The Perfect Widow

by A. M. Castle

  Huffing upwards moments later, she plopped the files back on the desk, neatened the edges of the pile, and that was her, done. She turned to go, relieved.

  And came smack up against Johno’s amused smirk. ‘Well, what have we here, then?’

  Chapter 47

  Then

  The question was, what should I do next? Yes, I was devastated. Yes, part of me would never recover from the shock. But did that help? Would I gain anything by lolling around bemoaning the luck that had made me fall for this idiot, this waster, liar, thief? No. I had to find a solution to this situation. Like Houdini, my eyes had always fixed themselves on the way out, and this, though it was the most appalling blow of my life, because it impacted my children more than me, was just another exit I had to manage.

  I wrapped myself in the white velour robe, registering its sumptuousness with nothing but irritation. An hour ago, I had luxuriated in it, and allowed it to convince me that Patrick, despite all the evidence to the contrary, still loved me and felt I was worth splashing out on. But now I knew he was just recklessly chucking money away, money that we didn’t have. The way he’d been doing for years. Stupid bastard.

  This weekend had gone from being an essential, a make-or-break situation, to an absurdity we couldn’t afford. I couldn’t afford. After the first headlong panic, seeing the numbers, I now had to click into another mode. I couldn’t afford to be a headless chicken. I probably couldn’t even afford to buy chicken anymore – not Waitrose’s organic corn-fed, anyway. It was going to be mechanically recovered nuggets all the way now, if I wasn’t very careful.

  I thought back. Before finding the laptop, I’d been happy. Even the phone call from Stacy, which had made my blood boil, was now less than a matter of total indifference to me. She was a pesky fly that I couldn’t even be bothered to swat. My main task that afternoon was to get to grips with the accounts, see if there was anything at all to be done.

  I made myself tea with the dinky little kettle provided and got my head down. Made myself get that laptop out again, pore through it, but this time with the detachment of a forensic accountant, not the stone-cold horror of the betrayed wife shortly to lose everything. You might think, what does she know? It was true, my job on reception had been largely ornamental. But you know me. I’ve always been more than I seem. I’d taught myself a thing or two over the years, hadn’t I? I’d been running a house for over a decade – a house that was as big and as complex as quite a few companies, I’ll have you know. Cleaners, gardeners, music teachers, tutors. I employed half the area, all cash in hand, but all carefully noted.

  Oh, I knew a thing or two about finance, let me tell you. And very soon, I knew as much as Patrick did about his balance sheets. His idiocy was going to make us homeless.

  I couldn’t let that happen.

  Chapter 48

  Now

  Becca

  Becca’s eyes were fixed open so wide that it was beginning to hurt her cheeks. She tried to get a grip.

  ‘Not that I’m complaining, it’s lovely to see you, but what the hell are you doing at my desk?’ Johno kept his expression friendly for the benefit of the colleagues ear-wigging all around the open-plan office, but the words came at her with unmistakable venom.

  Becca carried on staring into his eyes, praying for inspiration to come. Her mind was as blank as virgin snow. All the scenarios she’d envisaged, had been ready for – and this was not one of them. He was supposed to be at home. Bastard. Her fingers quivered and her piece of A4 rustled. She suddenly remembered it.

  ‘Was just bringing you this. Christ, chill out. Anyone would think I was burgling you or something,’ she said, aiming for a bit of levity, but knowing she sounded on the squeaky edge of hysteria. She shook it in his face, hoping motion would cover up any more tremors. ‘Sponsorship. That’s all I’m after. Mind you, some would call it daylight robbery, eh?’ Shut up, Becs. Shut up, you don’t have to come over like a second-rate comedian.

  To her relief, he held out a hand, looked sceptically at the form she’d cobbled together last night and sniffed. ‘Couch to 5k, is it?’ he said, looking her up and down. Any notions she might have cherished that he fancied her evaporated like mist in the morning sun. That glance said it all.

