by Linda Coles
Anika was stirring as Sam entered the room. The girls were up and clattering around upstairs now, making too much noise for even the deepest sleeper to ignore. Anika clutched her sore head and groaned.
“Morning,” Sam said brightly. “Tea? And maybe a Paracetamol too?”
“Ouch. Yes, and yes, please.”
Sam took the recent revelation by the horns and sounded Anika out.
“Listen, Duncan is away for the night day after tomorrow. Why don’t we have a sleepover? A movie, takeaway, a couple of drinks – it’ll be fun. And if you don’t fall asleep on the couch, there’s a proper bed in the spare room. What do you say?” Sam fixed another bright smile on her face.
Anika frowned, no doubt feeling sick as a dog.
“Oh, go on!” Sam enthused. “Two girls, all night, no men? Sounds like fun!”
It did the trick. Anika smiled weakly and nodded. “But make me limit my wine, would you? My head feels like a thousand ants in work boots are stomping the inside of my skull for fun.”
“Ah, the ant punishment.” Sam smiled knowingly. “I’ll get your Paracetamol,” she said, and went back through to the kitchen. While she busied herself making tea and finding painkillers, inside her head was a riot of activity. A mental checklist was forming, and her first task was already checked off the list. Would it be stupid to write things out, put a list on physical paper? It would make it much easier. No, her head would have to do.
Duncan put his head through the door.
“Right, I’m off. I’ll see you later.”
“Before you go, what time are you heading to your course, and where is it again?”
“It’s in Kent but I’ll be overnight Croydon. I’m meeting up with a couple from Croydon station for a curry then tactical the following day. Why?”
“Oh, just taking an interest in your plans.” That sweet smile again. She was getting convincing at it. She planted a light kiss on his cheek and casually turned back to what she’d been doing.
“Right, then. I’ll see you later,” Duncan said. “Not sure what time.”
“Okay. Enjoy your day,” Sam said over her shoulder.
The front door closed and it was Anika’s turn to put her head through the door.
“You two sound like you’re getting on well.”
Sam turned to her friend with the same smile she’d been delivering to Duncan over the last couple of days. She was working hard at laying the emotional groundwork.
“We are now, thankfully. I think we’ve turned a corner. I see big changes ahead.”
Don’t I just.
Chapter Forty-Eight
At last, the house was empty and Sam could think. Planning to get rid of your husband in the next couple of days was not without its drawbacks; there was much to be accomplished to get every detail right. Could she do it another day? Of course she could – but she didn’t want to. The stronger Sam of old had returned, pushing the recent Sam-the-pathetic off her metaphorical cliff, never to return. Her decision to carry out this plan had ignited her inner pilot light, filled her belly with fire again, and the freedom she’d garner at the end of it all – not to mention the money – excited every fibre of her being.
Her mental list had grown in size, but now, as she headed in through the main entrance of the bank, she was about to chalk a line through another item.
The money.
With the clock ticking down the hours, she had only been able to guess at the amount of cash she’d need for her plan. How much does it cost to kill your husband? But since Duncan wouldn’t be around to question the transaction, she had decided to err on the side of caution and organize more than she thought she’d need.
“Good morning. I’d like to take a loan out, if I may,” she informed the teller behind the screen, slipping her bank card under the glass partition. “I need to do the paperwork if I can, then get my husband to sign later today if that’s okay. He’s working late.”
The teller smiled her understanding.
“Certainly. How much are you looking for?” Sam noticed the woman’s engagement ring twinkling as it caught the light; there was no wedding band visible yet. “What a stunning ring,” she said pleasantly. “Have you set the date yet?”
The woman blushed and smiled. “It’s a bit soon yet. We only got engaged at the weekend. It is lovely though, isn’t it?” She looked down at the ring and blushed again.
“Oh, congratulations!” Sam carried on, hoping she wasn’t overdoing things.
The teller eventually came back to the business at hand. “How much would you like to borrow? I see you already have a preapproved amount noted on your account of up to twenty thousand pounds, which means I can confirm that to you today without any further paperwork. Over that amount, though, and I will have to get approval.” The ring twinkled again.
“It’s lucky I only need twenty thousand, then.” Sam laughed lightly. “Save on the paperwork.”
“Great. I’ll do that for you now, then. It won’t take me a minute or two.”
Sam watched the pretty ring as it flew across the keyboard, creating a loan for £20,000. If the teller knew what she was actually authorizing with the loan, Sam mused, she probably wouldn’t be so friendly or efficient.
Sam smiled to herself. Her plan was going better than expected now that one of her biggest obstacles was almost completed. Luckily, she and Duncan had always had a joint account rather than opting for a housekeeping account and both contributing amounts into that. It worked for other couples, but Sam and Duncan had never seen any point in it. When she’d been working, they’d saved a little each month, putting it towards a holiday or renovations or a new car, but those savings had dwindled a little since they’d been living on one wage.
The teller was speaking. Sam had missed the question.
“Which account would you like the money to be available from, Mrs. Riley?”
