The Guilty Couple(76)
‘I don’t know, you’ll have to ask her.’ He glances, again, at her suitcase. ‘Why’ve you brought that in with you? Didn’t you come in your car?’
‘Yes, it’s outside,’ she smirks and taps the handle, ‘but I’m not letting this out of my sight.’
He shakes his head, confused. Why borrow clothes from Grace when she’s got her suitcase with her? Why not get changed and brush her hair before she left home? Even when they were sleeping together, which he’s successfully managed to avoid for the last few weeks, Nancy never once looked anything other than utterly polished. He’d wake up to find her lying in bed next to him with a full face of make-up and hair so silky and smooth it had to have been brushed. She couldn’t have been more different to Dani or, for that matter, Liv. Nancy’s mask – make-up or otherwise – never slipped.
‘What’s happened?’ he asks. ‘Something’s happened, hasn’t it?’
Nancy passes a hand over her hair, suddenly aware of his scrutiny. ‘I was just tying up a few loose ends.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like your ex-wife, although not literally tying her up.’ She meets his gaze, her eyes steely. ‘I wasn’t going to risk a showdown at the airport.’
‘What did you do to her?’
‘I didn’t do anything.’ She turns her head in the direction of the stairs. ‘Grace, have you got some trousers I could borrow please? Could you bring them down?’
‘Nancy,’ Dominic grips her wrist, his voice low. ‘What did you do?’
‘Trousers please, Grace! We need to go soon.’ She yanks her arm away and hisses at him, ‘Don’t ever put your hands on me. Jack’s been sending Olivia messages—’
‘What?’ Dom’s blood runs cold. ‘That’s not possible.’
‘They were from me, obviously. Someone had to stop her sniffing around.’
‘What?’ he says again, as he struggles to keep up. Nancy’s been contacting Olivia, pretending to be Jack? What else has she been doing? She’s completely out of control. ‘How … since when?’
‘Since she started making noises about finding him. I couldn’t let her discover that he’s dead.’
‘But how could she? No one knows. No one but us.’
‘She’s not as stupid as you think. Plus, she’s got the key to the lock-up. I saw it the other day and recognised the shape.’
‘No, I’ve got …’ Dom searches his pockets for his keys but Nancy interrupts him before he can find them.
‘Your spare keys. You gave them to Rosa, remember? And then Olivia stole them.’
‘Shit.’ Dom presses a hand to the side of his face, it’s damp with sweat. When Dani had told him about Olivia breaking into the house he got the locks changed, again, but he completely forgot about the key to the lock-up.
‘Don’t worry. I took care of it.’ Nancy taps him, patronisingly, on the cheek. ‘Now Jack’s not the only one in the lock-up. Your ex-wife is too.’
Dominic looks towards the top of the stairs. Grace’s door is still closed. ‘Is she—’
‘No. She was still breathing when I left but she can’t get out and she can shout until she’s hoarse and no one will hear her, not unless they happen to be visiting their own lock-up. Even if that happens, it’ll take forever for them to get her out.’
‘But what if she tells them what you’ve done? What if it’s happening right now and she’s told them to ring the police?’ Dominic’s hyperventilating and his mind is racing as he searches for an escape plan that won’t end up with him spending the rest of his life in prison. ‘What if they go to the airport? You should have—’
‘Killed her?’ Nancy tilts her head to one side and frowns at him. ‘I’m not a complete monster, Dom. She was my best friend.’
Right, Dom thinks, but it was fine to sleep with her husband, hide the dead body of her lover and help to frame her. There’s a very good reason why he’s stayed on Nancy’s good side. Not that he’s had any other choice. If starting an affair with her was a mistake, then turning to her for help when he killed Jack was a life sentence. He’d effectively handcuffed his future to hers. The only control he had was the memory card he kept in his safe: a home CCTV recording of Nancy helping him load Jack’s body into his car. If she threatened to expose what he’d done he’d take her to jail with him. But when she pushed Olivia’s friend Kelly down the stairs and stole the phones and the SIM cards, she snatched back the last bit of power that he had.
Jack had turned up one evening when Grace was having a sleepover with a friend, Olivia was attending an art fair in Paris and Dom and Nancy were relaxing on the sofa with a bottle of red wine, having screwed for a good hour in Dom’s marital bed. Jack had never been to the house before. He made first contact by ringing Dom at work. His voice sent shivers down Dominic’s back, as though a ghost was saying hello on the phone, rather than a man he’d once classed as one of his very best friends.
‘You owe me,’ Jack told him. ‘I’ve seen your house, your wife, your kid and your cushy office block. I’ve got nothing. I took beatings because of the shit you said when we were inside and it’s about time I got compensation. Fifty grand should do it.’