nods. ‘I’m in the multi-storey, so I’ll say goodbye to you here.’
I point to the two suitcases. ‘Can you manage?’
‘They’re lightweight, remember? And if I can’t, I’m sure I’ll be able to find a nice young man to help me!’
I give her a quick hug and make my way to the car. As I turn on the ignition, the time comes up and I see that it’s a minute past one. A part of me – quite a large part – doesn’t want to listen to the local news, but I find myself turning on the radio anyway.
‘Last night, the body of a woman was found in a car in Blackwater Lane, between Browbury and Castle Wells. She had been brutally murdered. If you travelled that road between eleven-twenty last night and one-fifteen this morning, or know anyone who did, please contact us as soon as possible.’
I reach out and turn the radio off, my hand shaking with stress. Brutally murdered. The words hang in the air, and I feel so sick, so hot, that I have to open the window, just to be able to breathe. Why couldn’t they just have said ‘murdered’? Wasn’t ‘murdered’ already bad enough? A car pulls up alongside me and the driver makes signs, wanting to know if I’m leaving. I shake my head and he drives off, then a minute or so later another car comes along, wanting to know the same thing, and then another. But I don’t want to leave, all I want is to stay where I am until the murder is no longer news, until everybody has moved on and forgotten about the woman who was brutally murdered.
I know it’s stupid but I feel as if it’s my fault she’s dead. Tears prick my eyes. I can’t imagine the guilt ever going away and the thought of carrying it around with me for the rest of my life seems too high a price to pay for a moment’s selfishness. But the truth is, if I’d bothered to get out of my car, she might still be alive.
I drive home slowly, prolonging the moment when I have to leave the protective bubble of my car. Once I get home, the murder will be everywhere, on the television, in the newspapers, on everyone’s lips, a constant reminder of my failure to help the woman in the woods.
As I get out of the car, the smell of a bonfire burning in the garden transports me instantly back to my childhood. I close my eyes and, for a few blissful seconds, it’s no longer a hot, sunny day in July, it’s a crisp, cold November evening and Mum and I are eating sausages speared onto forks, while Dad sets off fireworks at the bottom of the garden. I open my eyes to find that the sun has disappeared behind a cloud, mirroring my mood. Normally, I would go and find Matthew but, instead, I head straight for the house, glad to have a little more time to myself.
‘I thought I heard the car,’ he says, coming into the kitchen a few minutes later. ‘I didn’t expect you back so soon. Weren’t you meant to be having lunch out?’
‘We were, but we decided to leave it for today.’
He comes over and drops a kiss on my head. ‘Good. Now you can have lunch with me.’
‘You smell of bonfire,’ I say, breathing it in from his T-shirt.
‘I thought I’d get rid of all those branches I cut down the other week. Luckily, they were under the tarpaulin so the rain didn’t get to them but they would have smoked the house out if we’d used them on the fire.’ He wraps his arms around me. ‘You do know that you’re the one for me, don’t you?’ he says softly echoing what he used to say when we first met.
I’d been working at the school for about six months when a group of us went to a wine bar to celebrate my birthday. Connie noticed Matthew the moment we arrived. He was sitting at a table by himself, clearly waiting for someone, and she’d joked that if his date didn’t turn up she would offer to replace her. When it became obvious that his date wasn’t going to materialise, she went over, already a little drunk, and asked him if he wanted to join us.
‘I was hoping nobody would notice I’d been stood up,’ he said ruefully as Connie sat him down between her and John. It meant that I was opposite him and I couldn’t help noticing the way his hair fell over his forehead, or the blue of his eyes whenever he looked over at me, which he did, quite a lot. I tried not to make too much of it, which was just as well, as by the time we stood up to leave, several bottles of wine later, he had Connie’s number firmly in his phone.
A few days later she came up to me in the staff room, a huge grin on her face, to tell me that Matthew had called her – to ask for my number. So I let her give it to him and when he phoned, he nervously admitted, as he so sweetly put it, ‘As soon as I saw you I knew you were the one for me.’
Once we began seeing each other regularly, he confessed that he couldn’t father children. He told me he’d understand if I didn’t want to see him again but, by then, I was already in love and although it was a major blow, I didn’t feel it was the end of the world. By the time he asked me to marry him, we’d already talked about other ways to have a child and had decided that we would look into it seriously once we’d been married a year. Which is about now. Usually, it’s a constant thought in my mind but now it seems so far away I can’t reach it.
Matthew’s arms are still around me. ‘Did you get what you wanted?’ he asks.
‘Yes, we bought Susie some luggage.’
‘Are you all right? You seem a bit down.’
Suddenly, the need to be on my own is overwhelming. ‘I’ve got a bit of a headache,’ I say, pulling away from him. ‘I think I’ll get an aspirin.’
I go upstairs, get a couple of aspirins from the bathroom and swallow them down with water from the tap. As I lift my head I catch sight of my face in the mirror and search it anxiously, looking for something that could give me away; something which would tell people that everything isn’t as it should be. But there’s nothing to show I’m any different to the person I was when I married Matthew a year ago, just the same chestnut hair and the same blue eyes staring back at me.
I turn my back on my reflection and go into the bedroom. My pile of clothes has been moved from the chair to the now-made bed, a gentle hint from Matthew to tidy them away. On a normal day I would be amused but today I feel irritated. My eyes fall on my great-grandmother’s writing desk and I remember the money Rachel spoke about, the hundred and sixty pounds that everybody gave me for Susie’s gift. If I took the money, it would be in there, it’s where I always put things I want to keep safe. Taking a deep breath, I unlock the little drawer on the left-hand side of the writing desk and pull it out. Lying inside is a scruffy pile of notes. I count them; there’s a hundred and sixty pounds exactly.
In the warm peace of my bedroom the hard facts of what I forgot suddenly loom over me. To forget a name or a face is normal but to forget suggesting a gift and taking money for it isn’t.
‘Did you take some aspirin?’ Matthew says from the doorway, making me jump.
‘I quickly push the drawer shut. ‘Yes, and I feel much better.’
‘Good.’ He smiles. ‘I’m going to have a sandwich. Do you want one? I thought I’d have mine with a beer.’
The thought of food still makes my stomach churn. ‘No, go ahead. I’ll get something later. I’ll just have a cup of tea.’
I follow him downstairs and sit down at the kitchen table. He puts a mug of tea in front of me and I watch him as he takes bread from the cupboard, a slab of cheddar from the fridge and makes himself a quick sandwich, pushing the two together and eating it without a plate.
‘That murder has been on the radio all morning,’ he says, crumbs dropping to the floor. ‘The road’s been closed and the police are all over it, looking for evidence. It’s insane to think it’s all happening five minutes from here!’
I try not to flinch and look absent-mindedly at the tiny white crumbs on our terracotta stone floor. They look as if they’re stranded at sea with no help in sight. ‘Do they know anything about her yet?’ I ask.
‘The police must do because they’ve advised her next of kin