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FIFTEEN

Now

When we get back from the pub, we go our separate ways, Ellen to her office, me to mine. I sit down at my desk and take the two Russian dolls – the one I found on the wall and the one from the car – from where I’ve hidden them at the back of my drawer and stand them on the edge of my desk. Then I take the one I found on the plate in The Jackdaw out of my pocket and put it next to them. Triplets. What is your purpose, I ask them silently, why are you here? What the hell is going on?

I’m still not convinced it isn’t Ruby. The email address is pretty incriminating. I should have mentioned it to her, told her I’d worked it out. Because I didn’t mention it, she probably feels safe continuing her charade.

I put the doll I found at The Jackdaw back in my pocket and push the others into the drawer. Then I log on to my emails – and find another one from Rudolph Hill. I look at the time it was sent and see that it was at about the time Ellen and I left for the pub, six minutes after the previous one asking: Who is Ruby?

I open it.

I don’t know who Ruby is

But I am not her

She has to be joking. I reach for the keyboard.

So who are you then?

A reply comes straight back.

What if I were to tell you that Layla is alive?

My heart thumps, then I pull myself together. It has to be some other sick bastard, Ruby could never be this vicious.

Then I’d call you a liar, I type furiously.

You don’t believe me?

No. I press send and when there’s no reply, I begin to relax. And then a message comes in.

You should

I want to stop but I can’t.

Where is she then?

A reply comes back

Right here

A wave of emotion slams my body. I push away from the desk and get to my feet, wanting to run, to get out into the fresh air while I can still breathe. But then, my mind in turmoil, I sit back down again, knocking a cup of cold coffee over. It smashes on the stone floor, spraying liquid everywhere. And into the mess that I’ve become, Ellen walks in, her mobile in her hand.

‘Finn,’ she begins. ‘Harry wants to talk to you.’ She catches sight of the smashed cup, then my face. ‘Harry,’ she says into the phone. ‘Finn will call you back.’

I lean into my desk, my head in my hands, trying to pull myself together. Ellen’s arm comes around my shoulder.

‘What’s the matter?’ she asks urgently, crouching beside me, trying to see my face. ‘Are you OK?’

It’s a hoax, I remind myself. It’s only a hoax. ‘I’m fine,’ I say roughly.

She worms her hand through mine, trying to reach my forehead, and realising that she thinks I’m ill, I seize on it.

‘I think it must be something I ate,’ I say, groaning a little. ‘Maybe one of those prawns was off.’

‘Why don’t you lie down for a while?’

‘Yes, good idea.’ I get up from my desk, glad to be alone, then realise that I’m not going to be able to lie down because I’m too agitated. ‘Actually, I think I’ll go down to the river, get some fresh air.’

‘Do you want me to come with you?’

‘No, it’s fine. You’ve got work to do.’

‘I can take half an hour,’ she protests.

‘Really, it’s fine.’ I can see the puzzlement in her eyes and plant a kiss on the top of her head. ‘I won’t be long.’

‘Alright. By the way, Harry isn’t coming this weekend, something to do with some sort of client crisis. He did explain and I listened long and hard but I didn’t fully understand, which is why I wanted to pass him to you.’

‘OK,’ I say. But my mind is full of Layla, not Harry. ‘I’ll phone him when I get back.’

We walk across the garden and as I take the path round to the front of the house, I feel her eyes on me. I know she must be wondering, wondering what the thump on the bar was really about, wondering what my obvious agitation is really about. She’s not stupid. Nobody who feels ill would stray very far from home, and here I am, heading to the river. Except I’m not heading to the river, I’m heading back to the pub to see Ruby.

She doesn’t seem surprised to see me ducking under the doorway. It’s quieter now, a couple of regulars at the bar and a few others grouped around tables close by.

‘Can we talk?’ I ask.

She heads to a table at the far end of the pub where we won’t be disturbed and as I walk behind her, raised eyebrows and elbow nudges follow me down the room. All the locals know that Ruby and I were in a relationship and many thought we would be together long-term. Until I turned up with Ellen.

‘You forgot to pay, by the way,’ she says, sitting down. I reach for my wallet and she puts a hand on my arm. ‘I’m joking. It’s on the house. An early wedding present.’ She looks up at me. ‘So what was all that about earlier on?’

‘I’m sorry,’ I say, because there are still red marks on her wrists. ‘I thought—’

‘What?’

I sit down opposite her. ‘Ruby, please, tell me honestly – have you been sending me emails, pretending to be someone else?’

She shakes her head. ‘No,’ she says emphatically. ‘Of course I haven’t. Why would I do that?’

‘The email address they come from – well, it’s you,’ I say, ignoring her question for the moment.

She frowns. ‘Are you telling me that someone’s hacked my account?’

‘No, not that. What I meant was that the address seems to be referring to you.’ The table has already been re-set for the evening so I pull the paper napkin out from under the knife and fork, take out my pen and write rudolph.hill@outlook.com then draw a vertical line between the ‘u’ and ‘d’ of rudolph. ‘Ruby and dolphin. You have a dolphin tattoo.’

I watch her face carefully as she considers what I’ve said, hoping to see something which will give her away.

‘Hmm,’ she says. ‘I can sort of see why you think they might be coming from me but aren’t you overthinking things a bit? I mean, why can’t they be coming from someone called Rudolph Hill?’

‘Because they’re not. Rudolph Hill is an alias someone has used, probably to make me think they’re coming from you.’

‘Why? What do they say?’

I hesitate, wondering how much I can trust her. But I need to speak to someone who never knew Layla, someone who can pull me back to my logical frame of mind.

‘They started by mentioning a cottage in St Mary’s.’

‘St Mary’s?’

‘Where I used to live with Layla.’

‘So what has that got to do with me?’

‘The person who’s sending them – they’re trying to make me think that Layla is alive.’

‘Oh my God.’ Her eyes widen. ‘That’s horrible, Finn!’ A frown crosses her brow. ‘But why would I want you to think that Layla is alive?’

I look hard at her. ‘So that I don’t marry Ellen?’

Her mouth drops open. ‘Seriously?’ She shakes her head. ‘I don’t know whether to be amused or outraged. Amused that you could think I’d want to stop you, outraged that you think I could be so cruel as to make you think Layla is alive.’ Her brown eyes search out mine. ‘Surely you know me better than that?’

‘It’s not just the email address.’ I take the Russian doll from my pocket and stand it on the table between us. ‘I found this with the bill.’

‘Yes, you said.’ She picks it up and examines it. ‘Cute. But what has it got to do with anything?’

And that’s when I realise that Ruby couldn’t have known the story of the Russian dolls because I had never told her. ‘Did you see anyone suspicious hanging round the bar earlier?’

She shakes her head. ‘No. The pub was too packed for me to notice anything much.’ She hands the doll back to me. ‘Someone must have found it on the floor and put it on the counter and it somehow found its way onto the plate with your bill on it.’

‘Probably,’ I say vaguely, because something has just occurred to me. Only Ellen, Layla and I know the story of the Russian dolls.

And Harry, because Ellen told him.