  ‘Got to start somewhere,’ she said humbly. She didn’t have to pretend to be crushed, it came naturally. Then, suddenly, inexplicably, he was smiling at her, just like he had in the restaurant. ‘Go on, then,’ he said, fishing in his bulging pocket. For a second she wondered what on earth he was doing, and then, like a magician, he pulled out a crumpled fiver. ‘Good for you, girl.’

  Her smile was a little more perfunctory. ‘Your wife doesn’t mind you, er, contributing?’

  ‘What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her,’ Johno said, grin fading. Had he registered the edge to her voice? Good, she thought, as she turned to go. ‘Hang on a minute,’ he said, much more loudly. She wheeled round in dread, legs jelly again. ‘Aren’t you forgetting something?’ She stared at him, willing him not to notice the state of his files, not to guess what might as well be burning a hole right through her phone’s picture folder.

  ‘Sorry?’ she whispered.

  ‘Well, get on with it, then. Ask the others.’ Becca looked around the room. By now, several more people had wandered in, a few watching them curiously. She looked down at the form in her hand and up at Johno’s twisted smile.

  Chapter 49

  Then

  I heard the rattle of the bedroom door, Patrick’s cheery, ‘Hello?’ It took a beat before I could reply. ‘Hi, in the bath, darling.’ Just the right tone, unconcerned, cheerful.

  I did a bit of splashing, just so he’d get the idea, if he hadn’t seen the clouds of steam pouring into the bedroom. The first tubful with all the bubbles in it had gone as cold as the grave while my eyes restlessly scanned columns of figures, my stomach hollowed out with the horror.

  A bath would explain my high colour, the way I wasn’t rushing to greet him and garland him with kisses, as per my usual routine on one of these make-up breaks. It might also explain a certain glitter in my eyes. The light of war.

  This wasn’t going to be any sort of swift battle. I’d thought we were doing very nicely, thank you, due to my hard work, striving to position him correctly, encouraging all his endeavours. Well, maybe not all of them, but certainly wining and dining the right high-ups, helping him achieve every promotion, climb all the way to directorship, to owning his own company. I’d thought he had it from there. But no. He’d fucked it all up.

  Take this new mortgage he’d acquired without telling me. It was massive. Yet he’d signed it without so much as mentioning the fact over the cornflakes, between his sordid flings. It was immoral, if not actually illegal. He’d gone and torpedoed our safe harbour, our children’s home. The house – mine, ours – must be on the verge of being repossessed.

  I fumed. If the bathwater hadn’t been scalding already, it would have risen to boiling point now. I hit it with my open palm. He’d played me for a fool. The water sprayed up and I had to blink it furiously out of my eyes. ‘All right in there?’ Patrick called. He’d already switched the telly on. Sport poured out into the quiet afternoon, jangled around my head.

  ‘Fine. Just rinsing my hair now,’ I said, drowning him and Gary Lineker out with the taps on full.

  By the time I had emerged from the water and wrapped myself in a towel the size of a small country, a lot of pieces had slotted into place. Especially his pattern of increasing secretiveness, which I’d seen without really noticing. Trouble was, I’d always been secretive myself. We’d edged around each other like a couple of low-rent spies. I kicked myself for all the mistakes I’d made. My worst hadn’t been trusting that sack of shit on the bed out there – I hadn’t for years – but not checking up on him more thoroughly.

  I’d taken my eye off the ball, that was for sure, just as Patrick’s team currently seemed to be, judging from the groans coming from the bedroom. I’d really th
ought infidelity was the worst that he could throw at me. How stupid had I been?

  I wiped my hand over the mirror, gave up as it misted again immediately, and swiped it with one of the fluffy towels instead. My image was blurred, but that suited my mood. I was a mass of thoughts and plans. Yes, I had finally worked out what he’d been up to for the last few years. Throwing our future away, making rubbish decisions, destroying everything like a wanton boy pulling the wings off a fly.

  I marvelled at the fact that he hadn’t said a word. This baby of a man, who whined if he had a headache, had kept this huge catastrophe from me. It was inexplicable. I could only guess that he’d become more proficient at lying and cheating over the years, hiding all the sordid liaisons from me, and that he’d used his new skill set. Just when I didn’t need it most, he’d actually got brilliant, all on his own. Unfortunately for all of us, the thing he was brilliant at was hiding the enormous hole he’d been digging. A hole that was about to swallow us all up.

