but it’s frozen on his face. He’s still holding the knife he was chopping the peppers with.
‘Do you know?’ I ask, looking up at him.
‘Know what?’
‘That he’s dead – the guy you punched.’
He takes a deep breath, then nods, slowly. ‘Yeah, I know. It was on the news this morning…’
I gasp. ‘I only just saw it. You have to call the police.’
‘I can’t. Hannah, you have to understand – I’d lose everything – including you.’
‘You’ve already lost me,’ I say.
‘No, I haven’t. I need to work it out, but just give me some time. As soon as I knew I called the cottage company and booked the cottage for another two weeks. In a different name.’ Then he looks at me with such a strange expression. ‘Please tell me you haven’t told that idiot friend of yours where we are.’
‘No, I haven’t,’ I lie. ‘But we can’t hide here. We need to call the police.’
‘We can’t – we just need to lie low and it’ll all die down… No one knows it was me, we left before anyone else turned up. Hannah, we can have Christmas here,’ he says excitedly, as if nothing’s happened.
‘Alex, are you out of your mind? You’re talking about Christmas – a man is dead, you killed him. This is something you can’t hide from, the police will find you.’
‘It’s okay, don’t worry. If they do ever find me, I’ll say I hit him because he was trying to assault you. I saved you, and you can vouch for me, say how scared you were – you could even say he roughed you up a bit. Then we’ll say you were so distressed I had to get you away from the scene.’ He says this like he’s reading a well-prepared script. ‘But it’s an outside chance that anyone will ever know it was me,’ he says, holding out his hands as if he’s waiting for me to congratulate him on his story.
‘Whoa, hang on,’ I say, standing up. ‘That’s all lies and you know it.’
He lifts both hands as if to calm me down, but given he’s got a kitchen knife in one of them it’s having the opposite effect. I don’t dare take my eyes off it as he talks to me slowly, as if I’m a child who doesn’t understand.
‘Hannah, listen to me, we have to keep to the story here – and if we say it was done in self-defence, everything will be fine. I’ll get away with it.’
‘But it’s lying, Alex, it’s perjury – we have to tell the truth. You didn’t mean to kill him, it was an accident.’
‘It’s not a solution,’ he says, beginning to pace the floor. They’ll do me for manslaughter. I’ll still be locked up for years. I won’t see you, I won’t be able to look after you,’ he says, sounding like a child who’s about to lose his favourite toy. ‘Someone might take you away from me, or you might leave me.’
I get up from the floor where I’ve been sitting by the fire, and sit down on the sofa. When I’m sure he’s not looking, I reach under the seat cushion, keeping my eyes on the glint of knife still in his hand.
‘You’re not going to leave me, are you, Hannah?’ he says, alarmed, as he suddenly stops pacing and turns to me.
‘I… No, no I’m not,’ I say, discreetly retrieving the keys while still keeping my eyes on the knife – it’s down by his thigh. He’s twisting it with his fingers, and I’m only too aware that one swift movement, one wrong word – and the knife could be in my chest.
I have the front door keys in the palm of my hand, but he’s watching me intently.
Suddenly a buzzer goes off in the kitchen, making us both jump.
‘The pasta,’ he murmurs almost to himself and turns away for a split second.
I see my chance, and make a mad dash for the door. I push the key in hard, it’s stiff, and takes all my strength to turn it and then heave the wooden door open. I can’t believe I did it, and I’m yelping as I get through the door. But Alex is shouting my name and running towards me. Just as he gets to me and tries to grab me, I slam the door in his face – hard. I hear him shout out in surprise and pain, but I’m already running through biting wind in slippers and a thin