What to Do When Someone Dies by Nicci French Page B

there’s this mystery and everyone’s pitying me and I look back at our life and I can’t see it any longer, can’t trust it. It’s like the lights have all gone out and everything I trusted I can’t any more. And I can’t ask him. I want to ask him what the hell was going on. I can’t believe he won’t ever be able to tell me, that we won’t be able to talk about it together. If he was dead and that was it, no other woman involved, at least I could miss him and remember him with tenderness and feel good about what we had – but even that’s muddied by this. I can’t even mourn him properly. I feel humiliated, ashamed, tangled up in all these emotions. It’s a mess. I’m a mess.’
    ‘He loved you,’ Joe repeated. His voice was gentle, insistent. ‘Even if he was having an affair, he loved you very much.’
    ‘So you think he was, then!’
    ‘I’m saying if.’
    ‘I don’t want ifs.’
    ‘But, in all likelihood, that’s all you’re going to get.’
    ‘I can’t accept it.’
    ‘Everyone has secrets. Everyone does things they don’t want to be discovered.’
    ‘Have you, then?’
    ‘What? Had an affair?’
    ‘Yes. Have you?’
    ‘Why would you believe my answer? Do you think I’d tell you if I had? And if I had, would it somehow make it more likely that Greg had as well, and if I hadn’t does the same apply?’
    ‘You have, haven’t you?’ Of course he had, I thought. All those women who crowded round him.
    But Joe put his hand on my shoulder. ‘Stop this, Ellie.’
    ‘Sorry. But, Joe, tell me, do you think Greg was being unfaithful?’
    ‘Honestly?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Well, I… Honestly, I just don’t know. But perhaps he was, yes. And then, of course, you have the circumstances of his death.’
    ‘I see.’ I bit my lip and sat for a while, composing myself. ‘Thank you.’
    ‘Ellie.’ His voice was painfully sympathetic.
    ‘I still want to look through his things.’
    He shrugged helplessly. ‘If that’s what you need. We didn’t know you were coming so it’s in a bit of a mess, I’m afraid.’
    It was more than a bit of a mess – it was in disarray. There were files lying open on every surface, piles of paper stacked on the desk and floor, thick accounting books pulled off shelves.
    ‘Sorry,’ said Joe.
    He installed me at Greg’s old desk with his computer in front of me, and then his electronic organizer. Tania brought files and folders and I trawled through them as well. I looked at accounts, receipts, letters from clients, recommendations, rules and regulations, lines of figures, application forms, consent forms, VAT forms, tax returns, expenses, queries about trusts and power-of-attorney. There were pink and yellow Post-it notes stuck on some, scrawled with Greg’s slapdash writing. Meaningless. I had no idea what I was searching for and it was quickly apparent to me that I might as well have been reading a hieroglyphic script. I felt my brain throb as I searched for connections I knew I wouldn’t find. Joe put cups of coffee beside me and I let them go cold. Tania brought me a cheese and tomato bap and asked me if there was anything that needed explaining.
    ‘One thing,’ I said. ‘You sent an email to Greg at home, saying he should ask Joe about whatever it was that was worrying him. Do you remember what it was about?’
    Tania wrinkled her button nose and furrowed her smooth brow. ‘No,’ she replied eventually, ‘so it can’t have been important, can it? Do you want me to look out the original email he sent?’
    ‘If it’s not too much bother.’
    ‘I might have deleted it if it was dealt with.’
    I wished I’d brought Fergus with me – he was some kind of computer whiz and he’d done freelance work for the firm several times. He’d even been here on Greg’s last day. He’d have been able to guide me through.
    I made a list of all the clients Greg had visited over the last three weeks, with their phone numbers and addresses, and stared at