‘You and plenty of other people.’ Shay’s tone was dry.
‘Is that OK?’
‘Let me just check that he’s feeling well enough for a visitor. Won’t be a minute.’
What he meant was, would Red actually want to see her? Maura waited on the doorstep until Shay returned and beckoned her inside.
‘Dad’s in the living room. Go on through.’ He had his car keys in his hand. ‘I’ll leave you two in peace and be back in an hour. Any problems at all, my mobile number’s on the notepad next to the landline.’
The front door closed behind him and Maura took a slow, steadying breath before entering the living room. They say you never get over your first love. Well, Red might not have been her first, but he’d been her third. Which just went to show, you never got over that one either.
He was lying on a day bed in front of the French windows that gave an uninterrupted view of the garden at the rear of the property. His hair was still dark, if tinged with grey, and his skin was tanned, but the pallor of illness was evident beneath it. There were violet shadows under his eyes, but the eyes themselves were as bright and observant as they’d always been. He was thin, though, very thin.
‘Oh Red.’ Her smile wobbled.
‘It’s OK, I know I look terrible. How are you?’
Maura bent over him and he greeted her with a brief dry kiss, the stubble on his jaw grazing the corner of her mouth.
‘I’m good.’ She breathed in the scent of him, a mixture of almond soap and a hint of mint. ‘I had to come. You know why.’
‘I could probably hazard a guess. Here, sit down. If you want a drink, you’ll have to help yourself.’
Maura sat. Of course he knew what was on her mind; he wasn’t stupid. She said, ‘I’ve spent years trying not to think about it. But then I thought, if you die, I’ll never find out.’
‘And imagine how annoying that would be.’ Red looked entertained.
‘So tell me. What happened to it?’
‘Nothing. It’s still here.’
‘In the garden?’
Red nodded and pointed through the French windows. ‘Well that’s where I buried it. Over there under the mulberry tree. I mean, I suppose someone could have come along and dug it up while I was away, but no one else had any idea it was there.’
‘So you don’t know for sure that it is?’
He gave her his wicked gambler’s smile. ‘I quite like the idea, don’t you?’
Was he mad? ‘Not really, no. I thought you’d have got rid of it long ago.’
Red shook his head. ‘And kept the money, you mean? That would have made me an accessory.’
She changed the subject. ‘I saw you on that TV programme the other week.’
‘And when you saw the state of me, you thought you’d better get in touch pretty damn quick.’
‘Not only for the other reason. I wanted to see you again before . . .’ A lump was expanding in Maura’s throat; she’d loved him, after all. Even if it had turned out to be unrequited.
Reading her mind, Red reached for her hand. ‘I know. It’s a bugger, isn’t it? Shall I tell you something?’
‘Go on.’
‘Remember how I told you I didn’t love you? Well that was a lie.’
Maura looked down at his thin hand clasping hers, then up at his face. ‘What?’
A fleeting smile crossed his features. ‘I did love you. But I couldn’t tell you that. Because I couldn’t let it happen.’
There was probably a complicated German word for wanting to sob with relief whilst simultaneously wanting to murder someone. Although Maura already knew the answer, she said, ‘Why not?’
Maybe hearing him say it would be enough.
‘I was single, you were married. You had your fancy lifestyle, I had my unfancy one.’ He paused, then said steadily, ‘And we had your girl and my boy to consider.’
So that was it.
Maura knew she’d always been a selfish kind of person, had tended to put her own needs before others. All those years ago, she and Red had been aware of each other in an interested kind of way. Nothing had happened, but she’d always sensed that it would at some stage. She’d enjoyed the anticipation and had looked forward to the right opportunity presenting itself.
Then Didi and Shay had got together on that trip to Venice, which had put the kibosh on her happy plan. Red had withdrawn his attention and frustratingly this had made Maura want him more.
She hadn’t given up, obviously. Had continued making opportunities to bump into him. There was an almost palpable chemistry between them that she’d known wasn’t just a figment of her imagination.
It was powerful, all-encompassing and growing by the day. More than that, it was mutual.
But Red had continued to play the relationship down. ‘We mustn’t. It wouldn’t be right. Not when Shay and Didi are making a go of things.’
It was such a pointless argument. So what if her daughter and his son were currently seeing each other? They were only teenagers; it wasn’t as if their relationship was ever going to last. Yet Red had maintained that it might, which meant he’d steadfastly refused to allow anything to happen between them.
Even more annoyingly, after the burglary at the hotel, Didi and Shay had – inevitably – broken up, and just when she’d thought the way was clear at last, Red had been arrested and carted off back to jail.
It was like a fairy tale with no eventual happy ending. There’d always been some obstacle or other in the way – their children, the law, her own unhappy marriage. And it was never going to happen now. She would never know what it could have been like.
‘I definitely need that drink,’ she said. ‘Are you having one?’
‘No thanks.’ His smile was crooked. ‘See? That’s how you know I’m ill.’
In the kitchen, Maura found an unopened bottle of Cloudy Bay in the bottom of the vast American-style fridge. Spinning off the lid, she took a crystal flute down from the wall cupboard and poured herself a full glass. Then she took a couple of big swallows and topped it back up. What an unholy mess; what a lesson she’d learned from one impulsive mistake, and how she wished she’d never made it.
She gave a shudder of regret. Selfishness aside, she had always thought of herself as an essentially decent person . . . well, at least an honest one. It had been David’s fault for buying her a birthday present he should have known she wouldn’t like, from a store overseas that had no truck with returns. Despite twenty years of marriage and knowing perfectly well what she liked, he’d managed to choose a ridiculously ornate emerald necklace, the garish stones mounted in a modern tangle of too-yellow gold. It had genuinely been the polar opposite of her taste in jewellery, and she’d hated it, wearing it only once – under sufferance – before putting it back in its velvet-lined leather case and chucking it into a drawer.
Then, six months later, the burglary had happened, and although it had been completely out of character for her, the idea had arrived fully formed in her brain. The emerald necklace might be horrible, but it was worth thousands of pounds. And it was insured.
Well, why not?
Hearing herself tell the police it had been there in the safe, she’d half expected to be struck down by a lightning bolt. But nothing had happened. Everyone had believed her. She’d shown them a photo taken on the one occasion she’d worn the necklace.