“The savings account, please.” Sam watched the flying diamond again as the teller pressed a key to confirm the transfer. Smiling, she announced that the money was in their account.
All £20,000 of it.
It couldn’t have been easier.
Sam left the bank with a spring in her step, destination unknown for the time being. A coffee shop sign up ahead caught her attention, and she slipped inside to quietly celebrate on her own.
In a few more days she’d be spending a good deal more time on her own.
“Cappuccino and a donut please,” she ordered, and took a seat in a corner spot by the window to think some more. There was still so much to organize. It was quiet inside the coffee shop, though the takeaway window was nonstop. Sam was glad she didn’t have to rush off to the office or be at someone else’s beck and call any more. Would she need to go back to that when this was all over? Get a job? The insurance money wouldn’t last forever, she knew, and she’d probably have to move house. Clumber Road was okay, handy for Duncan’s work, but there was the whole country to consider now, and far nicer places to settle down and start afresh.
And the funds to do it with.
The girls were young enough not to mind the move, thankfully. They were both a long way from exams that mattered and the upheaval of lifelong friendships. They could get a house with a field, get a pony or some chickens, have a puppy maybe; the girls would love that. Her coffee and donut arrived, and she tucked in, still musing about what she might do herself eventually. Buy a café business, maybe? Plenty of people had that dream – settle on the Cornish coast, open a little place with checkered tablecloths and serve scones with homemade jam. . .
Sam watched the barista diligently work through the orders in front of her, her hands frantically switching from adding coffee to the press or milk to the steam tap. It looked hot, hard work. Sam imagined spending hours with steam rising into her face, queues in front of her until lunchtime and beyond, when it would start up again for a couple more hours.
“We’ll see,” she mumbled, and turned away to watch the world outside the win
dow while she ate her good fortune reward. Raspberry jam dripped onto her lap and she glanced down in annoyance, then gave a start. It looked like blood.
Duncan’s blood.
And it didn’t bother her.
Chapter Forty-Nine
She pressed her finger thoughtfully into the blob of deep red jam on her jeans, surprised at her lack of emotion. It was dark enough to be blood but thicker, and she spread out to the sides a little as she played with it.
She imagined now that it was Duncan’s blood, that she’d somehow found him after the fact, had sat with him a moment or two before calling it in, reporting a death – not that she’d be in the vicinity if her plan went through, of course. But what if it did happen in their home? Would she find him lying in a pool of his own blood on the kitchen floor? What then? Would she play with a blob of blood between her thumb and forefinger like she was playing now with the sticky raspberry jam? Maybe. Or maybe she’d be crying, regretting what she’d been responsible for, or maybe she’d be whooping, dancing gaily around his prostrate body. Or maybe she’d have no emotion at all. That seemed the most likely scenario, because each time she’d thought, really thought, about what she was organizing, she had felt nothing at all about the task ahead. Maybe she could do the job herself and save the cash? No, the forensics team would be on her in a flash. Never mind the problem of an alibi: if she did the deed itself, she couldn’t be out with Anika at the same time.
No, clearly it needed to be done by someone else other than her.
But two days seemed so … soon. Perhaps she should choose another date, further in the distance.
Or did it? Perhaps she should take the opportunity in front of her after all: Duncan would be out of town, and she’d be at home with Anika – with a firm alibi right there. Fate had surely dealt her a gift, a timeframe in which she could act –so she should do just that.
She sipped her coffee and finished her donut, thoughts drifting. She remembered that night not long ago when the girls had been returned safe and sound, the look of disgust, of distrust even, that had been etched on Duncan’s face, his accusation that she was unfit to take care of them, and his threat to take the girls and leave her behind.
And nobody was going to take them away from her, not now, not ever.
If her husband could say such venomous words to her face, it could only mean one thing: he didn’t love her anymore. Well, Sam wasn’t so sure she loved him either, so they were quits in that respect – not that she’d tell him, of course. Especially now. No, she was on her quest to be the perfect wife for the rest of their time together, happy in the knowledge that life for her and the girls was about to become quite different.
Back home, Sam stood gazing out of the lounge window, the white net curtains shielding her from the outside world, from nosey neighbours behind curtains of their own. She moved away from the windows and flipped the bird to whoever might be watching her now. She wouldn’t miss the street, nor the town. The Cornish coast with all its seaside splendour would be far nicer, far more scintillating and a damn sight more welcoming than this dreary Manchester suburb. A place overlooking the sea, somewhere she could call home, make a new life for them all, would do her the world of good.
And there would be no need for any more pills; she was sure of that. Emptying the last four from the inside pocket of her bag, she tossed them to the back of her throat followed by a gulp of almost-cold tea. She winced as the capsules cascaded down into her stomach. Taking several deep breaths, Sam worked on clearing the anxiety in her chest and got to work on her laptop with her next quest: how to access the dark web. While Seedy Sid was still an option, organizing something with him in person was a huge risk to undertake, and one she might not need to take at all if there was a safer way. From her understanding, the dark web was a way of staying anonymous. She could arrange her transaction and get the job done, and no one would know she was involved.
