though our lives couldn’t be more different. She’s still the person I rely on the most. Especially now.
It is Detective Constable White who is our main liaison and the person who updates me on the post-mortem. Initial thoughts are that Adam had a massive heart attack, that there was nothing I, or anyone else, could have done to save him. It doesn’t make sense, though. Adam was fit and extremely health conscious. He had an annual check-up, which he paid for privately, and every year he would return home and tell me smugly that he had the heart function of someone half his age. These things happen, apparently. Sudden unexplained death.
It doesn’t seem right that the weather should be so glorious, that the sun shines brightly all day, and that the one place we should be is outside, enjoying our glorious garden. I wonder if I will ever sit in it again. I can’t look at the swimming pool, and the thought of ever swimming in it makes me shudder. I think I’ll drain the pool and get it covered over.
On the third morning after Adam’s death, Mia arrives at breakfast dressed in her school uniform.
‘Isn’t it too soon to go to school?’ I ask, rubbing my eyes, which feel heavy after my sleeping-pill-induced sleep. I thought she might be relieved to miss her end-of-year exams.
‘I can’t sit around here all day. I’m taking my GCSEs next summer. Dad would want me to do well.’ She sniffs and lifts her head in the air. I wonder how she can be so brave when all I want to do is crumble into little pieces and awaken from this nightmare in several months’ time.
‘I’ll take her to school,’ Cassie says as she fills up the dishwasher with our dirty plates.
‘I don’t want to go,’ Oliver says. I’m not sure that he has changed out of his pyjamas during the past three days.
‘You don’t have to.’ I loop my arm around him and pull him towards me. ‘If you don’t return until next term, that’s fine, too.’ There is less than a fortnight until the end of the summer term.
I have sent Cassie home. She has taken three days off work to be with me, and as she’s a primary school teacher, she hates taking time off and letting down her pupils. Although I wish she would stay permanently, it’s not fair on her. She has been the most incredible friend. Without Cassie, it means that I have to answer the doorbell when it rings.
I hesitate. I don’t want further bad news or to have to explain my grief to a well-meaning neighbour. But when the doorbell rings for the second time, I take a deep breath and open it.
‘Oh, thank goodness it’s you,’ I say, relieved that it’s only Ajay. We spoke briefly on the phone two days ago, but this is the first time I’ve seen him since Adam died.
‘Lydia, I’m so sorry.’ He flings his arms around me. ‘Marianne and I are deeply shocked and upset. How are you doing?’
I freeze, rigid in his arms. Marianne. Of course she’s distraught; she’s lost her lover. I wonder if she’s told Ajay, but I suppose not. Why would she? There’s no need to upset the apple cart now, because she won’t be leaving her husband for Adam.
Ajay releases his grip on me, and I step backwards, still blocking the doorway. For a moment, I think about how I want to hurt Marianne, to destroy her life in the way she destroyed mine. But then I change my mind. At least I can grieve openly. She will have to keep her pain under wraps.
Then I change my mind yet again. Marianne is not deserving of my pity. She is a liar and a cheat.
‘Lydia?’ Ajay peers at me.
‘Sorry, sorry. Come in.’ I step back to let him in through the front door.
As Ajay stands in the hallway, waiting for me to close the door, I notice that he is holding a box full of papers. I have given work barely a second’s thought.
‘I hope you don’t mind me turning up unannounced, but I assumed you wouldn’t be answering the phone.’
I frown. That’s a strange assumption. I am answering the phone, or at least Cassie was. Ajay and I spoke on the phone the day after Adam’s death, but I have no recollection as to what was said.
‘There are a few urgent things we need to discuss, not least insurance.’ He follows me through