Roses Are Red - Miranda Rijks Page 0,100

but she comes closer, the blade of the knife nicking the skin on the side of my neck.

‘You’ll be jailed for life, Fiona. This is crazy. Let’s talk it through.’

‘Shut up! Put your hands on top of your head.’

I do as she says. The pupils in her eyes are little pinpricks. She’s holding the knife’s handle with both hands, and to my dismay, it’s not even wavering.

‘Please don’t kill me here,’ I beg. ‘Please don’t let the children find me here in their kitchen. They’ve already lost their father. Please!’

She laughs again. That spine-chilling cackle. And then the most horrific thought hits me. Was she lying when she said the children were upstairs? Are they even alive? Has she butchered them?

She pushes the tip of the blade a little further into my neck and I gasp. It stings and I can feel droplets of blood dripping down my neck.

‘Get up!’ I do as she says, slowly.

‘Take one step forwards and keep your hands on top of your head.’

She kicks the chair away and now I can feel the blade in the back of my neck. ‘Walk forwards, slowly. The slightest move out of line, I will stab this knife into your jugular and leave you to bleed out on your kitchen floor. Understood?’

‘Yes,’ I say under my breath. I walk very slowly, one gentle step at a time. Where is she taking me? I try to glance from side to side, looking at my kitchen, the navy-blue painted island unit, the cream cupboards, the warm oak beams. This house that I thought would protect my little family. I pray. Please God, look after Mia and Oliver. Protect them. Please.

‘Stand still,’ she says when I am one step away from the back door.

I think of all of those crime programmes on television. Keep them talking. Keep them talking. But my brain is empty. What the hell should I say?

‘Did your husband really die?’ I ask, after what seems like a chasm of time.

‘The only man who will ever be my husband is Patrick.’

‘And his sister, Sandra.’

‘There is no sister!’

‘But he repaid me the money!’

‘This was all planned, Lydia. We gained your trust, and you believed what you wanted to believe. The ring on your finger.’

‘What about it?’

‘It’s cubic zirconia. You don’t think we’d waste good money on a bloody diamond, do you? The same for those earrings. But he shouldn’t have taken you to Le Goût de L’époque. That was our special restaurant.’

‘The wedding?’

‘A sham. It was legal all right. It had to be; otherwise Patrick can’t inherit your obscene wealth, the money that should have been his.’

‘And Graham, the witness at our wedding?’

‘A not-very-good actor, from what I heard.’

‘But Patrick took me to his flat. There was nothing there to suggest you live together.’

‘That’s not our flat! If only. It was an Airbnb. Patrick and I live together in Crawley. We have done for years. You have no idea how much I have sacrificed to allow him to gain what is rightfully his. I did that because I love him.’ Her voice is choked with emotion, and for one ridiculous second I feel pity for her. How difficult it must have been for her to watch me with Patrick.

‘Can you imagine what it’s like to know that your soulmate is sharing a bed with someone you hate? I knew he was sacrificing himself for us both, pretending to find you attractive.’

‘No!’ I say. ‘You can’t fake that. You can’t!’

I am not sure who is shaking more. Me or her. Although I can accept it was largely an act, there was undoubtedly an attraction between Patrick and me. Surely that’s something you just can’t pretend? But now I feel a stomach-curdling disgust. I have been used and abused in the basest way.

She pushes me, her hand hard on my back, and I stumble forwards, my right knee slamming into our pale limestone floor. I know that she is going to plunge the knife into my back now that I am on the ground. Despite the searing pain in my knee, I need to haul myself back up. But there is an almighty crashing sound.

Someone else is here.

A scream. Not me.

Fiona collapses onto the stone floor next to me, her skull making a cracking noise as her head bounces backwards. The knife flies out of her hand and clatters, skidding under the table.

‘Mum!’ Mia screams, over and over again. ‘Mum! Mum!’

She is holding my Le Creuset saucepan, the cast-iron blue one with