I’m not doing it out of kindness – it’s on my to-do list under ‘being a good person,’ which is the section including motherhood that involves doing unpaid tasks and receiving absolutely no thanks at all.
On the press of a button my car boot and boot cover open theatrically, and I look down at the large parcel wrapped in plastic. I gag as a little aroma of fermenting flesh has leaked out. I scatter the body with the air fresheners I’ve just bought, and the car fills with the smell of a beautiful Norwegian pine forest.
I look up at the large building site between Pets at Home and DFS. No doubt it will soon become another homage to the astonishing beauty of British warehouse architecture. The compound is dusty grey and surrounded by wire fencing. It’s possibly because I find paper-plate shopping so dull, or it might be Stephen’s lack of connubial reciprocity, that my attention isdrawn by the sight of several weathered builders parading their unreconstructed masculinity in front of me, and wearing their high-visibility vests and hard hats rather provocatively.
I pile the shopping bags into the back seats, then put my handbag and coat on the front seat. I release two buttons of my silk blouse, ruffle my hair, check my make-up in the door mirror, and walk to the site entrance where a blond with alluring stubble and ample chest hair is twisting a pencil suggestively between his lips.
‘I wonder if I might take a look around your compound,’ I say with a coy smile.
‘It’s a restricted site, love. You can’t come in here without a hard hat,’ he says, playing hard to get by pointing to a large red and black safety poster.
‘Well, flouting the rules can sometimes be fun.’ I lightly touch his hairy forearm.
‘There’s nothing fun about being clouted with a scaffolding pole,’ he insists, and then lifts his hard hat to reveal a sexy scar across his forehead.
‘I’m asking if you’d like to... Oh, never mind,’ I say. A man who can’t excite my mind isn’t going to satisfy my body. I glance beyond him at another tantalizingly tattooed specimen shovelling concrete from a long metal chute into a wide trench. My mind goes to places that it really shouldn’t and I scold myself, but I tingle all over as the huge tube shudders and suddenly erupts with thick grey sludge.
I think it’s the first time I’ve been turned on by a cement mixer. I really do need to convince Stephen to take his marital responsibilities more seriously, and then, just as it happened in bed, my sexual frustration leads to a moment of inspiration.
‘How long does concrete take to set?’ I ask the foreman.
‘It can take a month until it’s fully set,’ he says, almost proudly.
‘And how long does it stay malleable for?’
‘A few hours at most. A bit longer if it’s cold.’
‘Thank you, that’s helpful,’ I say as I spot a security guard looking at my car for some reason. I worry that he’s been attracted by the heady scent of pine needles and putrefaction.
I hurry back and explain to the middle-aged man in uniform that I’m just leaving. He tells me that I’m parking in a mother and child space, and asks for evidence of a child. I tell him that I can show him stretch marks if he’s interested.
He says that these bays are reserved for parents with children present. I tell him that if he’s suggesting that I’m trying to defraud Tesco by parking in the wrong bay, then he has a dim view of my criminal capability.
He asks if I’m threatening him. I tell him that if I were threatening him he would know about it. He tells me that he’s going to report this as verbal abuse. I ask him if he’d like me to make that physical abuse. He asks for my name and address. I decline and ask for his name and address so that we can continue this argument at a time that is inconvenient to him as well as me.
I feel the urgent need to get in my car and test its pedestrian safety rating on his legs. Fortunately for all, at that moment an abandoned trolley starts rolling dangerously towards a car. He runs off, heroically preventing minor paint damage to an old Volvo. Random murder avoided, we part on good terms.
In the car, I run things through my mind briefly, then call Cait.
‘Hello,’ she says, her voice decidedly unfriendly, but that’s really to be expected.
‘You’ve not been responding to my texts, Cait, are you OK?’ I ask, keeping things chirpy.
‘I’m having panic attacks,’ she says, with a shrill little emphasis on the word “panic”, as if it needed to be acted out, which it didn’t. I’m actually good with language.
‘Well, until Owen’s arrested, I’m sure you’ll feel a certain degree of anxiety.’
‘About the dead body, Lalla,’ she says loudly.
‘Well, don’t shout about it; it’s quite triggering for me too.’
‘Really? It doesn’t seem so,’ she says.
‘Look, you’re the expert, Cait, and I need your help. Can’t you turn your forensic eye on this case positively? I’ve found a picture of him from the door camera. I wonder if you could do an image search online. I’ve just texted you a screenshot.’
‘And created indelible digital evidence of a murder victim on both our phones. Well done.’
‘Manslaughter. Anyway, I think he might’ve been following me,’ I say. ‘I found an image of him scoping out the house two days before he broke in. And then I remembered seeing him at the school gate.’
