Page 96 of Close to You
Except I have already made it.
‘I’m not leaving,’ I say.
‘Then I’ll tell everyone.’
‘No, you won’t.’
Jane peers up, taking me in across the table. I can’t tell if she’s angry or resigned. ‘Why do you think I won’t?’ she asks.
‘Because you’re wrong.’
Her eyes narrow: ‘Come on. I know you slept together.’
‘Not about that,’ I say. ‘We did that and I regret it. You’re wrong about David. He didn’t leave me.’
Jane cranes her neck backwards a little and frowns, obviously not believing me.
‘So, where is he?’ she asks.
This time, I don’t hesitate. It’s been so hard to hang onto the secret for this long and it’s a relief to get the words out.
‘David’s dead,’ I say. ‘I killed him.’
Forty-Eight
Jane stares at me, her mouth open and her eyebrow twitching. ‘You… what?’
‘I killed him,’ I say, composed and calm. Perhaps I learned that from David? ‘I didn’t mean to – but I did get rid of the body. I did that knowing exactly what I was doing. Then I told everyone he ran away.’
Jane continues to stare, as if she’s frozen. She’s known me long enough to realise that I’m telling the truth – but it’s only now that she must know how badly she’s misjudged the situation.
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ I say. ‘You know what I’m capable of – and you’ll never be able to prove what happened to David. You can stay around if you want. I won’t interfere in your life. I will never speak another word to you, if that’s what you want. But you won’t tell anyone about Ben and me – and you won’t tell anyone about what happened to David.’
Jane slips further into the chair and the fight has left her. She thought one thing was going to happen and, instead, it’s something completely different.
‘If you do,’ I say, ‘just remember that your end game was for me to move away. Mine was to get rid of my husband’s body, hide the evidence and spend two years convincing everyone thatIwas the wronged woman.’
I wait for her to look up. To make sure she is looking into my eyes when the truth is finally known. When I know she fully has my attention, I stand and move my way around to the door before speaking to her for the last time.
‘I guess the question is whether I should be scared of you, Jane – or whether you should be scared of me.’
Forty-Nine
Six weeks later
Jane and Ben moved away last night.
Nobody has told me officially because I’ve not spoken to either of them since that night at Jane’s house. I heard through various acquaintances that Ben sorted out some sort of job transfer with his bank. Their family of three is off to London for a new life.
Good for them.
I mean that.
It’s strange how we’ve been friends for so long and yet, in the past six weeks, I don’t think I’ve missed Jane. I doubt that she’s missed me, either. That must be who I am. Perhaps I should never have been scared of being alone because, in the end, I thrive on precisely that.
I cross to my kitchen and put the kettle on.Mykitchen. I never did move in with Andy. I was doing it for the wrong reasons – and I’ve already gone through that once. It wasn’t anything to do with him googling David. In the end, I figured why wouldn’t he be searching for my husband’s name? If roles were reversed, I probably would.
It’s been a confusing few weeks trying to piece together everything that happened. I found out that Mum got her Lennon autograph from one of the other residents who lives on her row. Veronica called me the morning after everything happened at Jane’s. It’s not a massive surprise because, as I already knew, she’s spent a lifetime telling anyone who’ll listen about the time she saw him on the street. The last time I saw her, she still claimed she’d always had it.
