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Chapter 34
Friday 12th March
‘Oh, hi Mary. Leaving us so soon?’
I’ve just pushed open the front door of The Hub’s reception area, heading for my car and my lunchtime meeting with Darren Edge in Cardiff, and running through the questions I want to ask him in my head, so the unexpected sound of Edward Cooper’s voice startles me.
‘Oh! Hello, Edward. Yes, just leaving on a job. Got to rush, sorry!’
He steps aside to let me pass, but not quite far enough, so my arm brushes his jacket and I get a whiff of body odour, a hint of sweat and stale clothing.
‘Have fun!’ he calls after me, and I can’t help it: I shudder as I walk quickly away. I haven’t seen him for a week or so – I assumed he was on holiday or something – and Satish hasn’t been in much for the past week either, which has been somewhat of a relief. On Wednesday, when I stopped by Eleanor’s desk for a quick catch-up, he walked past and paused for a few seconds, looking as though he wanted to interrupt our conversation, but I steadfastly ignored him, keeping my eyes fixed on my friend. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him glance from me to her and back again and then scuttle away, his cheeks reddening.
‘What’s up with him?’ hissed Eleanor.
‘No idea,’ I whispered back. ‘I think he’s been hanging around with Edward too much. I thought he was OK, but I’m starting to think they’re both real oddballs.’
‘Aw, don’t be mean. I think they’re both quite sweet. Just a bit shy, I think.’
Sweet? Really?I thought, but she was still talking, telling me a story about a complaint she’d just had from a client who’d hired one of her artists to do her make up for a party.
What she forgot to tell me was that it was actually afancy-dressparty. And the theme was “movie monsters”, and she was going as some alien thing from a film calledAttack the Block. I mean, I’ve never even heard of it, but apparently the creatures are like a cross between a wolf and a gorilla with thick, black fur and luminous, turquoise fangs. She had some sort of costume but it didn’t have a mask, so she was expecting Amy to do her face to match. The poor girl did her best but seriously? A furry face and turquoise teeth? Give me a break …’
Eleanor snorted, which set me off too, and I was still giggling on my way back to my desk, feeling Satish’s eyes on me but ignoring him. I haven’t seen him since then, and now that I know Edward’s in today I’m glad I’m heading out of the office. I’m clearly a horrible person, but the less I see of the pair of them at the moment the better, even if some people do think they’re ‘sweet’.
I don’t turn the car radio on as I drive the seventy or so miles to the Cardiff café where I’ve arranged to meet Darren. I feel like I need the silence today; there’s so muchstuffbuzzing around in my brain. Pete, for a start. It’s been a week now since we had sex, and neither of us has mentioned it since. And, unless anything’s happened this morning, as far as I know he still hasn’t ended his relationship with Megan either. I’mdefinitelya horrible person, aren’t I? How could I have done that – slept with another girl’s boyfriend, even if Ihaveknown him for so much longer than she has? It was a dreadful thing to do, and I’m still not sure why it happened. Pete does seem certain their relationship is over though, although he decided not to ruin her excitement about her friend’s birthday party by telling her last Saturday.
‘She’s been looking forward to this do for weeks, Mary. I just can’t do it to her, not tonight,’ he said, and went off to Hotel du Vin with her for the evening as planned, and then back to spend the night at hers, although when he finally came home late on Sunday afternoon he told me they’d literally justslepttogether the previous evening.
‘She was so drunk she pretty much passed out as soon as we got in,’ he told me. ‘You know Megan – she doesn’t drink that much, so when she does, it doesn’t always end well. And she was so hungover today, all she wanted to do was lie on the sofa and have me bring her coffee and water on repeat. She wasn’t in any sort of fit state for a serious chat. I’m probably not going to see her for a few days now, we’re both so busy at the moment, but I’ll do it later in the week, I promise.”
‘No need to promiseme,’ I replied. ‘Nothing to do with me, Pete.’
