I know, none of that is a crime, Meredith. So what I want to know - if you don't mind - is why you dislike Gordon so much? Why can't you stand the thought of me - or anyone else I daresay - being with him? Because this really isn't about me, is it? This is about Gordon."
"How did you meet him? How did you really meet him?"
"I told you! I've told you the absolute truth from the first. I met him last month, in Boldre Gardens. I saw him later that day and we went for a drink. He asked me for a drink and he looked harmless enough and it was a public place and ...Oh, why am I bothering with all this?
Why don't you just come out with it? Why don't you tell me what you suspect me of? Murdering Jemima? Encouraging the man I love to murder her? Or is it loving him at all that bothers you and why would that be?"
"This isn't about loving anyone."
"Oh, isn't it? Then perhaps you're accusing me of sending Gordon off to murder Jemima for some reason. Perhaps you see me standing on the front step and waving a handkerchief as he drives off to do whatever he was supposed to do. But why would I do that? She was gone from his life."
"Perhaps she got in touch with him. Perhaps she wanted to come back. Perhaps they met somewhere and she said she wanted him and you couldn't have that because then you'd have to - "
"So I killed her? Not Gordon at all, but me this time? Do you know how ridiculous you sound? And do you want to be meeting out here in the wilds of Hatchet Pond with a killer?" She put her hands on her hips as if thinking about the answer to her question. She smiled and said bitterly, "Ah. Yes. I see why you didn't want Hinchelsea Wood. How foolish of me. I might have killed you there. I've no idea how I would have done it, but that's what you think. That I'm a killer. Or that Gordon is. Or that we both are, somehow in cahoots to eliminate Jemima for reasons that are so bloody obscure ..." She turned away. There was a weather-beaten bench nearby and she made for this and dropped upon it. She whipped off her scarf and shook back her hair. She removed her dark glasses, folded them up, and held them tightly in her hand.
Meredith stood before her, arms crossed against her chest. She was suddenly and acutely aware of how different they were: Gina tanned and voluptuous and obviously appealing to any man and herself a miserable, freckled beanpole of a thing, alone and likely to stay that way. Only that wasn't the issue here.
Yet as if Gina had read her mind, she said in a tone no longer bitter at all but instead resigned, "I'm wondering if this is just what you do to any woman who has a nice relationship with a man. I know you didn't approve of Gordon and Jemima. He said you didn't want him to be with her. But I couldn't sort out why, what it was to you if she and Gordon were partners.
Was it because you yourself have no one? Because, perhaps, you keep trying and failing while all round you women and men get attached with no trouble at all? I mean, I know what happened to you. Gordon told me. Jemima told him. Because, of course, he was trying to sort out why you disliked him so much and she said it had to do with London, with when you lived there and got involved with the married man, the one you didn't know was married, and there you were pregnant ..."
Meredith felt her throat close. She wanted to stop the flow of words but she couldn't: the catalogue of her personal failures. She felt weak and dizzy as Gina kept talking ...about betrayal and then desertion and then bloody little fool, don't claim you didn't know I was married because you are simply not that stupid and I never lied, I never once lied, and why the hell weren't you taking precautions unless it was that you wanted to trap me is that what it was did you want to trap me well I won't be trapped not by the likes of you or by anyone else if it comes down to it