And all of a sudden sanity comes flying in through the window.
'Rubbish bins?' I say in horror. 'I'm not looking in any rubbish bins! In fact, I'm not doing this, full stop. It's a crazy idea.'
'You can't get all precious now, Emma!' says Jemima tartly, flicking back her hair. 'How else are you going to find out what his secret is?'
'Maybe I don't want to find out what his secret is,' I retort, feeling a sting of pride. 'Maybe I'm not interested.'
I wrap the chenille throw around me even more tightly, and stare at my toes miserably.
So Jack's got some huge secret he can't trust me with. Well, fine. Let him keep it. I'm not going to demean myself by grubbing after it. I'm not going to start poking around rubbish bins. I don't care what it is. I don't care about him.
'I want to forget about it,' I say, my face closing up. 'I want to move on.'
'No you don't!' retorts Jemima. 'Don't be stupid, Emma. This is your big chance for revenge. We are so going to get him.' I have never seen Jemima look so animated in my life. She reaches for her bag and gets out a tiny lilac Smythson notebook, together with a Tiffany pen. 'Right, so what do we know? Glasgow … Plan B … transfer …'
The Panther Corporation doesn't have offices in Scotland, does it?' says Lissy thoughtfully.
I turn my head, and stare at her in disbelief. She's scribbling on a pad of legal paper, with exactly the same preoccupied look she gets when she's solving one of her geeky puzzles. I can see the words 'Glasgow', 'transfer' and 'Plan B', and a place where she's jumbled up all the letters in 'Scotland' and tried to make a new word out of them.
For God's sake.
'Lissy, what are you doing?'
'I'm just … fiddling around,' she says, and blushes. 'I might go and look some stuff up on the Internet, just out of interest.'
'Look, just stop it, both of you!' I say. 'If Jack doesn't want to tell me what his secret is … then I don't want to know.'
Suddenly I feel completely drained by the day. And kind of bruised. I'm not interested in Jack's mysterious secret life. I don't want to think about it any more. I want to have a long hot bath and go to bed and just forget I ever met him.
TWENTY-THREE
Except of course I can't.
I can't forget about Jack. I can't forget about our argument.
His face keeps appearing in my head when I don't want it to. The way he stared at me in the sunlight, his face all crinkled up. The way he bought the lucky heather.
I lie in bed, my heart hammering, going over it again and again. Feeling the same smart of hurt. The same disappointment.
I told him everything about myself. Everything. And he won't even tell me one—
Anyway. Anyway.
I don't care.
I'm not going to think about him any more. He can do what he likes. He can keep his stupid secrets.
Good luck to him. That's it. He's out of my brain.
Gone for good.
I stare at the darkened ceiling for a few moments.
And what did he mean by that, anyway? Is it such a disaster for people to know the truth about you?
He can talk. He can so talk. Mr Mystery. Mr Sensitive and Complicated.
I should have said that. I should have said—
No. Stop thinking about it. Stop thinking about him. It's over.
As I pad into the kitchen the next morning to make a cup of tea, I'm fully resolved. I'm not even going to think about Jack from now on. Finito. Fin. The End.
'OK. I have three theories.' Lissy arrives breathlessly at the door of the kitchen in her pyjamas, holding her legal pad.
'What?' I look up blearily.
'Jack's big secret. I have three theories.'
'Only three?' says Jemima, appearing behind her in her white robe, clutching her Smythson notebook. 'I've got eight!'
'Eight?' Lissy stares at her, affronted.
'I don't want to hear any theories,' I say. 'Look, both of you, this has been really painful for me. Can't you just respect my feelings and drop it?'
They both look at me blankly for a second, then turn back to each other.
'Eight?' says Lissy again. 'How did you get eight?'
'Easy-peasy. But I'm sure yours are very good too,' says Jemima kindly. 'Why don't you go first?'
'OK,' says Lissy with a look of annoyance, and clears her throat. 'Number one: He's relocating the whole of the Panther Corporation to Scotland. He was up there reconnoitring, and didn't want you spreading rumours. Number two: He's involved in some kind of white-collar fraud …'
'What?' I stare at her. 'Why do you say that?'
'I looked up the accountants who audited the last Panther Corporation accounts, and they've been involved in a few big scandals recently. Which doesn't prove anything, but if he's acting shadily and talking about transfers …' She pulls a face and I stare back, disconcerted.
Jack a fraudster? No. He couldn't be. He couldn't.
Not that I care one way or the other.
'Can I say that both of those sound highly unlikely to me?' says Jemima with raised eyebrows.
'Well, what's your theory, then?' says Lissy crossly.
'Plastic surgery, of course!' she says triumphantly. 'He has a face-lift and he doesn't want anyone to know, so he recuperates in Scotland. And I know what the B is in Plan B.'
'What?' I say suspiciously.
'Botox!' says Jemima with a flourish. 'That's why he rushed off from your date. To have his fine lines smoothed. The doctor suddenly had a spare appointment, his friend came to tell him—'
What planet does Jemima come from?
'Jack would never have Botox!' I say. 'Or a face-lift!'
'You don't know that!' She gives me a telling look. 'Compare a recent photo of Jack with an old one, and I bet you see a difference—'
'OK, Miss Marple,' says Lissy, rolling her eyes. 'So what are your other seven theories?'
'Let me see …' Jemima turns the page of her notebook. 'OK, this one's rather good He's in the Mafia.' She pauses for effect. 'His father was shot, and he's planning to murder the heads of all the other families.'