The action of placing the cigarette between her lips is rooted deep in her muscle memory. The papery toasted taste floods her mouth with anticipation of the hit to come.
Finding the cook’s matches in another drawer, she sparks up and lights the cigarette. The nicotine burn hits her in a dizzying wave and she sucks greedily, instantly feeling a pleasurable roughness in her throat. Christ, she’s missed this.
Her hand shakes as she takes another deep drag and her head spins a little. She pictures Hester’s disapproval and the strange reprimand about swearing.
‘Well fucking fuck it all,’ she whispers to the empty kitchen.
She is acutely aware that her strange little neighbour has crossed the threshold into a dark place for her. She can’t imagine a single other person who would have done what Hester has done for her already. Mark would have called the police straight away. Saskia would have been no use to anyone. But Hester is almost calm. There is no reason for her to help like this and Melissa is grateful for her cool, practical sense.
She’s suddenly aware of the nipple that Jamie sucked chafing against her bra and she closes her eyes in distress. How can these physical sensations have outlived him? Damp misery slaps at her and she feels sure that she will never feel pleasure or happiness in anything again. Melissa finishes the cigarette in a few deep puffs then stabs it out viciously in the sink before running the tap and putting the wet, squashed remains in the bin.
Catching sight of the notepad she leaves on the side, she reads the words, ‘Flowers 10 a.m.’ and ‘Pay Zofia.’
The ordinariness of this other life, which existed just yesterday, seems sweeter and more remote now than she can believe. Cleaners, day-to-day quibbles with Tilly over homework, laziness, and laundry seem like precious jewels that have slipped out of her fingers and been lost forever. Even her relationship with Mark has taken on a rosy hue, as though her life before today were more perfect than she had ever appreciated. Who cares if Mark fucked another woman? What does that really matter?
She glances at the clock. Time seems to move strangely in this new reality, like a liquid that turns without warning from fast-flowing water to something muddy and listless. Last night seems like another lifetime. Yet four o’clock this afternoon seems to have only just passed but now it is almost eight. In just a few hours, everything has changed.
He’s dead. She really did kill him.
Jamie had waited until late into the following afternoon to make his move, when they were alone. Long enough for her to think that maybe she had got him all wrong and her only problem was how to get rid of him. She had resolved to tell him that enough was enough. They’d had some fun and bonded over old times.
But now he needed to get out of her life again and never come back.
He must have guessed what was coming because, as if continuing an earlier conversation, he’d suddenly said, ‘So I used to hear about what you were up to, on the grapevine.’ He’d paused and given her an almost lazy smile. ‘Back when you were ordinary old Mel Ronson. Before all this.’ He’d made an expansive gesture to indicate everything she now had.
Melissa’s heart had begun to thud with dread. Jamie wagged his finger in front of his face as though scolding her.
‘Dear, dear, you really were a naughty girl, weren’t you?’ he’d said and then, coldly, ‘So the sixty-four million dollar question is, does he know? Your Mark?’
Her expression told him all he wanted to know. Jamie smiled again. ‘Or should I say, the ten grand question? Because that’s what it will take. Really, Melanie, what do you think the red tops would make of it all, eh? Wife of the handsome telly doc, a little jailbird? Someone with blood on her hands?’
Everything she had, everything she’d worked so damned hard for, was suddenly quicksand-soft under her feet. All of it could be taken away.
‘Fuck off, Jamie,’ she’d bluffed. ‘I don’t care what the papers say. And Mark knows already.’ This was a lie.
But Jamie hadn’t finished yet.
‘Yeah,’ he’d said, ‘but what about that girl of yours? What would young Tilly, with her jolly fucking hockey sticks school and her Duke of Fucking Edinburgh whatever, make of knowing what her mother had done? How would she feel about carrying those genes around in that fuckable little body of hers, eh?’
And he’d turned away, actually chuckling to himself, like it was all so very funny.
Her response had felt primeval and completely out of her control. Her fingers were around the pestle and, before the rational part of her mind could take over, stone was crunching into skin and bone. It had felt exactly like self-defence at the time. She’d had to stop him. To protect herself.
The doorbell pulls her out of her reverie and she cautiously goes to check that it is Hester, returning with whatever it was she went to get next door.
The little woman bustles in and her nasty little dog comes trotting behind. It smells and makes odd grunting sounds. Melissa wrinkles her nose as the dog wags its tail at her and pants expectantly.
‘Found it!’ says Hester brightly, as though she’d gone to get a borrowed casserole dish.
The dog has darted off ahead of them and, when they come into the room, they see that it is sniffing enthusiastically at the floor where Jamie had lain. Melissa feels a wave of horror that the dog can smell blood, despite all that cleaning. Her stomach roils and Hester shoos the animal away, clearly having the same thought.
Hester is holding a wooden picture frame towards her now and beaming triumphantly. Melissa cautiously takes it and begins to study the picture.
It shows a bald man with a moustache and a safari-style short-sleeved shirt. He’s holding some kind of fish in the air with a proud expression. This, presumably, is Terry, who was long gone by the time Melissa moved in. Hester has never really talked about him but, from the odd comment made here and there, Melissa got the impression the marriage wasn’t a happy one.
Melissa focuses now on the background to the picture. Behind him is a river. She can just see distinctive spiky reeds fringing the bank. The well is to his right and the house itself in the background. There is an unusual red-brick tower that is almost equidistant to the well. If it is still there (and this in itself is a long shot) it should be possible to locate it.
Hester is beaming at her in that way that causes an unpleasant ripple of emotion. There’s still something ‘off’ about her energy. It’s as though she has more colour in her cheeks than Melissa has ever seen in her before.
It’s all wrong. None of this should be happening. In a moment, the rational person she really is will take charge of things. Call the police and try to make it right.
Instead, she finds herself saying, ‘Thank you, Hester, this is really helpful. But I think we should get going soon.’
Hester pulls a doubtful face. ‘Well,’ she says, ‘as much as I am loth to try and find this place in the dark, I really think we should wait until much later. There is far less risk of us being seen that way.’
Panic rises up inside her again. ‘I can’t just sit here,’ says Melissa, her voice wobbling. ‘We could at least be doing something. And we could make sure we’re there for first light.’
Hester regards her, her expression patient. ‘It will take a few hours to get there but dawn doesn’t come until around 5 a.m. at the moment. I know because the light always comes around the edges of my curtains and wakes me. We should ideally leave at about 2 a.m.’
Her tone is decisive and bossy. Melissa wants to lash out at her, even though Hester is helping her with this terrible mess.
‘No,’ she says with forced calm. ‘I can’t wait until then. I just can’t.’
Melissa and Hester stare at each other and then Hester makes a small sound of frustration.