Dad looks over at me now and pats my hand. Tilly’s lips tighten. “All OK?” he asks, and I beam at him, nod.
“More than OK. This is delicious, Tilly.”
Tilly replies with a thin-lipped smile. One of the children—I suppose they’re my sisters, though they don’t feel like it—looks up at me with wide eyes. “I heard that you were going out with someone who killed his wife, is that right?”
Tilly splutters across the table. “Where did you hear that?”
But I put on my best child-facing smile, roll back my sleeve farther, and show her the scar. Still angry and red, after all this time. “Yes. He was a very bad man. But—fingers crossed—he’s going to go to prison for a very,verylong time.”
Jack is a bad man. There’s no doubt in my mind about that. That’s why I don’t have an issue with pinning Alice’s murder on him. When Jack said it was his fault that she died, I can only assume he meant figuratively.
Because I was very much there when she went over the edge of that bridge and plunged into the water below. Like Jack, I’ve also found pushing to be an effective way of killing someone.
Freddie always left his phone on the desk when he went into meetings. I knew his passcode; he’d never made any effort to hide it, and one afternoon I slipped the phone away and took it to the loo with me. I only wanted to see why he hadn’t been replying to my messages. I wanted to get a steer on how he was feeling. But what I discovered made me feel sick. Hundreds of messages in his phone from a woman named “A,” talking about plans, recent meet-ups, proposed hotel visits. It felt seedy. Some of them were quite explicit. I continued to scroll, and my nausea built.
All I had to do was wait on his street on the date of their nextproposed meet-up. I’d been doing it enough that by now it felt like second nature to me. I watched them enter the flat that felt like mine. They were all over each other before they were even through the door. An hour later, she came out again, fixing her hair. Freddie stood in the doorway, watching her leave. He blew a kiss and shouted at her retreating back: “Only a couple more days and you’ll be able to stay for good. I love you.”
She laughed, gave him one final wave, and started to walk down the dark street. I hated her. This woman who had taken Freddie’s love and made it her own. She was very elegant, I realized as I followed her. A willowy grace about her. Perhaps it was that she was so thin. So thin that when she turned onto a badly lit bridge, when I made my move, rushing up behind her and shoving her hard, she barely made a splash. When I brought my hands back, I realized that the chain of her necklace had become tangled in my fingers. I got the clasp fixed at a tiny repair shop that only took cash. I kept it in the box of Freddie’s things as a reminder of why I was better off without him.
Imagine my surprise, then, when I saw Alice’s picture at the grief group, and I realized what the “A” stood for. When I realized that she was the person who, not six months before, I had watched struggle against the current. Naively, I’d chalked it up to coincidence. Some cosmic joke. Another mistake. But coincidences like that, I’ve learned, are rare.
It was almost like I’d known it was hers, though, when I’d paired it with Alice’s clothes. I pretended to Serena that it was another item Jack had thrust on me. I couldn’t have foreseen how it would ultimately save me from him.
In a way, I suppose it was a kindness. Jack would never have let her leave that house alive. And they do say that drowning is a nice way to go.
I’m seeing someone new now. He’s a policeman—one of the men who helped me into the ambulance once I came round after Jack’s brutal attack. Men do love to play the hero. His name is Will, and he isutterly in awe of me. I’ve started popping in with little updates from the police, ostensibly so I can keep track of Jack’s case, but mainly so I can see him. I’ve already learned his shift patterns.
I’m back working with Mick, too. He was so glad to see me—he’d heard about everything I’d gone through and is deliciously understanding about it. I’ll look for something new as soon as the sympathy dries up, but for now I’m enjoying it.
I help myself to another portion of roast potatoes and reach for the gravy, but not before one of the children knocks my hand and the contents of the jug spill everywhere. It burns me, and I snatch my hand back as Tilly apologizes, though I can tell it’s not genuine.
I fake my own smile and assure them it’s fine, but it’s really not.
Dad chuckles at their antics, and my thoughts stiffen into something darker. I’ve only just got him back, and I want him all to myself. Tilly and the children are mere distractions. I smile sweetly at the three of them, though inside I harden.
I’ve never been very good at sharing.
