by A. M. Castle
That’s the way it was. I had skills, but they were the kinds of things that were hard to explain and were not welcome in polite society. Better to stay silent and absorb the lessons others had to teach instead.
But it worked in my favour. I was extremely refreshing company for girls who were used to being interrupted all the time by their boyfriends, scarcely listened to when it was finally their chance to chime in and then expected to shut up and smile while their partners rode off yet again on the hobby-horse of their choice. When I was listening, I really listened. Head to one side, serious expression on. I gave every conversation a sort of confessional air – irresistible. People almost always ended up telling me more than they’d ever planned to.
OK, I didn’t give a lot back. But with Trish, diets were 90 per cent of her conversation anyway and if I’d been her boyfriend, I’d definitely have blown my brains out. He must have had his sights set firmly on that stately home she was bound to inherit. Me, I put up with it for various reasons. And if I had views on the best way to lose weight, I kept them to myself. Pretended that eating pineapple would definitely do the trick. Food combining? Cabbage soup? Oh yeah, that’s bound to work. For God’s sake, eat less, move more. Was it really that hard to understand? But Trish, like so many women, much preferred to believe there was a magic bullet out there that would do all the willpower stuff for her, so she didn’t have to. That was the trouble with being brought up on fairy stories. If the glass slipper fits, you’ll become a princess.
In the meantime, interspersed with details I didn’t need to know about her latest crazy weight loss scheme, involving enough fibre to keep her own pony going for months, and her marvelling about my own inability to put on weight – it wasn’t rocket science, I hardly ate – I was getting lots of useful info from Trish.
I was careful, as usual, not to signal my interest too obviously. But Trish understood, or thought she did. In her view, she had a privileged position, as she was up there on the first floor with all the account execs, providing their admin support services.
Trish was smart enough to do the account exec job itself, but that wasn’t in her world view. Just the admin was fine for her. She was only marking time before sashaying up the aisle, when her life would change and curtain fabric would become the most pressing item on her agenda. Her private education had probably cost as much as a detached house in Chiswick, but both she and her parents were relaxed about chucking it away like this.
I envied her; I did. So much that it sometimes hurt. I didn’t wish her ill, but I couldn’t help thinking how much better a job I’d make of her life, if it were all mine.
Still, that got me nowhere and I did my best to shrug it off. She could help me now, that was what I had to concentrate on. Because she actually knew Patrick. And she could feed him the information that I was now seeing Pete.
This had been my original scheme. To be honest, I had rather lost sight of it, recently. Pete and I were just having the loveliest time. We weren’t doing anything earth-shaking, we were both at the beginnings of our careers and didn’t have much money to spare, but we’d spend weekends lolling in parks, or I’d drag him to visit a gallery or a museum, and he’d try and get me to watch sport on TV. We were hand in hand, laughing ourselves silly, and it felt great. But I still somehow wanted Patrick to know I was taken.
I’d often wondered if Patrick didn’t just think he was that bit too far above me in the scheme of things. Of course he was right, but that wasn’t the point. During those few golden moments when he’d leaned across my desk and given me a bit of the old chat, he’d made me feel there might be a chance. But was I aiming much too high and destined to fail, as my mother had always said? I’d sometimes felt as though I really knew Patrick, that he was in every fibre of my being. But he wasn’t. He was a stranger. Now that I did know Pete, I realised my obsession with Patrick was just another fantasy, the sort that had got me through my childhood but that was something I shouldn’t cling to anymore, now I was supposed to be grown up.
All right, Patrick had made that one throwaway ‘hey, gorgeous’ comment just before I’d taken up with Pete, but apart from that our entire relationship consisted of desultory chats about missing correspondence, plus him winking and me alternately going up in flames with my blushes, or trying to style it out with a cool nod. Anyone would have said the bad, bad, lad was leading me on. Time to make a puny attempt to even the score by letting Trish drop the news that I had a boyfriend. She didn’t bat an eyelid; didn’t express amazement that anyone would be interested in a girl like me. Sometimes people’s reactions, or lack of them, astonished me.
