Chapter 8: What Rachel Owed
He called Claire from the garden.
"Emma's asking for pancakes," Claire said before he could speak.
"The doctor says she can come home this afternoon."
Julian closed his eyes for a moment.
"Good.
That's good."
"Julian." Her voice shifted.
"Tell me what happened last night.
All of it."
He told her.
He stood in the frost-stiff garden and told her about Rachel, about the compound, about the message with no name, about Mrs.
Doyle and the photograph and the safe and Gerald's office and the letter.
He told her all of it without stopping.
When he finished, Claire was quiet for a long time.
"Rachel tried to poison you," she said.
"She was coerced.
That doesn't make it right."
"No," Claire said.
"It doesn't." A pause.
"What are you going to do with her?"
"I'm going to talk to her.
And then I'm going to make a decision."
"Julian." Her voice was careful.
"She put something in a cup that our daughter drank."
"I know."
"Whatever she was afraid of — whatever they had on her — Emma is six years old."
"I know, Claire." He let that sit for a moment.
"I know."
He found Rachel in the sitting room.
She was curled in the corner of the sofa with her coat still on, as if she had been preparing to leave and then couldn't make herself do it.
Her eyes were swollen.
She had clearly not slept.
She looked up when he came in.
"Emma's coming home this afternoon," he said.
Rachel pressed her hand over her mouth.
A sound came out of her that wasn't quite a word.
Julian sat down in the armchair across from her.
"I need to know everything.
The phone number.
Every conversation.
Every instruction they gave you.
Every detail you can remember."
"Are you going to the police?"
"That depends on what you tell me."
Rachel straightened.
She pulled her coat tighter.
And then, slowly, she began to talk.
It took forty minutes.
Julian asked questions.
Rachel answered them.
She didn't deflect, didn't minimize, didn't ask for sympathy.
She gave him names, dates, the specific wording of the messages, the account the money had been paid into, the instructions about timing.
She gave him everything.
When she was done, Julian sat quietly for a moment.
"The money you took from my father's estate," he said.
"How much?"
"Eighteen thousand pounds."
"You'll repay it.
Monthly.
Whatever you can manage.
I'll have Gerald draw up the terms."
Rachel blinked.
"You're not—"
"I'm not finished." His voice was not unkind, but it was not soft either.
"You will give a full written statement to the police.
Everything you just told me.
You will cooperate completely.
If you don't, I will pursue every legal avenue available to me.
If you do—" He paused.
"If you do, I will tell them you came forward voluntarily.
Which is what this conversation will be, as of right now."
Rachel looked at him for a long moment.
"Why?" she said.
"Because Emma is coming home this afternoon," Julian said.
"And I don't want to spend the next two years in a courtroom.
And because you told me the truth when you didn't have to." He stood up.
"And because my father spent thirty years not doing the right thing when he had the chance, and I am not going to do the same."
Rachel nodded.
May you like
She didn't say anything else.
There was nothing left to say.
