by Jill Childs
I wondered if he really had a long-suffering wife or if it was just a mind game. I wondered what it would be like, being married to a man like him. Safe. Always safe. There was a roughness about him that made me certain he wouldn’t think twice about doing what needed to be done to protect the people he loved, to protect his honour, within or outside the law. I looked at the rainbow-flanked unicorn. Maybe he was a family man, after all. Maybe he had grown-up children, even a granddaughter.
I wasn’t going to admit to anything. I wasn’t that stupid. But I had the sense, sitting with him, that I didn’t really need to tell him very much. He seemed to have the answers already. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ I said.
‘Of course you don’t.’ He sighed, slipped his paperback into the door’s side pocket and turned more fully to face me. ‘I wonder how well you knew Ralph Wilson, Miss Dixon? I mean, really knew him?’
I didn’t answer.
‘Did you trust him?’ He shook his head, sadly. ‘He was trouble, Miss Dixon. Some men just can’t help themselves, it seems to me. One woman’s never enough. They don’t care who they hurt. And the riskier it gets, the more they like it.’
I stared at him. I wanted to say he was talking nonsense, that Ralph wasn’t like that. I thought about the theatre and that stupid argument. The excuse which had pierced my heart, which had stayed with me. He didn’t want to be seen in public with me. I was a dirty secret who might contaminate his family. Someone might see us and tell my wife.
Why hadn’t I made more of a fuss? Demanded to know where I stood? I knew why. I had been afraid of losing him.
I imagined Ralph, my Ralph, with other women. Olivia, perhaps. I’d seen him looking, his eyes roving across those long legs. And with her, leading him on shamelessly after he’d broken it off with me.
‘You deserved better, Miss Dixon.’ His eyes were on my face, studying me. ‘Really.’
I bent forwards, suddenly very dizzy. Had Ralph really been a type, a serial womaniser who couldn’t help himself? It was hard to hear. Had he never truly loved me the way I’d loved him?
The man beside me pointed back along the pavement to an elderly man who was approaching us at a shuffle on a walking-frame.
‘You might want to shut the door,’ he said. ‘That fella’s going to struggle to get past.’ He gave that thin half-smile again. ‘Besides, there’s an awful draught.’
I closed the door and sat very still in my seat, facing out through the windscreen, the unicorn square in my sights. I waited until the old man had dragged himself past us, then turned back to him. He was sitting quietly, watching me, watching the cogs inside my head turning, waiting to see what I was going to say next. I had the feeling that nothing and no one would ever catch him by surprise.
‘Who do you work for?’
He nodded as if to say, now, that’s a sensible question.
‘Insurance people.’ He kept his eyes on me. ‘Life insurance. Like I said, I’m all about the cash. And I’ll tell you something for nothing about insurance companies. First thing, they’ll take a hit if they really have to but they’d rather not. Second thing, they don’t play nice. They’ll throw good money after bad, trying to avoid a pay-out. Go figure.’
‘So that’s what you’re here for?’ I hesitated. ‘To stop Helen getting any money?’
He looked at me thoughtfully, as if I were turning into a promising pupil. ‘Early days. I’m here to check it out. She’s stopped the payments on his policy, see? Filed a missing person notice. That’s stage one. So the company wants to know what’s been going on, before they get any further. Next thing you know, she’ll be trying to claim.’ He shrugged, responding to the look on my face. ‘It’s a tough business, but a fella’s gotta eat. Ask the missus.’
‘But Helen will need money, don’t you see? She doesn’t work. And there’s Anna.’
He nodded. ‘Don’t I know it.’
I bit my lip. ‘Even if he did, you know… if he wasn’t always faithful…’
‘Go on.’
‘What’s that got to do with his life insurance? They’ll still have to pay out, won’t they? I mean, eventually?’
He widened his eyes. ‘Oh, you’d be surprised. There’s all sort of loopholes. I’ve just got to find one.’