‘Given up with Patrick, then?’ she asked shrewdly. I shrugged. I couldn’t help still thinking that she was the luckiest girl in the world, well-bred idiocy and an extra stone round her middle notwithstanding. Trish actually talked to Patrick. On a regular basis.
‘So what’s he really like? You can tell me now I’m seeing someone else,’ I prodded. As soon as it was out of my mouth, I regretted it. I felt disloyal to poor Pete. And how much like a lovelorn schoolgirl did I sound? But Trish didn’t point and laugh. She actually looked sympathetic. She had a history of having crushes on men who, despite her money and hoity-toity looks, were never going to reciprocate – one had been gay, one was about forty years older than her and married to boot. She had everything going for her, but had still managed, by virtue of being the worst picker since Mrs Bluebeard, to know the pangs of unrequited love from the inside out. I resolved to help her – once I’d drained her of every scrap of information she had that could help me, of course.
‘Nice guy, what can I say? Bit of a jack the lad, but cute with it, you know?’
To say I was disappointed with this summary didn’t come close. Trish had hardly plumbed the psychological depths, had she? On the other hand, perhaps there wasn’t much to dredge up. And that was all to the good. Patrick and I couldn’t both be complicated. I knew I was never going to get to the bottom of most of my problems, and that was with the advantage – or disadvantage – of being inside my own head, twenty-four-seven. But I’d been looking for someone interesting, at least.
Then again, maybe I wasn’t sending the right canary down the mine. Trish surely wouldn’t know fascinating if she tripped over it on the way to the gymkhana. She was on an unconscious mission to piss off her mum and dad, until she finally settled for the stockbroker of all their dreams, and anyone who fit the current slightly off-kilter bill was fine with her. Patrick, it seemed, was not rebellion material so she didn’t find him intriguing. But for me, that was perfect. I’d had all the living on the wrong side of the tracks that anyone could take.
‘What does he actually like doing? Any idea about evenings, weekends? Of course, I’m pretty busy with my boyfriend,’ I said, offhand, as I’d practised in front of the mirror. It was crystal clear what I was really asking. Did Patrick have a girlfriend? But on this, Trish could not enlighten me.
‘Doesn’t mention any particular evening or weekend plans,’ she said, with heavy irony. ‘I’d say he’s single.’
‘Really? Why would you say that? Why?’
‘Whoa, give me room to breathe,’ she joked. I was nowhere near her, but instantly I drew even further away, put my hands round my coffee for support. It wasn’t like me to crowd someone physically. As a rule, I kept rigidly to my own personal space and was grateful – and surprised – when others followed suit. But I’d been yearning to hear this for so long.
I took a breath. Tried to pretend her answer didn’t matter all that much. Started fidgeting, and promptly knocked over the salt cellar. I threw some over my left shoulder while Trish looked on in surprise. She was too rich to need superstitions to prop herself up. Abruptly, I gave up with the insouciance. I wasn’t fooling anyone, least of all myself. ‘Come on, Trish. What do you mean?’
Trish, annoyingly composed herself, decided to take pity on me at last. ‘Sometimes his shirts aren’t that well ironed. Shoes not polished. Bit scruff
y. But not because he doesn’t have clean clothes, more like he just can’t always be bothered to iron a shirt in the morning.’
‘That’s it? That’s what you base him being single on?’ I was incredulous.
Trish shrugged her shoulders. ‘Doubt me if you like, but that’s the kind of thing that tells. If he were living with someone, she’d be ironing his shirts. Especially at the beginning of a relationship. At the very least, she’d be telling him he looked a mess.’ I was intrigued by this insight into the role of ironing in the courtship rituals of the middle and upper classes. Needless to say, it hadn’t figured heavily where I came from.
‘That’s not to say he’s not getting any, though,’ Trish added her bombshell slyly.
‘Wait, really? How do you know?’ I was agog again.
