crack this bastard case.’
He left the room and closed the door.
‘Thank god,’ she thought, before pulling out the hip-flask, and taking what she told herself would be the last taste of the day, or at least of the morning.
26
Natalie rang the door-bell and took a step back on the front porch. She looked around behind her, there was nothing going on in this leafy, upmarket, residential city street. The door opened, and Tanya Reynolds was slightly taken aback to find Natalie on her doorstep.
‘Natalie? Oh my god, it’s been ages!’ said the heavily pregnant wife of David.
David was out, at some sports event he had mentioned to Natalie, and she was ballsy enough to exploit his absence.
‘Yeah, I know, I bumped into David yesterday and he told me the good news,’ replied Natalie, gesturing to Tanya’s swollen body and pulling a bottle of sparkling wine from behind her back. ‘Of course, it’s alcohol-free, but I thought we should celebrate and catch up. If it’s not a bad time, you’re not resting?’
David’s prostitute was invited into the family home. Natalie really had no difficulty being a two-faced bitch.
Tanya opened the bottle of sparkling, non-alcoholic wine with a pop, excitedly poured two glasses and sat down next to Natalie in the front room. They gave a toast to the health of the baby, and took a sip from their glasses. Natalie hid her disgust of the taste; she really wasn’t used to drinking wine unless it was the expensive stuff that Mr Money or one of the other high-flyers would sometimes ply her with, but she knew this was not a good bottle, even for a non-alcoholic.
Tanya spent twenty minutes or so explaining how excited she and David were about becoming parents, how she stopped work around a year ago as David said she was better than the hairdresser she used to be, and also that actually, Natalie was the first visitor that she’d had for quite a while.
Natalie tried hard to pay attention as Tanya gave her what was feeling a lot like a whole life story. The truth was that Natalie had no time for Tanya.
She didn’t blame David for marrying her, Tanya was hot. Not just good looking, or beautiful, but smoking- hot. She would have no trouble becoming a model, even breaking into television with the looks she’d been blessed with, but she had no self-esteem, zero. And she wasn’t very intelligent, either.
David had always loved to show her off when they both started dating, but then the boys-club began to mock him about how slow his girlfriend was, and the women all found it hard to converse with her on an adult level. She knew about hairdressing and celebrities, and she wanted babies; not the same topics of interest for the money hungry, back stabbing bitches of the city, the type that the up-and-coming rich-boys would normally be seen with.
So David kept her at home, starting a family to keep her happy, and he would have the most gorgeous wife on his arm if there was ever an occasion for him to show her off in the right crowd, or for the occasional photograph.
Natalie could sense Tanya was coming to the end of her situation update, now was her chance to do what she had gone there for.
‘You see, Tanya, the real reason I’m here,’ said Natalie, ‘is… I don’t know exactly how to say this.’
Tanya’s face was now one of concern.
‘What is it?’ said Tanya. ‘Natalie, is it Ben? What’s wrong?’
Natalie edged her way closer to Tanya on the sofa.
‘I think,’ she said, looking into Tanya’s eyes, ‘I think I may be pregnant.’
A smile instantly appeared from ear to ear on Tanya’s face. ‘Congratulations!’ She threw her arms around Natalie, who calmly eased her way out of the unwanted hug and told Tanya to calm down.
Natalie explained that it must be early days, if she was pregnant, as she was late on her period by two weeks and had felt a little sick for a few days now. She explained that the real reason she was here was to ask about all the symptoms she should expect at the start of the pregnancy, from someone who has gone through it and what she should do. She claimed she hadn’t yet done the test to confirm as she wanted to do it with Ben.
Tanya couldn’t hide her excitement, and told her all about the first few months of her own pregnancy; the pain in her breasts, the morning sickness that struck in the evening not in the morning and even though she had wanted a baby for years, the hormone changes in her body had given her mood swings that were just awful; happy, depressed, tearful, happy again.
Tanya recommended a digital pregnancy test, one that was brand new to the market when she had needed one herself, as it was the most efficient and gave the least false-positive results of all the brands. She noticed that Natalie had a blank look on her face.
‘You know what, wait here,’ said Tanya, before wobbling out of the room and up the stairs.
Natalie had never in her life shown any interest in babies or pregnant women. What she did have an interest in was herself, looking after herself, and manipulating others into making her life easier, better or more exciting. She was a devious, self-serving bitch, who was soaking up all the information that Tanya offered to her, preparing the biggest con she had ever attempted. Even for a woman like Natalie, when conning someone, a bit of luck was always welcome. And then it walked in through the front room door.
Tanya sat back down next to her guest and held out the digital pregnancy test she had not only talked about, but the one she had used all those months ago when she first discovered she was expecting, still with the word pregnant on the result screen. Natalie knew within seconds that she would be leaving with it tonight in her bag.
And with Tanya being as simple and naive as she was, all it took was Natalie to play dumb, claim she was useless with names of products, and how much easier it would be if she could take it and show the chemist what she wanted, and it was done. The pregnancy test was put into a clear, plastic sandwich bag and then into Natalie’s handbag.
Natalie would still practise acting pregnant for when in front of Ben; the sympathy vote would definitely help them to re-establish their relationship on an ‘affectionate’ level, but with the help of a piece of kit that declares she is one hundred per cent pregnant, he couldn’t deny that they have some sort of future together. Unless, of course, he didn’t believe he was the father, but Natalie already had a strong argument for that one planned already.
The sound of the front door opening was Natalie’s cue to leave.
She stood and thanked Tanya for her help, and asked her to keep the pregnancy to herself for the time being. David walked into the front room, dressed in sports gear from his squash game, and stopped on the spot when he saw the Natalie stood in front of his wife. He didn’t say a word.
‘Natalie was just here to say congratulations for our little bundle of joy,’ said Tanya, happily patting the bump of her belly. ‘She’s just leaving.’
From the atmosphere, David concluded that he wasn’t in the shit.
‘Hi Nat,’ said David, struggling to hide his awkwardness in the situation, ‘I’ll, erm, I’ll walk you to your car.’
Natalie walked past David and out of the front door, he followed closely behind and when a good distance from his home, and more importantly from his wife inside, grabbed her by the arm and spun her around to face him.
‘What the fuck are you doing here?’ he said, anger reddening his face. ‘I’m sorry things went sour the other day when Ben came home, but that wasn’t my fault.’
Natalie pulled her arm loose from David’s grip and stared hard into his eyes.
‘Don’t ever grab me like that again,’ she said, before adding cockily, ‘unless I’m on the clock.’
She turned and walked to her car.
‘You stay away from my wife!’ shouted David, kicking himself for raising his voice so close to home.
Natalie smiled at him as she pulled away down the road.
