His & Hers(34)

“The body of a young woman has been discovered in woods owned by the National Trust in Surrey this morning. Police have now named the victim as Rachel Hopkins, founder of the homeless charity…”

Jack steps into my eyeline. If looks could kill, I’d have flatlined.

“… Our correspondent, Anna Andrews, joins us now with the latest.”

I top and tail my package with twenty seconds of memorized words, doing my best to ignore Jack’s persistent glares and arm waving. By the time I throw back to the studio, he is standing so close to the camera that he could easily have turned it off or knocked it over. Luckily Richard was in the way. I wait for the all clear, then remove my earpiece.

“Is this thing off?” Jack asks.

“It is now,” Richard replies, lifting the camera off the tripod and joining the engineers in the truck.

He didn’t need to be asked to leave us alone.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Jack says.

“My job.”

“What if we hadn’t already informed the next of kin?”

“You told me the name of the victim, I reported it.”

“You’re fully aware that isn’t why I told you.”

“Why did you tell me?” I ask, but he doesn’t answer.

He looks over his shoulder at the sat truck, then leans in a little closer, his voice barely more than a whisper.

“Why were you here yesterday?”

“What are you talking about?”

“The parking lot ticket with yesterday’s date on. You still haven’t explained—”

“Wow, that again. You think I had something to do with this?”

“Did you?”

Jack accused me of a few bad things when we were married, and a few more when we weren’t, but never murder. It makes me wonder whether he always had a negative view of me, even when we were together. Perhaps he was just better at hiding it then.

“I was presenting a network bulletin to millions of people yesterday, so I have a few alibis who can confirm I wasn’t here if you need to check.”

“Then how do you explain it?”

“I don’t know, maybe the machine is broken?”

“Sure. Why not. That’s a plausible explanation.”

Jack marches over to the pay-and-display machine, then reaches inside his pocket for a coin. I don’t realize I’m holding my breath until his hand comes out empty. He looks over his shoulder at me, as though I might offer to give him some spare change. When I don’t, he turns his attention back to the meter. I watch the familiar way he strokes the stubble on his chin, a habit that never bothered me when we first got together, but caused unfathomable irritation by the time we parted.

I’m expecting him to walk away without another word, but he stands perfectly still, staring at the ground as though in deep thought. All of a sudden he bends down, brushes some dead leaves away, then picks up a silver-colored coin from the forest floor. He holds it in my direction before putting it in the slot. I can feel my heart thudding in my chest as he stabs the green button with his finger. I have a crazy urge to run but stay exactly where I am.

He snatches the ticket the machine spits out, and stares at it.

Time seems to slow down as I wait for him to turn around or say something, but he doesn’t. I don’t know what this means.

“Well?” I ask eventually.

“It’s yesterday’s date; the machine is broken.”

“Is that your idea of an apology?”

He turns to face me.

“No. Unlike you, I don’t have anything to apologize for. You shouldn’t be here. I realized a long time ago that your career means more to you than people do. More than your mother, more than me, more than—”

“Fuck you.”

The tears come fast, bursting over the banks of my eyelids. I feel ridiculous for thinking it, given how much I hate him right now, but I want him to hold me. I just wish that someone would hold me and tell me that everything is going to be okay. It doesn’t have to be true. I’d just like to remember what that feels like.

“You’re too close to this. I’m not sure it’s right for you to be reporting on this murder.”

“I’m not sure it’s right for you to be trying to solve it,” I reply, wiping my tears away with the back of my hand.

“Why don’t you just do us both a favor, and go back to London? Sit in that studio, like you always dreamed of?”

“I lost my job presenting the program.”

I don’t know why I tell him; I didn’t plan to. Perhaps I just needed to tell one person the truth about what has happened, but I regret it immediately. The brave face I have been wearing slips, and I hate the way he is looking at me now. I prefer wonder to pity. People who get to know the real me are the ones I need to learn to hide from the most.

“I’m sorry to hear that. I know how much the job meant to you,” he says, and his words sound genuine.

“How’s Zoe?” I ask, unable to hide my resentment.

His face resets itself. The woman my ex-husband now lives with was also an old school friend of mine, just like Rachel Hopkins. I’ve seen pictures of Zoe and Jack playing happy families on social media, although I wish I hadn’t. She posts them, not him. The little girl posing between them a constant reminder of who we used to be, and who we could have been if life had unfolded differently.