The Vow - Debbie Howells Page 0,62

allegedly leaving you for.’

‘That was where I had to draw the line.’ But I shake my head slowly, because I don’t think he gets it. Not everyone knows how many kinds of love there really are. I know his kind – the kind that comes with conditions. A one-sided trade-off – I love you as long as you meet my expectations of what love should be. ‘Have you ever loved someone so totally that you’d do anything for them?’

The look of bewilderment crossing his face, as he shakes his head, tells me he hasn’t. But I hadn’t either. It was only when Matt and I met that everything changed. And changed again, when he betrayed me. ‘That’s how it was,’ I say briefly. ‘But not now.’

‘And you have no idea who might have sent you those flowers?’ Andrew Nelson has an expression of distaste on his face.

I shake my head. ‘I can’t think of anyone.’ Then I’m thinking of the blood again. ‘It was horrible.’ My voice is suddenly quiet. ‘The flowers, I mean. To think it was human blood, too.’ Possibly Matt’s. I fix my eyes on Andrew Nelson. ‘You have to find out what evidence they have against me.’

*

The interview is terminated early when PC Page gets called away to a traffic accident. It’s then that I realise I might be spending a night here. I wonder if the police are at my house – what they’re looking for, what they’ve found. If they’re searching through drawers and cupboards, rifling through private messages on my phone. Having never bothered to lock it, I’ve made it easy for them. Then I think of the garden. The flowers and herbs I’ve nurtured, knowing the police won’t care if they damage them.

Exhausted, every fibre of my being craves a hot bath, the comfort of my own bed, while I try to stem the relentless flow of thoughts through my mind, imagining what evidence the police have. Lying back on the narrow bed, I gaze at the ceiling.

Slowly I’m realising how much has changed since Matt went missing. At the start, if he’d come back, even if I’d had the chance, I wouldn’t have confronted him. Already that seems unbelievable, but the Amy I used to be would still have been holding on to everything we’d dreamed of, terrified of losing it. Only now he’s gone can I admit the truth, if only to myself, about the other side of Matt. One I don’t like to think about. One I’ve never talked about, to anyone.

1996

Your efforts were futile, because there was no-one else for Kimberley or Charlie. They wanted to live together, wherever that was going to be. Forever. You didn’t know they were planning to go to the same uni, that they wanted to live in a modern apartment in Brighton or a warehouse flat in London. They had it all mapped out. Holidays around the world, three kids. They’d work hard, then retire early while they were still young enough to live.

But they could never have told you that. They knew how you felt, though, your jealousy a noxious, foetid cloud that followed you, its odour pervading everything that surrounded you. You couldn’t bear that Kimberley loved Charlie. Not when you wanted him for yourself. But you didn’t love him. People like you don’t love. It was about possession. Obsession. Control.

It consumed you, didn’t it? While the plan in your head grew bolder. Enough for you to commit one deadly act that tipped the scales, consciousness becoming intoxicated, innocence turning to evil, as you stopped at nothing; destroying a life you decided was simply dispensable.

Starting a ripple effect that even now, hasn’t stopped.

Jess

When I open my bedsit door and see Cath standing there, I instantly know something’s wrong. ‘Oh God.’ My heart misses a beat as I start to panic. ‘What’s happened? Where’s Mum?’

Cath’s voice is low. ‘Let me come in, hun.’

‘You have to tell me.’ Fearing the worst, my voice is hysterical, my head filled with all kinds of terrible scenarios.

Squeezing past me and closing the door, she turns to face me, both her hands grasping my arms. ‘Listen, Jess. Your mum’s OK. But the police have arrested her.’ She pauses. ‘In connection with Matt’s disappearance.’

Shocked into silence, my mind is racing as I shake my head. ‘No.’ I stare at Cath. There’s been a mistake. It can’t be happening, not to my mother. ‘When? Where is she?’

‘I don’t know any details. She has a lawyer, but the police