The Breakdown(83)
Ready and waiting
Did she say anything about Susie’s present?
18 Jul 10.47
No but she seemed on edge
18 Jul 10.47
Let’s hope my text did the trick Did you hear about local woman murder?
18 Jul 10.47
Yes, awful
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Let me know how it goes
18 Jul 12.56
Omg it went like a dream!
Thought I should warn you she’s on her way home 18 Jul 12.56
Already? Thought you were having lunch together 18 Jul 12.56
She lost her appetite ?
18 Jul 12.57
It worked that wel ?
18 Jul 12.57
Couldn’t have gone better, she had total meltdown 18 Jul 12.58
She real y believed she forgot about present?
18 Jul 12.58
Told her she was the one who suggested it Bril iant watching her pretending she remembered!
Is the money ready, because she’ll check 18 Jul 12.58
160 in drawer
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b a paris
18 Jul 12.59
Bingo!
It takes me about an hour to read through all the
messages and get back to where I started, with the last message Rachel sent from the ladies’ toilet in the Spotted Cow. Most of them are read through eyes blurred with tears and some remain seared in my brain long after I’ve moved on to the next. They alone are enough to start me on the road to the truth, a truth I’m half scared to face because I know it will destroy me. But when I remember what I’ve been through for the last three months, and that I’m still standing, I realise that I’m stronger than I think.
I close my eyes, wondering when Matthew and Rachel first began their affair. I think back to when they first met, about a month after Matthew appeared in my life.
I was already in love with him and was desperate for Rachel to like him, yet they hadn’t really hit it off. Or so it had seemed at the time. Maybe there had been an instant connection between them, and they had been cool with each other to hide it. Maybe they had become lovers not long after, before Matthew had even married me. It’s terrible to think that my marriage to Matthew might have been nothing more than a sham, a means for him and Rachel to get their hands on my money.
What I want to believe is that he truly loved me and that his desire for my money only came after, and that The Breakdown
319
it was Rachel who planted the seed in his head. But for
the moment, it’s something I don’t know.
I get slowly to my feet, feeling as if I’ve aged a hundred years in the last couple of hours. Rachel’s phone is still in my hand and I know I have to hide it before Matthew comes back. He isn’t out with Andy, he’s out with Rachel helping her look for the little black mobile that holds so much incriminating evidence. I scan the room and my eyes fall on the orchids lined up on the window sill. My mobile is still hidden under one of the plants. I walk over, lift a different plant out of its pot, place the phone in the bottom and put the orchid back.
And then I go to bed.
*
It’s only when I hear Matthew’s car pulling into the drive that I realise the danger I’m in. If Rachel and Matthew have managed to trace the French students, they’ll know I have the phone. I throw the covers off me and leap from the bed, hardly able to believe that I came up to bed instead of taking the phone to the police. But I had been in such a daze, and so distraught, that I hadn’t been thinking straight. Now it’s too late. Without my mobile, and the house phone downstairs, I have no way of calling them.
The sound of the car door slamming propels me into the bathroom, looking for something to defend myself with. I fling open the cupboard; my eyes fall on a pair
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of nail scissors but they don’t seem enough of a weapon.
Matthew’s key rattles in the lock and, in a panic, I grab a can of hairspray and run back to the bedroom. Climbing into bed, I slide the hairspray under my pillow, easing off the top off as I do so. Then, lying down facing the door, I close my eyes and feign sleep, my hand gripping the hidden can tightly. And like ticker tape running through a machine, the text messages hurtle through my brain.
20 Sep 11.45
I’m bored
20 Sep 11.51
Why don’t you drop in and see coffee machine in action New one in place
20 Sep 11.51
Real y?
Thought you didn’t want us meeting up 20 Sep 11.51
Wil ing to make an exception
Also need you to dig
20 Sep 11.51
For what?
20 Sep 11.52
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Why she’s OK at weekends when she’s crashed out
during the week
20 Sep 11.52
OK, what time?
20 Sep 11.53
2 p.m.
20 Sep 23.47
Big risk kissing me in hall this afternoon 20 Sep 23.47
Worth it
Find out anything?
20 Sep 23.47
She doesn’t take her pills at weekends Doesn’t want you to know how much they affect her So hides them in drawer Which means she only gets the 2 you put in her orange juice