‘You’re probably right.’
‘Well, drink up and we’ll go and choose something.’
The Breakdown
35
We finish our coffees and go down to the fourth floor.
It doesn’t take us long to choose a couple of powder blue suitcases, and as we make our way out of the shop, I sense Rachel’s eyes on me.
‘Are you sure you want to go for lunch? If you don’t,
it doesn’t matter.’
The thought of lunch, of having to talk about anything
and everything to avoid speaking about the woman in
the car, suddenly seems too much. ‘Actually, I’ve got a
splitting headache – a bit too much celebrating last night, I think. Can I take you to lunch next week instead? I can come into town any day now that I’m not working.’
‘Sure. You’ll be all right to come to Susie’s party
tonight, won’t you?’
‘Of course. But could you take the cases, just in case?’
‘No problem. Where are you parked?’
‘At the bottom of the high street.’
She nods. ‘I’m in the multi-storey, so I’ll say goodbye
to you here.’
I point to the two suitcases. ‘Can you manage?’
‘They’re lightweight, remember? And if I can’t, I’m
sure I’ll be able to find a nice young man to help me!’
I give her a quick hug and make my way to the car.
As I turn on the ignition the time comes up and I see
that it’s a minute past one. A part of me – quite a large part – doesn’t want to listen to the local news but I find myself turning on the radio anyway.
‘Last night, the body of a woman was found in a car in Blackwater Lane, between Browbury and Castle Wel s. She
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had been brutal y murdered. If you travel ed that road between eleven-twenty last night and one-fifteen this morning, or know anyone who did, please contact us as soon as possible.’
I reach out and turn the radio off, my hand shaking
with stress. Brutally murdered. The words hang in the air, and I feel so sick, so hot, that I have to open the window, just to be able to breathe. Why couldn’t they just have said ‘murdered’? Wasn’t ‘murdered’ already
bad enough? A car pulls up alongside me and the driver
makes signs, wanting to know if I’m leaving. I shake my
head and he drives off, then a minute or so later another car comes along, wanting to know the same thing, and then another. But I don’t want to leave, all I want is to stay where I am until the murder is no longer news, until everybody has moved on and forgotten about the woman who was brutally murdered.
I know it’s stupid but I feel as if it’s my fault she’s dead.
Tears prick my eyes. I can’t imagine the guilt ever going away and the thought of carrying it around with me for the rest of my life seems too high a price to pay for a moment’s selfishness. But the truth is, if I’d bothered to get out of my car she might still be alive.
There’s a nasty taste in my mouth, a physical mani—
festation of the disgust inside me. I drive home slowly,
prolonging the moment when I have to leave the protective bubble of my car. Once I get home, the murder will be everywhere, on the television, in the newspapers, on
everyone’s lips, a constant reminder of my failure to help the woman in the woods.
The Breakdown
37
As I get out of the car, the smell of a bonfire burning
in the garden transports me instantly back to my childhood. I close my eyes and, for a few blissful seconds, it’s no longer a hot, sunny day in July, it’s a crisp, cold November evening and Mum and I are eating sausages speared onto forks while Dad sets off fireworks at the bottom of the garden. I open my eyes to find that the sun has disappeared behind a cloud, mirroring my mood.
Normally I would go and find Matthew but instead I
head straight for the house, glad to have a little more
time to myself.
‘I thought I heard the car,’ he says, coming into the
kitchen a few minutes later. ‘I didn’t expect you back
already. Weren’t you meant to be having lunch out?’
‘We were, but we decided to leave it for today.’
He comes over and drops a kiss on my head. ‘Good.
Now you can have lunch with me.’
‘You smell of bonfire,’ I say, breathing it in from his
t-shirt.
‘I thought I’d get rid of all those branches I cut down
the other week. Luckily they were under the tarpaulin so
the rain didn’t get to them but they would have smoked
the house out if we’d used them on the fire.’ He wraps
his arms around me. ‘You do know that you’re the one
for me, don’t you?’ he says softly, echoing what he used
to say when we first met.
I’d been working at the school for about six months
when a group of us went to a wine bar to celebrate
my birthday. Connie noticed Matthew the moment
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