‘Simon! ’
The sound of her voice cut me like glass. My chest became inflamed and I felt the urgent need to empty my bowels. My breath was short and my legs threatened to flop beneath me. All I could do was ignore her and continue.
‘Simon!’
It came again, but with more authority.
The proximity of her voice told me she’d gained ground but was still on the opposite side of the road. Just give up, I screamed inside, and accelerated my pace to a near-run. But Paula must have jogged to keep up with me. I’d forgotten how annoyingly determined she could be when she wanted something. She was like a dog with a bone. Much of the time I’d only tolerated her because she was Catherine’s best friend and Roger’s girlfriend. I much preferred Baishali, a passive soul who didn’t like to rock the boat. Why couldn’t it have been her who’d seen me?
My frustration became impossible to suppress, so I went against my better judgement and turned to see her struggling to find a break between moving cars to cross. I used it to my advantage and ran, the prey desperate to avoid the hunter.
‘It’s you, isn’t it!’ she shouted above the noise of the vehicles. Red traffic lights gave her the opportunity she needed and she flew across the road with the speed of a tornado.
‘Stop running, you coward!’ she shrieked. ‘I know it’s you!’
My body already ached from my ocean dives and my increased anxiety. My daily cigarette intake left me breathless. Short of a miracle, I knew I would have to face the inevitable. So I stopped.
Within seconds, her fingers dug into my shoulder and she spun me around. Even though she’d been so confident it was me, disbelief in the actual confirmation spread across her face. We glared at each other in silence before she unleashed her fury.
‘You selfish fucking idiot! How could you do that to them?’ she shouted, jabbing me in the chest.
I remained poker-faced and silent.
‘Your family has gone through hell without you,’ she continued. ‘Do you know that?’
I didn’t want to know.
‘Well, what have you got to say for yourself?’
Nothing, actually.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ she yelled, growing increasingly frustrated by my blank expression.
Everything had been very much right with me until a few minutes earlier.
She slapped me across the cheek. It smarted. She slapped me again. It became numb. Another slap. I felt nothing.
‘Jesus Christ, Simon. Do you have any idea what you’ve put everyone through?’
I wasn’t interested.
‘Say something, you coward! You owe me an explanation!’
I didn’t. In fact, I felt no urge to justify myself or my actions to Paula, or to anyone else for that matter. I owed the world nothing and it pissed me off that she was arrogant enough to assume I did.
‘Well? Are you just going to stand there?’
No, I wasn’t.
Using all the strength I could muster, with the force of everything that drove me forwards, I clamped both my hands around her cheeks, forced her backwards off the curb and then pushed her into the road and into the path of oncoming traffic.
She didn’t even have time to scream.
Neither the crunching of her bones under the van’s wheels nor the screeching of its brakes persuaded me to stop walking and to turn around.
Northampton, today
2.40 p.m.
Catherine remained motionless as she processed the horror of his confession. Her husband was a killer.
She didn’t want to believe it, because what he’d just admitted made no sense at all. She had never met anyone who had murdered another human being. Certainly not someone who she’d allowed into her home. And not one she had loved. She had no idea how to respond.
What seemed to him like an age passed by, while neither of them spoke. He focused his eyes on the rug; hers burrowed right through him. He didn’t think it fitting to interrupt.
‘You . . . you killed Paula?’ she stuttered slowly.
‘Yes, Catherine, I did,’ came his reply, reticent but showing little remorse.
‘She was pregnant,’ she said quietly.
He inhaled deeply. ‘I did not know that.’
The colour drained from her face and she felt sick. Actually, she more than just felt sick: she knew she was going to vomit. She leaped up from her chair and winced as her weight took her weak ankle by surprise. She faltered upstairs to the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. She didn’t have time to lift the toilet seat before the first wave struck and she made a mess on the floor. But the second time, she was prepared and it reached the pan.
He remained downstairs, saddened to hear two lives had been lost that day, and not just one like he’d assumed. But he had done what was necessary at the time.
He stood up, paced around the room and heard her retching upstairs. He’d always known that if he was going to be completely honest with her – and that was, after all, why he was here – it was going to be unpleasant. And it was going to get worse. Much, much worse. Because Paula wasn’t the first person he’d killed, and she hadn’t been the last. But Catherine didn’t need to know that yet.
Upstairs, her sickness eventually passed, but she remained on the floor, her arm still clutching the cistern, her back square against the radiator.
Suddenly she became frightened of the monster below, now he’d revealed what he was capable of. Her body swivelled around and she stretched her arm to turn the lock on the handle. The doors were old and heavy but not impossible to break. A few kicks were all it might take.
She asked herself how someone she’d known so deeply – built a life and family with – could’ve hurt a beautiful soul like Paula. Although it had been a while since she’d thought about her old friend, she remembered the horror of first hearing she’d been knocked down and killed in a random, apparently utterly senseless attack abroad. Despite a lengthy investigation, no one had ever been arrested or charged.
She’d been devastated, of course. Just before Paula and Roger had left for their holiday, Paula had confided in her, like best friends do, that she was pregnant. Catherine was over the moon for her and bashed out three Babygros and a jumpsuit to give her when they got back. She cried into them when Paula’s mother told her the news.
She recalled the day of the funeral, when the whole village turned out without exception to pay their last respects. Then, afterwards, she spent much time consoling Roger, who blamed himself for leaving Paula alone for those few crucial, fatal minutes. He’d never discovered where she’d been going when she was murdered.
Without warning, the door handle turned and she jumped.
‘Leave me alone!’ she croaked, her throat acidic and sore. But he had no intention of leaving yet.
‘Catherine,’ he said calmly. ‘Please come out.’
‘Why are you telling me all this? Are you going to kill me next? Is that why you’ve come back?’
He might have laughed under different circumstances. ‘No, of course not.’