The top of my foot feels really bruised, but at least, thank God, my boots were thick. The damage could have been much worse.
In the kitchen I wash my hands and put the kettle on, wondering about the sheer proliferation of animal graves. Yassine appears – cleaner but dripping wet where he’s sluiced himself down. He’s got no top on and rubs his hair vigorously with a hand towel. I’m about to offer him a T-shirt of Matt’s when a face looms at the window.
‘Oh my God!’ I hear myself exclaim.
‘What?’ He turns.
It’s a woman with elegant silver hair, tapping lightly on the pane, and for a moment, I can’t quite place her…
Of course! Sylvia Jones from the cul-de-sac. She must have changed her mind about coffee.
‘Hi!’ I wave. ‘Hang on a sec – I’ll open the front door.’
An expression I don’t understand crosses her face.
When I open the front door, she’s gone. I stare down the front drive, but the only sign of her is the garden gate slowly swinging back into place.
‘I’ll put these on outside.’ Yassine makes me jump again as he comes up silently behind me, his own shoes in hand. ‘Don’t want any more mess.’
‘Can I offer you anything?’ I just want him to go. ‘A cup of tea in gratitude?’
‘Thanks, but I’d better do one,’ he says. ‘Got a client at four.’
‘Okay. Well – thanks, again.’
‘No worries. See you around.’ He winks, and he’s gone.
God knows what he sees in Kaye – though of course that’s disingenuous. I can well imagine what he sees in her. Legs, hair, boobs, big car. Sparkling intellect maybe? Or sparkling diamonds maybe; I’m sure I saw one or two on her skinny fingers…
And then I think nothing more of him until later in the weekend.
Forty-Two
Jeanie
5 April 2015
7 a.m.
* * *
A strange text from Matthew wakes me.
What’s going on at home?
it says. That’s it – no kiss, no ‘how are you?’ etc. Just a bald question.
Not much I text back. Just missing you. Xx.
Who’s been round there? he texts back. Someone has!
What? I text back. Don’t understand the question?
No reply.
I ring him. The phone goes straight to voicemail. I feel extremely uneasy. What does he mean?
The only person who’s been here at all is Yassine. Is that what he means? I try and call again to explain.
Still no answer.
I go downstairs, past the locked spare room. Then I walk back, and I try the handle.
Nearby Matthew’s laptop is there, like a reproving silver toad.
I grab it before I can change my mind.
Downstairs, I open it and sit, looking at the black screen – and then I lean over and switch it on.
It needs a password to get in. I try our names, the address. I try his birthday, my birthday. Then I try the twins’ birthday: it works.
Feeling curiously proud of myself as I watch the twirling icon on the wakening screen, I think, I’m in!
Then I remember why I’m trying to get in, and I feel less proud.
I am only looking for one email, I remind myself: I’m not looking at all of his correspondence. That’s his business, not mine.
I skim through the inbox. I see a few from Kaye; I don’t read them. I see a few from Scarlett, but I don’t read them either, though I can’t help seeing the header: BIG BIRTHDAY KISSES.
Resolutely I keep going until I get to the one that says: JEANIE RANDALL – BEWARE!!!
Beware. Like I’m a contagious disease or something.
Feeling sick, I look at the address. It’s from [email protected].
I open it. It’s just what I might have expected. A single line:
Thought you should see this…
And a link to the article.
Helpful? Malicious, more like. I am flushed, my cheeks burning with anger.
Who the hell is ‘Helpful2001xav’, and why are they making it their business to alert my husband to my misdemeanours?
As I go to shut the computer down, the cursor passes over a minimised document: KING FAMILY, BELGIUM TRIP. I click on it.
There are four passport numbers.
Forty-Three
Jeanie
5 April 2015
There, in black and white in front of me, is a passport number that I’m pretty sure isn’t mine. Mine ends in twenty-six; I always remember, because it’s the same as my birthday.
So whose is the number?
Kaye? I think. Is Kaye in Belgium with the twins – and my husband?
I am going to get ready to leave in a minute, to catch the train up to town to meet Marlena. But I can’t move for a moment.
For some reason the nursery-rhyme picture I saw in the attic springs into my head: ‘Sing a Song of Sixpence’. It keeps going round and round:
Four and a twenty blackbirds baked in a pie…
The king was in his counting house…
The queen was in the parlour…
The maid was in the garden, hanging out the clothes, When down came a blackbird and pecked off her nose.
When I finally force myself from my seat, I have another thought.
I go to the key drawer, and I search through it, turning everything out on the floor.