‘Oh, there you are,’ Cora called from the living room the second Holly walked through the back door. Holly hung her jacket up in the hallway and slipped off her shoes. ‘You’re late tonight, dear. Did work ask you to stay a bit longer?’
Holly glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. It was nearly six o’clock, which was the exact same time she usually got back from work.
‘I’m not late.’ She forced a smile. ‘I left at the usual time.’
Cora frowned and stared at the clock as if she were trying to make sense of it.
‘Should I make tea?’ Holly suggested, hoping to get her off the subject.
Cora’s face brightened and Holly headed into the kitchen. She filled the kettle and took the biscuit barrel out of the cupboard, laying a few of Cora’s favourite custard creams on a small decorative china plate.
While she waited for the water to boil, she stood by the window and stared down the long garden. The bushes and trees at the end that had looked so terrifying in the early hours seemed completely harmless now.
The garden was surrounded by a fence, too, of a reasonable height. It wasn’t as if someone could just walk in off the street; they’d have to make a concerted effort to gain entry.
Sometimes the memories could seem so real, it was like everything had just happened yesterday.
Holly couldn’t help wondering if the stress at work over coping with Emily’s initial belligerent attitude and then all the trouble with the vase had caused her imagination to run riot, convincing her that Emily was out for revenge. Maybe she’d also been dreaming up things that weren’t really there.
She reached for clean cups and the tea caddy and made the tea on automatic pilot while her thoughts jumped back to Cora’s obvious confusion.
During the short time she’d been here, Holly had realised that some days Cora seemed to be more confused than others. She’d get something irrational in her head and run with it. Today, for instance, she’d convinced herself that Holly was late back from work when she wasn’t at all.
Holly knew she’d keep hold of it like a terrier, going on and on, constantly turning it over in her mind. Even hours afterwards.
It was most unsettling. Holly thought it couldn’t be normal, but it wasn’t her place to suggest Cora visit her doctor, and besides, the last thing she wanted to do was upset her.
She took the tea and biscuits through on a tray. When she got back into the living room, Cora was smiling and holding a white envelope in her hand.
‘I quite forgot, dear. This came for you earlier.’ She waved the letter in the air. ‘Somebody pushed it through the letter box, didn’t knock or anything. And curiously, when I opened the door and looked up and down the crescent, there was no one to be seen.’
Chapter Sixty-Four
David
I’m about to begin my evening monitoring duties at my bedroom window when my phone buzzes.
I set aside the tray of food I’ve just carried upstairs and stare at the screen. It’s a text, from Holly.
Can you come over asap? Need some advice. H
A warm swell fills my chest. Holly needs some advice and I’m the person she has chosen to ask to provide it.
All I’ve ever wanted, really, is to help.
That was the sole reason I followed Della on the final morning she visited Mr Brown. I tracked her to a coffee shop on the high street. When I walked in a few minutes later, she was crying, mopping at her face with a tissue.
I sat down opposite her, expecting her to tell me to get lost, but when I explained I was Nick Brown’s neighbour and had seen what he’d been up to, stuff just came tumbling out of her pretty rosebud mouth.
She told me everything. How they’d met, how she loved him… which had stung. Imagine loving a buffoon like that!
We met up several times a week after that. There was nothing in it romantically – for her, anyway. But I loved her with all my heart.
I used to sit staring out of my bedroom window, imagining what life might be like, married to Della. Making her happy enough that she might start love me back.
But Nicholas Brown put paid to it all. He had her like a puppet on a string.
One minute it was over between them, the next he’d charmed her back again.
It was very hard to see him giving Della the runaround like that, promising her that he’d leave his wife but clearly having not the slightest intention of doing so.
It all seemed so hopeless. Her emotions were up and down; she didn’t know which way to turn.
So I asked her if she’d like me to try and help her, and she said in what way, and I said I’d have a think about it and let her know.
In the summer, I’d see him fetching and carrying for Mrs Brown, who’d sit morosely in the garden for hours on end. He was so good at assuming the role of the perfect husband.
My rage blossomed like a cherry tree, and over the weeks, it eventually bore fruit.
Mrs Brown was astonished when I turned up at the dental surgery. She stood behind reception, mouth open and eyes wide as I told her everything.
‘They’re at it right now in your bedroom,’ I told her. ‘While you’re here, working your socks off.’
In my fervour to get the facts over to her, I’d quite forgotten about the people in reception and the other staff behind the desk.
Mrs Brown burst into tears, grabbed her coat and bag and ran out there and then.
I sat around for a bit in the reception area like a patient, everyone staring. I didn’t really know what else to do. I felt quite dazed.
Then the practice manager came over and said, ‘I think you’d better leave, sir.’
By the time I caught up with Mrs Brown, she’d already got to Della and they were out on the street with Mr Brown trying to get in between them.
Della was screaming loudly as Mrs Brown attacked her; she was a mere wisp of a thing compared to the older woman. And then Della slapped Mr Brown across the face, calling him a liar and a love rat and he thumped her back. Right in her beautiful face.
And that’s when I couldn’t stop myself… I waded in amongst them, I couldn’t stop punching and kicking, and even when my knuckles were skinned and he collapsed on the floor, I still couldn’t stop hitting him.
The police were called and I ran and it was just a big fat mess.
A couple of days later, Della jumped from the seventh-floor balcony of her new apartment block by the canal. They found a letter to Nick Brown on the kitchen table telling him she couldn’t live without him.
I didn’t go to the funeral. Mother said it would be too unsettling.
I lean forward now in my chair and peer down into Mrs Barrett’s yard, but no one is out there.
People are starting to arrive home from work, using the back door like we do. This is usually my busiest time, recording and monitoring that nothing is amiss, that nobody is acting strangely or out of the ordinary.
But Holly needs me and I decide that this must take priority.
I go back downstairs, plucking my jacket from the hook in the hallway on the way out.
‘David?’ Mother looks up, startled, from stirring a pan as I walk through the kitchen. ‘What’s wrong? Where are you going?’
‘I’m just popping out for a bit,’ I say calmly. ‘I won’t be long.’
‘But…’ She puts down her wooden spoon and turns, her eyes wide. ‘Is everything all right? I mean, you’re not in any trouble, are you?’
‘No. I’m not in any trouble.’ My stomach contracts. ‘Why do you always assume the worst, Mother?’
‘Because you’ve been acting very oddly recently. You keep going out and… Are you going to see that girl next door?’ She spits out the words as if they’re responsible for a nasty taste in her mouth.
If I am, it’s nothing to do with her. I’ve let her control my life for far too long.
‘Your mother asked you where you’re going.’ Brian swaggers towards me as if he’s still a fit thirty-year-old builder instead of a fat mess. ‘You live off your mother like you’re still a ten-year-old, so you’ll be treated like one.’