He looked at me a little strangely when I said that, and I shrugged and headed upstairs for a bath; we didn’t talk about it again when I came back down, and indeed haven’t since. But it’s true. Itisnothing to do with me. If Pete wants to end things with his girlfriend, that’s up to him. I’m not putting any pressure on him, because I’m not even sure how I feel about him, how I feel aboutus, or even if thereisan us. Yes, I’ve thought about last Friday, of course I have. I’ve felt a ripple of desire when I remember how his fingers ran up my inner thigh, so gently, so seductively, and I’ve tried very hard not to look at those fingers when he’s handed me a mug of tea or passed me the black pepper at dinner, worrying that my eyes might give me away. And I know, without a doubt, that I love Pete – I’ve loved him for years, as a friend, as one of the few people in the world I’m really close too, someone who’s always there for me. But has that love slowly, imperceptibly, changed into a different kind of love over the years, and is that why what happened on Friday happened? Or was it just sex?
It was great sex, that’s for sure. More than that: it felt natural, easy, as if we’d done it a hundred times before. It felt …right, I suppose. But maybe that’s just the difference between having sex on a one-night stand with a stranger and doing it with someone you’ve known for years, someone you already have feelings for, someone you already love. It doesn’t mean we’d be right as acouple, I keep telling myself. That might not work at all, even though I already know how well we get on, how easy it is to live with him, how much we make each other laugh – all the good stuff, the things that would be at the top of a relationship wish-list, if I were ever to write one.
And throw in great sex too, and, well …
I shake my head as I drive off the slip road onto the M4, trying to banish the intrusive thoughts. Whatever happens with Pete will happen; I need to concentrate on more pressing issues, like the small matter of whether this serial killer is going to turn up on my doorstep in a couple of weeks’ time, if between us the police and I can stop him murdering me, and what I do about Pete being there. I told Jess he’s insisting he stays at home with me on the day, and at first she said she didn’t think it was a good idea at all.
‘It’s another life we’d potentially be putting at risk, Mary,’ she said.
But after discussing it with the team, she called me back.
‘We already know this killer has been keeping tabs on you, so he’ll know exactly who lives in your house. Moving Pete out would serve no real purpose, and it’ll probably mean you’ll feel calmer, won’t it, having your friend there? So, fine. He can stay.’
Pete simply gave me a satisfied-sounding ‘Good,’ when I told him, leaving me to carry on with my secret worrying about how I can tell the killer what I need to tell him out of Pete’s earshot. It’s something I’ll have to worry about on the day, I suppose; we’re still waiting to hear the police plan too, which they now say they’re going to keep close to their chests for a bit longer, something which seems to be frustrating Pete.
‘It’s your bloody life at stake here. They should be keeping you fully informed. I’d be demanding answers, if it was me,’ he’s said more than once over the past few days, until I finally told him to please just leave it. He grumpily obliged, but I can tell that he’s growing increasingly anxious, whereas the whole thing has taken on a somewhat surreal feeling for me now. The clock is ticking, and I’m very aware of that, but I’m still taking it one day, one hour, at a time. And this hour, I need to concentrate on Darren Edge, and the murder of his ex-lover.I still have an article to write when this is over, after all, I think as I pull into a parking space just up the road from Peterkins Café just before 1.30pm, our designated meeting time.
Llandaff, to the northwest of Cardiff, is like a city within a city; I’ve just driven past its twelfth-century cathedral, but the area, on the banks of the River Taff, has a cosy, small-town feel. There’s even a pretty village green, but the High Street is bustling, and as I lock the car and walk the hundred metres or so to the café, I spot at least three enticing boutiques and a florist’s shop, a beautiful display of elegant hand-tied bouquets in its window. This suburb is where David Howells lived, which is why Darren suggested we meet here, and I feel a pang of sorrow as I push open the door of Peterkins and scan the room. The place is small and busy, most of the tables occupied: a couple of groups of young women, buggies and babies tucked in around them, chatting and laughing over coffee and cake; an elderly couple talking animatedly in one corner, heads close together; and just one man sitting alone at a high bar-style counter at the back. He catches my eye and raises a hand.
‘Mary?’ he mouths.
I nod and smile, then weave my way between the tables, dodging a waiter holding aloft a tray with a precariously balanced teapot and a stack of mugs, and slide onto the stool next to his.
‘Darren. So good of you to agree to this. How are you?’ I say.