Trish smirked. She knew she had my attention now. ‘Couple of times, he’s turned up to work in the same shirt twice. Looking pretty grey in the face as well. Heavy nights and I’d say he definitely got lucky, went back to hers, whoever she might have been.’
I was silent for a moment, gutted. But I rallied myself. What had I expected, a monk? It was good that he had some experience, I told myself. And it didn’t matter to me now, did it? I couldn’t help asking the obvious, though. ‘No … repeat performances, though, you think?’ I asked coyly.
‘Doesn’t look that way. Aren’t you shocked, him being out on the razzle on a school night?’
I paused for a moment. A school night? I’d heard the phrase, used ironically by people my age. It hadn’t really been a thing in our household. No night was a school night, or every night was – take your pick, it meant the same. The razzle, though. That went on, regular as clockwork.
I managed a smile. ‘He’s a scamp. Good for him. As long as he doesn’t get hooked up.’
Trish shot me a glance. ‘And how, exactly, are you going to stop him?’
She had a point. From her perspective, my interest looked futile and my ability to control the situation was negligible. Yet I couldn’t crush down the tiny little spark inside me that was wishing, even now, that the next time Patrick did couple up, it would be with me.
I knew it was ridiculous. I knew I should concentrate on what I did have, my relationship with Pete. Pete, with whom I was having so much fun. Pete, who had given me my first taste of a real love affair. But not long after that chat with Tricia in the canteen, I started to have that doomy feeling that things were somehow going wrong.
Ironic that I’m even saying this, given what happened between me and Patrick later. But still, you know the signs, don’t you? When you’re in a relationship, and suddenly things go from smooth and harmonious, to bumps in the road. You start to realise that you’re more different than you thought. That you might never see eye to eye. Well, of course that wasn’t me. I’d always known that Pete and I were worlds apart. The thing was, I’d hoped I’d be able to prevent him from seeing the same thing. But it wasn’t really working anymore. And I sort of wanted to get in there first. I was fragile, and I knew it would be a blow if he was the one to walk away. So I decided it was better to do it myself.
I dithered about ways to administer the coup de grâce. Fifty ways to leave your lover, and all that. Slip out the back, Jack. That had a certain appeal – no awkward conversations, no music to face, no recriminations. But Pete and I had such a very nice time together. I owed him an explanation.
All the time I was working up to it, I was wondering if I should just keep things going a little longer. Maybe I was imagining his restlessness, his occasional recoil from the things I said. Wasn’t I just cheating myself of a few more of those pleasant weekends, drifting about, play-acting at love?
In the end, deciding to do the deed and actually getting it finished did involve quite a time lag. Normally, I made a decision and that was it, job done. But this time I was dallying. True, there was another person involved, and that complicated matters. Usually I only had myself to worry about, and I was now beginning to see that was quite a luxury.
In a way, I’d been gearing up to this from the moment I met Pete. It had never been meant to last. It had been a means to an end, I told myself. But in fact, I knew I was in deeper than I’d ever wanted to be. And I was worried that it was all going to hurt. A lot.
Chapter 21
Now
Becca
Becca lurched back from her screen, hands behind her head. She moved a little too fast and the wheels on her chair shunted backwards, so she had to grab the desk gracelessly and haul herself in again. It quite destroyed her moment.
For, as moments go, it was a biggie. She’d been digging away all this time, trying to find something to latch on to. She’d felt convinced something didn’t add up in this case. Yes, that woman – Louise Bridges – had been dry-eyed, and that went against the conventions. But it had been more than that. Christ, Becca herself was no slavish follower of norms, you could see that just by looking at her. Whatever Tom said, she really didn’t expect every widow she met to be in floods, wearing black from head to toe, rending their garments … whatever that even meant. But she did expect more than she’d got from Louise. A widening of the eyes in horror or astonishment, for instance. A pallor or a flush, some physical sign of inner distress. Could you hear news like that and keep every system in your body under lockdown? Would your pulse remain unchanged? Even if you didn’t feel sorrow, you’d feel shock, wouldn’t you? And shock showed.