My voice sharpened. ‘You don’t care what you do, do you? You don’t care how you get your money. You’d stop a grieving widow and her little girl getting the money they need.’
‘Like I said, a fella’s gotta eat.’ He didn’t look offended, just thoughtful as if he were analysing my sudden flash of anger and considering what it meant. ‘And, I wonder… grieving widow?’ He raised a questioning eyebrow.
I hesitated, my pulse quickening.
‘Something about all this missing person business,’ he said with care. ‘I don’t know. Something just doesn’t add up. Know what I mean?’
For a while, the silence hung heavily. He was motionless and, although I was so close to him, he made no noise at all. This was his skill. He seemed able to turn himself to stone for minutes, hours, days, if he needed to. I thought about how matter-of-fact he was, how knowing. Justice wasn’t what mattered, he’d said. Only cash. Was he a man who’d do anything if the money was good enough and the risk low? I suspected so.
For my part, my pulse banged in my ears and my fingers twitched on the hard seats.
Finally he said, ‘For one thing, there’s the fact we don’t have the body yet. Until we do, it’s hard to know for sure what happened. And then, there’s the wife. Mrs W.’
‘What about her?’
‘Her alibi.’ He paused. ‘It’s a bit fishy, if you’ll pardon the expression.’
I blinked and looked away. It was too much. I wanted to get out, to drive home, to pour myself a large glass of wine and get away from this man’s all-knowing eyes. But I needed to know. I needed to understand how much he really knew. Or I’d never feel safe.
I thought about Helen, standing at the front door, staring at me in disbelief – about the way she’d prostrated herself over his body, wailing. About the way she’d forced herself to become calm, to make her mind work, as I vomited into the downstairs toilet. About the fact we’d driven Ralph’s body down to the coast and sailed out to sea to dump it.
I said, ‘What alibi?’
He sighed. ‘She was at a parents’ talk at school. No question about that. Dozens of people saw her there. Her husband was home with the little girl. Then she went home and took over from him. A school mum dropped her off. That friend’s mum. Did you say Clara Higgins?’
I nodded.
‘Well, Mrs W says her husband headed out as soon as she walked in the door. Must’ve been waiting for her to get back, ready for the off. She was a devoted mum, everyone says so. Meticulous. Low risk. Did everything by the book. Not the type to leave a seven-year-old on her own at night, right?’
I managed another nod. His eyes were sharp on my face. ‘And then there’s the texts.’
‘The texts?’
‘His missus sent a storm of texts to her husband, some barely ten minutes apart. They’re all there. She starts off polite and a bit apologetic, asking where he’s gone, whether he’s okay. Typical wife stuff.’ He pulled a knowing face. ‘Then she starts to get worried. Frantic, even, by the end.’
I didn’t move. My mouth was dry as stone.
He hesitated, his eyes on mine. ‘Thing is, they were all sent from home from about twenty minutes after Mrs Higgins dropped her back. They ping off exactly the right mast. So she was there that whole night, all right, and the police have ruled her out. They’ll lose interest soon. Mark it down as suicide or accidental, body or no body, and move on. Fella’s a bit down, drinks too much, sets off on a long walk and does something daft. And you know what that means? Mrs W can start the clock, ticking down the years until the courts say he’s dead. That’s when she gets her hands on the insurance cash, see.’
I struggled to take all this in. How could Helen possibly have been send
ing all those texts from her house when she was at the coast with me? Even if Anna had been awake and willing to play a game like that, she was seven years old and a middling student. She could barely spell. And Bea Higgins must have been back at her own home by then, taking over from the babysitter who was looking after Clara.
‘But you know what bothers me?’
I shake my head.
‘Here’s a man who’s played around.’ He lifted his hand as if to silence me. ‘No offence. No judgement. Sorry to say, but seems to me, from all the gossip I’ve heard at school, that it’s a fact. So why would his wife be so surprised if he disappeared for a few hours? Doesn’t he do it all the time? He must do.’
