us. They wanted to know if we had seen or heard anything and I answered truthfully, that I saw Oliver come back just after nine o’clock and go into the house. I knew it was just after nine because we’d sat down to watch the news on the BBC news channel, like we always do at nine o’clock – they say old habits die hard, don’t they, and anyway the News at Ten is on too late for us now – and when we heard Oliver’s car, I got up and looked out of the window. I wouldn’t normally have done that, not in the winter when the curtains are already drawn but we were anxious because of the argument we’d heard the night before. I waited a moment, hoping they wouldn’t start arguing again. But I didn’t hear anything so I went back to the news.’ She stops a moment. ‘It must have been about half-an-hour later, because the news was ending, that we heard a lot of cars pull up and when I looked out, I saw it was the police. We thought that Oliver and Nina had been arguing again and that one of them, or maybe another neighbour, had called for help. To tell you the truth, we were relieved that the matter had been taken out of our hands because if we had heard them arguing again, like the previous night, I think that this time, we might have phoned the police – or at least gone round to try and calm things.’ She twists the tissue in her hands. ‘The next thing we knew, the police were knocking on the door, asking their questions. We only found out the next morning that Nina had been murdered.’
‘It must have been such a shock,’ I say gently. But lost in the past, I’m not sure Lorna hears me.
‘Oliver told the police that he hadn’t gone into the house, that he’d gone to sit in the square for a while. But it wasn’t true.’
‘Could he have gone into the house and then gone straight back out again, to sit in the square?’ I suggest.
Lorna shakes her head again. ‘If he had, he would have told the police. If I’d known he was going to say he’d gone to sit in the square, I wouldn’t have mentioned seeing him go into the house. But I didn’t know, I didn’t know he was going to lie. And why would he have gone to sit in the square at nine o’clock at night, when it was cold and dark?’
‘Did you tell the police about the conversation you had with Nina, when she told you she’d had an affair with someone?’
‘Yes, and they were very interested, because it gave Oliver a motive for killing Nina.’
‘Didn’t they consider that maybe it was the man she was having an affair with who killed her?’
She looks sadly at me. ‘Why would they? It was Oliver who killed her.’
I nod. ‘I won’t take up any more of your time. Thank you for talking to me.’
‘Do you think you’ll be able to stay?’ she asks. ‘Now that you know about the murder?’
‘I don’t know. My sister was called Nina and it’s hard to explain, but if I leave, it will be as if I’m abandoning her too. I know it’s not healthy but I haven’t let her go yet, not really.’
‘That’s understandable.’
‘After almost twenty years?’
‘I think time has no meaning when it comes to grief.’
The gentleness in her voice brings sudden tears to my eyes and I nod, grateful that she understands.
‘I’ll let you know what I decide,’ I promise. ‘Everyone here has been so kind – Eve and Will have been amazing, and Maria and Tamsin are lovely too. And I still love Leo, despite everything.’
‘Yes – well, it’s been lovely talking to you, thank you for coming by,’ she says. She leans in to give me a kiss, and I hear the whisper of her voice in my ear.
Startled, I pull back. ‘Sorry?’
Again, Lorna’s hand flies to the pearls at her neck. ‘I was just saying goodbye.’ She seems flustered. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have embraced you but after what you told me about your parents and sister—’ Her voice trails off.
‘No, no, it’s fine, I thought—’
Moving back, Lorna opens the door. ‘Goodbye, Alice.’