‘What aren’t you telling me? You and Joanna looked a bit cosy. I saw you glance at her arse when she bent over.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. This is just another of your attempts to deflect what we’re talking about. Let’s start again. What aren’t you telling me?’
Her shoulders slumped. ‘Look, I’m not hiding anything. We all go back a long way, that’s all. You know that. They’re my friends and I was just looking out for them. I’m worried about Penny. I know she’s done this before but you just never know. She’s not answering my calls at all.’ She couldn’t keep eye contact any longer. She looked away.
‘You’ve been gone nearly two hours!’ Christian grabbed the plant on the windowsill and smashed it against the wall. She flinched and took a step back. This wasn’t like her usually mild-mannered husband, but she’d driven him to it.
He kicked the coffee table, then the door. His dark skin looked blotchy under the eyes. ‘I can’t stand this any more. I stick by you through everything, the moods, the drink problem. You lose your job, I support you. You repay me by lying and hiding things – it’s sending me crazy. Nothing good has ever come from your secretive behaviour. Is there someone else? Huh.’
She shook her head and wiped the tears away.
‘You wouldn’t tell me anyway, would you? You’d let me think I was going mad for years, then I’d find out and then you’d still lie. That’s what you do, over and over again. I’m running on empty here. Just tell me what’s going on.’
She went to speak but then closed her mouth. ‘I can’t.’
‘You can but you won’t. Last chance or we’re done.’
She turned away and stared at the photo of her family all together on the beach during happier times. It was all a lie, she was never happy. She wasn’t capable of being happy.
‘If that’s how you want to play it, you can sleep on the settee.’ He stormed out. Seconds later, a handful of blankets flew down the stairs and landed in a heap.
She exhaled and slumped into a chair. Grabbing her phone, she pressed Marcus’s number. They had to talk and it couldn’t wait. She opened the back door as quietly as possible and headed out of the back gate and down the path. What she had to say couldn’t be overheard.
She glanced up at their bedroom window. The curtains were already closed and the light flickered off. She didn’t know how all this was going to end. All she knew was that she needed to talk right now. If she didn’t, she’d explode and that scared her more than anything.
Chapter Thirty-Two
‘What are you thinking?’ Briggs placed the pizza box on Gina’s kitchen table. She didn’t need him checking on her but given that someone was out to get to her, she appreciated that he’d dropped by.
‘We have Eveline Peterson, her son Alex is murdered. Then we have the stranger in the dark coat at a grave marked with Elsie Peterson’s name. Same surname. Wyre is looking into this. Whatever’s happening seems to be personal in every way. I’ve read the forensics report from the scene. It was pretty fruitless given the awful weather so I’m not holding out any hope at all for anything more substantial to come back.’ She opened the lid on the pizza box and took a slice to bite into, the stringy cheese stretching from box to her chin before snapping. It cloyed against the roof of her mouth. She chewed and chewed, suddenly not wanting to swallow the food. It was as if there was a stopper in her throat.
‘If we’re looking at this being personal, we need to know more about his friends and family. Did you speak to his wife yet?’
She took a gulp of orange juice to force it down and threw the slice of pizza back down. ‘Yes, and now I’m concerned there was more to Mrs Swinton’s story than she’s letting on. Was she the woman at the derelict squat on Beckett Street? The woman apparently said that he’d ruined everything and to shut up. Had he ruined her life by coming back? Mrs Swinton said he hadn’t turned up at the house since coming back. Then I get thinking, the way she describes everything, how he ruined her life at the time when he ran up the debts. Why would she want him to shut up? She seemed