The Dead Ex(106)

‘Don’t.’ I feel my voice rising and have to fight to keep it down or else they might make me leave. ‘Jackie was wrong, but you said you wished I was dead.’

‘Look, Vicki.’ That charm has gone now. His eyes are hard. His voice tough. ‘It’s your fault for not being a loyal wife. If you’d helped me out of that sticky financial patch I was going through, none of this would have happened.’

‘You really mean that, don’t you?’ Tears are running down my face. ‘You’re a bastard, David. You’re not just evil. You’re selfish. Look what you’ve done to me.’

‘And look what you did to Zelda Darling! You were so convinced it was her who attacked you that you didn’t consider the possibility of it being anyone else.’

He was right. Innocent until proved guilty. Isn’t that what our justice system is all about? Yet I had based my own suspicions on circumstantial evidence.

There is no excuse.

Little Patrick will always stay alive in my heart, I tell myself as I sign out. But at least I am over David. I am finally free.





66



Vicki

Three years later


‘They’re here,’ says Patrick, putting his arm around me as we go out to greet them.

I can hardly believe it! We’ve been waiting so long for this day.

Everything is ready. The bedroom upstairs that I’ve decorated with such care. The desk so she can do her homework. The school uniform, which I hope will fit.

When Patrick had first suggested long-term fostering, I’d assumed I wouldn’t be suitable because of my epilepsy. But that new drug has worked better than anything else I’ve tried.

Patrick found me soon after that last time I saw David, and we got married the year after that. As he said, we’d wasted enough time. He fell in love with Penzance too, so we bought a cottage on the outskirts so that I could continue as an aromatherapist. He found a post as a psychologist at a hospital not far from here. But now we are about to change our lives all over again.

‘It will be all right,’ says Patrick, sensing my nervousness.

I lean into his shoulder and breathe him in. ‘What if I’m not good at this?’

‘You will be. All she needs is a loving home and some structure. We can do that.’

Together we walk towards the car. The social worker – whom we’ve met before – gets out of the driving seat. It looks as though the little girl with dark plaits wants to stay put. Poor kid. She must be terrified, after everything she’s been through.

‘Hello,’ I say, crouching down by her open window. ‘My name’s Vicki. You’re Rhiannon, aren’t you?’

She nods, her large brown eyes a pool of fear.

‘We’ve got chickens in the back,’ I say. ‘Would you like to help me feed them? We could collect some eggs for tea.’

And slowly, very slowly, she opens the door, gets out and places her small, warm hand in mine.





Postscript


There’s just one more thing. I need to let it out or I will burst. So I’m going to write it down instead. My very last diary entry. Then I’m going to burn it before anyone can read it. I’ve learned my lesson about putting pen to paper.

Lavender is absorbed through the skin and into the bloodstream. So are other essential oils. Once inside the body, they can’t be got out. My tutor told us this on more than one occasion.

I love aromatherapy. Its magic is both stimulating and calming at the same time. Yet if used in the wrong way, the effects can be catastrophic. My tutor was very clear about the safety aspects and contradictions. She taught us which oils can aggravate certain health conditions. And not just epilepsy. (It’s why I have to avoid sweet fennel, which, I’ve been told, can cause seizures.)

Before I went to visit Tanya on the day she died, I had massaged my hands well with oil. Always good for the nails and your skin. But that isn’t why I did it. David’s wife had a permanent tan, courtesy of the sunbed she’d installed in my old house. I knew that because she boasted about it on Facebook. But the special citrus oil which I’d blended myself and put on my hands just before seeing Tanya can cause allergic reactions to UV light. It can make skin blister and result in discolouration. It can also make you burn more easily. Especially if it’s undiluted.

I didn’t mean any harm. Well, not long-lasting. I just wanted to do something that might make Tanya feel uncomfortable and less attractive. I wasn’t even sure it would work because it normally only reacts in the sunlight or when you are actually on a sunbed. How lucky for me that this is exactly what she was doing when I visited! Even better, it was a warm sunny day – unseasonably so for that time of year. That’s why I’d grabbed both her arms when I arrived. It worked faster than I thought. Within minutes, they had turned blotchy. Maybe painful. Did it affect her so much that she couldn’t defend herself when Zelda attacked her?

The autopsy didn’t mention it. I suppose an allergic reaction doesn’t matter much when someone’s been strangled. But what if one day it somehow comes to light? I’ve tried to tell myself that this is just my guilty conscience talking. But the truth is that I really don’t know.

Meanwhile, I’ve kept quiet, convinced that the police will come knocking on my door, just as they did on that cold windy February night, to charge me with complicity in her murder.