The Perfect Widow

by A. M. Castle

  I don’t think anyone feels the same way about women psychopaths, but luckily the trick-cyclist community has convinced itself that the female of the species is a) very, very rare and b) a lot less deadly than the male.

  I’m just a deprived child, so that’s all OK. A bit of PTSD, but what could you expect? Otherwise, as sane as anyone. As sane as the person next to you at the school gates. As sane as you are, yourself.

  It’s lovely of Jill to worry and to throw money at her concerns. But there’s self-interest, too. The loss of her son must be a daily dagger in her heart, however well she masks the pain. And with one parent down, she wants to buttress the walls of our family castle, ensure the survival of her grandchildren – her DNA, after all. Only the best will do for them, and that isn’t a mother who weeps so much her eyes resemble uncooked pork sausages. And the panic attacks, the freezing. It isn’t surprising, but it isn’t convenient either. I don’t want to be rigid on the sofa when the time comes to head off on the school run. I only mentioned the insomnia in passing, but that was enough for her to make the first appointment with Trevor. It’s good of her. In her day, a grieving widow would have been told to pull herself together, maybe via a few bracing country walks. To give her credit, Jill has moved with the times and is all for talking cures. As long as she doesn’t have to indulge in one herself.

  I don’t have to keep saying Patrick’s name to someone else to miss him, though. He’s here in everything we do, in the way that Giles looks at me out of the corner of his eye sometimes, in the way that Em ducks questions. But also in the easy charm that beguiles their droves of friends. And their doting mum.

  Seeing them swanning through life is my reward for everything I’ve been through. Even when I start to feel that tightness across my chest that means a wave of panic is coming at me. Now I start the breathing exercises that Trevor has taught me, slow and steady, in and out, and wait for the tsunami to pass. While I feel the whistle of air coming and going, I visualise their glittering futures. And the look on the faces of all those who have held me back and held me down. Sad to say, but Patrick is in that role call.

  Usually, I’m splayed on the sofa when this happens, Hagrid the cat beside me. On days like this he reminds me so strongly of Mephisto, my familiar from long ago. Does Hagrid sense my distress and come out of curiosity, or gratitude, as Mephisto used to, in return for being saved from the flames? That moggy and his successors have taught me so much about the deep wells of affection that run through life, to be tapped into when we need them. God knows, I relied on that so much when I had my kids. They were so defenceless, so vulnerable. Who knows what could have gone wrong, without that love to call on?

  But a mum who not only loves her kids, but washes their shirts and puts a home-cooked meal on the table? Nothing much could be wrong there, could it? Yes, I have the tigress instinct, I will do anything to protect my young. But that’s natural. Trevor will understand that.

  And, like all the best stories, it has the great virtue of being the truth.

  Chapter 65

  Now

  Becca

  Becca stomped up the stairs, huffing and puffing. No way she’d pass her fitness test if she had to do it today. But she’d cut down on the crap, she really would … starting soon. She was late, her hair was greasy, she knew there was a mountain of files a mile high waiting for her undivided attention. But for once, it was an enticing prospect. She slowed down reluctantly. There was someone up ahead, blocking the way. And he looked familiar.

  ‘Tom!’

  Tom Burke stopped bumbling down the stairs, looked up briefly and fixed her with a less-than-friendly smile. ‘Well, if it isn’t PC Holt, as I live and breathe.’

  ‘Good to see you, Tom.’ Becca puffed slightly as she came up level with him. ‘How’s it all going?’

  ‘Oh, same old,’ he said, his pale blue eyes now everywhere but on hers. ‘But I don’t suppose you’d know, would you? All new and shiny where you’re going, isn’t it?’

  ‘Don’t be like that, Tom,’ she said, disappointment making her voice very quiet. ‘I just did what I had to do.’

  Burke shook his head. ‘No idea what you’re on about. But then I never did have, did I?’ He looked ostentatiously at his watch and went on his way.

