'He actually told you about Troy?'
'Yes.'
'Why?'
She shrugged. 'For the same reason he kept that rope, perhaps? A kind of insane self-confidence. Some things we'll never know, will we?'
'I guess not. But why didn't you go to the police?'
'I thought of what had happened to you. I couldn't be sure.'
'What did he say?'
'He said he'd filled him up with pills and strung him up on the beam and left him to die there.'
'Go on.'
'He said,' she looked round at me and then back at the path again. 'He said he'd tried to call out.'
'What?' My voice was a whisper.
'He'd tried to say your name.'
I went on walking. One foot in front of the other. It's hard to understand how it's possible to keep on walking when you hurt so much and you just want to bend over with your arms around your stomach, curl up into a tight ball and wail like a baby. He called out for me because he thought I was coming home soon. I'd promised him I'd be there and he must have thought I could rescue him. But I was late. I didn't come.
'Are you all right?'
I managed a noise of assent.
'I think this might have been his.' Naomi pulled one hand out of her pocket; she was holding a bracelet made of leather, with three dull wooden beads on it. 'Was it?'
I took the bracelet in my gloved hand. 'Yes. Since he was small. He bought it in Italy, when we were all there together as a family. It's just a cheap old thing.' But I held it against my cheek for a moment, then slipped it over my wrist.
Naomi said, 'My car's not so far from here.'
We stopped and looked at each other.
'What are you going to do?' I asked.
Naomi looked around, as if there might be someone hiding in the reeds or in the long, rippling grass.
'I caught his eye in court,' she said. 'When I gave evidence. He smiled at me. One of his nicest smiles. That's when I was certain about what to do. I'm leaving everything. Starting over from fresh.'
'Can you do that?'
'Why not? I've got no family. Maybe that's why I fell in love with Brendan – I thought we were these two orphans who'd come together to protect each other in the wicked world.' She gave a harsh' laugh, more like a bark, and then shook her head as if to clear it. 'One day he'll be free again and then he'll try to find me.'
'Not yet, though.'
'No, but how long? How many years?'
'They gave him ten, so he'll be out in five or six – you can be sure he'll be a model prisoner; he'll charm everyone. But Pryor's said they're going to re-investigate Laura and Troy 's deaths, so… well, who knows. Maybe he'll be in for longer.'
'Maybe, maybe not.'
Where will you go?' I asked.
There was a pause and she looked at me intently, as if she were committing my face to memory.
'Abroad. But it's probably better if I don't tell you.'
'You're probably right.'
'I know I'm right.'
'Good luck,' I said. 'I'll be thinking of you.'
'What will you do?'
'Nothing.'
'Nothing?'
'I've got six years. I'll take that, a day at a time, and I'm going to try to love as well as I have hated. After that – well, I'll see.'
'Oh,' she said faintly. 'So you're still waiting?'
I winced. But in a way of course she was right. I was still waiting for Brendan and when he came I would be ready for him, like a soldier who can feel his enemy approaching even in his sleep.
'We'll never meet again, will we?'
'I guess not.'
'This is goodbye,' I said and smiled at her for the first time.
We both reached out at the same time; our hands met in a fierce grip. We stared into each other's eyes and didn't look away.
'It was probably wrong, wasn't it?' she said. 'I try to imagine myself justifying it to people and I'm not sure I could, except…'
'To save your life,' I said.
'I hope so,' she said. 'So what about you? Are you telling your… your boyfriend?'
'Don?' I said. 'I think I should. But I won't. I'd better keep it to myself
There was nothing really left to say. We let our hands drop back to our sides.
'Goodbye,' she said.
'Goodbye.'
She turned and walked back the way she had come and I watched her figure getting smaller and smaller, until it was a dot on the horizon, until it was nothing at all. Then I turned too, into the stiffening wind, and went back over the bleak marshland under the circling birds, back to the old grey church and my car. Back along the small road to the larger one, to the motorway; back to the teeming city where my life was. Back up the stairs to Don.
'I'm home,' I said, listening to the word as I spoke it. I repeated it, to make sure. 'Home.'
'I missed you.'
'Well,' I said, kissing him. 'I'm here now.'
Dearest Troy, I think I need to let you go now. I don't know how I'll manage without you, but I'm going to try.
I'm sorry.
Nicci French
Nicci French is a journalist who lives in Suffolk. She is the author of six bestselling novels: The Memory Game, The Safe House, Killing Me Softly, Beneath the Skin, The Red Room and Land of the Living.
