Page 5 of The Black Trilogy

I was alive but no longer living.

The pastor sprinkled a handful of dirt on top of the casket then Dan nudged my arm and gestured towards the black rose I clutched in a death grip. A thorn dug into my thumb, and I relished the pain, relished the trickle of crimson blood because it broke through the numbness. But at Dan’s urging, I forced my fingers to loosen and threw the single flower into the grave.

That was it. Over.

My soul mate was gone.

CHAPTER 3

AS THOSE PRESENT started to leave, I stayed frozen to the spot. My flesh crawled at the lingering glances from people not sure whether they should come over and speak to me or just go. I was in no mood to talk to anyone, so I was grateful when my closest friends once more formed a wall to protect me from the crowd. Thankfully, their actions deterred most people from coming over.

I say most, because there’s always one.

In this case, the “one” was my husband’s Aunt Miriam. Not my favourite person on a good day, and if I’d made a list of the people I least wanted to cross paths with today, her name would have been right at the top of it, written in bold and underlined. She powered in my direction like a super-tanker, mourners scattering out of her way as she dragged her long-suffering husband along behind her, set on a collision course with yours truly.

Nick’s grip tightened around my elbow, and he silently asked me with his eyes if I wanted him to get rid of her.

“I’ll deal with it,” I whispered. Despite the circumstances, this wasn’t his battle to fight.

She ground to a halt in front of me, her ample figure carelessly squashed into a Chanel suit, teetering on a pair of Louboutin heels that I was surprised hadn’t buckled under the strain. I doubted her unsteadiness was entirely due to the unsuitability of her footwear, however. Miriam was fond of a few glasses of wine with her lunch. Or sometimes instead of her lunch. And for glasses, read bottles.

I schooled my expression into a blank mask as I prepared to face a woman who made the Ugly Sisters look like Cinderella, and who had as much tact as a herd of buffalo. As usual, Miriam got in before me. She always had to have the first word and the last. And most of the ones in between.

“I thought I should let you know how sorry I was to hear about Charles’s death,” she said, her voice dripping with more insincerity than the pastor’s.

She was the only person who called my husband Charles. He’d despised the name, but she still insisted on using it even when he continually asked her not to.

“It was good of you to take the time to come, Miriam. I’m sure he would have appreciated it.”

Not exactly true, because my husband cared for Miriam about as much as I did. He’d have appreciated it more if she’d moved to the next state. Or better still, the next continent.

“I always said he’d come to a nasty end if he kept associating with those unsavoury characters. If he’d become an accountant like my William, I’m sure all of this could have been avoided. A man needs a well-respected job to get on in life. You don’t see any of William’s friends at the country club getting murdered,” Miriam said.

Even in a situation like this, she couldn’t resist giving me a lecture. Miriam classed any man who rode a motorbike, or had a tattoo, or didn’t have a nine-to-five office job as an “unsavoury character.”

Most of our closest acquaintances fitted into one of those categories, whereas Miriam’s son, William, was about as exciting as a jellyfish and with slightly less backbone. William’s wife wasn’t too enamoured with him either. Only last week, I’d seen her stumbling out of the Quality Inn on the outskirts of town accompanied by the pizza delivery guy from Giuseppe’s. She’d worn a satisfied smile as she busily untucked her skirt from her knickers. The Quality Inn was one of those classy establishments where the honeymoon suite came with a mirror on the ceiling, a vibrating bed, and all of the adult channels.

Still, this was a funeral, and I didn’t want to cause a scene, so I kept that little story to myself.

“He made his own decisions in life, Miriam.”

“Don’t we all know it? Some of them were worse than others.”

She looked pointedly at me when she said that, leaving me in no doubt which decision of his she was referring to. Miriam thought I was a trophy wife and a gold-digger. I knew this because she told my husband exactly that about a week after our wedding.

No “congratulations.” No “I hope you have a lovely future together.” I think her exact words were, “You’ve done what? Is she a prostitute? I hope you’ve got a good lawyer.” Like I said, Miriam held me in high regard.

As I forced myself to resist the call of the Beretta Bobcat I knew Nick had strapped to his ankle, she continued, “And as for that security company he started…” She shook her head and her double chin wobbled. “Charles could have been a man of leisure, travelled the world. But what did he decide to do? Install burglar alarms and advise little old ladies on what locks to put on their front doors. A waste if you ask me.”

I didn’t ask her. And as a matter of fact, he’d made a pretty decent living, as did I, and his life had been a darn sight more exciting than William’s.

“You’re entitled to your own opinion.”

She had that smug little smile of a person convinced they were always right down to a tee. Oh, how I longed to remove it.

“By the way, when is the will being read?” she asked.

Ahhh. The real reason for her sudden interest became clear. She wanted money, yet she had the nerve to call me a gold-digger. Now probably wasn’t the best time to break it to her that there wouldn’t be a formal reading of the will, because I was the only person included in it, and I already knew what it said.

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