  Becca took the next couple of steps slowly, but soon turned the next corner and sped up, taking the last flight two at a time. She wasn’t sure what Burke’s beef was with her. All right, she’d carried on telling him that they needed to dig deeper, then she’d taken her concerns to the Sarge – but she hadn’t got what she wanted, had she? Louise Bridges was still out there, large as life and, in Becca’s view if no one else’s, twice as dangerous.

  Through the double doors she went, past assorted bent heads, glad last week’s curious glances had now abated. She soon made it over to the sanctity of her new desk. Yes, it was a mess. Yes, the pile of folders seemed to have grown overnight. And there was yesterday’s smeary bakery bag, telling its own tale of dark impulses fought and lost. But, as Becca took her seat and stuck her coffee cup next to her terminal, she smiled.

  Through the window, three rows of desks away, she could just about see the car pound where her former colleagues were trudging out to their marked cars, ready for another day annoying the good people of the city. Burke would be among them, with a new acolyte by his side. Becca hoped they’d be more appreciative of his little homilies than she had been. Salt of the earth, was Burke. But too much salt was bad for your blood pressure. Definitely best avoided.

  Being on the beat had never suited her, he should know that. He just begrudged her luck, if you could call it that. A space had come up in Computer Forensics, and before she knew it, the Super had paved her way in. If she didn’t know better, she’d say it was a little pat on the back for shutting up about the Bridges case. Now she had an even bigger caseload than before. She sighed, pulling the first folder towards her. She’d never have time to go off-piste again. Be careful what you wish for, her mother’s voice shrilled in her ear.

  Louise didn’t have a mum, didn’t have a voice in her ear. For a second, Becca shocked herself by thinking how nice that would be. She switched on her computer and settled down to sift through her work, not even looking up to see if there were crumbs left in the bag until almost an hour had passed.

  When, finally, her bladder told her it was time to get to her feet, she strolled back through the maze of desks, passing the windows again. Sure enough, Burke was down there, back to the wall, scowling sourly, puffing on his cigarette. As she slowed to watch, he took a final drag, ground it out with his heel and left his smoking partner to it. It was Johno.

  Still puffing away, from this angle Johno was all beer belly. All right, she was hardly Miss World, but she wondered yet again why she’d ever felt anything for him. And that chin! Why had she never noticed the way it jutted before?

  But wait a minute. She’d seen that chin recently. And on someone it suited even less. Who was it? Who could it be?

  Far below, Johno greeted another smoker, gesticulated with his fag, laughed. Then it came to her, like dawn breaking, like a flower opening up on a time-lapse film. The kid who sometimes hung out with Louise Bridges’ daughter. She’d seen her climb out of the back of that massive car, trot into the huge house, laugh the same way, her jaw like a signpost. All friends together. So cosy. She had the chin. Johno’s chin. She was Johno’s daughter.

  Johno, who had not exactly obstructed her, but had not helped her investigation one jot either, despite his promises. In fact, she sometimes suspected that he had got in first, talked to the Super before she had about the Bridges case, persuaded him everything was all above board and tickety-boo.

  This was something that nagged at Becca. Johno wouldn’t have wanted Patrick out of the way for any reason, would he? No, surely not. Not if their daughters were best mates. She dismissed the idea. Maybe the Super was right. She’d given Louise and her chums far too much headspace. She shouldn’t dwell on it anym
ore, particularly not on what a fabulous job the woman was making of widowhood.

  Becca suppressed the pangs of envy and annoyance as she thought of her, wafting in and out of her big car, ferrying the children back and forth between the plush school and the gorgeous house. She was willing to bet it wouldn’t be long before Louise caught the eye of someone new, another hotshot to replace her late, unlamented husband. And then the story would start up again. This time, though, Becca would be waiting.

  Her mouth set in a line of grim determination. Though she now knew that the woman’s glossy exterior hid so much, she was also certain that not all underdogs deserved her sympathy. Becca needed to toughen herself up, take a leaf out of Louise’s own book. She wasn’t in the force to make friends, or further her mother’s faint hopes of grandchildren. She was here to do a job.

