The Breakdown(99)

The Breakdown





397


‘I forgot to tell you – the police asked me if I knew


Jane and I said I’d first met her at that leaving party you took me to. So they asked me if you knew her and I said no, but that you’d had an argument with her over a parking space on the day she died but that was all. But they didn’t seem to believe it was over a parking space. So try and remember about the tea towel, won’t you? When I phoned them earlier to tell them that I’d found mine in the cupboard, so it couldn’t be the one the knife was wrapped in, I said that the only other one I knew of was yours.’ I pause for effect. ‘You know what they’re like, they’ll use every little thing against you if they can.’

It feels good to see her eyes dart around, looking for somewhere to run. She rams her car into gear and tears out of the gate.

‘Bye, Rachel,’ I say softly as her car disappears down the road.

Back inside, I phone the police to tell them that the tea towel the knife was wrapped in isn’t mine because I’ve just found it in the cupboard. I remind them that it was Rachel who bought it for me and that she also bought one for herself. I ask about Matthew and pretend to be distressed at the news that they’re keeping him in overnight. And once I’ve hung up, I go to the fridge, take out the bottle of champagne we always keep there for unexpected guests and pour myself a glass.

And then I have another.

THURSDAY OCTOBER 1st

The next morning, when I see that it’s the first of October, it seems like a good omen, the right day to make a fresh start. The first thing I do is check the news and when I hear that a man and woman are helping the police with their inquiries in relation to the Jane Walters murders, I can’t help feeling a grim satisfaction that Rachel too has been arrested.

I never thought I was a vindictive person but I hope she spent a terrifying few hours being grilled by the police about her relationship with Matthew, about the row she had with Jane and about the tea towel containing the knife. She must be dreading them finding her fingerprints on the knife. Of course, once I hand in her secret mobile both she and Matthew will be released because the police will realise that neither of them killed Jane, that the knife they have is simply a knife Rachel bought in London to scare me with, not the murder weapon.

Title: The Breakdown ARC, Format: 126x198, v1, Output date:08/11/16





400


b a paris


And then what? They’ll live together happily ever after?

It doesn’t seem right, and it certainly doesn’t seem fair.

I have a busy day in front of me but first I have

a leisurely breakfast, marvelling at how good it feels without the threat of a silent call hanging over me. I want to take out a court order to prevent Matthew, and Rachel, from coming anywhere near me once they’re released so I search on the computer and find that I can apply for a restraining order. Knowing that I’m going to need legal advice at some point, I phone my solicitor and make an appointment to see him at the end of the morning. And then I phone a locksmith and arrange to have the locks changed.

While the locksmith changes the locks, I put Matthew’s belongings into bin bags, trying not to think too much about what I’m doing, about what it means. But it’s still emotionally draining. At twelve o’clock I drive into Castle Wells with Rachel’s little black phone in my bag and spend an hour and a half with my solicitor, who tells me something that I hadn’t realised, that thanks to the text messages Matthew can be charged in relation to my ‘overdose’. When I leave, I drive to Rachel’s and dump the bin bags containing Matthew’s clothes outside her front door. And then I drive to the police station and ask to speak to PC Lawson. She isn’t available but PC Thomas is, so I hand him Rachel’s mobile and tell him what I told my solicitor, that I found it in my car that morning.

The Breakdown





401


Physically and mentally exhausted, I drive home. I’m


surprised at how hungry I am so I find a tin of tomato soup and have it with toast and marmite, my favourite comfort foods. Then I wander around the house, feeling at a complete loss, wondering how I’m going to be able to move on when I’ve lost both my husband and best friend. I feel so low, so depressed that the temptation to sink to my knees and cry my eyes out is overpowering.

But I don’t give in to it.

I turn on the television to catch the six o’clock news.

There’s nothing about Matthew and Rachel having been released but that doesn’t stop my heart leaping into my mouth when there’s a ring at the doorbell. I reassure myself that it can’t be Matthew because I would have heard him trying his keys in the lock but I still leave the new chain on. When I see PC Lawson standing there, I feel as if I’m looking at an old friend.

‘Can I come in?’ she asks.

We go into the kitchen and I offer her a cup of tea.

I presume she’s come to warn me that Matthew and

Rachel are about to be released, or to quiz me over how I came to be in possession of Rachel’s secret mobile.

‘I’ve come to thank you,’ she says as I take mugs from the cupboard. ‘Without your help, we would never have solved Jane’s murder so quickly.’

Startled, because it isn’t what I was expecting her to say, I turn to face her. ‘You know who killed Jane?’