Last Kiss (7 page)

‘Any idea as to why?’

‘No – at least, not yet. I’ll need you to double check the angle for me, to be completely sure, but this case is complicated. Our killer is extremely clever. Right now she is any number of steps ahead of us, and if I’m correct, unravelling this case won’t be easy.’

I STARE AT my strained image in the bathroom mirror: I look like I’ve aged a hundred years. I pull the skin on my cheeks upwards, wondering about a facelift.
Who are you kidding?
I can’t stop thinking about last night with Edgar. How I felt I was sleeping with a stranger.

It’s already a quarter to eight, and the girls will be here soon. They’ll sense something isn’t right – they always do. Karen is like the proverbial bull in a china shop, shooting off at the mouth before her brain tells her otherwise. Lori is the opposite, quiet, nervous, but with the listening skills of an electronic device. But it’s Alice I fear most. She can read me like a book. It’s been the same since we were children. I bite my lip, pulling at my earlobe, the way I always do when I’m nervous.

I’d better put another bottle of white wine in the fridge, just in case – Sauvignon Blanc or Pinot Grigio? It’s good to offer variety.
What’s wrong with you? Your life is falling apart and all you can concentrate on is the stupid wine
.

I tell myself I have no real reason to doubt Edgar. Maybe it’s all in my head. Sometimes I over-think things. Edgar says so all the time.

There’s enough food in the fridge to feed the United Nations. Thank God for online shopping. I stare at the contents, wondering how to make space for the wine. I could take out last night’s chicken or something else. I grab a carton of eggs and jump back as they crash to the floor. I push the wine bottle into the gap, slamming the door, before kneeling down to clear up the eggs. I need to settle my nerves. If I don’t pull myself together, the girls will know for sure that something is wrong. But maybe if I talk about it, it won’t seem so bad. It isn’t only Edgar, though: it’s all the other stuff I can’t explain. I tug at my ear again, feeling it heat up some more.

Last night, I tossed and turned in the bed as if I had a fever. I had been thinking about Edgar being grumpy and evasive, wondering if that, too, was a tell-tale sign. I remembered a conversation I’d had with Karen – when she was having that affair with the Italian guy. She said it was easier to be grumpy when she got home: it was the best way to hide how ecstatic she felt inside. Anger took the smile off her face, keeping her husband’s suspicions at bay. You wouldn’t think Karen was the affair type, especially as she includes married men. I don’t know how she carries it off. I couldn’t. Perhaps it’s like one side of her life is denying the other. It’s ten years since we became
roommates. We were in our twenties then, long before either of us got hitched.
But now that you might be the wife whose husband is having an affair, are you quite so forgiving? Didn’t think so!

I pour a glass of wine and empty it in one go. ‘Take it easy,’ I mutter. ‘You don’t have any proof – not yet.’ There’s that voice again:
Trust your instincts, Sandra
.
He’s being too careful, giving nothing away
. I check myself again in the hall mirror. My ear looks as red as a hot poker. I fiddle with my hair, pulling it over my ear. Jesus, I look awful. The girls are sure to guess, especially Alice – she’s practically psychic.
Do you know what you look like, Sandra? A withered plant that’s been severed at its stem
.

Edgar was cool this morning, especially when I asked him why he was doing so many late hours. He said he hadn’t realised he was, and asked me if I felt he was ignoring me, sounding so sincere. I could have asked him then, come straight out with it.
Are you having an affair?
I didn’t. He offered to come home early this evening, said the two of us could have a romantic evening together, that he would do the cooking. Had he remembered the girls were coming over? Was that why he was so eager to offer, knowing I would refuse? He told me how beautiful I was, that he didn’t tell me often enough, that, like most men, he was a fool when it came to such things. I muttered, ‘Liar,’ under my breath, and he must have sensed my mood, because instead of kissing me goodbye on the lips, he kissed me on the cheek, then hugged me. It wasn’t a sensual hold, more like misguided comfort. He said something about me enjoying a productive day in the studio. Thank God he hasn’t been inside. He’d know I haven’t done any work in weeks. What else did he say? My mind is such a muddle.

