The Breakdown(63)

‘Cass has decided to take some time off,’ he explained.

Hannah was too polite to ask why but, over coffee, I saw her deep in conversation with Matthew while Andy kept me busy with photos of the holiday they’d just had.

‘What were you talking about with Hannah?’ I asked

on the way home in the car.

‘It’s normal she’s worried about you,’ he said. ‘You’re her friend.’ And I was glad that we’d be going to bed when we got in and I’d have a legitimate reason for taking some pills.

I hear Matthew’s feet on the stairs so I close my eyes, feigning sleep. If he knows I’m awake he’ll want to chat and all I want are my pills. He puts the tray down and kisses my forehead gently. I pretend to stir a little.

‘Go back to sleep,’ he says softly. ‘I’ll see you tonight.’

The pills are in my mouth before he’s reached the

bottom of the stairs. Then, exhausted by the effort I had to make over the last three days, I decide to stay in





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bed instead of getting dressed and going down to the sitting room as I usually do.

The next thing I know, a persistent ringing wakes

me from a deep sleep. At first I think it’s the phone but when it carries on long after the answering machine should have kicked in, I realise that someone is pressing over and over again on the doorbell.

I lie there, unperturbed by the fact that there’s

someone at the door. For a start, I’m too drugged to care and secondly, the murderer is hardly going to ring on the bell before coming in to kill me, so it must be the postman with more packages of things I don’t remember ordering. It’s only when she begins shouting through the letter box that I realise it’s Rachel.

After shrugging on a dressing gown, I go down and

open the door.

‘At last,’ she says, looking relieved.

‘What are you doing here?’ I mumble, aware that

I’m slurring.

‘We were meant to be meeting for lunch today, at

the Sour Grapes.’

I look at her in dismay. ‘What time is it?’

‘Hold on a minute.’ She takes out her phone. ‘Twenty past one.’

‘I must have fallen asleep,’ I say, because it seems politer than saying I forgot.

‘When you hadn’t turned up by quarter to one, I tried to get hold of you on your mobile until I remembered The Breakdown





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that you’d lost it,’ she explains. ‘Have you bought your-


self a new one yet?’

‘No, not yet.’

‘I tried phoning here and when you didn’t pick up I was worried that you’d broken down on the way or had an accident,’ she goes on, ‘because I knew you’d have let me know if you were going to be late. So I thought I’d better drive over and make sure you were all right. You don’t know how glad I was to see your car in the drive!’

‘I’m sorry you’ve had to come out,’ I say guiltily.

‘Can I come in?’ Without waiting for an answer

she walks into the hall. ‘Would you mind if I make a sandwich?’

I follow her into the kitchen and sit down at the table.

‘Help yourself.’

‘It’s for you, not me. You look as if you haven’t eaten in days.’ She takes some bread from the cupboard and opens the fridge. ‘What’s going on, Cass? I go off to Siena for three weeks and come back to find you looking like someone I don’t know.’

‘It’s been a bit difficult,’ I say.

She puts a jar of mayonnaise, a tomato and some

cheese on the table and finds a plate. ‘Have you been ill?’ she asks. She looks so beautiful with her gorgeous tan and white shift dress that I feel self-conscious in my pyjamas. I pull my dressing gown around me.

‘Only mentally.’

‘Don’t say that. But you do look dreadful and your

voice is all over the place.’





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‘It’s the pills,’ I say, lying my head down on the table.

The wood is cool beneath my cheek.

‘What pills?’

‘The ones Dr Deakin gave me.’

She frowns. ‘Why are you taking pills?’

‘To help me cope.’

‘Why, has something happened?’

I lift my head from the table. ‘Only the murder.’

She looks at me, confused. ‘Do you mean Jane’s

murder?’

‘Why, has there been another one?’

‘Cass, that was weeks ago!’

She looks a bit off-kilter so I blink rapidly. But she’s still off-kilter so it’s obviously me. ‘I know, and her killer is still out there,’ I say, jabbing the air with my finger.

She frowns. ‘You don’t still think he’s after you, do you?’

‘Uh-huh,’ I say, nodding.

‘But why?’

I slump back on the table. ‘I’m still getting calls.’

‘You told me you weren’t.’