He leaned forward to me, his grey eyes flashing in the low light.
‘So why’s she sending so many texts? Just feels a bit too neat, to me, you know? Almost as if someone’s trying a bit too hard. See what I mean?’
Bile rose in my throat. I needed to get away, to be alone somewhere I could think through everything he’d said and work out how much he really knew. I twisted away from him and yanked open the car door.
‘Before you go,’ he reached out and put a warm, strong hand on my shoulder, ‘you’re quite sure there’s nothing you’d like to tell me?’
I turned back to him, wide-eyed, and shook my head.
He nodded, slowly and deliberately, then lifted his hand from my shoulder. Those eyes.
‘Did I tell you my name? Don’t think I did. Mike. Mike Ridge.’
He held out a hand for me to shake. It was hard and strong, the kind of hand that could choke the life out of me, with little effort. I shuddered.
He reached inside his jacket and drew out a printed business card.
‘If you find yourself in a mess, like poor old Ralph did – down some hole that’s getting so deep, you know you’ll never escape – you call me. I might be able to help.’ He gave me a final, thin smile. ‘Well, if the price is right.’
I snatched the card. My last sights, as I scrambled, flailing, out of the car, were of the St Christopher swinging on its chain and the unicorn steadily nodding its springy horned head.
Thirty-Two
I was getting drunk. It was all I could do. I’d raced home and double-locked all the shiny new locks on the front door, then added the safety chain. Now I was slumped on the settee, under a blanket, drinking red wine.
Mike’s card lay on the coffee table beside the emptying bottle and the school photograph. I’d turned it upside down now, hiding the picture from view. I couldn’t bear to see it, couldn’t stand to think about what it meant.
I thought about Helen and Bea, sharing dinner, maybe watching a film together. I’d thought Ralph’s wife such a loser, such a control freak, with her neat home and all those bookshelves, so carefully arranged in sections, each section in alphabetical order.
Once a librarian, always a librarian, Ralph had said when I asked him about it. It was probably as much as he’d ever said about her. He made it clear, always, that she was off limits.
At the time, I was just glad that the two of them were so different. I never did understand how someone as bohemian and romantic as he was could ever have been attracted to an uptight woman with the mind of a railway clerk.
Now I wondered about her, all over again. All the times I’d seen her at school, the woman who clipped neatly down corridors with her hair clean and well-styled, always dressed in a way which was slightly old-fashioned but presentable, sitting, back straight, on the school library settee, listening to a procession of children come to her, one at a time, to read. Doling out her little stickers as rewards.
I’d dismissed her as nothing. A small-town librarian who’d become a house-proud stay-at-home mother with a failing marriage. I’d blamed her for Ralph’s affair with me. It was her fault for failing to be enough for him.
I raised the glass to my lips and drank. The wine was rich and heady. My empty stomach gurgled and protested. How had she possibly covered her tracks, if Mike was right? And how, in heaven’s name, had she organised all those texts?
When I stared across the dark room, I saw Mike’s eyes, cold and grey and all-knowing. Could I trust him? No, trust wasn’t the right word. Of course I didn’t trust him. He was a force of darkness. A man who’d do anything for money. He’d said as much himself.
But I did believe him. He was terrifying because he was so direct, so real. He wasn’t a man who wasted energy in deceptions. I don’t know how I was so sure of that, I just knew.
Clearly, he suspected me. He already seemed to know far too much about me and my affair with Ralph. I just wondered how much more he knew. If he had any idea what else Ralph had done.
I’ve thought such a lot about how it ended. What he did before he died was wrong, terribly wrong. I’d never have thought him capable. But I’d have stood by him, if he’d only been honest with me. If he’d been repentant and asked for my forgiveness. I’d have tried to help him find a way out.
My first sense of the end came where it had all begun, at the writing group.
