Page 76 of The Last One to See Him

‘No one. Ellis. That’s it.’ Harper considers this. It always comes back to Ellis, but she needs to be sure Kate is being honest. ‘What aren’t you telling me, Kate?’

Kate buries her head in her hands, taking her time to answer. ‘Jamie and I arranged to see each other the next afternoon, so I went back. The door was unlocked so I assumed he’d left it open for me. I went in and…saw him on the floor. He was already dead.’ She looks up, her eyes pleading with Harper. ‘I panicked and ran. I know that was wrong – I should have called 999, but after Graham White I was terrified. It all came crashing back to me so I had to get out of there. I even dropped my keys.’

‘Where?’

‘In the apartment.’

‘I never found any keys and the police didn’t mention any.’

The two women fall silent, and Kate is the first one to broach what they’re both thinking. ‘Then that means someone has the keys to my house.’

‘Does Ellis have a key?’

‘Not any more – he gave it back the day he moved out. Why?’

‘Because the more I think about this, the more I think Ellis must have something to do with it.’

‘Ellis wouldn’t have done all that stuff. The dead flowers. The running tap. That note left on my car. He wouldn’t…’ Kate doesn’t finish that thought.

‘None of that was me,’ Harper insists. ‘All I did was call Maddy and pretend to be you. And the school that time to say I was picking up Thomas. I’m sorry. I swear I didn’t do anything else.’

Harper is expecting some resistance to this claim, but Kate doesn’t flinch. ‘You already think that, don’t you? Because you know Ellis doesn’t want to let you go. Kate, there’s something I need to warn you about.’ She takes a deep breath. ‘Ellis knew you were having an affair with Jamie. Or at least he thought you were, like I did. And I’m the one who told him. A couple of months ago.’

‘What? How? You didn’t even know me, and I didn’t know Jamie until that night?—’

‘But I’d found that photo of you on Jamie’s phone, and I managed to find out who you were. It’s not that hard to do. I tracked down Ellis after work one evening and told him you were having an affair with my husband.’ Harper gives Kate a moment to process what she’s just said. ‘He never confronted you, did he?’

‘No.’

‘Don’t you think that’s weird. Especially when you found out abouthisaffair. He never mentioned what he thought you’d done with Jamie. Why is that? Why are you staying in his house, Kate? Ellis is clearly tied up in this. It’s the only thing that makes any sense, if it wasn’t you who killed Jamie.’

‘I’m staying here because I need to be close to him. It’s the only way I’ll find out what he’s doing. Because I’ve been thinking this too. He had access to Thomas’s bag that day I found the photo of Jamie. And if you say it wasn’t you?—’

‘It wasn’t.’

‘Then—’

Harper’s phone beeps in her pocket, and she fishes it out and stares at the screen, her face draining of colour.

‘What is it?’ Kate says. ‘What’s going on?’

‘It’s Faye’s sister. I set up an Instagram account so I could contact her. Told her I’m a good friend of Faye’s and asked how she’s doing. She just told me that Faye’s dead.’

THIRTY-FOUR

TUESDAY 4 FEBRUARY

Kate feels as if she can’t breathe. She hasn’t allowed herself to believe that Faye would die. Granted, the state she was in splayed on that stretcher didn’t look hopeful, but hearing this outcome floors Kate. ‘No,’ she says. ‘No…’

Harper stands up and walks over to her. ‘We have to work together to stop whoever’s doing this. Ithasto be the same person who killed Jamie. The person who’s been targeting you for some reason.’

‘I thought that was you,’ Kate mumbles.

‘Only the phone calls. To mess with your life because I thought you’d killed Jamie. But now it’s clear there’s someone else with an agenda.’

‘And you think that’s Ellis.’

‘There’s no other conclusion I can reach,’ Harper says. ‘If it wasn’t you.’

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