‘In fact,’ Rhys said, his eyes fixing on mine, ‘I know we’re not going to find it.’
‘How? How do you know that?’ My voice sounded hollow in the steamed-up car.
‘Because she’s not buried here, Ellie. There’s no one in the cemetery by the name of Bee Thatcher, or Beatrice Thatcher, or even Beatrix Thatcher.’
‘How can you be so sure?’
‘I looked on the cemetery website. One of the groundsmen saw me searching and told me that was the easiest way to find anyone buried here. Every single grave is logged. The records go back hundreds of years. I’m sorry, Ellie, but there’s no one here by that name.’
It felt like there were wheels in my head, not turning, but spinning on mud trying to find traction.
‘There’s a record of every single plot?’
Rhys nodded sadly, allowing me to put all the pieces together. I felt stupid and gullible. Why on earth hadn’t I thought to check the website? But more importantly, had Henry been lying to me for months? And if so, why?
Rhys was already way ahead of me on that score. ‘Has he ever asked you for money?’
Shock bleached all colour from my face.
‘You think I’m being scammed?’
Rhys gave a sympathetic but regretful smile. ‘It’s possible.’
I shook my head. ‘No, it can’t be that. The place where he lives is ridiculously expensive. He’s clearly got money.’
I could tell Rhys was treading carefully. He knew how attached I’d grown to my senior friend and how painful it was to suddenly wonder if I’d been taken for a ride.
‘He might be confused,’ he suggested generously. ‘Perhaps he’s suffering from some kind of dementia and genuinely believes everything he has told you.’
It was a solution, but I couldn’t fit it comfortably with the man I knew, who had always seemed as sharp as a tack. And if Henry was scamming me, he was very good at it. I’d believed every single story he’d told me about Bee, and yet now that I thought about it, he’d never once shown me a photograph of her. Even if he didn’t have a camera on his phone, surely he’d carry pictures of his late wife in his wallet? Why had I never asked to see one?
‘I feel really stupid,’ I said. ‘I thought I was smarter than this.’
‘You don’t know the whole story yet,’ Rhys said, pulling me in for a hug that I really needed right then. ‘There might still be a perfectly logical explanation.’
My lips tightened. ‘Maybe. But you don’t think there is, do you?’
Rhys was very cautious in his choice of words. ‘I think Henry Thatcher has some explaining to do.’
He’d wanted to come with me. That hadn’t surprised me. But what did was my insistence that I needed to do this alone. I’d bared my soul to Henry, told him things about my mother and me andour troubled history that even Mel didn’t know. He’d been a wise and sympathetic sounding board, and even though I no longer understood his motives, I couldn’t deny that meeting him, knowing him, had helped me in a way that maybe even years of therapy might never have done.
‘Go back to your place. Get some dry clothes,’ I said, my hand already on the door handle of his car as soon as he pulled up outside my flat.
‘I could come with you. Even if I just stayed in the car?’
I leant across the centre console and pressed a kiss on his lips.
‘I’ll be fine. Henry might not have been honest with me, but I still believe he’s as fond of me as I am of him. I’m not in any danger here. Besides, I think I could take down an injured guy in his seventies if I had to.’
It was totally too soon to have gone for humour. I knew that from the look of concern that flashed through Rhys’s green eyes.
One more kiss seemed to help. ‘Honestly, Rhys, I’ll be okay.’
But now, freshly showered and dressed in dry clothes, I wondered if I was as prepared for this encounter as I’d made out.
As luck would have it, the same receptionist sat behind the desk at Freeman Manor.
‘Hello again, Miss Harker,’ she said with a cheery smile.