Adam

ADAM

“What do you mean?” I ask, staring at a picture of a bride and groom whose faces I can’t see.

“It’s a photo of your first wedding. When you married Robin.”

We stand in silence at the top of the staircase. It feels as if we stay like that for a long time, while I try to process what Amelia has said.

“I don’t understand—”

“I think you do,” she says. “I think that even though you were married to Robin for ten years, she never told you that she was Henry Winter’s daughter. I think she grew up here and that little girl’s bedroom was hers.”

I stare at my second wife for a long time, trying to see from her face whether this is some kind of prank. But the van Gogh swirls are back, and I grip the banister for balance.

“This is insane. That can’t be true!”

Amelia shakes her head. “I know you can’t see it, but these three photos on the wall—the ones that were missing yesterday—are all of your ex-wife. This is you and Robin getting married, with a photobomb from Henry.” She points at the next picture. “This is Robin when she was younger, teenaged I’d guess, in a rowboat fishing on Blackwater Loch. And this”—she nods toward the final frame—“is a little girl, who looks like Robin, sitting on Henry’s lap and reading a book, while he smokes a pipe.”

My mind is racing back and forth through time, and I speak my thoughts out loud.

“This can’t be real. Henry didn’t have children—”

“The headstone in the graveyard says different.”

“Robin never wanted to talk about her family, especially her father. She said they were estranged—”

“I don’t doubt it, but I’m guessing there’s a reason why she never told you who he was.”

I study the faces in the photos again, but even now that I know what to look for, they all look the same.

“I know you can’t see it for yourself, so you’re going to have to trust me,” Amelia says. After seducing me, her best friend’s husband, trusting her is something I’ve never been great at. “I’m telling you that these pictures are all of your ex-wife. The ones of her as a little girl look the spitting image of the ones of Henry as a little boy. The likeness is uncanny. They could be twins separated by forty years, or it might be time to accept that Robin is Henry’s daughter.”

Her words feel like a series of slaps, pinches, and punches. I can’t get my head around it, but I’m starting to believe what Amelia is saying.

“I don’t understand why either of them wouldn’t have told me something as big as this,” I say, hating the pathetic sound of my own voice. I might not be able to see beauty on the outside, but Robin was the most beautiful person on the inside. I could feel it, whenever she was in the same room. Everyone else knew it as soon as they met her too—she was just so good, and genuine, and honest. I can’t imagine her lying to me about anything, let alone something as huge as this.

“Maybe there was a good reason why neither of them wanted you to know? Who did you meet first? How did the idea of you adapting Henry Winter’s books come about?” Amelia asks.

I think back to that happy day, when Robin and I shared a crappy basement flat in Notting Hill. We had so little then, but far more than I have now. We were kindred spirits who survived difficult childhoods and were alone in the world until we found each other. Robin always believed in me and my work, no matter what. She believed in me when nobody else did, and was always there whenever I needed her. Always. Without ever wanting anything in return. I feel Amelia staring at me, waiting for an answer.

“My agent randomly called when I was out of work, saying that Henry Winter had invited me to meet him at his London flat,” I say, one of my happiest memories obliterated as soon as I do.

“Is that normal?”

I don’t answer at first. We both know it isn’t. “Well, his agent died rather suddenly—”

“Of what?”

“I don’t remember … only that it was a shock. His agent was quite young.”

“Funny how people who came between you and Robin seem to die or disappear.”

“What does that mean?”

“She didn’t exactly have many friends.”

She didn’t need them. She had me, and rightly or wrongly, I was all she wanted. But I took it for granted.

“She didn’t have a problem making friends,” I say, aware that I am now defending my ex-wife. “Everyone liked Robin. She just rarely liked them back. She became quite friendly with October O’Brien when we were working together.”

“October died. There is a drawer full of newspaper cuttings about her in the kitchen.”

“You can’t seriously think that … it was suicide. Robin was friends with you, too. She got you a job at Battersea when you were a volunteer, she was kind to you, trusted you—”

“This isn’t about me. Might that unexpected meeting with an international best-selling author have taken place because you were living with his daughter?” Amelia says, as though speaking my private fears out loud. “I guess for those ten years you were married to Robin, you were Henry Winter’s son-in law. You just didn’t know it.”

“Bob,” I whisper.

“What about him?”

“He was Robin’s dog. She adopted him from Battersea, loved him like he was a child. If she has him then at least we know that he’s safe.”

“Do you really think she’s behind all of this?” Amelia asks.

“Who else can it be? The most important question right now, is why are we here, and why now? If she wanted revenge, it’s a long time to wait. So what does she want? Why trick us into coming to Scotland?”

“I don’t know, she’s your ex-wife.”

“She’s your ex-friend. You told me that when you won a weekend here, the email said we could only come this weekend. Is that right?” I ask.

She shrugs. “Yes. But why? What’s so special about this weekend?”

“I don’t know. What’s the date?”

Amelia checks her phone. “Saturday the … twenty-ninth of February. It’s a leap year, I hadn’t even noticed. Does that mean something?”

“Yes,” I say. “It’s our wedding anniversary.”

She looks confused. “We got married in September—”

“Not ours. It’s the date I married Robin.”