Damn it, what’s keeping the girls? Karen is always early. I think about Alice again, how her silences often say more than her words. A while back, I’d wondered about her and Edgar, if there was something going on between them. I had put it down to jealousy on my part, her being so damn attractive. Maybe I should have cancelled tonight, but if I had, it would have brought on a tsunami of questions. The interrogation would have begun with gusto. Phone calls back and forth, probably talking to each other behind my back. They’ve done that before.

My right hand shakes as I refill my glass. I’ve no intention of having a second drink so soon. Best to wait until at least one of them arrives, and even then I need to take it slow.

It’s ten past eight, but it’s still bright out. Maybe I should set up a table in the garden. Wear dark sunglasses to hide my eyes.
You’re being ridiculous
.

The sound of the doorbell is almost a relief. No more time to think. I know it’s Karen even before I reach the door – her familiar ring, two short blasts, then a final long one.

‘Isn’t the weather bliss?’ she says. ‘Are the others here yet?’

‘No, you’re the first. Come in. You look great.’

‘Thanks. You look awful. What’s up?’ She plonks her replica Louis Vuitton bag under the hall table, the one she told us about the last time we had a girlie get-together. She got it as a bargain on a package holiday to Portugal. Nobody mentioned it being a cheap copy. Some people might think we’re an odd bunch, the way we pretend nothing has changed since our twenties. It’s partly why our relationship survives. We ignore material differences, avoid mentioning that some of us are far better off financially than others, and even though we don’t always agree,
I guess, over the years, we’ve managed to be there for each other in our own wacky way.

‘Nothing’s up. I’m tired, that’s all,’ I say.

‘I have the cure.’ She holds up a pink carrier bag with two bottles. ‘Thirsty work, this talking business.’

I laugh.
Keep up the show
. The bell rings again. This time there’s two of them, Alice and Lori. Alice stands closest to the door, her blue eyes and blonde hair perfect as always. Lori is like a demure dark pixie, her ebony hair tied tight behind her. They look like chalk and cheese.

‘Come in.’ I plaster a smile across my face. ‘Karen’s already here.’

‘Have you been drinking? Your chest is blotchy, and you look awful.’ Alice skips past me with Lori in tow.

‘Just the one.’

‘I already told her she looks dreadful,’ Karen says, coming out from the kitchen with four empty wine glasses. She holds them upside-down between her fingers. I can hear them clink against one another, and for an instant I remember seeing broken glass on the floor earlier but I can’t recall why.

‘Be careful,’ I say. ‘I think there might be some glass on the floor.’

‘Where?’ asks Lori. ‘I’ll clear it up.’

‘I’m not sure. My head is all over the place today.’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ says Alice, sounding confident and in charge. ‘It’s not like we’re going to kick off our heels out here in the hall.’

‘No, probably not,’ I say, but inside my head, I hear that voice
again,
Get it together
. ‘What would you all like to drink? I’ve three bottles of wine cooling in the fridge.’

‘I’m sticking to red,’ says Lori. ‘White gives me heartburn.’

‘I thought that was only Chardonnay,’ pipes Karen, as she places the four glasses on the coffee table in the lounge.

‘She’s moved on,’ says Alice, ‘dismissing all the world’s wines unless they’re blood red. Isn’t that right, Lori?’

‘Stop it.’ Then, more tentatively, Lori says, ‘You do have red, don’t you, Sandra? It’s okay if you don’t.’

‘Of course I do. Edgar always has a good supply.’

‘Good old Edgar.’ Alice slips in a mocking dig.

‘Give it a rest, Alice,’ says Karen. ‘You’re just jealous you don’t have a husband like Edgar.’ Her tone is more teasing than critical.

‘Having a husband is overrated. I keep telling you that. You fall in love, get married, fall out of love, get married again or have an affair. It’s a vicious circle, reliving the same old Greek tragedy.’ She looks coyly at Karen. ‘Most people lumber their way through life without knowing why they do things.’ Then, remembering Lori’s recent separation, she adds, ‘I don’t mean you, Lori.’

‘I know.’

‘He didn’t deserve you,’ Karen pipes in again.

‘As Alice says,’ musters Lori, ‘having a husband is overrated.’

‘Good,’ replies Alice. ‘I’d hate us to fall out before we have the wine.’

I had managed to put out a display of canapés, olives and a large cheeseboard with grapes in the kitchen. I ask Karen to
give me a hand carrying things through. She likes being busy, and is happy to oblige. She is standing beside me when I look down at the cheeseboard and see the large carving knife. Why did I put it there? It’s not suitable for cheese. Then I remember the eggs dropping from the fridge – did I take out the knife after that?

