The Magpies A Psychological Thriller - By Mark Edwards Page 0,91

Good idea.’ He turned and walked away.

As Jamie stepped into the lift there was an announcement over the tannoy system. ‘Can all members of staff report to the board room on Floor C for an important meeting. I repeat, can all members of staff …’ Jamie stopped listening. The lift reached the ground floor and he walked out to his car. He was going to go home to his wife.

He got back to the flat and said Kirsty’s name as he opened the front door. He noticed that the door to the nursery was still closed. He wondered if she had been in there. He couldn’t bear to. He didn’t want to see the cot and the mobiles and the piles of tiny clothes. People always said that you couldn’t miss what you’d never had. What crap that was. What bullshit.

Kirsty was in the living room, ironing her nurse’s uniform. The TV was on. Some abysmal American talk show. Two women were arguing over an astonishingly ugly man whose face appeared to be sprouting sharp pieces of metal. Jamie turned the volume down.

‘What are you doing?’ he said.

‘Ironing my uniform.’

‘I can see that. But why are you doing it?’

‘Because I’m going into work tomorrow.’

‘Kirsty, it’s too soon. You should rest. Isn’t that what the doctors told you to do?’

She stopped moving. Jamie could see how stiff her shoulders were. She was tensed up like she was afraid the world intended to hurt her. A single tear rolled down her face and landed on the blouse she was ironing.

‘I can’t stay at home. If I stay at home I’ll have nothing to distract me. And I’ll know that they are close by.’ Her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘Listening to me.’ She looked up. ‘I have to get out of here, Jamie. We’re going to put this place on the market. You can go into town tomorrow and do it, OK? We have to get out. I don’t want to live above them any more.’

‘But…’

‘No protests, please. I’m too tired to argue.’

‘OK. But shit, Kirsty, your uniform!’

She had been holding the iron down on it while they were talking, and now it had started to smoke. She pulled the iron away and a cloud of pale smoke rose upwards, making her cough.

‘Oh fuck.’

She picked up the blouse and studied it. There was a brown scorch mark where she had burnt it. She held it against her face and began to cry. Jamie came around to her side of the ironing board, unplugged the iron and put his arms around her. They sat on the sofa and cried together for the first time since the accident. They sat there until it grew dark outside.

Jamie stood up and fetched a bottle of wine from the fridge. They both needed alcohol, to numb the pain, if only for one evening. Kirsty sat with her head on Jamie’s shoulder, her feet curled under her. She kept touching her belly, as if she was testing to see if it was really true, if it had really happened.

‘You will go to the estate agent tomorrow, won’t you?’ she said.

‘Yes.’

‘There’s no point trying to fight them, Jamie, you do know that, don’t you? We’ve already lost. And I just want to get away, start again somewhere else. We’ll buy a house, somewhere quiet. Outside London. You can commute. I’ll get a transfer. We’ll be OK.’

He nodded and kissed her forehead.

‘I take it the police weren’t interested,’ she said. There was so much weariness in her voice. Jamie wondered if she had taken anything: sleeping pills, tranquillizers, downers. He wouldn’t be surprised if she had.

‘They weren’t interested at all. “Just an accident, sir.” That was their line.’

‘That’s what I thought they’d say.’

They were quiet for a while. The TV was still flickering away silently. There was some kids’ programme on now: humanoid puppets in primary colours, dancing around. Jamie found them quite creepy with their mock-human gestures and huge, unblinking eyes. He looked away.

They finished the wine and Kirsty said that she was going to take a bath. Jamie ran it for her, adding loads of bath oil and lighting scented candles around the perimeter of the bath.

‘Can you leave me alone?’ Kirsty said as she stepped into the warm water.

‘Really?’

‘I’m not going to drown myself, Jamie. I just want to lie here in peace for a while.’

‘Okay.’

He went back into the living room and put the ironing board away. The wine was all gone so he opened a