The Other Woman(75)

He smiled at the memory. I smiled too. I liked the sound of her.

‘If I’d have been there, I could have helped her. I could have found her inhaler and stopped it.’ His head bowed and his chest lifted. ‘But you just never know when it’s going to come. You can be going along just fine, and then bam! You feel the signs, and then if you don’t do anything about it, it can take you out, just like that.’ He clicked his fingers.

‘So, she must have been exerting herself, then?’ I said gently. ‘Perhaps moving boxes around or something?’

He nodded. ‘There was a big box, full of books, upturned on its side in the hall. It was so heavy, she should never have tried to lift it, but it seemed she did. That kind of work would have put a huge strain on her lungs, plus she would have been running up and down the stairs all day.’ His voice cracked. ‘I guess she was trying to get it into shape by the time I got home.’

‘But you spoke to her that evening, didn’t you?’ I asked.

‘I called her just before I left the office, and she was fine.’

‘Was your mum with her then?’ I asked. ‘What time did she leave?’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he said, rubbing his eyes. ‘Can we leave it now? Please.’

‘I’m sorry, I just don’t know how somebody can just die like that,’ I said, my voice getting a little higher with each word. He looked at me questioningly.

‘It just freaks me out, that’s all,’ I said.

How could he not see? Surely, he must have asked himself the question. It was so blindingly obvious. Pammie was the last person to see his girlfriend alive, and the first person to find her dead, on the day they were moving in together, on the day he left home. There was no greater motive for her to do something terrible, to stop her worst nightmare from being realized. She would have felt that she was losing Adam, relinquishing control, and she wouldn’t have been able to bear that. God knows what hell she’d put Rebecca through in her attempt to get her out of Adam’s life. How far had she pushed her? I shuddered at the thought. Poor Rebecca, who once, like me, had so much to look forward to. A life with the man she loved. Her own family. But she’d not backed down. She’d stood up to Pammie and, by doing so, had unwittingly made the ultimate sacrifice.

Was I taking the same risk? Was I signing my own death certificate?

I didn’t want to carry this overwhelming sense of foreboding alone. But I had no choice. It was one thing to tell Pippa and Seb about how Pammie made me feel. They had seen for themselves how cruel she could be. But to accuse her of murder? That was something completely different, and, until the time came when I knew for sure, without any shadow of a doubt, that she had something to do with Rebecca’s death, I had to keep it to myself.

I smiled up at Adam.

‘What are you thinking about?’ he asked.

If only you knew.

Over the next few weeks, I threw myself into work, taking on every appointment I could manage. It helped to keep my brain busy, to stop the fear and panic from taking over. I was shattered, both physically and mentally, when I got in from work each night, but Adam would never have known. I did everything in my power to make him want and need me more than ever before.

‘What the hell’s got into you?’ he said, smiling, when he came home from work to find me dressed in a black-lace bra and panties, serving up fillet steak with a homemade peppercorn sauce.

I gave him my best smile. He didn’t need to know that I’d have loved nothing more than a snuggle on the sofa, in our pyjamas, watching a box set whilst eating pot noodles. Instead, we had sex on the dining table, before I’d even managed to set the dinner down, and after eating, I listened sympathetically as he moaned about a lazy colleague, whilst I washed up. I am all his Christmases come at once, so that when the chips are down, when he is forced to make a choice, he will choose me, because he will never be able to give me up.





36

‘I’ve got a big favour to ask,’ Adam said, as we sat down for breakfast on Saturday morning.

I looked at him expectantly.

‘Are you still off next Wednesday?’

I nodded. ‘I’m off every Wednesday, you know that,’ I said, as I munched on a piece of wholemeal toast.

He grimaced, and I knew I wasn’t going to like what he was about to say. ‘I’ve got a really big client meeting . . .’

I waited. Whatever he was about to ask, I wanted him to work for it, just a little.

‘And I was wondering if . . . it’s just that Mum has a chemo appointment, and I’ve already spoken to James, but he’s away with his new girlfriend—’

‘Is he? Where?’ I interrupted.

‘Paris, I believe,’ he said, shrugging his shoulders. ‘Anyways, if you’re around, I wondered how you’d feel about taking Mum to the hospital.’

I stared at him blankly. ‘Have you asked her?’

‘No. I’m asking you first. See how you feel about it.’

I smiled inwardly. A good sign.

‘It would just be picking her up from the cottage and running her to the hospital. Perhaps you could go into town for a couple of hours before taking her back home again.’ He looked at me hopefully.

I knew this could be my chance. It would give me the opportunity I needed to expose her deceit, to prove beyond any doubt that she’d cruelly hoodwinked everyone around her, including her two beloved sons. But I also knew the risk I was taking, and the potential consequence of my actions. Was it worth it? I couldn’t save Rebecca, but I could save myself. As soon as that thought entered my head, my mind was made up.