The Therapist by B.A. Paris
Twenty-Five
I’m expecting Eve and I to walk to Tamsin’s house together the next morning. But when I glance out of the window I see her hurrying down her drive, as if she needs to be somewhere fast. I check my watch; it’s just ten o’clock and we’ve been invited for ten-thirty so she must be going for a run first. Except that she isn’t wearing her running gear.
I hurry upstairs to Leo’s study and watch Eve as she crosses the square. When she’s nearly at the end, instead of carrying on towards the main gate, she veers to the left, heading straight for Tamsin’s house. Realising that I’ve got the time wrong – Tamsin must have said ten, not ten-thirty – I run downstairs, find my trainers and leave the house quickly, surprised that Eve hadn’t come to get me. But maybe she thought I was already there.
By running, I arrive just a couple of minutes after her. Like some of the other residents, Tamsin and Connor have enclosed their porch and as I open the outer door, I can hear her and Eve talking in the hall, on the other side of the inner door. I’m just about to knock when I hear my name.
‘… Alice actually say that the reporter hadn’t contacted her again?’ Tamsin is saying.
‘No, not exactly.’
‘Did you ask her where she went on Tuesday?’
‘She said she went to lunch with a friend.’
‘Do you believe her?’
‘Yes, why wouldn’t I?’
‘But she didn’t say that the reporter hadn’t been back in contact with her?’
‘No. She kind of evaded the question.’
‘I’m worried, Eve. What if she’s trying to find something out?’
‘Like what?’
‘Like who really killed Nina.’
I freeze.
‘Oh Tam, you’re not going to start all that again, are you?’ Eve sounds as if she’s stifling a sigh.
‘Oliver didn’t kill Nina, Eve.’
My heart thuds.
‘You make it sound as if you have proof.’ Now there’s an edge to Eve’s voice. ‘Do you, Tam, do you have proof that Oliver didn’t kill her? Because if you don’t, maybe you should just accept that he did.’
‘He used to go and sit in the square.’
‘Who?’
‘Oliver.’ Tamsin sounds near to tears. ‘Nina mentioned it to me once, she said that sometimes, after a long day at work, he would park the car in the drive and go and sit in the square for a while, to clear his head. Sometimes, if she saw him go in, she would join him.’
‘But – did you tell the police?’ Eve sounds scared and I take a step back, uneasy about what I might hear. I want to leave, I should leave, and come back later, once they’ve finished their private conversation. But I’m worried they’ll hear me walking back down the drive and I can’t really hear anything now that I’ve moved back, not clearly anyway. And then – I draw in my breath so sharply I think they must have heard me. My heart thuds again. Did Tamsin really say something about Connor having an affair with Nina? She can’t have – but she must have, because now Eve is telling her that she needs to speak to him. And then she’s saying something about Will, and I catch the words ‘see Nina’ and ‘gap in the fence’ and my mind reels even more.
‘I think everyone is capable of murder, if they feel threatened,’ Tamsin says, her voice so shrill that I catch her words in their entirety.
I don’t hear Eve’s reply but then I hear my name. Thinking I’m about to be discovered eavesdropping, my heart almost stops. But instead of the inner door being flung open, their footsteps disappear down the hall and I’m weak with relief until I realise that I still need to face them. I don’t how I’m going to do it, how I’m going to sit down and have coffee with them, not just because of what I overheard but because of the shame I feel at having listened in the first place. But I have to go through with it.
I wait a moment, then wipe my sweaty palms on my jeans, take a deep breath and knock.
Tamsin opens the door.
‘Sorry, I’m late,’ I say, panting slightly to make it sound as if I’ve been running.
She gives me a look, as if she knows I’ve been standing in the porch for the last five minutes.
‘You’re not late. I said ten-thirty.’
‘Oh, sorry.’ My cheeks flush. ‘It’s just that I saw Eve leaving her house, and I thought I must have got the time wrong. Shall I come back later?’
She opens the door wider. ‘Don’t be silly. Come in.’
‘Thanks.’
I ease off my trainers slowly, playing for time, even more flustered now. I follow her down the hall to the kitchen. It’s beautifully minimalist, all neat lines and no clutter anywhere. Compared to my kitchen, with its stacks of cookery books lying on the worktop and a fridge-door full of photographs, it’s pristine. And calming. I feel suddenly confident. I can do this.
‘Hi, Alice.’ Eve gives me a wave. ‘Welcome to Tamsin’s supertidy house.’