  But first, she’d just pop down and get a sandwich. And maybe one of those milkshakes. A snack for later, too? Why ever not. She levered herself up and swung through the door again, banging her hip against the frame, but rubbing it briskly and shrugging off the pain. The diet could start tomorrow.

  Chapter 66

  Now

  Louise

  Welcome to my home. You’ve caught the odd glimpse, but you haven’t really had a chance to poke around. Not that there’s much for anyone to find. I’ve had quite a decluttering session after recent events, as you can imagine.

  That girl, the policewoman. At first glance, once I’d taken in the grim message she was bringing, I actually felt sorry for her. I didn’t try and shoot the messenger, deflect all my pain into anger. No, I spared her a pitying look, winced at the inept way she broke the news, felt she was almost a kindred spirit in her unlovable outsider status. All right, I wasn’t ever going to be her best friend, but I did treat her kindly, I thought. Then she paid me back by swiping that paperwork.

  I would never usually leave anything like that in plain sight. You know me, I make the most obsessive-compulsive among us look like some insane hoarder off a TV show. But I’d only just opened the letter confirming our policy renewal. It had arrived in the post that morning, but I’d been running around as usual; pilates, the supermarket, the school run. I’d just been casting an eye over the figures, checking it was all ship-shape, while I supervised Giles’s maths, sorted out the supper. Thank God I’d decided to cough up, despite our financial woes.

  Well, thanks to her sneaky little impulses, here I am, still free to run a loving hand across my marble worktop. Turns out the police aren’t meant to steal stuff. Naughty, naughty girl. Oh, Becca, Becca. I underestimated you. And it never pays to underestimate a woman, as I know all too well.

  She tried her best to get to the bottom of my story from the start, like a deep-sea diver intent on dragging all my secrets up to the light. I’d say damn her, but she did me a colossal favour. Besides, having looked into her eyes, I know she spends quite enough time hating herself.

  Spending Patrick’s last pennies on a top-notch brief, just in case, was the best investment I ever made. Jill wasn’t so forthcoming with her own dosh then, was she? Not when there was any sort of question mark in the air. Fair enough, I wouldn’t spring for a lawyer for Giles’s wife, if there was the least whisper of suspicion. But when my solicitor got it noted down at the inquest that Patrick had always kept a little heater at the office and, according to his team, used it frequently to warm his fussy toes, it was game over. The insurance policy was old. Yes, it was huge, but then so had Patrick’s fortune been, at the time we took it out. Nothing odd about it, said the coroner. Accidental death.

  Oh, Patrick. Why couldn’t you just have come to me sooner? Asked me to sort things out? You know I would have done it. But by the time I’d stumbled on your latest mess, it was all much too late. And once I knew for certain who you were making the mess with … I’ll be honest. It would have been a lot harder to help you. But I like to think I would still have done it.

  But how could you, Patrick? Beggaring your children, spaffing good money up the wall? Stacy, for God’s sake. And then, the candle on the top of a miserable cake, your note announcing you were leaving us, abandoning me and the children?

  It would have been too much for anyone, I like to think. Most women would have crumbled, being both dumped and fleeced in one fell swoop. But I was made of sterner stuff. For me, poverty was no novelty, though they’d have had to drag me kicking and screaming from my lovely kitchen. I could have clawed my way up again. It would have been no prettier than the first time, but I could have done it. But not your children and mine, Patrick. How could you think of putting them on the street? I couldn’t allow it. They are never going to know fear and hunger and want. And that’s thanks to me, not to you.

  I often find myself talking to you, Patrick, as we sit here in the evenings. The kids’ heads are bent over their books – I love Em’s fine blonde locks. She was an ash-blonde toddler, her hair like her own little in-built halo in the old photos. Now she’s growing, it’s darkening inexorably. But never mind, there’ll be money to spare for the most subtle of highlights. And Giles. Like father, like son – he loves all his expensive tech. And that doesn’t come cheap.

