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Come on, stop this. You're over the worst, you don't do post mortems on Keith any more. The admonition was there in her mind but tonight she couldn't stem the memories flooding in.
They'd had a low-key wedding. Keith had wanted it that way and she had been so gloriously happy she'd have got married in sackcloth and ashes if he'd asked her to. As it was, she'd worn a powder-blue suit and large hat, and everyone had sad she looked radiant.
Keith had whisked her off to the Bahamas for two weeks sad they had returned to live in his modern apartment on the outskirts of London. The original plan had been to start looking for a house straight away, but as the weeks and months had slipped by it had never happened. Keith had said there was plenty of time and she had agreed with him. When they decided to start trying for a baby in the future, they would tank about a house. Until then they were happy as they were.
And then one terrible night her sister and brother-in-law, Michael, had turned up at their apartment. White-faced and trembling from head to foot, Catherine had told her their reserved parents had been killed in a head-on collision. Two eighteen-year-old joyriders in a stolen car had veered across the motorway, causing a lorry to swerve to avoid them. In doing sc the lorry driver had lost control of his vehicle and her parents had ploughed into it. The lorry driver had cuts and bruises and the joyriders not a scratch. Neither had they any remorse. The news had attracted nationwide publicity, as much because one of the joyriders had a famous rock star brother as anything else.
A day or two after she and Keith and Catherine and Michael had been interviewed by the press on the steps of the court¬house at the finish of the trial, the joyriders having received the maximum sentence possible, she had returned home from work to find a young woman waiting outside the apartment.
The recent past, as she and Catherine had battled to come to terms with the sudden loss of their parents, had been bad enough, but nothing could have prepared her for what had followed. The young woman was Keith's long-term partner. They had two children and had been living together for seven years. On the nights he had been 'away' on business he had, in fact, been on the other side of London with Anna. And there were girlfriends too, Anna had told her in a bitter rage. There always had been. Anna had turned a blind eye to Keith's women because she loved him and he was the father of her little girls, but when she had seen him on the news with a wife... Only the day before he had left them all with hugs and kisses after spending the night in her arms. She'd had no idea he had actually married someone else.
Beth had stared at the distraught young woman as her world had come crashing down about her ears. She had believed Anna instantly. Later she'd questioned why and had come to the conclusion that as Anna had spoken a thousand and one little things had suddenly come into sharp focus, starting with their quiet no-fuss wedding twelve months before. And a couple of days before Christmas he had sup¬posedly had to fly up to Scotland on business and had been unable to make it back to her before Boxing Day. Of course he had spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with Anna and his children. Wheels within wheels and so cunning.
The more she and Anna had spoken, the more she had realised just how devious Keith had been. He had walked in cm them some time later and if ever she'd needed confirma¬tion that Anna was speaking the truth, the look of horror on Keith's face was it.
She had walked out that same night and had never gone back except to pick up a few personal belongings with Catherine when Keith had been at work. She had refused to see or speak to him and once he had realised she was deadly serious he had not contested the divorce. But then he couldn't have, not with her evidence.
Catherine and Michael had been wonderful, insisting she say with them, but as Catherine was pregnant with their first child she had only stayed a short while. As soon as she was able she had found a small one-bedroom flat and bought it outright with her half of the inheritance from her parents' estate. It had taken every last penny but she had needed to mow she had her own home. The day after she'd moved in Catherine and Michael had turned up on the doorstep with Harvey, who had been nothing more than a bundle of fluff with outsize paws and a pink tongue.
'A housewarming present,' Catherine had announced. 'And I've left work I can look after him on the days when you're in the office. You need company at night. OK?'
She had protested she didn't want a dog and that it wouldn't e practical, but she knew Catherine was worried to death about her and convinced she'd sink into a bog of despair once h was alone and it had been that which had persuaded her Id take Harvey. As it was, it had turned out that Catherine was absolutely right. She didn't know how she would have got through the last tortuous eighteen months without him. And here was something immensely reassuring in having Harvey with her at night and taking him to some of the more isolated sites she had to visit. He was so fiercely protective of her. He was also as good as gold with Catherine and the baby on the days she was confined to the-office.