‘It’s lovely,’ I say, looking around. ‘And admirable, considering you have two young children.’
‘I need the house to be tidy. It’s the only thing I feel I can really control, the only thing where I’m in charge.’ Tamsin gives a little laugh. ‘The only part of my life that is mine.’
There it is again, that streak of vulnerability. She comes over with a pot of coffee and I give her a smile.
‘I think we all feel like that sometimes, that we’ve lost control. I know I did when I found out about the murder.’
She stiffens, and I wish I could take the words back. I shouldn’t be bringing up the murder now, not after what I just heard.
‘In what way?’ Eve asks, coming to the rescue.
‘Everything that I thought was true, wasn’t. The house wasn’t what I thought it was, Leo wasn’t who I thought he was. I could see the future that I’d built up in my head crumbling before my eyes. Things were happening that I had no control over. I know that sounds dramatic but it was horribly destabilising.’
‘And now?’ Tamsin asks. ‘Do you feel back in control?’
‘I’m getting there. I’ve managed to stay in the house on my own, although I can’t bring myself to sleep upstairs yet. And yesterday, I told Leo I needed space, so he’s staying in Birmingham this weekend.’
Tamsin raises an eyebrow. ‘And he accepted it?’
‘Yes. For now.’
She pushes a plate of homemade flapjacks towards me. ‘And wouldn’t you rather do that – leave?’
‘It’s not an option anymore,’ I say, taking one.
‘Why’s that?’
‘Tam,’ Eve warns gently.
Tamsin shrugs. ‘Sorry. It’s not that I don’t want you to stay. I’m curious, that’s all. If you’re sleeping downstairs, you’re still not at ease in the house.’
‘You’re right, I’m not totally comfortable yet. But I’m working on it.’
Eve exchanges a quick look with Tamsin. ‘If that reporter contacts you again, she’ll be surprised to know that you’re still living there,’ she says.
It’s clumsy, but Eve is only trying to find out what Tamsin wants to know. I decide to boot the elephant right out of the room.
‘Don’t worry, if I ever hear from her again, the only thing I’ll tell her is to leave me alone,’ I say.
‘So you haven’t heard from her since the day she told you about the murder?’ Tamsin asks.
‘No.’
Tension seeps out of her, relaxing her body, reminding me of a balloon deflating. She reaches for a flapjack, breaks a piece off, pops it into her mouth, then breaks another piece off, and puts that in her mouth, as if she’s famished. Tamsin starves her emotions, whereas I feed mine, something I hadn’t realised until now. When I think about it, there have been quite a few times when I’ve stood in front of the open fridge, feeding my anxiety, trying to appease it, make it go away.
There’s a beautiful family photograph perched on top of a sleek grey dresser, of Tamsin, Connor and their two little daughters.
‘Amber is the image of you,’ I say, studying it.
‘And Pearl is the image of Connor,’ Eve says.
‘Yes, I can see that, she has his eyes.’ I turn to Tamsin. ‘Your hair was much longer back then.’
She reaches for another flapjack. ‘It used to be as long as yours but I cut it after Nina died.’
‘Gosh,’ I say.
‘I’m not really sure why I did it, all I know it that it was stronger than me. Nina had had her hair cut off so maybe I instinctively thought that whoever killed her had a fetish about long hair and I was protecting myself, in case he came back and killed me. Or maybe it was just a subconscious desire to honour Nina in some way. Amber cried and cried when she saw it and I had to promise I’d grow it long again.’ She gives a resigned smile. ‘I’ve still got quite a way to go.’
‘I used to have really long hair,’ Eve says. ‘Ages ago, when I was about seventeen. I cut it because I wanted to look older. I’m too small to have long hair, it made me look like a doll. It was darker in those days too.’
‘Did you have it dyed white at the same time?’
‘Yes. I didn’t intend to but the hairdresser suggested it. Will went mad. He hated my short hair at first. Now he loves it, right down to the pink tips.’
‘I’m thinking of cutting mine,’ I say.
Tamsin frowns. ‘Why? It’s so lovely and long.’
‘It’s falling out. After my parents and sister died, I lost it in clumps. It was horrible, I found it really distressing. And now it’s happening again.’
‘Is that why you’ve been wearing your hair up?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is it when you wash your hair that you lose it?’ Eve asks. ‘Because I can recommend a really good shampoo.’
