I stood a little while and watched him. Was it mine and Jamie’s relationship that had bothered Ella more than anything else, and that’s why she’d hated me so much? I couldn’t help but think about another time when I bumped into Jamie in a garden. I wondered how differently things might have turned out if that night years before Dan hadn’t been on the phone to Carmel, his lover, and I hadn’t run out into the night and bumped into Jamie. Would Ella have behaved differently towards me? Would she still be here now? Perhaps she’d be out here strolling with me now, laughing about the Taylor boys.
Jamie was sitting at the wrought-iron table where Ella had chatted to Dan only a couple of days before.
‘Do you mind if I join you?’ I asked, but he didn’t even look up.
I stood for a moment, not knowing what to do, then tentatively sat down on the edge of the seat.
‘How are you, Jamie?’
He didn’t answer, so I touched his arm and he just shrugged.
‘Jamie,’ I said eventually, having plucked up the courage to say something, ‘do you think it was an accident… or…?’
He turned to look at me, unsmiling. ‘I think it was murder.’
‘Oh.’ I was shocked, I was expecting him to say he thought it was suicide – an accident even – but not murder.
‘Like I told the police, she wouldn’t kill herself. And she wouldn’t have hung out near the pool alone. I think someone pushed her in.’
I didn’t answer him; there was nothing I could offer.
‘Ella was braver than me,’ he sighed. ‘She wasn’t prepared to hide in the shadows like us. Even though we were breaking up, she was right when she said I needed to find out once and for all if I’m Freddie’s dad and then face it head-on. But that’s the last thing you wanted, wasn’t it? What’s happened to Ella has made your life a lot easier. I bet you’re glad she’s dead.’ He was looking at me with such hate. The eyes that had only ever shown fondness or desire now stung me.
I wasn’t glad she was dead as he suggested, but he was right when he said her not being here made my life easier – of course it did. Jamie was the only other person in the world now who knew how much I might have wanted her dead, and why. I couldn’t face any more so I got up slowly and walked away.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Detective Bianchi finally left with his team and gave us permission to fly home. He said he’d originally thought it could be murder, but without any evidence, it was impossible to suggest anything other than accidental death. He said we may, at some point in the process, be called back to Italy as witnesses, but until then we were all free to return to the UK.
We were all so relieved, we could finally escape from the heat, from each other, and go home.
The day before we flew back, I played in the garden with the kids. We never used the pool again. I avoided Dan. I still wasn’t sure if I knew my husband and more than that, I needed time to think. Weirdly, I felt the need to grieve for Ella, the woman who’d made my life hell, and found myself looking over her Instagram, recalling conversations. I felt like a detective trying to fathom what really happened to her, going through the clues again and again and coming up with nothing. When he did make an appearance, Dan looked haunted and I wondered if he might hold the key to what happened, but perhaps he wondered the same of me? We didn’t talk much, just skirted around conversations, and played our parts when expected, when the others were around.
Bob drove Jamie to the mortuary where Ella was; her body was being flown back a couple of days later. That evening, over dinner, he told us all that the police in the UK had tracked down her family.
‘I didn’t realise she had any family,’ Joy said, dabbing her mouth with a napkin.
‘Yeah. Apparently, Ella’s parents are both still alive,’ he said in a shaky voice.
We all looked at each other, stunned.
‘What the…?’ Dan said.
Jamie was, of course, devastated by this, and was desperately trying to understand for his own sanity, I suppose.
Joy and I both tried to comfort him at the table, while Dan put the kids to bed. Bob was washing up, so it gave Jamie a chance to talk. He was distraught, everything he’d believed about his short marriage was crumbling.
‘Why did she say they were dead?’ he was asking, his head in his hands.
Joy reached out and held her younger son’s hand. ‘Perhaps they’d all fallen out?’ she offered weakly.
Jamie had eventually managed to speak with her parents on the phone, and they confirmed that Ella suffered from fragile mental health. Which made me feel so terribly guilty. I should have known, but I had no idea. If I had, I would have behaved quite differently towards her. But I’m aware that’s no excuse and I couldn’t forgive myself for the way our relationship had been.
‘She seemed to be so strong, so confident,’ Jamie said. ‘But when you got to know her, she wasn’t at all,’ he added. ‘Her parents said she never got over her sister, she lived with the grief, and they’re convinced that’s why she killed herself.’
‘It makes sense,’ Joy sighed. ‘I can’t imagine how her parents are coping…’
‘I wonder if that’s why she told us they were both dead,’ he said, lifting his head from his hands, ‘because seeing them reminded her of her sister and what happened? I just wish she hadn’t lied, that she’d told me the truth.’
‘Who knows?’ I said. ‘Sometimes it isn’t about telling a lie – it’s simply about not telling the truth to protect others.’ I knew how that felt and sadly realised a connection with Ella then that I’d never felt during her life.
‘She must have had her reasons,’ Joy said. ‘It seems like her whole life was a mystery really.’
‘Yeah – even to me. That’s what I found so intriguing about Ella – you couldn’t really pin her down.’ Jamie smiled to himself at some half-remembered moment.
‘I still wonder how she made a living just from posting pictures. Did her parents shed any light on that?’ Dan asked, as he arrived back at the table.
For a moment, Jamie hesitated, then said, ‘Apparently, Ella lived from one man to the next. They paid for everything and she didn’t need a job; she just lived her life… guess I was just another one of those men.’ I guess the sadness for Jamie was perhaps that Ella hadn’t been so open with him as he had with her.
‘Oh my God!’ Joy clutched her chest and gasped in horror at this. I’d told her it was what I’d suspected, but still, I don’t think she could quite get her head around it.
‘I wonder if she ever had any feelings for me,’ he sighed.
Joy offered a half-hearted, ‘Of course she did.’ But I couldn’t give him any comfort. I had no proof that she’d loved him, and as much as I wanted to ease his suffering, I couldn’t lie to him. The fact Ella was prepared to walk out on Jamie so easily once she got my message suggested she hadn’t loved him. I wondered if, after her sister’s death, she’d even been capable of loving again?
‘Mate, she was definitely on the make.’ Dan was saying what no one else could. ‘I know now isn’t the time to be telling you this – but she tried to blackmail me.’