It was supposed to be a group just for members of staff. That was made crystal clear from the start. I remember reading Ralph’s flyer on the Lower School noticeboard when it first went up at the start of the school year. It was eye-catching, with small photographs of famous writers forming a giant question mark after the words, Interested in writing? The pupils had their own clubs and classes and workshops. This was for us, for staff. It just happened to be held on school premises because that made practical sense.
Once I’d started seeing Ralph, I only went along to the group occasionally. It was partly because I felt so hopelessly focussed on Ralph, and he on me, that I thought our colleagues would guess our secret at once, especially when he started reading. He always made me feel as if his love poetry was written just for me. Then there was the awkward fact that I didn’t write. It wasn’t a requirement and I wasn’t the only person who went along just to listen but once or twice, others had been called upon to overcome their anxiety and to share – and someone even suggested an impromptu session of flash fiction. Just the thought of that left me hot with embarrassment.
But by the end of January, I was frightened. Ralph had changed towards me. His text messages were far fewer and when I texted him, he sometimes took hours, even a day, to reply. When he came to see me, I tried to dote on him, buying him the best food and wine I could afford and, when he sat, dull-eyed, on the settee after eating, I’d try to give him scalp or shoulder massages to ease the tension. He seemed less interested in making love to me too. Clearly, something else was on his mind.
I agonised about it and decided in the end to start coming regularly to the writing group again, partly as a chance to spend time with him, and partly to show him how much I loved his poetry, one of his great passions. I didn’t tell him beforehand. I wanted to see his face when he saw me walk in, to enjoy his surprise.
I dressed with particular care for school that first morning, picking out my best pencil skirt and a pink blouse. I had butterflies all day as I tried to keep my mind on teaching. Excited nerves, just as a woman should feel before a special date. Several times, I reached for my phone, thinking I’d message him. Every time, I ended up pushing it back into my bag, laughing at myself. I was so bad at surprises, but I was determined to keep this one!
After the final bell, I hung behind in the deserted classroom, instead of heading to the staffroom. The class smelled of glue and disinfectant, of wax crayons and paint. I closed the door, then tidied up the book corner and washed down the arts and crafts tables. Afterwards, I hid myself away at the teacher’s desk and tried to focus on marking a pile of year three’s stories until the Upper School too finally ended its day and I could head up the hill to join the group there.
I forced myself to drag my feet and make sure I’d only arrived at the classroom after the start of the first reading, usually an honour given to Ralph because it was his group. All the way along the corridor, my heart thud
ded. It was a painful nervousness. The tension of looking for someone you know to be hiding, someone who might jump out at you at any moment. But there was excitement too. I thought about that first time I’d come looking for the group and the way he’d broken off his reading and come to the door, called to me, with such a look of delight as he ushered me inside. Then read to me, just to me.
Several things happened all at once as I arrived at the classroom. As I reached for the handle, I realised with a jump that it wasn’t Ralph reading. It was a young woman, her blonde hair cut into a bob. She was sitting on the edge of the staff desk, wearing an absurdly short skirt, hitched up by her posture to reveal endlessly long legs dangling over the edge. Her feet, in low heels, rested jauntily on the seat of a wooden chair. Ralph, sitting right beside her, looked captivated. He was gazing at her with a rapt expression, akin to adoration.
As I entered, he turned to see but instead of delight, I saw a shadow of irritation cross his face. He gestured me to a seat impatiently, then turned back to pay homage to the young woman.
I slumped into a chair and scrutinised her. I hadn’t seen her before. A teaching assistant, perhaps, or a graduate student on teaching placement? Her voice was strong and confident as she read her poetry. Her skin was so clear that it looked translucent. It seemed bare of make-up. Her hands, shaking where she held her poem, showed long, slender fingers and neat nails. No nail varnish. No rings.
When she reached the end, she lowered the paper and looked round, half-smiling, her large blue eyes nervous.
Ralph lifted his hands at once and clapped. ‘Bravo!’
The six or so others in the room joined in with half-hearted applause. I shook my head, sickened and embarrassed for him. We never clapped at this group. Never.