He stepped away from her, rubbing his handsome face.
‘Are you still okay to give me a lift to Heathrow? It’s an early flight, so I understand if you’re too tired or hung-over,’ he said flatly.
‘Yes, yes. Of course,’ she stuttered.
Liam’s face softened. ‘Thank you.’
‘Could you do me a favour?’
‘What is it?’ he said, going immediately on guard.
‘I haven’t really had a chance to scroll through all the security footage. I thought that while you were on a twelve-hour plane journey, you could take a look; in fact I left it on your bag in the bedroom . . .’
Liam shook his head. ‘You’re incredible.’ She knew he did not mean it in a good way.
‘I just thought you might as well make good use of the time.’
‘You’re obsessed, you know that?’ He was beginning to walk away.
‘Where are you going?’ she said, getting up to follow him. Her breath felt shallow with panic.
‘Back to the house.’
‘You can’t walk. It’s pitch black.’
A car stopped and tooted. The window of the Mercedes was lowered and they saw Mr Bills smiling at them. Diana was in the back seat.
‘Want a lift back, you two? Party’s almost over.’
Liam nodded, and they both got into the car in silence.
52
Diana sat in the doctor’s waiting room with a dog-eared magazine in her lap. Why did all the worst things in life always involve waiting rooms? Root canal, long train journeys, even a waxing session required you to undergo the ritual of sitting in silence, flicking through three-month-old copies of Country Life. They’d even made her wait on her own at the hospital before a nice young policewoman – God, she couldn’t have been more than twenty-six – came in to officially inform her that the paramedics had been unable to revive her husband, even though she had known the second she had opened the library door that he was dead.
Someone behind her coughed all over her, and she shifted uncomfortably in her chair, pulling a hand sanitiser out of her bag and wiping her hands discreetly just as her name was called by the receptionist. The last thing she needed was a bout of the lurgy when she was feeling so rotten already. She had heard of the two-day hangover, of course, but this was ridiculous. It had been three days since the village fair and still she felt weak, curdled and nauseous.
She knocked on the door and pushed it open. She knew Dr Minas well. Her miscarriages and their aftermath had been dealt with by her obstetrician, but Dr Minas had provided support and had been sympathetic and helpful throughout her ordeals.
They made polite conversation, after which Diana reeled off her symptoms, told the doctor about the fair, speculated about the fruit punch and the hotpot she had sampled at the barn dance, then sat patiently as the doctor scribbled a few notes on the pad in front of her.
‘And how are you generally? I was sorry to hear about your husband,’ she said with feeling.
‘I’m seeing a therapist to talk some things through. Was,’ she corrected herself as she recalled her last meeting with Olga Shapiro. ‘At first it was as if there was this black fog hanging over me the whole time. It’s a lot better now.’
‘I wouldn’t be too hasty giving up therapy if it was working for you. These things take time, even when you think you’re on an upswing.’ More scribbled notes. ‘And are you sleeping?’
‘I can sleep for twenty-four hours and then not sleep for two days.’ Diana gave a nervous laugh. I sound like a crazy woman, she thought.
‘Could you be pregnant?’
Diana’s eyes opened wide. Pregnant? Immediately her mind pictured her with Adam, almost as if she were watching it on a dim TV screen.
‘Is it possible?’ repeate
d the doctor.
Clothes torn from each other, strewn on the floor, Adam climaxing inside her. They hadn’t exactly been thinking about birth control or anything else.