Page 114 of The Christmas Retreat
‘I’m hoping the element of shock will cause her to reveal her true colours, like she did to Annie and Flint that night,’ he said, and I thought he might be right.
*
Rhys and I might both have been preoccupied, but it was still a lively lunch with the two little girls there.
We lingered after the others had gone away, for predictably, Verity was the last to finish eating, and then Rhys asked if he could have a private word with her.
‘How very mysterious!’ she said, looking surprised but vaguely flattered. ‘But you know, I want to get back and finish my painting this afternoon.’
‘This won’t take long,’ he said, ‘but we’ll go into the family sitting room, so we aren’t disturbed.’
She followed him there still looking mystified – and evenmore so when she saw I’d also followed them and shut the door behind me.
‘I thought you said you wanted a private word with me,’ she said, pointedly, sitting down gracefully in one of the chintz armchairs. ‘What on earth is this about?’
‘This concerns Ginny too. We want to tell you a story, Verity, a true one, unlike the tissue of lies you spun to me about the night of Annie’s accident.’
She seemed to freeze, and a slightly wary expression crossed her face. ‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about, Rhys.’
‘I think you have. It might interest you to know that I’ve had a long talk to Finn Flint and he’s told me the whole sorry tale of what happened at his cottage that night. In fact, he was glad to unburden himself. It has been on his conscience. Has it been on yours too, Verity?’
Her face for a second reflected complete shock. Then she gathered herself and said, ‘I don’t know what he’s told you—’
But Rhys cut her short, retelling all that Flint had told him, including everything Verity had poured out to Annie in a fit of jealous spite during their confrontation.
‘It made Flint look at you differently too, Verity, didn’t it? He dumped you after that and didn’t want anything more to do with you.’
That hit a nerve, and I saw Verity’s face become twisted so that it wasn’t remotely pretty any more.
‘That bastard, dumping me like that!’ she said, and then out it all poured, in a stream of spite.
‘He was going out with me before Annie came along, and he came back to me after she married you. But they never ended their affair. I was just second best when she wasn’t available. So yes,’ she continued, ‘earlier that day I’d told Annie he’d beenunfaithful, to wind her up. But I didn’t think she’d go down to the cottage.’
She gave a bitter laugh. ‘Even when she walked in and found us there together, it took ages for the penny to drop. At first she thought I’d gone there to try and reason with him, on her behalf.’
‘You were her lifelong best friend; she trusted you,’ I said. ‘She must have felt totally betrayed by you and Flint, as well as furious, when she drove away.’
‘You can’t blame me for the accident,’ Verity cried hotly. ‘The police said it was a rabbit – she swerved to try and avoid it.’
‘But if her concentration hadn’t been shot by what had just happened, she might not have been killed,’ Rhys said. ‘She was a good driver.’
‘Well, I’m not sorry she’s dead because I’d hated her for years,’ Verity said defiantly, but then her face sagged, and she suddenly looked infinitely older. ‘Andshe was the reason Flint dumped me in the end, too!’
‘No, he dumped you because he saw what you were really like, for the first time,’ I said. ‘If you’d told Annie what you thought of her all those years ago when she first took Flint from you, that would have been natural and understandable. But carrying on pretending to be her best friend, while constantly undermining her relationships, was a horrible thing to do!’
She gave me a dismissive look and turned to Rhys, more in control now. ‘I don’t know what put you on to asking Flint about it after all this time.’
‘It was because Ginny had been with Annie when she died and heard her last words – and although they didn’t make sense to her then, they did to me when Ginny repeated them to meyesterday. Annie was trying to tell me what happened: that you’d played a part in it.’
‘Youwouldjust happen to be there, and then turn up here and tell him all about it!’ she spat at me, then added spitefully, ‘And now I suppose you think you and Rhys are going to live happily ever after. But you won’t, because you can never hold a candle to Annie for looks or talent, and ifshecouldn’t hold him, you’ve got no chance!’
‘I think that’s quite enough,’ Rhys said. ‘In fact, I think it would be a good idea if you left Triskelion as soon as possible.’
He looked at the darkening window. ‘It’s already getting dark and it would be too much of an irony if we turned you out and you had an accident on the unfamiliar roads. So tomorrow will have to do.’
Verity stood up abruptly. ‘Don’t think I won’t leave the moment it’s light enough in the morning, especially since I don’t suppose you’ll waste any time in telling everyone what you’ve found out. This place has been more like a support group for misfits than a writing retreat!’
‘I’ll certainly tell Nerys and Timon,’ said Rhys.
