My Husband's Wife(118)

She seems so certain. My legs begin to shake as if someone else is rocking them.

‘There’s something else too. I’ve been receiving anonymous notes.’ Carla’s eyes are locked on mine. ‘They implied something bad would happen to me and Poppy because of what I’d done to you.’

I go hot, then cold.

‘Have you kept them?’

‘Only the last. Then I tore it up, like the others, because I was scared Ed might go mad. But I’d recognize the handwriting again.’

Handwriting?

A paralysing chill crawls down the length of my body, eating it up, inch by inch.

‘You can’t afford me.’ I’m clutching at straws now. ‘I can’t do it for free. My firm will need to charge you.’

Those eyes now glint. She can tell she’s winning me over. Suddenly I know what she’s going to say before she says it. ‘Ed’s sketches! The ones he gave me as a child. They’re worth something now. I will sell them to prove my innocence!’

It tastes, I have to admit, of the most delicious irony.





58


Carla


Of course, Carla told herself, she hadn’t meant all that stuff about needing Poppy and getting her back. That was just to get Lily onside.

For the first time in months, she was finally feeling more like her old self. With Ed gone, she was no longer a child who did everything wrong. She no longer had Poppy’s screams ringing in her ears day and night: a painful reminder, as if she needed one, that if it hadn’t been for getting pregnant, she would still be free. Without the child, she was sleeping better, although her dreams were still punctuated by Mamma. Sometimes she would sit bolt upright in the night, convinced her mother was still alive. Then she would remember. If only, she sobbed, hot tears streaming down her face, she could have been with Mamma at the end.

Meanwhile, she had to convince the judge that she was innocent.

It wasn’t easy being a defendant instead of a lawyer, Carla soon realized through this haze of grief. If only she understood more about what was going on. If only she’d specialized in criminal law, not employment.

Now, as Lily prepared for the bail hearing – to determine whether she had to wait in prison until her case was tried – Carla attempted to remember the murder cases she’d covered at college.

‘Surely all I have to do is plead “Not Guilty”,’ she protested to Lily in the police cell.

‘It’s not as simple as that.’ Lily glanced at her notes. ‘The judge will look at the evidence – like the front and back doors, which don’t look as though they’ve been forced – and then decide if you pose a risk.’

‘A risk?’ she pouted. ‘Who am I going to hurt?’

‘That’s the point, Carla. The judge doesn’t know you from Adam. For all he knows, you’re a husband-killer. It’s unusual to get bail for a murder charge. But not impossible.’

Lily was getting frustrated. Carla could see that. Better not push it, she told herself. She’d been amazed, frankly, when Lily had agreed to take her on. And she was lucky – or so Lily told her – that the bail hearing was happening so fast.

When she saw the judge, he would surely see she was no murderer. Lily had brought in some shampoo and a hairdryer; a hairbrush too, although it was one of those thin wand designs instead of her usual paddle brush. Lily had also lent her a dull brown calf-length skirt, even though Carla had specifically described the one she’d wanted from her own wardrobe. ‘This one is more demure,’ Lily had told her brusquely. ‘It all makes a difference.’

She had been trying. Carla had to concede that. What was it that had swayed her? The ‘Ed was a bastard’ bit? The baby bit? Or the argument that taking on her case would help Lily’s career?

Maybe some of each.

It would have been easier, though, if Lily had been nicer to her instead of being all brusque and cold. Cold … Ed’s body would be cold now. It didn’t seem possible. None of this seemed possible. Any minute now, she’d wake up at home. Not the ‘home’ that had once belonged to Lily and Ed. But real home.

Italy home.

Sunshine streaming in through the shutters; the sounds of children walking past on the way to school; the old man from next door grumbling about the tourists; and Mamma. Beautiful Mamma, calling her in that sing-song voice. ‘Carla! Carla!’

‘Carla Giuliana Macdonald. Do you plead guilty or not guilty?’

Were they really in front of the judge already? Carla looked around the courtroom. It was so easy to travel in your head. So easy to blank everything out.

They were all looking at her now. Far away. And then close. Out and then in. The room was swaying. The handrail in front of her in the defence box was slippery from the sweat on her hands. There was a loud ringing in her ears. ‘Not guilty,’ she managed.

And then the room danced backwards and forwards as if someone was stretching it out and in again, like the concertina the old man used to play in the square by the fountain back home …

The first thing Carla saw when she opened her eyes was Lily. Lily in a smart navy suit that could have been black unless you were looking closely.

‘Well done,’ Lily said.

It was difficult to know if she was being sarcastic or not.

Carla looked around to give herself time. They weren’t in a police cell. Or the court. They were in a room that looked a bit like an office.