Page 17 of The Last One to See Him

‘It’s been a nightmare with the police here all the time. I had to tell the family liaison officer to please give us some space. But she still turns up every day. I haven’t been able to work since it happened,’ Harper continues. ‘I’m an HR manager for a hospital trust. They need me, and I’ve let everyone down. Without me there, the team will be struggling with the heavy workload.’

‘You’re grieving,’ Kate says. ‘It’s only been a few days.’

‘Suddenly work doesn’t seem important any more.’ Harper presses her fingertips to her eyes to stem the tears. ‘Maybe I won’t even go back. This is all really making me think I need to make some changes.’ She leans forward and clutches her stomach, groaning softly. Kate Mason is the last person who should be here, witnessing Harper’s despair, but Harper needs to see this through. Raucous laughter drifts down from upstairs.

‘They’re getting on really well, aren’t they?’ Harper says, pulling herself straighter. ‘That makes me so happy. Dexter really misses all his old friends.’

‘Thomas really likes him,’ Kate says. She finishes her coffee. ‘Have you thought about therapy?’ Kate asks. ‘It could help you through this…this awful time.’

Harper looks up. ‘No, I don’t think so.’ She pauses. ‘I tried to convince Jamie to go when he was having some issues, but he wouldn’t listen. Have you ever had it?’

‘No,’ Kate says, too quickly, too defensively. There’s something there that Harper needs to dig into. ‘But I’ve heard you can do it online now, if you don’t want to see someone in person. That works better for some people.’

Harper scrunches the damp tissue in her hand. ‘The thing is, I’m a very private person. The idea of sharing such personal thoughts and feelings makes me shudder. Jamie was the only one I spoke to about personal things.’

‘I understand,’ Kate says. ‘But?—’

‘Let’s change the subject,’ Harper says. ‘I’m finding it hard to talk about Jamie right now.’ She forces a smile. ‘Tell me about you, Kate. Do you work?’

‘I’m a vet.’

Of course Harper already knows this – she’s made it her business to find out who Kate Mason is. ‘I’ve never met a vet before.’

Kate shifts in her seat, then forces a smile.

‘I’m not really a cat or dog person,’ Harper continues. ‘Too much mess. Dexter’s often asking for a dog but…well, we are who we are, and I’m not going to apologise for that. It’s not that I don’t care about animals or what happens to them – I’m vegetarian and don’t even eat meat. I’m just not keen on sharing my home with one. And we moved a lot and that’s not fair to animals, is it?’

Kate nods. ‘It’s hard when one of you is an animal person and the other isn’t. My ex didn’t want pets, but I convinced him to let Thomas have a cat.’

Harper stares at her. ‘We didn’t have that problem – Jamie wasn’t an animal person either.’

Kate raises her eyebrows. ‘Sounds like you were a good match, then.’

For two hours, Harper sits listening to Kate make small talk about the school and the other parents, as if that’s the most important thing in her life. But Harper knows it isn’t – there is so much more to Kate Mason than the school community. And she’s going to find out what that is.

She’s relieved when Kate finally announces that she needs to get Thomas back for dinner.

‘I’ll go and tell the boys,’ Harper says, leaving Kate alone in her living room. She can guess what Kate will do in her absence: stare at the endless photos of Jamie that Harper has deliberately plastered everywhere.

Upstairs, instead of finding the boys, who she can hear are on the top floor in the spare room, Harper goes to her bedroom. She stares out of the window at Kate’s blue Mini Countryman and pictures herself throwing cans of paint over it. Blood red. To remind her about what happened to Jamie. What she set in motion. Silently she begins to count; Kate will be getting anxious when there’s no sign of Thomas and all is silent upstairs. Just a fleeting glimpse of what’s to come.

When she gets to one hundred, she leaves the bedroom and goes up to find the boys.

Kate is at the bottom of the stairs, peering up when Harper herds Thomas and Dexter down. She’s already in her coat and has her phone in her hand. Kate won’t call the police, though, not when she’s the one they will be most interested in talking to about Jamie’s murder.

‘Come on, Thomas, we need to get going,’ Kate says, handing him his coat. ‘I need to feed Lula.’ There’s urgency in her tone, and it pleases Harper.

At the door, while Thomas and Dex say goodbye to each other, Harper grabs Kate’s arm, startling her. ‘Thanks for coming,’ she says. ‘Let’s get together again. It’s been so good for me – you’ve really taken my mind off everything.’

Before Kate can answer, Thomas tugs the sleeve of her coat. ‘Can Dex come to our house? I want to show him the new football goal Dad’s just bought me.

‘That would be lovely,’ Harper says, answering for Kate. ‘How about Friday? We could order in pizza for dinner?’

‘Yeah!’ Thomas says, and beside him Dexter nods.

‘Um, maybe another day,’ Kate says. ‘Dad’s picking you up after school on Friday.’

‘Please, Mum?’ Thomas pleads. ‘He won’t mind coming later. Or I’ll just see him on Saturday before football.’

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