Page 107 of Between Us

But that didn’t mean Joe couldn’t still be guilty of the former crime? That could still be the spark that lit the flame?

Roisin asked herself: what if it wasn’t tons of women, and not younger waitresses he had fifteen minutes flat to seduce? But one, ongoing affair? Joe had used his times with Beatrice as inspiration, and embellished.

Roisin settled on a firm conviction: if it was anyone, it was her. He was at that hotel with Beatrice.

Roisin had been fatally incurious about he and Bea’sbeginning and their ending, and in such areas of ambiguity, Joe thrived.

There was one huge impossible challenge facing Roisin, and it stood in the way of some kind of truth at last about Joe Powell.

Getting Beatrice to admit it.

66

Your Destination Is Two Hundred Yards Ahead On Your Right. You Have Reached Your Destination.

The tinny voice of the satnav didn’t know how true she spoke. It had been a long winding road since the screening room in a stately home. Literally as well as figuratively, for the last two hours. Yet Roisin felt she might finally be in sight of some closure.

She’d had two minor miracles come her way; now she needed a third. The first miracle was Dominic unintentionally contradicting Joe. The second was that Beatrice McMahon, according to her online research, ran a florists in central York calledBlooms By Bea.

Roisin calculated that most florists were independent and didn’t make extraordinary profits, giving her a decent chance of finding the owner behind the counter before closing. It was preferable to sitting outside her house in a stake-out.

She’d picked up her car in Webberley and set off, full of trepidation and butterflies, but no anger, not even indignance. Whywasshe devoid of wrath at the woman who likely had had intimate encounters with her other half? After all, it wasvirtually certain that Beatrice knew about her, and not vice versa.

The obvious explanation was because she wasn’t in love with Joe any more and she was in love with someone else. The deeper one was that she felt sure Beatrice had been contracted into it with deceptions.

The conundrum of coaxing Beatrice into a disclosure with her was similar to the Sesso waitress:what was in it for her?How did Roisin leapfrog the greater loyalty Bea would naturally feel she owed to the man she’d been having intermittent liaisons with for a decade?

After all, to have done it, she must either be a moral-less jackal or pretty terminal-smitten, and Roisin heavily betted on the latter.

Having thought and thought andthoughtabout this, Roisin figured she had one card to play – only one. If it didn’t work, if Beatrice wasn’t brought onside, she was done. She felt a curious peace and satisfaction with this, rather than desperation. Beatrice telling her to do one couldn’t send Roisin into a tailspin ofwhat next, as there was nowhat next.

Roisin knew something for sure, anyway. She’d confirmed to herself that Joe had lied, and she had no doubt Joe had cheated. If Beatrice chose not to corroborate that, then OK. A shame, but it wouldn’t change her mind.

Plus, if Roisin was wrong on specifics, if it wasn’t Beatrice at The Royal, then she’d made a tit of herself, but nothing more. The good thing about not going in guns blazing was that she had nothing to apologise for, except wasting her time.

The only part she regretted in this plan was the necessityof doorstepping Beatrice, which was, if not an aggressive act, then at least without Beatrice’s consent.

There was no other way. Messaging Beatrice came with such an incredibly high chance of Beatrice reading and rereading her typed words, trying to assess if Roisin was for real. And inevitably, even if she later came to regret it, snatching up the phone and calling Joe in a panic. Roisin couldn’t bear for Joe to get the jump on her, yet again. Next time, if there was one, he needed to be completely ambushed.

Roisin had a case to make to Beatrice, and some promises could only be made in person.

She parked up in the city car park she knew from her girlfriend visits. God, what if she ran into her former in-laws? She’d be having a day out, or something.

Roisin’s heart rate increased the closer she got to the location she’d looked at dozens of times on Google Maps. She walked past a dry cleaners and a vape shop and the windows of empty premises, scoured with whorls of white paint. She caught an amazing waft of dough and sugar and saw a fashionable bakery. On fidgety impulse, she darted inside and bought some doughnuts, straight out of the fryer.

Then, resuming her walk, there it was: buttercream-coloured signage with the name in curly green script, a doorway crowded with wooden pots of pansies and a chalk A-board, promising many more plants inside.

Roisin could feel her heartbeat in her neck as she wrenched open a heavy door that sounded a loud jangle of old-fashioned shop bell.

Inside, the floor was artificial grass, the ceiling a cluster of creepers like an invading alien force, and it smelled characteristically of a florists: damp soil and floral musk.

Beyond the counter there was a slight, fair woman with glasses on her head, wearing gloves, snipping long rose stems with secateurs. She looked up at Roisin, and froze. It was as if she’d seen a ghost, and Roisin supposed she was one. The Prying Lady.

It was about three quarters of all the confirmation that Roisin would ever need. She glanced to her left and saw a teenage girl with a septum piercing observing Roisin and her lightly steaming brown paper bag.

‘Hi. Is It Bea?’ Roisin said, to a still-frozen Beatrice.

She nodded, in mute horror.

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