  I really didn’t like doing it, but I had to. I hope you know that, Patrick. You were my children’s father, after all. It was a tough decision. In the end, I made it on purely economic grounds, and I like to think you’d have respected that.

  I’m not sure you ever expected me to stop turning a blind eye. But Stacy? No. When you picked her to run off into the sunset with, after pinching the kids’ money too, well, you just went too far.

  Oh! What a tangled web we weave. Did Stacy seriously think I wouldn’t notice she was fucking my husband? Did she? I see her weak, self-pitying face in my head and I want to throw something, I want her to … disappear, forever.

  But there’s nothing to throw here, except my mug of tea, and the only things it would hit are my children and my cat. I breathe in and breathe out slowly, in the approved style. My heart stops banging in my chest, my body slows its distress signals. Stacy has to stay. Her continued existence is my penance now.

  The closest betrayals are always the ones that hurt the most. And how Patrick could go from me to her, I’ll never understand. The most insulting thing of all was that she thought she was keeping it all from me, the thrill of her little fling. She thought I was stupid.

  That really gets the anger welling up. But in this case, it helped me hugely. It told me, yet again, what I knew but hadn’t faced up to for years. Because, angry as I was with Stacy for opening her legs, I knew she wasn’t entirely to blame. She’d been ignored, put down and belittled for years by her own vile husband. And like me before her she fell, faster than a suicide from a skyscraper, for Patrick’s delicious charm.

  I didn’t have any sympathy to spare for her husband. He’d chosen to marry her. No one was holding a gun to his head. Apart, possibly, from his bookies. The result of his years of neglect was that she dropped her pants quicker than a desperate high-street store. And only Patrick was bold enough, bullish enough, to want to plunge into that rancid pot. He’d had enough easy lays over the years. He’d had that little intern from the firm on the go as it was. But my best friend? And leaving me for her? That was really taking the piss.

  I’d like to say that I cottoned on as soon as Stacy started exhibiting the usual signs – the unbecoming bright red flush every time Patrick was mentioned, secretiveness with her phone, a sudden unavailability for the coffees and chats we’d always enjoyed, even an odd way of looking at me which suggested, damn her, pity. But the truth didn’t come out until Patrick and I were on our ‘special’ weekend.

  I tried to park my hurt, though there was enough of it to fill a multi-storey; instead, I looked at the situation calmly. It didn’t take too long to realise she did have one thing going for her, apart from this ‘love’ that Patrick was now apparently feeling. Her bank balance. Jeff had been whistling their money down the tubes ever since I’d known them, betting on
which raindrop would slide down a window first. She – or her family – had bailed him out, time and time again. Deep pockets. This must be one of the things Patrick was after. The thought that, if she could be detached from Jeff, she would have a financial cushion to add to all her fleshy ones. A wodge of cash to save his business.

  But Patrick would have been barking up the wrong tree. She had money, but not nearly in the quantities he needed. Maybe she’d exaggerated her fortune to him, boasted a bit more than she should about the family coffers. Made herself seem like more of a catch. Well, he would have found out soon enough.

  Stacy had another asset, as far as I was concerned, though. And this one was important. Her husband was in the police. Yes, Jeff Johnson was weaker than water. Yes, he was a gambler and a spendthrift. But yes, he was also one of the nation’s constabulary, sworn to keep us all safe in our beds at night, God help us.

  There were regulations, I knew, saying that policemen had to declare financial difficulties, as these made them targets for bribery. But, no surprise, Jeff was as tricksy and unreliable about this as he was about everything else. He never breathed a word to anyone in authority about his gambling, his debts. He was definitely corruptible.

  Stacy loved Patrick madly by this stage – almost as madly as I had. I knew he’d have fucked her on his desk, he always enjoyed that. Maybe once, maybe many times. This was one of his favourite fantasies – a scenario he’d developed with me and then, I beg your pardon, used with most of his bits on the side ever since. The boss surprised by his secretary, who has the hots for him, takes off her knickers and spreads herself all over his workspace. What’s a man to do?