Page 25 of Perfect Wives
‘I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to divulge that information. However, we are treating Mr Wilson’s death as suspicious. I will need to take your contact information, and you can expect a visit from the senior investigating officer in the coming days.’
My pulse pounds in my ears. This wasn’t an accident. This was murder.
Who would do this? I try to think. Maybe it was a break-in and something went wrong. Maybe one of the husbands of the women Jonny slept with found out what he was up to. Or maybe someone hated Jonny as much as I did.
For an awful moment, I think I say the words aloud, but Nate is reeling off our phone numbers for the officer and neither is staring at me.
I think of my walk to the school yesterday evening. Me in my red sequinned dress and heels, carrying a box of quiz sheets and props and wishing I’d driven the short distance to the school. Seeing Jonny’s car turn in as I’d reached the end of the private road. Gritting my teeth as he pulled over and climbed out.
‘Wow, Georgie, you look stunning,’ he said, leaning close, his breath stinking of whisky despite the fact he was driving.
The slow wink, the shiver of fear that raced down my spine. And how much I wanted to kill him in that moment.
I fight the urge to slam the door shut. To race through the house and out into the garden and the cold night air. Last night I’d wished him dead. And now he is.
FOURTEEN
TASHA
My heart hammers against my ribs as the detective steps away, and I shove the door closed, twisting the lock with fingers that barely feel like my own. It takes me two tries before the lock turns into place.
Why did she come to our house? Detective Sara Sató with her neat hair and her suit and her polite apology for disturbing our evening. Why did all the uniformed officers go to the other ten houses and we got the detective? I didn’t like the way her eyes kept flicking back to me even when Marc was answering questions.
The horror of it all is squeezing me tight.
I turn to Marc, needing his solid strength – his support – but the hall is empty. He was just here. Sitting by my side on the sofa among the mess of puzzle pieces and Barbie dolls as we answered questions about Jonny.
Have we seen anything suspicious? No.
Do we know of any trouble Jonny was having? No.
Do we know of anyone who might want to harm him?No, we said in unison. But I couldn’t stop thinking of Keira and how that answer to Detective Sató felt like a lie.
‘Marc?’ I call his name softly, desperately hoping Lanie doesn’t wake. Where four-year-old Sofia finds every excuse not to go to bed and eight-year-old Matilda cries if the light isn’t left on, ten-month-old Lanie is the easiest to fall asleep. But she’s the easiest to wake too, and I can’t be a mother right now.
There’s no reply from Marc, and so I go in search of him. The hall is cluttered with little shoes, kicked off and forgotten beside the empty shoe rack. The living room is an explosion of pink plastic toys and teddies and dolls. I should’ve tidied it away by now. My eyes snag on a sticky stain on the coffee table. Jam? Chocolate from the biscuits they had after school? Another thing to clean. I’ll add it to the list alongside filling in Matilda’s permission slip for the school trip to the zoo next week and finding the box of my dad’s sleeping pills I collected from the pharmacy. I swear they were in my bag the other night and now I can’t find them.
All the endless jobs nagging and prodding and pushing at me, all still in my head. And yet something has shifted. I might not watch TV police dramas like Beth, but even I know what suspicious circumstances means. It means Jonny was murdered. Someone came into our perfect community and killed him. The obvious questions will be running through everyone’s heads.
Why?
How?
Who?
They knot and tangle inside me too, leaving me nauseous. I need Marc.
I find him outside, pacing the length of the patio in slow, hesitant steps. When we first moved into this house, I had dreams of sitting in this garden at the end of the day, savouring a herbal tea, enjoying the view. A lawn that stretches out towards a small copse of trees. Flower beds at the edges, now completely overgrown. Ivy strangles the fence posts, and the hydrangeas Ionce planted with such hope have long since sprawled beyond their borders, drooping under their own weight.
I can’t remember ever sitting out here. The day never seems to end.
The light from the house spills onto the patio, illuminating Marc’s face. For a moment, I see the gangly, out-of-place teen with the sharp hip bones I fell in love with when I was seventeen. He’s filled out. Aged well. That dark Italian hair and broad shoulders, an easy smile. Then it’s like I see him properly for the first time in months and the man before me is a faded version of my husband. He’s lost weight, and there are dark circles around his eyes.
I step outside to join him, the October night air pushing through the thin fabric of my jumper.
Marc is holding an unlit cigarette in one hand and a cheap plastic lighter in the other. I’m about to call his name, but the cigarette makes me pause. Marc hasn’t smoked since college. And where did he get that cigarette from? What if one of the girls had found it? The questions disappear when I see the anguish in his expression. He looks…shaken.
‘Are you OK?’ I ask, my own need for support pushed to one side.