  Well, not if I could help it. I looked at my misty reflection, blurring into a silvery film of droplets. He wasn’t going to drag me and the children down too.

  I combed my hair with quick, angry strokes, twisted it up into a bun, smeared on a bit of make-up – they don’t call it war paint for nothing – and took a deep breath. But then, even when I got to the door, I couldn’t quite go through with it. I leaned my forehead against the wooden panels for a few moments, collecting myself, willing myself on. Then, finally, I flung the door open with a dazzling smile. One long silken leg free of the bathrobe, tied loosely around my waist and ready to come off with the slightest tug. ‘Well, hello,’ I said.

  ‘Was wondering where you’d got to. Thought you might have gone down the plughole,’ he said with a bluff smile.

  ‘Just wanted to make sure you were ready for me. Like I’m ready for you,’ I said.

  For a second, our eyes met, his wide with sudden alarm. Then my smile lulled him. He opened his arms. ‘Get over here now, darling,’ he said, all his Christmases come at once.

  Chapter 50

  Now

  Becca

  Safely back on her own floor later, with a therapeutic doughnut in her belly and another in a bag beside her, Becca was almost tempted to take her pulse, see whether it had gone back down to normal yet. She had fifteen ragged signatures on her fake form, and a handbag filled with money that she’d defrauded from her fellow officers. She shut her eyes briefly, lifted the bag to her lips and bit off another chunk of heavenly stodge. 5k my arse. I’ll be lucky to get to the starting line at this rate. Then she remembered, with a rush of relief, that there wasn’t actually a starting line.

  Even better news was that, on her phone, she had shots of the entire Louise Bridges file.

  She also had a whole stack of legitimate paperwork on her desk, waiting patiently for her attention. She slid the first brown file over, opened it up and ran an eye down the form. It was the usual dispiriting collection of misspellings and half-completed information that her superiors expected her to process perfectly. She sighed. It was going to be a long day.

  Back at home hours later, with her washing on and the chores done, to the extent she ever got through them, Becca was finally free to read through the Bridges file. She hadn’t printed off the pictures at work, you never knew who was watching, but now she pulled a chair up to her laptop and settled down. She knew she’d purposely spun out this moment, made the anticipation last as long as possible, and wondered again what it was that fascinated her about that woman.

  Partly, looking around her own home, she knew it was envy. Here she was, in rented accommodation, and destined always to be, unless she found a crock of something that wasn’t actual shit one day. Her lot was always going to be cramped quarters, dodgy landlords’ furniture with wonky legs and unfixable dripping taps. Even if they made her chief constable – and a girl could dream, couldn’t she? – and she could actually buy a flat, would she ever have a family? She doubted it. She’d kidded herself that there had been a flicker in Johno’s eye, but it had never been even a smidgeon of lust. It was always just derision.

  So yes, she looked at a woman like Louise Bridges and she envied her. For sure. She’d had it easy, you could tell. Becca knew the type. Pretty, successful. There had been one in her class. Debra Elton. Six inches taller than her, Debra had always seemed to be gliding past her at school, giggling with her bevvy of friends as Becca struggled to keep her blouse tucked in and stop herself from tripping over her own feet. Yes, Becca had always had her mother in her corner, but that was a double-edged sword. ‘You can do it, Rebecca, Debra may be much prettier and more popular than you, but don’t you forget, you’re really not bad with those computers when you try.’ Yeah, thanks, Mum.

  Louise Bridges’ mother, though. She’d be one of the same breed as her daughter. Tall, slender, well dressed. A posh bitch bringing up another in her image. She remembered Debra Elton’s mum, something big in town planning, a real chilly-knickers type, frosty smile that didn’t even get into the same postcode as her eyes. Her own mum had been properly intimidated by her.