‘No, not really. I mean, I don’t notice it coming away in the shower, or even when I comb it through after – at least no more than usual. But I keep finding it all over the house, especially in the kitchen, which is just about the worst place, because it can get in the food. It won’t be so noticeable if my hair is shorter. Anyway, short hair must be so much easier to maintain.’
‘Don’t you believe it. This—’ Eve points to her hair, ‘takes a ton of gel and a lot of patience to achieve.’
I turn to Tamsin. ‘Eve said you used to be a model. Is that when you met Connor?’
‘Yes. We met at a party during London Fashion Week. I wasn’t at all interested in him, he was too brash for me, so when he asked what I was looking for in a man, I told him I wanted someone who would take me to the theatre, listen to classical music with me and spend hours reading books by my side. I felt safe saying that; it was a polite brush-off because I didn’t think he’d be interested in any of those things. But he told me I was in luck and a couple of days later, he sent me a ticket for The Tempest. I really wanted to see The Tempest, so I went along. Then came the concerts and the weekends away, where we would spend rainy afternoons curled up with a book. He suited me so perfectly that there was nothing to stop me falling in love with him.’ She takes a sip of coffee. ‘I should have told him that I wasn’t looking for a man, then he’d have left me alone.’
‘But it’s lovely that you both enjoy the same things,’ I say, surprised at the vehemence of her last remark.
She shakes her head. ‘We don’t. As soon as we were married, the trips to the theatre, the classical concerts, the books – all that came to an end. If there’s something I want to see, he tells me to go with a friend.’ She gives a little laugh. ‘It’s hard to realise that the man you married never really existed at all.’
‘I know what you mean,’ I say quietly, thinking of Leo. ‘Not that Leo and I are married.’
‘Didn’t you want to get married?’ Eve asks.
‘It never really came up. Leo doesn’t believe in marriage anyway. He says he’s never known a happy one.’
‘Me and Will are happy,’ she protests.
‘Oh, shut up,’ Tamsin and I say simultaneously, and the three of us burst out laughing.
Eve and I walk back across the square together, then go our separate ways. In the study, I sit at my desk. I’m meant to start working but I can’t stop thinking about what Tamsin said, that Nina once told her that Oliver would sometimes go and sit in the square when he came home from work. I wish I knew if she had told the police, I wish I’d been able to hear her answer to Eve’s question. But she must have told them, it would have been criminal not to. And then I remember what she said about Connor having an affair with Nina. Did Tamsin keep back information that might have helped Oliver’s case, to protect Connor? Except I can’t be sure she did say that he’d had an affair with Nina.
Then there was Eve’s comment about the gap in the fence between our houses. Was she insinuating that Will would have been able to come and go between theirs and Nina’s without being detected? And why had Tamsin said that everyone is capable of murder if they feel threatened? Did someone know that Connor, or Will, was having an affair with Nina and threatened to tell? Did Tamsin, or Eve feel threatened because they thought their husband might leave them for Nina? Connor, Will, Tamsin, Eve – they could all have had a motive for killing Nina.
Suddenly ashamed at how easily I’m able to consider that one of our neighbours, all of whom have been perfectly lovely to me, is capable of murder, I lay my head on my desk with a groan. I don’t even know Connor or Tim very well, my fault for not going to Maria’s last Friday. I think for a moment, then lift my head from the desk and reach for my mobile.
‘I don’t suppose you and Will are free for supper tomorrow evening?’ I ask Eve.
‘We are,’ she says, sounding pleased. ‘Is Leo coming back, then?’
‘No, it’ll just be me. That is alright, isn’t it?’
‘Of course!’
‘I’m going to invite Tamsin and Connor, and Tim and Maria too. And maybe Paul and Cara,’ I add, remembering that it was Paul who told Leo about Nina helping her neighbours. ‘What do you think?’
‘I think it’s a great idea. Are you sure it won’t be too much?’
‘No, it’ll be fine. I’ll make something easy like a curry.’
‘And Will and I will bring tiramisu, another of his grandmother’s recipes!’
‘Great, thank you.’
Maria and Tim are free, Cara and Paul aren’t and Tamsin needs to see with Connor. She calls me back to confirm that Connor hadn’t planned anything for the two of them.
‘I preferred to check, in case he’d bought tickets for the theatre as a surprise for me,’ she jokes.
‘Perfect,’ I say, laughing. ‘I’ll see you at seven, then.’