‘Fine.’ Tom sighed heavily. ‘I haven’t got long myself, as it happens. I have an engagement in Pembridge this evening.’
‘Ah. With anyone interesting?’ Jake asked.
Emily didn’t miss the sarcasm. Tom clearly didn’t either. ‘Some people from the local medical committee,’ he answered with another weary sigh.
Quietly wishing that Jake would let his defences down a little for his own sake, and then realising that that was probably impossible, since Tom was still clearly unable to curb his flirtatious inclinations, Emily left them to it and went to clear her desk. She needed to book that pub meal and make a bit of an effort to get ready.
Heading back to her PC, she made sure she’d exited the patient app – God forbid she should leave anything on display for the cleaner when she came in; Fran Nateman revelled in a bit of juicy village gossip, and wasn’t best known for her discretion – then did a final check of incoming emails. A late email had pinged into Jake’s inbox, she noticed. She didn’t recognise the sender’s address – which began nja123 – but she ought to check it in case it was important. Good job Jake trusted her. Thanks to her job here, she had access to all his various accounts, along with his medical history. She really did know everything there was to know about him.
Smiling distractedly, she opened the email and her heart stopped dead.
Unless you want a certain person to find out about your extracurricular activities, meet me in the designated place, 3 p.m. tomorrow.
Three
Her hands shaking, Emily typed the address into the email search bar. No previous emails came up. Nausea swilling inside her, she tried to make sense of it. It was some kind of joke, she tried to reassure herself. It had to be. Or else it was meant for Tom rather than Jake. She seized on that as a possible explanation. Might he be having an affair? Could someone be threatening to expose him? Her palms damp with sweat, she searched through Jake’s previous emails, her gaze darting in the direction of the offices lest Jake or Tom suddenly come out. She went back weeks, finding nothing personal of any significance other than emails he had sent her. Drowning in paperwork, his last one had said. I’m going to be at least another couple of hours. Don’t worry about food. I’ll get takeaway. Sorry. Will make it up. Promise. X
She had worried. She worried constantly about him: his diet, the long hours he worked, his exhaustion. She swallowed hard, saw afresh the image from her dream of her sister’s hand pressed against the window, as if she were trying to reach out to her. She had thought Kara was taunting her, reminding her of Jake’s flirtation with another woman. She’d been angry. She’d thought her sister was jealous. In her mind, she’d been convinced that Kara was trying from the grave to take her man away, as she imagined Emily had done to her. But what if it was nothing of the sort? She recalled the frightened, plaintive look in her sister’s eyes, almost as if she were mourning. What if she was mourning not the loss of years gone, but the loss to come? Emily’s loss? What if she was trying to warn her?
Her heart racing, she reached for the gold locket she always wore with her sister’s photo inside, trying to find some comfort from it.
Could it be true? Was this the message she was supposed to take from her dream, that Jake was having an affair? She’d thought that, in frequently working so late, he was being conscientious. She’d admired him for it. When she’d missed him in the evenings, she’d reminded herself what a good man he was, determined to do right by his patients. But an affair would explain his bone-weary exhaustion when he did finally come home, wouldn’t it? His ‘extracurricular activities’ would be a terrible drain on his energies.
Had she been so wrong about him? Wrong to trust him? She’d loved her first boyfriend – or thought she had. She’d thought he’d loved her back. He hadn’t, other than in some twisted way she would never understand. But she hadn’t trusted him. Somewhere inside her, even as a gullible seventeen-year-old, her instinct had tried to warn her, gnawing away at her consistently. She’d ignored it. She was trying to ignore that same instinct now. But she couldn’t.
Jake was cheating on her.
Her mind reeled. Her heart palpitated unsteadily. He couldn’t be. She stared hard at the message that was screaming at her, telling her he could be. God. Looking upwards, she bit her tears back. He would know she’d been crying. What little make-up she wore would be ruined. Perhaps she should have paid more attention to her beauty regime, made more of herself. She hadn’t thought it was necessary for her to look glamorous when she came into work. Jake saw her first thing in the morning and at every stage between waking and sleeping, even worse for wear occasionally after indulging too much on a night out. After childbirth, during childbirth, he’d seen her then, at her absolute worst. It hadn’t seemed to faze him. She remembered how she’d felt his love like a safe blanket around her when, far from feeling powerful as she’d imagined she would be after bringing a tiny human being into the world, she’d felt vulnerable and tearful and depleted.
It had taken her a while to believe him when he’d told her he loved her; that the woman she’d seen him with all those years ago in the very same bar they drank in together meant nothing to him. As time had gone on, though, and he had been steadfast and caring, she’d felt secure in her relationship again. Finally she’d felt comfortable in her skin, something she hadn’t been since Kara’s death. He had loved her; with his eyes, with his body, he’d loved her. There had never been a day she hadn’t loved him back with all of herself. But if he was being unfaithful, then his love for her had died. She felt the tears rising, her throat tightening. She didn’t think she could bear it.
When she’d walked in on her boyfriend and Kara, she’d thought it was the most excruciating pain a person could possibly endure; until the acrid grief of losing her sister plunged her into a pit of despair so deep she’d thought she would never claw her way out of it. Her parents had never recovered from Kara’s death. They’d split up soon after. Emily saw her father occasionally, less over time. There had been no love in his eyes when he’d looked at her, more sadness and disappointment. He’d never actually said the words, but she sensed that his disappointment was because he’d lost the better, prettier, cleverer twin, leaving him with her, the flawed one. It had all been her fault.
Was this her fault too? Despite striving to be all her family needed her to be, had she never been what Jake wanted? Was she not pretty enough? Not adventurous enough in bed? Was he bored with her? Bored with marriage and the responsibility of fatherhood?
She’d made herself trust him, but had she truly known him? Could two people ever really know each other? She’d never confided in Jake her deepest secrets, the cruel things she’d said to her sister; the fact that she’d been so naïve she’d agreed to meet the man who’d used them both and who would soon be convicted of Kara’s murder. She didn’t know to this day what she’d been thinking. Her mind had been so muddled, her recollection of the day Kara died hazy. Perhaps she’d hoped he would help her remember.
They shared a tragedy in common, he’d told her when he’d contacted her. He’d needed someone to talk to, someone who understood that he’d also been damaged by what had happened. He’d said he needed forgiveness in order to move on. She’d felt for him, guessed he would be hurting; believed him. She’d seen him once. Once had been enough to confirm that he was damaged, but not by Kara’s death.