‘He’s been acting strangely. Not himself. And I guess after last night, it’s understandable isn’t it, after Rebecca was admitted to a psychiatric unit. But it’s more than that. He seemed cagey, kept skulking off to make private phone calls. And I was starting to think that he might be hiding something.’
Lisa turned to face the police officer, worried that her next sentence was going to place her brother in the firing line. Only her intuition was telling her that she needed to be honest with the police officer. If she was wrong, which she prayed she was, Officer Blythe would soon work it out and put her mind to rest. And then Jamie would be off the hook.
‘Rebecca met me a few days ago. She was in a bad way. She wasn’t sleeping, or eating, and she looked awful. She told me that she thought Jamie was having an affair. She was convinced of it. They’ve been having problems for a while now, apparently. Though of course, I had no idea. They always seem so together, you know? The perfect couple. I told her that she was just being paranoid. That having Ella had put pressure on them both, as a new baby would do, no matter how perfect she is. But Rebecca was convinced of it,’ Lisa said, cursing herself now for not taking Rebecca’s claims more seriously.
‘And do you think that he was having an affair?’ Officer Blythe asked, hearing the remorse in Lisa’s voice.
Lisa nodded.
‘I’ve only just found out now, for certain. I know I shouldn’t have, but when he went to make that last phone call, I went through his laptop and looked at his emails. He’s got a secret email account set up, just for her. His PA Christ! It’s all such a bloody cliché. I met her at the Christmas party a few months ago and she’s at least half his age. It’s pathetic. Rebecca doesn’t deserve this,’ Lisa says, unable to keep the anger from her tone, disappointed that her brother would be the type of man that would not only betray his wife, but his newborn baby daughter too. A part of her wanted so badly to believe that Jamie wasn’t the bad person in all this. But so far, it didn’t look good.
‘I clicked on the window that was on the screen and he was watching her. Rebecca. Through the security system. I think he has been all day. And I know it sounds weird, but what if he’s been doing it for a while? What if it’s been him, watching her? Because Rebecca said that she felt someone was watching her, didn’t she?’ Lisa’s voice was almost a whisper now, as if she was worried that any minute Jamie would come waltzing back through the door and hear her accusations. She felt like a traitor. But she couldn’t shake the bad feeling that she had about all this.
If she was wrong, then so be it. The police would prove it, and they could all move on.
‘He started to say weird things about her, accusing her of manipulating the doctors. Of her lying to us all? He said that we shouldn’t trust her, that there were things we didn’t know.’ Lisa frowned then, part of her glad to get everything she was thinking out. Hopefully the officer would be able to make sense of it, because so far, she couldn’t.
‘There’s other things that he’s hiding too…’ She tailed off again, frightened that anything she said next might incriminate her brother, but she knew she had to be honest with the officer, for Rebecca and Ella’s sake, if no one else’s.
‘Other things, like what?’ Officer Blythe asked.
‘I think he’s been having her followed by someone. That he’s paid someone to keep tabs on her and report back to him. This new email account that he’s set up, it’s only receiving mail from two accounts. One is the woman he’s having the affair with,’ Lisa said, tightly, ‘And the other one, well, at first it didn’t make much sense. It was just lists. Dates, times, places, that kind of thing. It didn’t make much sense at first, but I worked it out. It’s a log of Rebecca’s movements over the past few weeks. I think Jamie’s been having her followed.’
‘Do you think it could be something innocent, like Jamie was just concerned about the state of her mental health? Maybe he just wanted to make sure that she was okay with Ella?’ Blythe questioned.
‘I don’t think so. I mean, what about last night? Don’t you think it’s strange that he didn’t tell you any of this? Even if he spoke to you in confidence, without Rebecca knowing. I mean you would, wouldn’t you? If your wife was being interviewed by the police after having an intruder in the house, and she was adamant she was being watched and followed the past few weeks, surely you’d have to set the record straight? And wouldn’t part of you want to put your wife’s mind at ease? She thought she was being stalked and he let her get carted off to a psychiatric unit?’ Lisa paused again, realising how bad her choice of words sounded.
The truth was, Lisa did doubt him. Her own brother. Her own flesh and blood and the officer could hear it in her voice. ‘Even if she was wrong about there being an intruder in the house last night, she wasn’t being paranoid or having a breakdown. She was telling the truth. She was being watched. So why didn’t Jamie admit it?’
There were too many games being played. Too many lies and secrets being told.
‘He lied about being at a hotel last night too. He was with Jenna. I read the messages, she asked how Ella was. Jamie made out that he’d been called away in an emergency. He’d told her that Ella was sick. That must have been when he came home and found Rebecca in the garden. Only, it’s too much of a coincidence, isn’t it? That he left Jenna in the middle of the night, only to come home and find Rebecca right when she needed him the most? More lies. I think he was watching her then too. I don’t think Jamie turned up in the middle of the night, right at that moment, by chance. And I know how this all sounds, and shit, I know he’s my brother, but what if it was Jamie doing this to Rebecca all along?’
Officer Blythe nodded.
He could see the genuine split of loyalties on Lisa’s face.
‘You’ve done the right thing calling me, Lisa. I appreciate how difficult this must be for you. When was the last time you saw Rebecca?’
‘I picked her up from the hospital this afternoon. She was distraught to find out Jamie had taken Ella. Shit. I should never have gone along with him and lied to her. She said she was going to have a sleep and I was to give her a call tonight.’ Going over to Jamie’s laptop, Lisa clicks on the mouse. ‘I managed to deactivate the password lock. I thought I better keep an eye on Rebecca, just in case Jamie went back there. He hasn’t. Rebecca’s in the office.’
Clicking the mouse, the screen lit up, showing the security footage so that the police officer could see for himself. Only now, the office was empty. All the carnage in the office Lisa had seen earlier had been tidied away.
Lisa clicked a few more buttons, alternating the view of each room in the house.
Nothing.
‘Maybe she’s gone back to bed? There’s no cameras in the bedroom. They only covered the main living areas of the house… I don’t know. Maybe this is all nothing and I’m overreacting. I just thought I better call you.’
Hearing Ella starting to wake, her low, throaty cry indicating that it was time for her next feed, Lisa excused herself, leaving Officer Blythe to take his time going through Jamie’s laptop himself.
Feeling bad that she’d just rang the police on her own brother, but what if it was Rebecca that couldn’t be trusted?
She didn’t know what to think or who to believe anymore. All she did know was that she couldn’t shake the feeling that something much more sinister was going on.
Chapter Forty-One
She’s crying now.