It took her several hours to get the results she wanted, and it was almost time to collect the girls from school when she came up for air. Gaining access to the space had been easy enough, it seemed, though she’d take a longer look at things later when the girls were doing their homework upstairs. But for now, she had a good understanding of how things worked.
She knew that what she wanted to do was . . . doable.
Maybe she could get her tablets from the dark web, too, she thought, get them posted rather than relying on chemists’ shift rotations or finding a place further away from home that didn’t know her. Her ‘tea lady’ was expensive and inconvenient, too, and not exactly local, but for the odd days when she needed a stronger jump-start or a sleepy peaceful day she had her uses. Or was buying her pills online too risky? She supposed she could use a private box rather than her home address for deliveries, but even that was traceable. Nonetheless it was worth looking into when the main business was taken care of. There had to be ways to safely receive goods.
Gathering her bag, she left the house to go the long way round to school, towards the shopping mall that had a supermarket with a resident chemist, one that she hadn’t been to for a couple of weeks.
Those were getting harder and harder to find, it seemed.
Chapter Fifty
“Come on, girls. Time to brush your teeth and get ready for bed.”
A whiney chorus of ‘Oh, Mummmm’ filled the lounge as two young faces turned to their mother, trying for sympathy. It wasn’t working, not tonight.
“You stayed up last night, remember? I left you reading in bed, if you recall, rather than lights out. You’ll be getting bags under your eyes like I have if you have another late one, and trust me, you don’t want that.” Sam was helping the girls pick toys up and put them back in the cupboard as was the rule at night – all toys had to be put away.
“Come on, quickly now. If you get upstairs and ready for bed in the next five minutes, you can read for ten more.” There was a sudden flurry of activity as two skinny little bodies raced up the stairs together in an attempt to get ready within the allotted time. Two sets of soft brown curls bounced out of view and Sam stood at the bottom making sure no one tripped in the stampede to be first. They were a joy to call her own. The sound of the little girls chattering while they were supposed to be brushing their teeth made her smile as she picked out odd toothpaste-frothy words from her spot downstairs. They were going to a friend’s birthday party at the weekend and both had new dresses for the occasion. Victoria wanted to know what Jasmine was doing with her hair – up or down.
At their age?
“Pigtails!” Jasmine had yelled, and Sam could imagine white specks of toothpaste splattering the mirror. Nothing a wipe with the towel later wouldn’t fix. Her heart missed for a moment as she realized they might be fatherless by then. Would they still want to go? Would it be appropriate, even? She waited until her daughters were finished in the bathroom, then climbed the stairs and popped her head around each bedroom doorway and peered in. Victoria was ready, a book in her hands, lips moving slightly as she read the words to herself to help make sense of some of the longer ones. She looked pretty in her pink nightie, her teddy tucked in at her side. Next, Sam checked in on Jasmine, who wasn’t quite ready. She was still picking a book to read from the bookcase behind the door, a little finger resting on her lip as she pondered her choices.
“Need a hand choosing?”
“I’m okay, thanks, Mum. But why don’t you tell me a story instead?” Two bright, twinkling eyes looked up at her and Sam caved in.
“Come on, then. Jump into bed. I’ll tell you a short one because I’ve lots to do tonight, all right?”
“All right.” Jasmine slid under the covers and Sam pulled the blanket up to her chin. She sat on the edge of the bed and recited one of Jasmine’s favourite stories, about how all the cats and dogs nearby crept into the forest late at night. Of how they’d each tell stories and light a bonfire to sleep next to for warmth in winter. Then they’d all awaken at dawn and wander back home so nobody would k
now they had even been out. Oh, the stories they would tell one another – the same stories that Sam recited to her own children as she watched them slowly drift off to sleep, eyelids fluttering as they fought to stay awake, in the warmth of their cosy beds. As Jasmine drifted off now, Sam kissed her forehead gently and turned off the bedside lamp. The light from the hallway was enough for her to see her way out.
“One more minute, Victoria, then lights out please,” she called as she pulled Jasmine’s door almost closed. Victoria nodded that she understood.
Back downstairs, Sam poured herself a glass of red wine, set her laptop on the sofa beside her and turned the TV on for a bit of background noise and comfort.
Comfort? You’d better get used to being on your own.
Clicking the anonymous browser icon, she resumed her search for someone to kill her husband – preferably while he was away in Croydon. She found the whole dark web thing fascinating and had been careful not to let her natural inquisitiveness get the better of her and click a link to something she might regret later. The headlines and the post titles urged the viewer to click and read, or in many cases observe, and even though she was anonymous, she knew full well that you can’t un-see something you’d rather not have seen in the first place.
But it wasn’t all weird stuff. Yes, there were links to encourage you away someplace else, but most of the stuff on offer wasn’t much different than the hits from an old-fashioned search page from way back.
She typed a term for what she wanted and hit enter. Then she waited, sipping her red, for results to come home.
“Wow, so many to choose from,” she mumbled as the screen began to fill. There was clearly a market for knocking people off. Her finger hesitated over her mouse pad as the cursor blinked, waiting for her decision. She made her selection, then sat back and took another sip of wine.