  The one time Mrs Elton had deigned to talk to them at a parents’ evening, Becca’s mum had gone full-on fangirl afterwards, waffling on about what a ‘lovely person’ Susannah Elton was, so well spoken. There had followed a few excruciating months when she’d badgered Becca to bring Debra home to tea. As though Becca could even get close enough to Debra to ask her, and as though she wanted the humiliation of a puzzled ‘No?’ to be dealt out to her at school, in front of everyone. Becca’s mother didn’t understand the first thing about her life. She’d felt that at 13 – and nothing much had changed.

  Becca didn’t have anything against posh bitches as such (who are you trying to kid? she asked herself). But there was something else in Louise Bridges’ expression. A sense that she was better than everyone around her – and hiding a lot, too. That she’d spent years pulling the wool over people’s eyes. That she was used to getting away with things.

  But not murder, thought Becca. Oh no. She wouldn’t be getting away with that. Not if Becca had anything to do with it.

  Chapter 51

  Then

  So, we’d had our rekindling weekend, and I’d put on a stellar performance. My silk and lace nightdress, enough to drive the Pope to impure thoughts, had required careful handwashing and coaxing back into shape, and was now hanging up to dry on a padded hanger in the airing cupboard. Can I just stress, that’s the kind of effort that I put in. It came as standard, with me. We’re not talking drip-dry nylon. And then, after I’d done all that, plus finished my own unpacking and his too (the laptop having mysteriously disappeared, along with the phone), I was expecting us to get back into the routine of our lovely life.

  Maybe not quite as seamlessly as we had sometimes done. There was more at stake this time, I knew that. Not only a mistress for me to see off, but a financial mess to sort out too. But these weekends usually brought in their wake a special kind of lovey-dovey unity. That would give us the chance we needed to regroup, then move on.

  I’d always be quite pleased with myself, once we got back from one of these breaks. I’d be thrilled to have safely averted another potential crisis. Patrick, extricated from the clutches of the latest flooze, would be giddy with his own feelings of relief at being back on the straight and narrow, being a decent family man again. We’d be calling each other ‘darling’, touching each other at every opportunity like honeymooners and the children might even tell us crossly to get a room. And then we’d all laugh.

  I’d managed to convince myself that Stacy would now melt away, joining the massed ranks of Patrick’s little mistakes. She’d just be one more glitch in our otherwise happy marriage, that neither of us would ever have to refer to again. I hadn’t bothered to call her, confront her. Told myself I didn’t need to. In truth, it hurt so much I didn’t know where to start. And anyway, I was going to be too busy sorting out our finances, saving us from ruin, to worry about
her.

  But then, a couple of days after our weekend, just as I was mustering the courage to have a proper talk with Patrick about the company, he’d gone and left his little depth-charge.

  A note. Right there, on the kitchen table. Where the kids could have seen it.

  Detailing his plans to dump me and leave. Forever.

  Thank God I got through the door first that day. I’d dropped my bag on the counter, immediately seen the piece of paper. He occasionally left me one. Get more beer, that sort of thing. Just on a Post-it or the back of a letter. But this was folded over. A sheet of A4. My name, Louise, on the front. It was just lying, stark and white on the black counter, where I’d see it as soon as I walked in. Me, or anyone else, come to that.

  Something told me it was bad. I felt it in the tightness of my chest, a sudden breathlessness. Then, as I snatched it up, I saw the gleam of gold, heard the metallic clatter. His ring fell out. His wedding ring. He had taken it off, put it inside the note.

  It was like a punch in the stomach.

  Thank God my reflexes were quick. I slapped my hand down on the ring before it bounced merrily onto the floor, right in front of my son and daughter. Scooped it up and crumpled the note into my bag. Turned as they came in, my back against the counter. Nothing to see here, nothing at all. There was a buzzing sound in my ears. For a moment, I thought I was going to faint on the spot.

  ‘Just … just going to the loo,’ I managed, my voice high-pitched.

  ‘TMI, Mum,’ said Em scathingly.

  Normally I would have ticked her off for cheek. Today I could hardly hear her above the beating of my heart. I locked the door, shut the lid, collapsed onto it, and got the note out of my bag. The ring fell to the bottom, but I didn’t have time to worry about that now. I started to read: