It’s crowded but Rachel is already there, easily visible in a bright yellow sundress, her dark head of curls bent over her mobile. Two cups of coffee sit on the table in front of her and I feel a sudden rush of gratitude for the way she always looks out for me. Five years older, she’s the sister I never had. Our mothers had been friends and because her mother worked long hours to support the two of them – having been abandoned by her husband not long after Rachel was born – Rachel had spent a large part of her childhood at our house, to such an extent that my parents affectionately referred to her as their second daughter. When she’d left school at sixteen to begin working so her mother would be able to work less, she’d made a point of coming over for dinner once a week. She was especially close to Dad and had mourned him almost as much as I had when he died, knocked down by a car outside our house. And when Mum had become ill and couldn’t be left alone, she would sit with her once a week so that I could go shopping.
‘Thirsty?’ I try to joke, nodding at the two cups on the table. But my words sound fake. I feel conspicuous, as if everyone somehow knows that I saw the murdered woman last night and did nothing to help her.
She jumps up and gives me a hug. ‘There was such a queue that I decided to go ahead and order,’ she says. ‘I knew you wouldn’t be long.’
‘Sorry, the traffic was bad. Thanks for coming, I really appreciate it.’
Her eyes dance. ‘You know I’ll do anything for lunch at Costello’s.’
I sit down opposite her and take a welcome sip of coffee.
‘Did you have a wild time last night?’
I smile and a tiny bit of pressure lifts. ‘Not wild, but it was good fun.’
‘Was gorgeous John there?’
‘Of course he was. All the teachers were.’
She grins. ‘I should have dropped in.’
‘He’s far too young for you,’ I say, laughing. ‘Anyway, he has a girlfriend.’
‘And to think that you could have had him.’ She sighs, and I shake my head in mock despair, because she’s never quite got over the fact that I chose Matthew over John.
After Mum died, Rachel had been brilliant. Determined to get me out of the house, she began taking me out with her. Most of her friends were people she worked with, or knew from her yoga class, and when I first met them, they would ask me where I worked. After a couple of months of telling them that I’d given up my job as a teacher to look after Mum, someone asked why I wasn’t going back to work now that I could. And suddenly, I wanted to, more than anything. I was no longer content to sit at home day after day, enjoying a freedom I hadn’t experienced in years. I wanted a life, the life of a 33-year-old woman.
I was lucky. A shortage of teachers in our area meant I was sent on a refresher course before being offered a job at a school in Castle Wells, teaching History to Year 9 students. I enjoyed being back in work and when John, the resident heart-throb of both teachers and students, asked me out, it was ridiculously flattering. If he hadn’t been a colleague, I would probably have accepted. But I refused, which made him ask me out even more. He was so persistent that I was glad when I eventually met Matthew.
I take another sip of coffee. ‘How was America?’
‘Exhausting. Too many meetings, too much food.’ She takes a flat package from her bag and pushes it across the table.
‘My tea towel!’ I say, taking it out and unfolding it. This time, there’s a map of New York on the front. Last time, it was the Statue of Liberty. It’s a joke between us – whenever Rachel goes away, on a business trip or on holiday, she always brings back two identical tea towels, one for me and one for her. ‘Thank you, you have the same one, I hope?’
‘Of course.’ Her face suddenly becomes serious. ‘Did you hear about the woman who was found dead in her car last night, on that road that goes through the woods between here and Castle Wells?’
I swallow quickly, fold the tea towel in half, then in quarters and bend to put it in my bag. ‘Yes, Matthew told me, it was on the news,’ I say, my head beneath the table.
She waits until I’m sitting straight again, then gives a shudder. ‘It’s horrible, isn’t it? The police think she broke down.’
‘Do they?’
‘Yeah.’ She pulls a face. ‘How awful – imagine breaking down in the middle of a storm, in the middle of nowhere. I don’t even want to think about it.’
It takes everything I’ve got not to blurt out that I was there, that I saw the woman in the car. But something stops me. This place is too crowded and Rachel is already emotionally invested in the story. I’m afraid she’ll judge me, be horrified that I did nothing to help. ‘Me neither,’ I say.
‘You sometimes use that road, don’t you? You didn’t take it last night, did you?’
‘No, I’d never take that road, not when I’m by myself.’ I feel my skin reddening and I’m sure she’ll know that I’ve just lied.
But she carries on, unaware: ‘Just as well. It could have been you.’
‘Except that I wouldn’t have broken down,’ I say.
She laughs, breaking the tension. ‘You don’t know that! She might not have broken down. It’s only supposition. Maybe somebody flagged her down, pretending they were in trouble. Anybody would stop if they saw someone in trouble, wouldn’t they?’
‘Would they, though? On a lonely road and in a storm?’ I desperately want the answer to be ‘No’.
‘Well, not unless they didn’t have a conscience. Nobody would just drive on. They’d at least do something.’
Her words slam through me and tears prick my eyes. The guilt I feel is almost unbearable. I don’t want Rachel to see how much her words have affected me so I lower my head and fix my eyes on the vase of orange flowers sitting between us on the table. To my embarrassment, the petals begin to blur and I reach down hastily, groping in my bag for a tissue.
‘Cass? Are you all right?’
‘Yes, I’m fine.’
‘You don’t seem it.’
I hear the concern in her voice and blow my nose, giving myself time. The need to tell someone is overwhelming. ‘I don’t know why, but I didn’t…’ I stop.
‘Didn’t what?’ Rachel looks puzzled.
I open my mouth to tell her but then I realise that if I do, not only will she be appalled that I drove on without checking that the woman was all right, she’ll also catch me out in a lie, because I’ve already said that I didn’t go home that way last night.
I shake my head. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘It obviously does. Tell me, Cass.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Why not?’
I scrunch the tissue with my fingers. ‘Because I’m ashamed.’
