accident. She had pushed it to the back of her mind since she’d heard when and where it happened. But she couldn’t keep ignoring it. She had to do something. She couldn’t leave it like this.
She made her way quietly upstairs, through the bedroom and into their bathroom. Leaving the door ajar so she could see if Max or one of the twins came to find her, she picked up her phone and typed in a number - one she knew by heart, but which she had never expected to use again.
It was answered almost immediately.
‘Ellie - what a nice surprise,’ came the voice she least wanted to hear in the whole world.
‘Can you speak?’ she asked.
‘Always. You know that. Did you enjoy your shopping? I hope you found your present. I saw you looking at them in the store, so I could tell you liked them.’ She could hear that he was smiling.
‘Don’t ever do that again. Never. What if Leo had seen you leaving it there? How would I have explained that? Please, please don’t make this any more difficult than it already is.’
‘It was just a rose, to show you I was thinking of you. Watching you. What are you wearing right now? Tell me, then I can picture you. Have you changed since you got back from shopping, or are you still wearing those black jeans and the red T-shirt?’
‘Shut up. Please, just shut up. I’m not ringing about the rose, or about you and me. I need to ask you about Friday night. You must have driven home along the back road. You must have. And the timing was right, and you were angry. You drove off at such a speed. I need to know if it was you that knocked that girl over. I have to know.’
For once, he was silent. Ellie waited. It was difficult to interpret the tone of his voice when he finally replied, but he had lost the teasing note that for some reason he believed she found seductive. Perhaps she might have done at one time. His voice sounded hollow, as if it were coming from a long way off.
‘Do you honestly think that I would have left a child on the side of the road to die? Is that what you think of me? God, that hurts. Of course it wasn’t me. I agree I could only just have missed her, but I swear to you that I could never even leave a cat to die on the side of the road, let alone a child.’
She knew he was telling the truth. Whatever else he was, and however deluded he was about her, she couldn’t imagine him cold-bloodedly dragging a dying child to the side of the road. But that wasn’t the only problem.
‘I’m sorry. I should never have asked that. But did you pass any cameras? Our neighbour, Tom, says that there will be CCTV at some of the points around the village, and possibly those cameras that recognise number plates. Do you think you would have been seen?’
She could hear him blowing out air in irritation. She knew he had been hoping for so much more when he’d seen her name on his phone.
‘I don’t know - I’ve no idea. I wasn’t thinking about that at the time, if you remember. I was trying to deal with the conversation we’d just had.’ The hurt was there in his voice. ‘I know you were lying that night. I know how you feel about me. About us.’
God, what a fool she’d been. This wasn’t helping.
‘Look, I need to know what you will say if you were spotted. The police will want to talk to you. I cut through the lanes, and there won’t be any cameras there. But what will you say? If the police come to see you. What will you tell them?’
‘They’re the police. I’ll have to tell them the truth. In fact I think we both know that I should go down to the station right now and say that I was out that night. I should go and admit where I was, not wait to be questioned.’ His voice had turned serious. She knew he was right, but she couldn’t bear it.
‘No. Please, please don’t do that. It won’t help Abbie, and if it wasn’t you and you didn’t see anything, what’s the harm? How could I ever explain it to Max? Please, if you care as much about me as you say you