When She Was Bad(31)

‘Ya can’t imagine, can ya?’

Sergeant Cavanagh was standing so close to me I could feel the heat coming off his bulky body. I shook my head.

‘They just seemed like everyone else. That’s what the neighbours say and the teachers and the guys at the realtors where he headed up the billing department.’

Like they ought to have had crosses on their foreheads or horns or someone walking in front of them ringing a huge bell. But of course I didn’t say any of that.

We wandered into the kitchen, a large but curiously sterile room. The family had clearly been disturbed mid-breakfast by the police arriving, but even so the dishes left out on the table were orderly, no smears of strawberry jelly across plates, no crumbs on the polished wood surface. A cupboard was open as if someone had been in the act of retrieving something. Inside, the cans and jars were neatly arranged in height order, their labels uniformly facing out. The only outward sign of family life was a notice pinned to the refrigerator door by four round black magnets. It was immaculately typed and laid out as a table. When I got closer I saw that down one side were the days of the week and across the bottom were the initials N, P and L. Across the top, the words FEEDING SCHEDULE were typed in bold capitals and underlined.

‘Doesn’t look like the kind of household to have a pet,’ I remarked.

Sergeant Cavanagh made a snorting sound through his flattened nose.

‘There’s no pet,’ he said.

The dawning of truth was as sudden as it was sickening.





17

Amira



‘So you’d like me to consider you for the job?’

Rachel had one eyebrow raised in a gesture that instantly infuriated Amira, but she took a deep breath and tried to keep her voice neutral.

‘Yes, please.’

She still couldn’t quite believe she was doing this. Right up until a few seconds before, she’d been telling herself she could still change her mind. She could pretend she’d had another reason for requesting a few minutes with the new boss – booking holiday leave, asking for clarification on the new catering contract. Even when she opened her mouth she’d been half expecting something else to come out of it. Instead she found herself saying that she was, after all, interested in the deputy position. She hadn’t said the phrase ‘Paula’s job’, but they both knew that’s what they were talking about. Now everything inside her was screaming ‘traitor’.

It was all Tom’s fault.

When she’d come home on the day Rachel had sounded her out about being her deputy, she’d still been bristling with outrage, but instead of backing her up, Tom had been non-communicative and almost sullen. All evening it had been as if a dark cloud was shadowing him around the flat, and finally when they were in bed, she’d snapped.

‘What?’ she’d asked.

‘What do you mean, “what?”’

‘What’s up with you. You’ve had a face like a slapped arse all night. What have I done wrong now?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Bollocks.’

‘OK. If you must know, it pisses me off that I’ve got to go into work every day doing a job I hate, just so we can pay the mortgage on this place – that you talked me into, don’t forget – and even then it’s not enough. Do you know, I lie awake some nights just eaten up with worry about how much money we owe and how we’re ever going to keep up with all the bills and the Council Tax and the water – who knew you had to pay for water, for chrissakes – and everything else. And then you come home and say you’ve been offered a chance of a pay rise but your superior moral code won’t allow you to consider it.’

It had all come out in a rush of words, as if they’d been building up inside him until they had to burst free. They’d had a big row then, which had ended with her telling him that if it wasn’t for her he’d have wound up in ten or fifteen years just another middle-aged failed musician with nothing to show for himself.

The next day she’d felt awful and wished the words unsaid. Not that there wasn’t some truth in them, but she knew she hadn’t been kind, had said them just to hurt him. Worse than that, she knew he had a point. She had pushed to get the mortgage despite knowing they’d be financially overstretching themselves. Did she really have the right to turn down the chance of some extra cash just out of a sense of loyalty? Mightn’t loyalty be a luxury she couldn’t afford, especially in light of the store-card debts she’d run up that Tom had no idea even existed. In the end she’d apologized to him and promised to think about it.

‘It’s not as if Paula would ever know,’ he’d told her. ‘You could make it a condition of taking the post – that it has to look as if you were appointed after Paula left.’