I was in the living room and Ruby in the kitchen by then, giving brief statements. I told the officer I was pregnant and he hurried to make me some hot, sweet tea. I had to force myself to drink it and when I was sick they thought it was because Tom had died.
Ruby looked to be in shock when she came back into the living room; her face was so pale I thought she’d faint. She looked at me as though she hardly recognized me, which wasn’t surprising, really, but while we waited for the undertaker to arrive she let me sit next to her and hold her. After Tom was taken away, the police locked up the house and kept the keys. They said she could have them back in a few days and she seemed too stunned to respond. We stood outside the house afterward. Our cars were parked next to each other and we sat in her car for a while, neither of us knowing what to do. We swapped numbers, just as though we were normal people, as though we didn’t have this history between us. As though we hadn’t slept with each other’s husbands and covered up the death of hers. She was going back to her flat, she said. It seemed like she had no one she could call on. Nobody she could talk to. It was exactly the same for me.
It was two weeks before I heard from her again.
* * *
? ? ?
She sent me a message early one Friday morning, two weeks after Tom died. I was taking a long weekend so I was at home on my own; Harry had gone in to work. Had she known that? I was just trying on my new yoga pants; there was a pregnancy yoga session on at the gym in town that morning and I thought I’d give it a go. I had every intention of being one of those lithe and relaxed yummy mummies that you see on adverts. And yes, when I put them on I thought of Ruby and me in our fictional yoga class, but then she was always on my mind.
When I saw the message: Hi, it’s me. Are you free for a chat? my knees were suddenly so weak I had to sit down on the bed. Had something happened? Was she going to warn me that the police would call?
I took a deep breath. If they were going to contact me, I needed to know. I started to type Has anyone suspected anything? and realized how that might look if our messages were ever seen, so changed it to a chatty, Hi, how are you?
She must have assumed I was being friendly. Immediately she replied: Fine, thanks. Just thought a coffee would be good.
Oh, decisions, decisions. I could bend my tired body into downward dog while awaiting the treat of a wheatgrass smoothie. On the other hand I could face my husband’s mistress—or was that my lover’s widow?—and talk about how we’d collaborated in concealing the way he died. It was a hard choice but eventually I replied:
I’ll be at the Oval Café at 11.
CHAPTER 72
Emma
I got there early and sat with a glass of water in the corner at the back of the café. There were just enough people there so that we wouldn’t be noticed, but not enough that anyone would have to sit near us. The French windows were open and most people had spilled outside onto the small terrace. At the counter there was a wide array of cakes and normally I would’ve made the most of them, but that day my stomach was clenched and I couldn’t have eaten a thing. I saw a little black car drive up the street, then slow down and park. I recognized it immediately. It had been parked outside their house that afternoon, two weeks ago.
My stomach tightened further as she climbed out of the car. It was as though I was seeing her for the first time. My competitor. The woman who’d been having an affair with my husband. She looked younger than I remembered, more like the old photo I’d seen on their mantelpiece, the one where Tom’s son was young. Her hair was wavy now and I