‘It was you, wasn’t it? The car on the train tracks. That wasn’t coincidence. The rumours about heroin. Josie was like putty in your hands and you used her to do your bidding.’
‘A simple girl,’ Juliet said with a brittle laugh. ‘Smarter than you, though. More streetwise. More ambitious. I saw that steel in her eyes the moment I met her. It didn’t surprise me when she made a play for David in Provence. The only surprise was that she wasn’t his type.’
Amy let her words settle.
‘She was telling the truth,’ she whispered, fitting it all together. ‘The bra in our bed. The receipt for the necklace. You did all that to make me suspect David of an affair he never had.’
Juliet narrowed her eyes. ‘Don’t blame me for the fact that you were neglecting your marriage. Everyone could see it was dying, but neither you nor David had the guts to put it out of its misery.’
Amy stayed rooted to the spot, shaking her head. ‘You tried to ruin my life,’ she said slowly. ‘My relationship, my career . . . What was Josie? Collateral damage?’
‘She was the one who chose to take the pills,’ Juliet said tartly.
‘This isn’t about the Mode job, is it?’ Amy said in a low, even voice. ‘You can’t stand to see me happy. You can’t bear to think that the girl from Westmead has done well.’
Neither of them spoke for at least a minute. Finally Juliet rose from her chair and crossed the room to a drinks trolley. She took a crystal tumbler and filled it with whisky, not offering Amy one.
‘You asked me why I took Tilly tonight,’ she said, tossing back the drink. ‘I wanted you to know what it feels like to have someone you love taken away from you, even if was only for a few hours. I wanted you to feel that pain.’
Amy took a step back, edging towards the door. She thought of Tilly upstairs in the bedroom. Suddenly it didn’t feel safe being here. But still she was desperate to know everything.
‘I did what I had to do, Amy. Just like you did. Tarting around the Oxford house in those tiny nighties, trying to look seductive for David. Do you know how stupid you looked? I didn’t think for one minute that he’d fall for it – the cheap tricks of the girl from the sticks – but you never can underestimate the propensity of men to think with their members. You blinded David – my David – with that little Eliza Doolittle act, and he fell for it.’
Amy frowned. ‘Is that what this is all about? David?’
Juliet looked wounded now. ‘We have known each other since we were thirteen,’ she said, gripping her glass so tightly that Amy could see her knuckles turning white. ‘I knew even then how right we were for each other. When we ended up at college together, I thought it would just be a matter of time before we settled down. But then you came along and ruined everything, and I ended up with the gay best friend, the marriage of convenience and the nice little interiors editorship. It’s not quite David, is it? The glorious love affair. Or Mode, the biggest job in publishing.’
Amy heard footsteps behind her, and turned to see David standing in the doorway, open-mouthed with shock.
Chapter 40
Oxford, 1995
It was supposed to be the greatest night of her life, the Commemoration Ball, and yet Juliet felt sick with nerves.
She had to tell him. Tonight was the night. She had put everything else in place. The dress had cost her a fortune, made her without question look her very best. Her hair had been cut and blow-dried by Oxford’s top stylist, nails painted with Hard Candy, body defuzzed and buffed with Body Shop, a cloud of Anaïs Anaïs finishing the whole look off.
She had waited so long for David Parker that part of her wondered if another few weeks or months would make all that much difference. They’d both been invited to Hugo Pearson’s twenty-first in September – his father owned a stables in Wiltshire and there was to be a weekend of riding and fine dining. Juliet could hardly wait. But still, it was finally time to tell David how she really felt, and she felt sure he would reciprocate her feelings.
It didn’t seem that long ago since that magical weekend in Scotland celebrating Angus McGregor’s eighteenth. A-level grades were just out, and she and David had both aced them all. Grouse season was in full swing, and David and Juliet had arrived a day early to take advantage of the glorious late-summer weather.
They’d spent the afternoon before the party on the moors, with champagne and a picnic, planning their future at Oxford: the societies they would join, the countries they wanted to travel to in the holidays, the secrets of Oxford they had already gleaned from open days and research.
Waves of teenagers had started arriving by the time they got back to the castle. There were several worryingly pretty girls among them, but it didn’t matter: Juliet felt as if she and David were already a couple, and was sure that something would happen that night to seal the deal.
At midnight, after a huge fireworks display that must have set the McGregors back thousands, they had wandered into the grounds together and watched another sort of light display: ribbons of acid green and purple that danced on the dark horizon. Juliet had never seen anything as beautiful as those Northern Lights before, but the moment became even more perfect when she felt David come up close behind her and plant a soft kiss on the back of her neck. She could remember, as if it were yesterday, time standing still as they kissed passionately and he murmured his longing.
The lights had brought half the party out into the grounds, and the spell had been broken, though Juliet was sure the magic could easily be reignited.
She hadn’t slept that night. There was a tight little group that stayed up until dawn, drinking the dregs of the champagne. When she had finally gone to her room – a tiny space in the eaves that had once been used by the staff of the castle – she’d hoped that David would come and find her, that he would slip into her single bed beside her and make love to her under the covers. He never came.
‘Juliet, can I get you a drink?’
She looked across to see Francis Harris, a postgrad student from Keble she had zero interest in, holding up a bottle of champagne.
‘Survivors’ photo is another three hours away yet. Gotta keep drinking. Gotta keep drinking.’
She smiled thinly and shook her head, hoping he’d get the message.