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I start walking back towards the car park. Priya practically runs beside me, trying to keep up. She’s still apologising, but I’ve tuned out again. I’m too busy watching Anna talk to her cameraman, and I don’t like the way he looks at her. I know men like him; I used to be one. She climbs into the red Mini convertible she bought after the divorce – probably because she knew I’d hate it – and I’m surprised to see that it looks as if she is going to leave. I have never known her to give up easily on a story or anything else. Which makes me wonder where she is going.
I walk a little faster towards my own car.
‘Are you OK?’ DS Patel asks, still chasing after me.
‘I’d be a lot better if other people did their jobs properly.’
‘Sorry, boss.’
‘For Christ’s sake, I’m not your bloody boss.’
I search inside my pockets for my keys as the Mini disappears towards the car park exit. Priya stares at me, in silence for a change, with a hint of defiance in her eyes that I don’t think I’ve seen before. For a moment I worry that even she knows more than she should.
‘Yes, sir,’ she says in that tone of hers that makes me feel old and awful all at once.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap at you. I’m just tired. The kid kept me up half the night,’ I lie.
I live with a different woman and child now, but unlike me, the kid never has any trouble sleeping. Priya nods, but still looks unconvinced. I get in the car before she has time to ask where I’m going, willing the damn thing to start as I turn on the engine. I don’t know what I’m doing or why I am doing it. Instinct, I suppose; that’s how I will justify this to myself later. I don’t make a habit of following my ex-wife, but something tells me I should on this occasion. More than that, it feels like I must.
There are always unanswered questions when it comes to Anna.
Why is she really here? Does she already know who the victim is? How did she know the exact location of the murder scene before we told the press? Does she miss me? Did she ever really love me in the first place?
The one about our little girl is always loudest.
Why did she have to die?
There are so many unanswered questions keeping me awake at night. Insomnia has become a bad habit I can’t break. Every day seems to start backwards – I wake up tired and go to bed feeling wide awake. It isn’t the guilt about killing Rachel – it started long before that, and nothing I do seems to help. The sleeping pills the doctor gave me are a waste of time, and I get terrible headaches if I take them with alcohol, which of course I find hard not to do. Wine is always the most reliable crutch when it feels like I might fall.
I do my best to completely avoid doctors if I can. Hospitals are filthy places, and no amount of sanitiser, or handwashing, ever seems to remove the stench of illness and death from my skin after visiting one. Medical establishments are filled with germs and judgement, and I find the people who work in them always ask the same questions, so I always give the same answers: no, I’ve never smoked and yes, I do drink, but in moderation.
There is no law I know of saying that you have to tell your doctor the truth.
Besides, lies told often enough can start to sound true.
My mind tends to wander most when I am in the car, but that’s nothing new, I have always been prone to daydreaming. Not that I’m a danger to myself or others in that regard. I’m a very safe driver, I just do it on autopilot sometimes, that’s all. The roads are mostly empty around here anyway. I wonder if that will change now? It will initially, of course – the police, the media circus – but I wonder what will happen afterwards. When the show is over and all the… mess has been cleared away. Life will surely return to normal for most of the locals. Not those directly affected, of course, but grief is always sharpest at the point of impact. I wonder whether the coachloads of tourists will still come to visit in the summer months? No bad thing if they don’t, if you ask me. Popularity can spoil a place just like it can spoil a person.
I don’t worry about my lack of remorse, but I do question what it means. I wonder whether I am fundamentally a different person from the one I was before I killed her. People still seem to look at me the same way they did yesterday, and when I stare in the mirror, I can’t see any obvious change.
But then maybe that’s because it wasn’t really my first time.
I’ve killed before.
I bury the memory of what I did that night because it still hurts too much, even now. One wrong decision resulted in two ruined lives, not that anyone ever knew what really happened. I never told a soul. I’m sure plenty of people could understand my reasons for killing Rachel Hopkins if they knew the truth about her – some might even thank me – but nobody would ever understand why I killed someone I loved so much.
And they never will because I’ll never tell them.
Her
Tuesday 10:00
There are so many things I never tell people about myself.
Too many.
I have my reasons.
It’s raining again, so hard that it is almost impossible to see the road ahead. Angry fat drops of water relentlessly slap the windscreen, before crying down the glass like tears. I continue to drive until it feels like there is enough distance between me and the crime scene, as well as me and my ex-husband, then I pull over into a layby and sit there for a moment, transfixed by the sight and sound of the wipers:
Swish and scrape. Swish and scrape. Swish and scrape.
Leave this place. Leave this place. Leave this place.
I check ahead and then behind in the rear-view mirror. When I’m satisfied that the road is empty, I down another miniature whisky. It burns my throat and I’m glad. I savour the taste and the pain for as long as I dare, then toss the empty bottle in my bag. The sound of it clinking with the others reminds me of the windchime that used to hang outside my daughter’s nursery. Alcohol doesn’t make me feel better; it just stops me feeling worse. I pop a mint, then blow into the breathalyser, and when my routine self-loathing and self-preservation are complete, I carry on.
On my way back to town I pass the school I used to go to. I see a few girls standing outside, wearing the familiar St Hilary’s uniform that I always hated so much: royal blue with a yellow stripe. They can’t be more than fifteen years old, and they look so young to me now, even though I clearly remember how old I thought I was at their age. Funny how often life seems to work in reverse. We were children masquerading as adults and now we are adults acting like children.
I feel a bit sick as I pull up outside the house, but that’s not because of the drink. I park the Mini a little further down the street so as not to be seen; I’m not sure why. She’s going to know that I’m here eventually. The guilt over how long it has been since I visited this place seems to trap me inside the car. I try to remember when exactly it was that we last saw each other… more than six months this time, I suppose.
I didn’t even visit last Christmas. Not because I had other plans – Jack and I were divorced by then and he was already living with someone else – but because I felt like I couldn’t. I needed to be alone. So, after an afternoon volunteering at a soup kitchen on Christmas Eve, I spent three days locked inside my flat, with nothing but wine bottles and sleeping tablets for company.
