The Husband's Secret(74)

            “She’s gone back off,” said John-Paul. He was back in the study, standing in front of her, massaging little circles under his cheekbones, the way he did when he was exhausted.

            He didn’t look evil. He just looked like her husband. Unshaven. Messy hair. Shadows under his eyes. Her husband. The father of her children.

            If he’d killed someone once, what was to stop him from doing it again? She’d just let him go into Polly’s room. She’d just let a murderer go into her daughter’s room.

            But it was John-Paul! Their father. He was Daddy.

            How could they tell the girls what John-Paul had done?

            Daddy is going to jail.

            For a moment her mind stopped completely.

            They could never tell the girls.

            “I’m so sorry,” said John-Paul. He held out his arms uselessly, as if he wanted to hold her but they were separated by something too vast to be crossed. “Darling, I’m just so sorry.”

            Cecilia wrapped her arms around her naked body. She trembled violently. Her teeth chattered. I’m having a nervous breakdown, she thought with relief. I’m about to lose my mind, and that’s just as well, because this cannot possibly be fixed. It is simply not fixable.





TWENTY


            There! See?”

            Rachel hit the pause button so that Connor Whitby’s angry face was frozen on the screen. It was the face of a monster. His eyes were black evil holes. His lips were pulled back in a rabid sneer. Rachel had watched the footage four times now, and each time she became more convinced. It was, she thought, quite stunningly conclusive. Show this to any jury and they’d convict.

            She turned to look at former Sergeant Rodney Bellach, sitting on her couch, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, and caught him flattening his hand across his mouth to stifle a yawn.

            Well, it was the middle of the night. Sergeant Bellach—“You can just call me plain old Rodney now,” he kept telling her—had obviously been deeply asleep when she’d called. His wife had answered the phone, and Rachel had overheard her trying to wake him up. “Rodney. Rodney. It’s for you!” When he’d finally taken the phone, his voice was thick and slurred with sleep. “I’ll be right there, Mrs. Crowley,” he’d finally said when she made him understand, and as he put down the phone Rachel heard his wife say, “Where, Rodney? You’ll be right where? Why can’t it wait until the morning?”

            His wife sounded like a right old nag.

            It probably could have waited until the morning, reflected Rachel now, as she saw Rodney valiantly struggling to repress another massive yawn and rubbing his knuckles into his bleary eyes. At least he would have been more alert then. He really didn’t look well at all. Apparently he’d recently been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. He’d made some dramatic changes to his diet. He’d mentioned all this as they were sitting down to watch the video. “Completely cut out all sugar,” he’d said dolefully. “No more ice cream for dessert.

            “Mrs. Crowley,” he said finally. “I can certainly see why you would think that this proves that Connor had a motive of some sort, but I have to be honest with you, I just don’t think it’s enough to convince the boys to take a second look.”

            “He was in love with her!” said Rachel. “He was in love with her and she was rejecting him.”

            “Your daughter was a very pretty girl,” said Sergeant Bellach. “Probably a lot of boys were in love with her.”

            Rachel was gobsmacked. How had she never noticed that Rodney was so stupid? So obtuse? Had the diabetes affected his IQ? Had the lack of ice cream shrunk his brain?