‘What the matter?’ she asks. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

‘I could have sworn …’

‘What?’

‘Nothing. Will you get the cheese knives from the utility?’

‘Sure.’ But as she opens the door of the utility, she calls, ‘Have you moved them, Sandra? I don’t see them in the usual place.’

‘I don’t think so.’ I follow her inside.

‘They have to be in here somewhere,’ she says.

‘They must be.’ My hands are shaking. I want to say: They’re not the only things I’ve noticed being moved.

‘There they are,’ she roars, pointing to the counter where I usually store the extra spices. ‘You shouldn’t leave them out like that,’ she scolds. ‘They’ll get dusty, and you’ll have to keep rinsing them before you use them.’

‘Yes, stupid of me. Give them here and I’ll clean them.’

It’s not long before we’re all chatting in the lounge. The conversation is free-flowing, just as it is every time we meet, even back in the day when we shared a dingy flat in the centre of town. I have candles lighting the room, half a dozen at the fireplace. The house is warm with the under-floor heating on, now the evenings are getting chillier. Lori kicks off her shoes, moving her feet backwards and forwards on the travertine tiles.

‘I love the heat coming from the floor,’ she says.

‘It’s only a floor, Lori. Don’t get too excited,’ Alice barks.

‘Why do you always need to criticise?’ Karen hits back.

‘I’m not. I’m simply making an observation.’

‘Whatever,’ Karen retorts. Then, standing up to pour another glass of wine, she asks me, ‘Where’s Edgar this evening?’

‘I’m not sure.’ I never asked him where he’d be.

‘That’s strange.’ She settles on the couch.

‘Maybe he’s having an affair,’ suggests Lori, the wine going straight to her head.

‘He probably can’t help himself,’ sniggers Karen, ‘with all us promiscuous women around.’

This is your moment, I say to myself. What’s stopping you? He could be with the other woman now.

‘You’re very quiet, Sandra.’ Alice gives me one of her looks. ‘For Heaven’s sake, stop biting that bloody lip of yours.’

I don’t reply. I can’t make out her face in the candlelight. I feel the others, too, are sensing something is wrong. I swallow a generous mouthful of Sauvignon Blanc, waiting a few more seconds.
The longer you wait, the harder it will be to retreat. Think of something else to say, fool them, or tell them
.

‘Am I?’ I reply, but they’re not buying it.

‘Sandra?’ I hear the note in Alice’s voice that tells me she won’t let it go.

‘What’s wrong?’ Lori moves forward on the couch. So does Karen.

Say it – go on
. I take another sip of my wine. ‘Edgar is having an affair.’

It’s Lori’s turn to swallow more wine.

‘How can you be so sure?’ Alice’s words are delivered in slow motion.

‘I can’t be completely sure,’ I reply, ‘not really.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ says Karen. ‘Do you know who he’s shagging?’

I can’t look at any of them. Maybe if I stop talking about it, it will all go away, become some sick joke. Their brief silence will be followed by a tidal wave. There is no going back now. I notice my glass is tilted. Some wine spills onto my lap, trickling down my leg. ‘I think she’s been here, the other woman, in this house – moving things.’

IT WAS THREE weeks to the day since the discovery of Rick Shevlin’s body in the Earlbrook Hotel, and it had seemed that the investigation had stalled, until now. Kate contemplated the phone call from Mark Lynch. He had told her more than the latest development in the case. He had told her that DI O’Connor would be back on duty, active in the investigation, from the following day. She knew she’d sat on the fence for long enough. She hadn’t contacted him, which would make things awkward, but she was relieved he was back on board. Lynch was confident, but he didn’t have O’Connor’s experience. All she had to do was phone O’Connor – simple. So, what was stopping her? She’d grown emotionally close to him during the last investigation –
too close. Making contact might open the can of worms she had tried to keep shut. But still, she rang his number.

He answered immediately. ‘Hello, stranger,’ he said.

She noticed a cold edge to his words. ‘It’s been a while, all right. I hear you’re back tomorrow.’

Silence.

‘Will you be working on the Shevlin investigation?’ She already knew he would be, although Lynch would remain as the senior officer. Still, there was nothing like asking a direct question to get an answer.