The Vow - Debbie Howells Page 0,91

was unusual. He said it reminded him of one his wife bought, in Morocco – dull gold, with a green stone. He saw it clearly while the lights were on inside the taxi when she came to pay him. When she’d called him initially, she’d given her name as Amy. He dropped her just off the High Street.’

In shock, I stare at him, trying to imagine a woman who looks like me, wearing my silver jacket, my orange sweatshirt that was later found buried in my garden, stained with blood. A woman who wasn’t me. ‘She may have looked like me, but I swear it wasn’t me. I’ve told you, so many times, I was at home.’ But as piece after piece of false evidence stacks up, I know I’m sinking. Going down for a crime I didn’t commit.

‘There’s also the fact that you and Fiona Rose claimed not to know each other, when the truth is, you go back a very long way, a fact both of you have avoided talking about.’ He pauses for a moment. ‘Strange too, that both of you hook up with the same man.’

I look at him, utterly aghast. ‘That both of us know Matt was a coincidence. You have to believe that.’

‘It’s a little unlikely, even by your standards.’ The DI leans back in his chair. ‘You both had very good reason to be angry with Mr Roche. Maybe angry enough to push you to the point where you cooked up some plan between you to get rid of him, using the wedding as a smokescreen to make people think he’d simply taken off. But even without her …’ He breaks off for a moment. ‘There are consistent accounts of your mental instability. Your therapist, Sonia Richardson, backs them up. Didn’t you stop to think why she came to your house? It was because you’d been suicidal in the past, she was concerned enough to call round to check on you.’

My mind races. Sonia would never have told them that, not in so many words. And I could never have gone through with it, because of Jess. ‘It isn’t true. I was low at that time, yes. But nothing more.’

‘According to Ms Richardson, at the time, you admitted as much to her. Are we supposed to believe you over a mental health professional?’ His eyes bore into me.

It’s an impossible question – one that I either answer truthfully, risking adding to the damaging picture they have of me, or else lie. But there have been too many lies. ‘When I was at my lowest, I thought about it. But I could never have done that to my daughter.’

He goes on, each new statement filling me with fear. ‘Like I said, there are other accounts. Whether or not you had an accomplice, Ms Reid, I don’t think there’s any question that you are guilty of the murder of Matthew Roche. You will be remanded in custody until we can arrange a court hearing. I’m not sure what your role was in the death of your sister, Kimberley Preston, but the truth will come out. It always does.’ Sounding matter of fact, he pauses for a moment. ‘Ms Reid, I am charging you with the murder of Matthew Roche. You do not have to say anything …’

But as he goes on, his words go over my head. Then I’m thinking of Matt with Allie again, suddenly dizzy, unable to think, to take any more in, feeling my mind close down.

1996

Kimberley’s grandmother knew what you’d done. She found your potion, found out what you’d put in it. Suspected who was guilty – how could she have missed the jealousy in your eyes? But she didn’t tell the police. It was that belief she had – about nature’s way of finding balance; in the alchemist’s curse. The circle of life – and death. At some point, what you’d done would come back to haunt you.

But your actions stretched further; had consequences you couldn’t have foreseen. A boy who never got over losing the only girl in the world for him, who could only follow her to her grave. Two devastated families. A friendship tainted forever, by the shared knowledge of what you’d done. The guilty secret that would stay with you, every waking day, until your last.

So many wrongs you could never right. So much grief you left so many people with. Grief that will never fade – grief for the young never does. When a life