After the recording

Chapter 43

After the Recording

Ethan sent everything at eleven fifteen.

Sarah responded within two minutes. She had clearly not been sleeping. Three words.

I have it.

Robert’s lawyer responded four minutes after that. Longer message. He had read everything quickly and was already making calls. He would be at the police station first thing in the morning with the full package. Cassel’s name. The documents. The recording. Everything.

Ethan put the laptop to one side and sat back.

Nobody moved for a while.

Grace came to the kitchen doorway at some point, looked at the four of them around the table and went to put the kettle on without being asked. She made tea and put the cups down and went back to the sitting room. No questions. No comments. Just tea.

Judith wrapped both hands around her cup.

The kitchen was warm. Outside the wind had picked up a little and she could hear it moving through the trees at the edge of the garden. Inside everything was still.

Dan was the first one to speak.

“How are you feeling,” he said to Judith.

She thought about it honestly before answering. “Like I have been carrying a door for six years and someone just told me I could put it down,” she said. “But my arms still feel like the door is there.”

Dan nodded slowly. He understood that.

Ethan was looking at his phone. He put it face down on the table after a moment.

“My father has not called again,” he said. “Since Dan said no at the hotel. Nothing.”

“He is watching,” Dan said. “Waiting to see what comes next.”

“He heard the press conference,” Ethan said. “He knows what we have. And now that Whitmore has given us Cassel he is going to know that too by morning.”

“How,” Judith asked.

“Because Whitmore will tell him,” Ethan said. “Not to protect us. To protect himself. He wants my father to know that Cassel is exposed so that my father cannot quietly make a deal with Cassel behind his back.” He paused. “The three of them are going to start pointing at each other now. That is what happens when people like that feel the ground shifting.”

“Good,” Judith said.

“Yes,” Ethan said. “Good.”

Elena looked up from her phone. “Sarah has already filed an updated piece online. Cassel’s name is in it. She used the documents as the basis and is holding the recording itself for tomorrow after Robert’s lawyer has had a chance to place it formally with the police first.” She put her phone down. “She is good at this.”

“Yes,” Judith said. “She is.”

The kettle went again in the corner. Nobody had asked Grace to make more tea but she had clearly decided they needed it and that was that.

Judith looked at the ceiling for a moment.

She thought about her mother watching the press conference on a tablet in a hospital bed. About the way her mother’s voice had sounded afterward. Proud and tired and still completely herself underneath everything. She thought about calling her again tonight but it was past eleven and her mother needed sleep more than she needed another phone call.

Tomorrow. She would tell her everything tomorrow.

She looked at Ethan across the table.

He was looking at her already.

She held his gaze for a moment. There were things she needed to say to him that she had been putting to one side all day because there was always something more urgent. Something that needed to happen first. She had been doing that for weeks. Putting what was between them to one side while everything else burned.

She was tired of putting it to one side.

But not tonight.

Tonight was not the right moment and she knew it.

She looked away.

Dan stood up and stretched. “I am going to call Juliana,” he said. “She has been waiting to hear from me all day.” He looked at Judith. “She deserves to know what happened.”

“Go,” Judith said.

He took his phone and went into the hallway.

Elena started gathering her things. “I am going to drive back tonight,” she said. “I need to be in the office early tomorrow. There will be calls from the board.” She looked at Ethan. “A lot of calls.”

“I know,” he said. “Handle what you can and send the rest to me.”

Elena nodded. She looked at Judith. “You did well today,” she said. Not warmly exactly. Elena was not a warm person by nature. But she meant it and it came through clearly enough.

“Thank you Elena,” Judith said.

Elena picked up her bag and coat and went to say something quietly to Ethan before she left. Then she was gone. The front door closed behind her and her car started on the gravel and faded down the drive.

Grace appeared and took the empty cups away.

“There is food in the fridge for the morning,” Grace said. “And I have made up the two rooms at the end of the hall. Clean towels are on the beds.”

“Thank you Grace,” Ethan said. “For everything today.”

Grace looked at him briefly. “Get some sleep,” she said simply. “All of you.”

She turned off the light above the cooker and went upstairs.

The kitchen was darker now. Just the light over the table left on.

Judith sat with her hands around her cup and looked at the table. The laptop. The envelope from Whitmore sitting to one side. The notepad they had brought from Dan’s apartment still in Ethan’s coat pocket.

One day. It had been one day since they were sitting in that apartment watching the black car pull away from the kerb outside. It felt like considerably longer than that.

“You should sleep,” Ethan said.

“I know,” she said. She did not move immediately.

“Judith.”

She looked at him.

“It is going to be alright,” he said. Not the way people said it when they were trying to fill silence. The way someone said it when they had looked at everything in front of them and genuinely believed it.

She looked at him for a long moment.

“I know,” she said quietly.

She stood up and pushed her chair in.

She stopped at the kitchen door and looked back at him still sitting at the table in his coat with the lamp light on his face.

There were things she needed to say.

Not tonight.

But soon.

She went upstairs.

She checked on Lily first. Still asleep. Mr. Bear still on her chest. The drawing book on the bedside table where Grace must have moved it.

Judith stood in the doorway for a long moment.

Then she went to the room at the end of the hall and sat on the edge of the bed in the dark and let herself feel everything she had been holding back all day.

The anger. The grief. The relief. All of it at once.

She sat with it until it settled.

Then she lay down.

And for the first time in a very long time she fell asleep almost immediately.