Page 12 of The Last One to See Him

He places his finger on her lips and kisses her forehead. ‘Do you trust me?’

No!she wants to scream. Instead, she nods. She’s learned that in order to exert any control over Jamie, she needs him to believe that she will go along with what he wants, however reluctantly.

‘I’ll never like it here.’ She looks around. ‘It will never feel like home.’

He sighs. ‘We’ll make it a home. Dex loves it already. He’ll make friends at his new school and…everything will be fine.’

‘Until it’s not.’ Because Jamie is trouble, and nothing will change that. ‘How do I know it won’t happen again?’

He pulls her towards him. ‘I love you, Harper. Never forget that. No matter what happens. Okay?’

‘What do you mean? What’s going to happen? I don’t like this, Jamie. Nothing about it feels right.’ Harper has always had an instinct for knowing when something awful is about to happen. This will not end well.

Jamie strokes her hair. ‘It’s all under control. Let me do the worrying. All you have to do is keep being my beautiful wife. Mother to our son. Okay?’ He strokes her cheek. ‘Think I’ll go and have a shower. Want to join me?’

But Jamie is underestimating her if he thinks there isn’t more to her than being a mother and a wife. ‘No,’ she says, too quickly.

His eyes widen. ‘Maybe next time, then.’

She watches him leave, then checks on Dexter in the play room. It’s crammed full of boxes, yet Harper has no urge to unpack, to make this place their home.

Harper shivers, and she’s sure it’s not from the cold. Does the heating even work here? The house is immaculate, but they’d never thought to check the running water or boiler. It didn’t matter. Jamie would have taken any house if it meant they could leave Southend quickly.

‘I can’t believe there’s a climbing wall in here!’ Dexter says, walking into the living room.

‘I think it’s for toddlers,’ Harper says. ‘You’re too big, Dexter.’

‘Doesn’t matter,’ he insists. ‘I can still do it. Look!’

Harper watches as Dexter climbs the wall. She gives it one day before he’s bored of it and they’re left with the task of removing it. She and Jamie won’t be having any more kids. Not when there’d be such a huge age gap between any baby and Dexter. That ship has sailed. Jamie still mentions it now and again, telling her she’s not even forty yet so they could still try.

But there’s no way she’ll bring another baby into this…whatever it is they’re doing.

When Dexter pulls out his Harry Potter Lego from one of the packing boxes and sits down to build it, Harper leaves him to it and heads upstairs.

She can hear the shower on so she slips into their bedroom and sits on the bed, taking in the unfamiliar and unwanted surroundings. At least up here the walls are white, a blank canvas waiting for her to add character to. But she won’t do that. They will stay white until they can get out of here – and she prays that time will come, like it did before.

On the bedside table, Jamie’s phone catches her eye. She glances into the hall at the closed bathroom door, tuning into the sound of the shower. Jamie has no idea she knows his passcode and she feels no guilt as she taps it in and his home screen appears. She checks through his WhatsApp messages, relieved when she finds there’s nothing to worry about. Mostly he deletes his messages, preferring to keep his app clear. She understands this – it’s the way Jamie has to live. She’s known that about him for years. There’s one message on there, though, from his sister Annie in New Zealand, asking how he is, urging him to keep in touch. Annie knows nothing about Jamie’s life here. Nothing about Jamie. His sister lives in her flawless home with her perfect kids, and shuts her eyes to the harsh realities of life. It’s as if she thinks that ignoring pain and death and horror will make those things non-existent.

Holding her breath, Harper checks Jamie’s camera roll. There she is with Jamie, their arms around each other, picture-perfect smiles for the camera. Then there’s Dex, with a shy grin because he hates having his photo taken.

She’s about to stop scrolling when a face she doesn’t recognise fills the screen. A woman with long dark hair and large brown eyes. Long eyelashes that don’t even look like they have mascara on them. She’s pretty, but there’s ferocity in her eyes. Something that screamsdon’t mess with me.

Harper stares at the photo for a few moments and wonders what it’s doing on Jamie’s phone. She should ask him. She won’t jump to conclusions – she’s done that before and ended up with egg on her face. She’s sure there’s a rational explanation for this woman’s photo being there, whoever she is.

But by the time the shower stops, Harper can’t stop thinking about her. Has she been wrong and this woman is the real reason Jamie has uprooted them from their home? Harper needs to find out.

But something tells her that digging too deep will be the beginning of the end.

SIX

TUESDAY 21 JANUARY

A flash of heat burns through Kate’s body as she turns back to Harper, who’s still waiting at the counter for her coffee, leaning on it as if she needs the support to keep her upright. This time Kate takes in the woman’s appearance fully: dark reddish-brown hair, shiny and smooth, a wide mouth and thin lips, large green eyes.

‘Are you sure?’ she asks Aleena, horror spreading over her like a disease. The woman at the counter can’t be Jamie’s ex-wife. ‘How do you know?’

‘Jen told me. She knows everything, doesn’t she? Working in the school office has to have its perks. But please don’t tell anyone you know – I don’t want Jen to get in trouble.’

---