Page 34 of The Plot Twist

‘She said they were lovely and then went out to her pottery class. She’s learning how to use a wheel at the moment. Very tricky, apparently.’

Allie had absolutely zero interest in pottery wheels and whether they were tricky or not, although she did file that hobby of Angie’s, just in case she could use it at a later date in her quest to help Martin win Angie back. But right at this moment, she was more concerned that neither of them would ever get to that stage. How did two married people in love get to the point where flowers were no longer bought, kind words no longer exchanged? It made her wonder whether she hadn’t got the whole thing right in the first place and that romance was dead and there was no such thing as happy-ever-afters.

She was just about to pack her things up, tell Martin he could stuff their plan and that she was keeping her serial killer for herself when an image of Jake Matthew’s cold, dead eyes flashed into her mind and she realised she was screwed. And not in the desirable, sexy way, but in the totally well and truly fucked, having to hand back the advance, losing her job and her house kind of way. She had to keep going, this was going to be a challenge, sure, but she had known that the first time she had locked eyes on Martin’s tweed elbow patched jacket. No, she needed to see this through. And not just for her, Angie deserved better.

Allie took a deep breath, deciding now was the moment to level with him. If she was going to do this, he needed to pull his weight or it would end in disaster, for all of them, and especially for Allie’s writing career. ‘Look Martin, I don’t want to cast judgement.’ He raised his eyebrows at her. ‘Yes alright, I don’t want to, but I’m going to do it anyway. I’ve written you an outline, I’ve put some real effort into this. And so far you’ve bought your wife flowers and arranged to meet me in the cafe you used to take your children to. You should bringherhere. You should tellherthat you miss her, remind her of the good memories, of Christmas when your kids were little, all those warm fuzzy things!’

‘I’m working on it!’ protested Martin.

‘Well, work a bit harder, OK?’ Allie demanded. ‘Because in case you had forgotten, we’re both on a book deadline, and I, for one, need some stronger inspiration.’

They stared at each other in a somewhat hostile manner. ‘I’m taking her out to dinner later this week,’ Martin eventually said.

‘Good, and it had better be somewhere special.’ Allie sulkily played with a teaspoon and once again wondered why on earth she had agreed to do this.

‘It’s our son’s restaurant.’

‘Nice. I didn’t realise he ran a restaurant.’

‘Well, his business partner mainly runs that side of things. He’s more involved in the… Oh my word, what is she making them wear?’

Allie looked to the side and saw West London Mummy shovelling her children into matching velvet overcoats, buttoning them up aggressively as the children stared into the middle distance and pulled on white gloves.

‘It’s boiling in here. They’ll expire!’ He looked aghast at Allie. ‘Surely that’s child abuse?’

Allie pulled a face. ‘At the very least, we’re looking at years of therapy. After which one of them will undoubtedly turn into a goth, rejecting everything their mother ever forced them to wear.’

Martin laughed, causing the mother in question to turn and look at him, tutting loudly at the interruption his outburst had caused in attending to her children’s attire. His face loosened up, the tension in the atmosphere from their previous tetchy exchange vanishing. Allie grinned at him, preferring to have this version of Martin, and not the morose defensive version from earlier.

‘You know, no matter what you do with your kids, no matter how much you give them, spend time with them, there willalwaysbe something they blame you for.’

Allie nodded vigorously. ‘I still hold it against my mum that she never bought me a Sylvanian Family caravan.’

‘I don’t even know what that is.’

‘What?’ Allie looked horrified. ‘Your daughter never had Sylvanians? No wonder she hates you.’

‘She doesn’t hate me,’ Martin explained patiently, ‘she just … gets frustrated when I refuse to give her things.’

‘Like Sylvanians.’ Allie was finding it hard to give up this topic. ‘How old is she?’

‘Thirty.’

‘What do you remember her begging you for at Christmas?’

Martin scrunched up his face. ‘To be honest the same stuff that she still does: clothes, shoes, money.’

Allie felt her eye twitch. What eight-year-old put clothes and shoes above cute fluffy woodland animals?

‘Gigi was always…’

‘Gigi?’

‘Gigi, my daughter. It’s what everyone calls her.’

Allie waited, wondering what horrors Martin might be about to reveal about Gigi next, but he didn’t. ‘Let’s not get onto Gigi. It’s a complicated subject and as we have established, the source of one of the major tensions in my marriage.’

‘Sounds like a good reason to discuss her,’ Allie said, experiencing an unusual degree of interest in someone who she was quite sure she would loathe. ‘I mean, if she’s a source of conflict, maybe you need to resolve that before you can move forward with Angie?’

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