My Husband's Wife(107)

This is ridiculous. How? Where? ‘Is this one of your lies again?’ I say sharply.

He laughs. ‘Even introduced myself to Carla at Tony’s funeral.’

‘I don’t believe you. She wasn’t there.’

Another laugh. ‘Then you couldn’t have been looking very closely.’

He draws his chair nearer. I edge back.

‘I’m not far away, Lily, when you pick up Tom from school on Friday nights. Or when you take him for walks along the beach, with Ross.’ His mouth tightens.

My heart leaps into my throat. Surely he wouldn’t …

‘And just how have you been spying like this without us noticing?’ I snap. Fear is making me angry.

‘Spying?’ He seems to consider the word. ‘I’m no James Bond, but I was inside, wasn’t I? You learn things there. I even paid one of my contacts to do a check on you when I was thinking of hiring you. I wanted to see if you were up to the job.’

There’s a flash from the past. That feeling, when I was newly married, of being followed on the way back from the bus stop. My shock when Joe had known I’d just got married.

Could it be true?

Or is this just the dreams of a fantasist? But then how do I explain his knowing so much about me? About Tom. About Ross.

‘Tom looks like I did as a kid, Lily.’ Joe’s face is twisted with pain. It’s one of the few times I’ve seen him express emotion. ‘I’ve seen him. He does the same things. He doesn’t like it when things aren’t ordered. I know he’s mine. I’ve given you time because of your marriage break-up. But I deserve to know. Don’t you think?’

I’d see his point of view if I wasn’t so scared of him. If he wasn’t a killer.

A pair of joggers run past on the other side of the road, holding hands. I see them every day. Mr and Mrs Newly-Wed, I call them to myself. Joe observes me watching them.

‘Are you lonely, Lily?’

This change of tack throws me. Maybe that’s the whole point. My eyes suddenly blur. Of course I’m lonely. It’s so unfair that Ed, the guilty party, has found happiness whereas I am destined to be alone. Who would want to take on a child like Tom?

‘You don’t have to be on your own, you know.’ Joe’s hands suddenly take mine. They are warm. Firm.

‘I’ve always loved you, Lily. In my own way.’

The raw loneliness inside me screams in my ears. I’d like to say I don’t know what I’m doing. But I do.

I lean towards him. Let his hands pull me towards him. Let him lower his lips to my neck. Feel his breath against me, sending heat straight to my groin.

A jogger appears in the far distance by the lifeboat station. I jerk back. Joe’s eyes snap open. I leap to my feet, appalled by what I have just done. As I do so, a key falls out of my pocket. It’s one I always carry, even though I no longer have use for it. The spare key to my old house with Ed. If you are attacked, I once learned at a self-defence course, you should jab someone in the eye to give you time to run. A key is always good, the instructor said, or else a finger. It’s a piece of advice that has stayed with me, whether in London or running along the seafront in the early morning.

Joe bends down to pick it up.

This is a murderer before me. A man who should have been convicted of killing his girlfriend. Yet this polite picking-up-the-key gesture suggests courtesy. And that’s the nub of it. Of course Joe is bad. But he also has shades of not-so-bad.

I like to think I am good. But – there’s no getting away from it – I have also done wrong. Not just a wrong that affects me. But one that touches Ed too. And, more importantly, Tom.

And as I run back across the road towards the front, the sea now washing smoothly against the pebbles, I finally allow my mind to go back to that evening after the case.





Forget the pain in my chest, making it hard to breathe.

It’s nothing, compared with the agony of waiting.

My body is tense. Stiff with apprehension.

I can hear her now. She’s coming.





50


Carla


The pains started the following day, when Carla was in the office, going through her post. There was always something, thank goodness. A letter, a contract, a phone call, a meeting with counsel. Anything to block out the image of Ed waiting for her at home, his eye on the clock, his hand on the bottle.

‘Got another one here,’ announced Lily’s old secretary, popping her head round the door. ‘Just been delivered by hand.’ Carla’s heart quickened, although there was no need. Many letters were hand-delivered. Couriers were nothing out of the ordinary. Yet she could see as she took the envelope that her name hadn’t been typed, but written by hand in spidery capital letters. She opened it.

YOU AND YOUR CHILD WILL PAY.



Carla felt the baby launch another kick, far bigger this time. ‘Who dropped this off?’ she heard herself say in a strangled voice.

The woman had made it clear that she didn’t care for Lily’s successor. ‘A motorbike courier. Didn’t say which company he was with.’ Flouncing off, she left the door wide open.

Getting up to shut it, Carla suddenly felt a trickle of water running down her legs.

How embarrassing! She had wet herself. Was this what her body had come to? Stuffing the letter in her bag, she scuttled past a partner in the corridor and dived into the Ladies. To her horror, the same secretary was there, drying her hands.