Diana wanted to object, but she held her tongue. Perhaps Ralph was right after all. Dead was dead. Nothing anyone could do or say would bring Julian back to life. And no, she didn’t want his name dragged through the mud. The rational side of her, her head, was telling her all that, but her heart was saying something else, that something was wrong, that even if he had been depressed, Julian would never have left her and Charlie. Not without saying something, giving her a sign. Something, anything. Her heart just wasn’t satisfied.
‘I don’t want this inquest any more than you do. But I want to know why he did what he did, and I’ll do anything to find that out.’
‘Sometimes things happen that we just can’t make any sense out of,’ Ralph replied quietly.
‘I have to know,’ she whispered.
Ralph
looked at her for a long moment. ‘Don’t be afraid to admit you need someone,’ he said finally. ‘Someone who can help.’
Diana gave a sad laugh. ‘I don’t think you can get around grief. You can only go through it.’
‘But there are people to help you do that. Professionals.’
She had the sense that she was being led down a path she didn’t want to follow.
‘I just want to take one day at a time.’
Ralph nodded in comprehension. ‘Elizabeth is sorting out the funeral,’ he said, his voice taking on a more officious note.
‘Is Adam back from New York?’
‘He flew back last night. He’ll be helping Elizabeth.’
Diana felt a moment’s conflict. She knew the Denver family were taking over, and yet deep down she wanted them to.
‘The coffee will be getting cold,’ Ralph said finally, calling Sylvia and Elizabeth back into the room.
4
During her days as a student and as a journalist, Rachel had been an enthusiastic drinker. Not an alcoholic. Who considered themselves one of those unless you had made the first steps towards AA? No, she just thought of herself as someone who loved everything about alcohol. The taste of it. The sensation of fiery liquid sliding down her throat, the giddy promise of how it would make her feel. Besides, in her profession, a bottle of wine after work went with the job. You had to drink to be one of the gang, plus it was exciting hanging out at celeb events, glugging the free vino and catching all the gossip – and working with a hangover was perversely just part of the fun.
She had also found alcohol an escape from the various low points of the past fifteen years. The death of her father, her estrangement from her sister, toxic relationships with both boyfriends and colleagues. But when she had become embroiled in the phone-hacking scandal, she knew that either her drinking would escalate to help her cope with the fear of imprisonment, or she would have to stop it in its tracks in a bid to get some part of her life back under control. She had become sober in two weeks through willpower alone, and in the three years since, she hadn’t let a drop of alcohol pass her lips.
But tonight, at her apartment on a quiet drag in Sairee village, Rachel didn’t care about getting her life under control. Tonight she had bought a six-pack of beer from the minimart across the road and was already halfway through the third bottle. Tonight she wanted to feel carefree, merry, drunk, and to forget her problems for just a couple of hours.
Although she had lived here for almost three years, her apartment still had the look and feel of a holiday flat. It was small, cheap, with whitewashed walls unadorned with pictures or photographs, a small sofa, a stack of books in the corner and a double bed in an alcove behind a mosquito net. Rent was low in this part of the world and she could have afforded a bigger, more luxurious place, but sometimes, in her darker moments, she wondered if she had chosen to stay here as a sort of penance for what she had done in the past.
There was a table by the window where her laptop was glowing like a big, unblinking blue eye. It had been Rachel’s day off, but earlier that afternoon she had made the fatal mistake of doing an internet search on her brother-in-law. Typing in ‘Julian Denver death’ had brought up thousands of news stories, each one seeming to salivate over every salacious detail. It shouldn’t have been a surprise; after all, the story had that potent mix of celebrity and suffering that the modern press seemed to thrive on. Not that there was much to read.
. . . Witnesses say that the 41-year-old CEO of the Denver Group was in good spirits on the night of his death . . . rumours of depression . . . family request privacy at this time . . . funeral will attract celebrities and statesmen . . .
Underneath all the speculation about the circumstances, there was little in the way of facts, but those facts that there were had been enough to make Rachel reach for the beer. The preliminary inquest had already been and gone, and the funeral was being held today.
Glancing at her watch – and taking into account the time difference between Thailand and London – she reckoned that it must be happening about now.
She slumped back on the sofa and took another swig of beer. Why hadn’t she listened to Liam? Why hadn’t she gone? Even if she had just been able to watch the burial from a distance, pay her respects, make her apologies . . .
She hadn’t even spoken to Diana. At least a dozen times she had picked up the phone to call her sister, but each time something had made her put it back in the cradle. Cowardice, probably. Instead, she had written a letter; she had been a journalist after all, a writer, a woman of words. Surely she could express her feelings of guilt, regret and sympathy much better on the page? Yet that single side of A5 had taken two hours to write – something of a record for someone who could bash out a front-page splash in less than twenty minutes. And she knew that, given the efficiency of the Thai post and Royal Mail, it was almost certain that Diana still wouldn’t have received it. So her sister would have buried her husband without knowing how sad and sorry Rachel was, and how desperate to make it up to her.
‘She’s going to think I’m a heartless bitch,’ she muttered as her mobile started to ring.
It was Liam, and she knew immediately why he was calling.
‘Hey, it’s me. Are you on your way?’
‘Shit,’ she muttered, grabbing her purse and sprinting for the door. ‘Yeah, I’m almost there,’ she lied.