As far as Becca was concerned, there was only one circumstance under which you’d remain unmoved, outwardly and inwardly, on hearing your husband of a large number of years had died. And that was if you already knew.
No, that day, there’d been a watchful quality about her, the house, the kids … a sense of expectancy.
Becca stopped herself. Did she even know what she was saying? How could a house be watchful? She mustn’t get fanciful. That didn’t lead anywhere useful. She had to keep her feet on solid ground, not get carried away again. But something was niggling at her. And it wasn’t just today’s unfinished cream bun in its bag, which was now urgently whispering sweet nothings to her.
That place. It had been scrubbed to within an inch of its life, every surface pristine. As though its secrets had been scoured away. Either the woman was OCD on an epic scale, or she’d cleaned up because she was getting rid of evidence. And the way she’d bundled those papers out of sight. One of them with that logo Becca had recognised. She hadn’t been able to help the impulse that had come over her, then. Just this one sheet, swiftly detached from the pile, when Louise Bridges had been stirring that blasted Bolognese. No one had spotted her, not even the kids. Well, they couldn’t see for crying, poor mites.
Becca looked from the page to her screen. To the information that was now almost at her fingertips. This was definitely something to go on, a place where she could start. All right, it wasn’t everything she needed. Not yet. But this was still epic. It was something real. Wasn’t it? Something more than her imagination …
But how would it come over to an outsider? She had a habit, she knew, of locking her jaws around things, worrying away at them. Sometimes she got caught up. She remembered her mother’s wary eyes, the other night.
Was she doing it again? But she didn’t feel the same, didn’t feel weighed down, as she had during that sad, dreary time before. If anything, she felt buoyed up. On a mission.
Was this enough, with her suspicions, to justify another trip to the house? See whether things were usually as pristine at Number 10 Woodwarde Avenue, or whether that display of deep cleanliness had had a more sinister meaning?
She sighed. For her, it felt like a race against time. Without even trying, she knew what Burke’s answer would be. Revisiting old, cold cases was not economically sound. No one was jumping up and down saying Patrick Bridges had been killed, therefore it was in no one’s interest to prise open this case. If she showed her findings to her partner, he’d be angry first, indifferent afterwards.
But what if she went up
a grade or two? Showed the Sarge?
Was a little anomaly enough to get something done? Or should she dig deeper, see whether the ground Louise was standing on would hold, or whether it would develop fissures, then collapse and take those long, long legs down with it?
That was quite a satisfying picture. Becca smirked as she looked around the busy room. Everyone was working, tapping away, having earnest conversations on their headsets or in little knots at the coffee station, a reassuring background hum. No one was watching her. She stuck her head in the white bag again and tore off a tiny chunk of sweetness. Like the bitten stump of the bun, this decision was something she couldn’t rush.
Chapter 22
Then
Pete’s mother had invited us round for Sunday lunch. Well, she’d asked us loads of times, but he’d finally decided to give in and take me. He’d mentioned it before, but only in an offhand way, as though this was certainly something we wouldn’t be doing. I’d been a bit hurt. Even I knew this was a really big deal. Magazines had just about given up on etiquette columns, but meeting the potential in-laws was still reckoned to be a make-or-break moment for a couple. If the future mother-in-law hates you on sight, then you’re in for a quite a road ahead.
The fact that he hadn’t been sure about showing me off was one of the things that had worried me. Yes, this whole thing had started as something to keep my mind off Patrick, but I’d had such happy times with Pete. I didn’t want it to come to an end.
So when he finally said yes to his mum’s urgings, I suspected this was some sort of test. Either I would pass it with flying colours, or I imagined it might be curtains. And just when I’d finally got some for my flat, too.
It was a lot of pressure. I knew there would be a lot of things I should or shouldn’t do when the epic day came, and I knew there was a fair chance that I’d have no clue what they were. I’d be completely out of my depth. So I was dreading it.