Roses Are Red - Miranda Rijks Page 0,9

bring a glass of water upstairs, so with my thin silk dressing gown wrapped around me, I pad downstairs and into the kitchen. I’m surprised that the lights are still on. Adam is a stickler for switching off lights to conserve electricity, and it’s nearly always his job to switch everything off and lock up before going to bed.

As I’m pouring myself a glass of water from the filter tap, I feel a wisp of cool air despite the warm evening. Frowning, I carry my glass through to the utility room, where it is cooler still. To my surprise, the back door is wide open.

‘Adam,’ I say, standing on the doorstep, wondering if he’s outside. There’s no answer. I shut the door. I’m tempted to lock it, amused at the thought of him being locked out of the house for the night, but deciding that is childish, I leave it unlocked and return upstairs. I wonder if he’s having a secret tryst with Marianne at the bottom of the garden, and then dismiss the thought. I can’t see Marianne, with her delicate kitten heels and coiffured hair, coming around for a quick bonk in the bushes.

I can’t settle. The house is too quiet. It’s strange that I haven’t heard his footsteps or even the normal creaks and groans that our home makes. It’s gone 11.30 p.m., so I decide to check on Adam. I don’t want to have another argument, but I do want to make sure the house is locked up for the night. He could have driven off after his swim, for all I know. With the television on, I may not have heard his car leave.

I tiptoe back downstairs and wander through the darkened living room, expecting to see the light on in his study. It’s in darkness. I turn on the lights, but Adam isn’t there. I open the garage door that connects from the utility room. His Bentley is parked inside.

Perhaps he’s upstairs in the bathroom? I hurry up to the spare bedroom with its en-suite, but both rooms are dark and empty, and his bed is made. It’s me and me alone who has use of the master en-suite and the luxury bathroom with his and hers sinks, a deep bath for me and a walk-in rain shower for Adam, that he hasn’t used for the past four months.

‘Adam!’ I speak quietly so as not to wake the kids.

I then grab the big torch that we keep on the hat stand in the utility room and walk outside. It’s cool and the stars are out. A beautiful night. The floodlights come on as I walk onto the patio, but he’s not out here.

I carry on towards the pool. There are outside lights around the swimming pool, but they have to be switched on inside the pool changing room. We’ve probably only used them three or four times. I’m not keen on swimming. Adam swims most nights during the summer months, so I leave all of the pool maintenance to him.

I shine the torch backwards and forwards across the garden.

‘Adam!’ I say again.

My heart is pumping quite hard. I’m not scared of the dark, but having been brought up in the city, such pitch blackness has taken a lot of getting used to. I freeze when I hear a distant screech. A fox chasing a rabbit, no doubt. Taking a deep breath, I walk to the edge of the pool, still swinging the light backwards and forwards.

There is a scream.

It goes on and on.

Long seconds or perhaps it’s minutes later, I realise where the scream is coming from.

Me.

There is a human body at the bottom of the swimming pool.

Those ghastly green-and-yellow tropical-print swimming shorts are billowing around the slim backside of the man I married nineteen years ago.

Adam.

5

I tug off my dressing gown and I jump in. It’s instinctual. But the light is so low I can’t see him. I dive and dive again, and then I touch him with my foot. In that instant, I know.

It’s too late.

Coughing and spluttering, the chlorine burning the back of my throat, I haul myself out of the pool, and, sobbing, I run across the patio and in through the open utility room door, dripping water across the floor. I rush into the kitchen and grab the phone from its stand. It slips out of my freezing and shaking hand and clatters onto the floor.

I pick it up again and eventually manage to dial 999. I am shaking