Oh, God, just say it, Jessie wanted to scream. Shouldn’t you be with your boyfriend, working on your relationship? Her mother was sixty: had grown up in a traditional family with father’s role as the breadwinner and mother’s as the housewife clearly demarcated. She had aped that example in her own disastrous marriage and though she professed pride in her daughter’s doctorate, Jessie knew that she’d far rather see her daughter ape that model too: settle down to married life and start producing the next generation, despite the fuck-up that her parents had made of the current generation.
‘Why aren’t you with him, darling?’
‘I was working, Mum, but I’m done now. I’m driving back tomorrow morning.’
Another intake of breath.
‘I’m driving back tomorrow morning,’ she repeated. And she was. She was done here now. She’d accomplished what she had set out to do: asked Carolynn Reynolds to call DI Simmons. Her part in this tragedy was over.
‘He told you that I’ve rearranged the dress fitting for Monday, ten a.m.?’
‘He did.’
‘It’s really the furthest I can push it.’
‘I’ll be there, Mum, I promise—’ She broke off. There was a whole world of things she had planned on saying – that she was looking forward to getting to know Richard better, and his daughter and granddaughters, but most important, that she hoped the wedding would act as a reset button for the two of them. Instead, all she said was, ‘I better go, Mum.’ Why can’t I open up?
‘Were you calling about something specific?’
‘No, nothing specific. Just to say hi.’
‘I’ll look forward to seeing you on Monday then, darling.’
‘Night, Mum.’
The line went dead. Jessie lowered the phone to the bed.
I was just calling to say that I wish everything between us was different. Everything about me was different. That’s all.
33
Carolynn lay rigid in bed as she heard Roger’s footsteps reach the top of the landing, the loose floorboard he had been promising to fix since they moved in, groaning under his weight. Her heart thumping, she waited for the bedroom door to open.
It didn’t. What was he doing on the landing? She had closed the loft hatch, hadn’t she? Put the hooked pole back in the corner of the landing? Now, on the spot, she couldn’t think, couldn’t remember. All she could visualize was the bloated plastic body in that box in the loft, the glassy, horror-film eyes.
Unable to settle, she had paced around the house for what had felt like hours, her heart leaping into her mouth with the sound of every car that drew up at the gates of the caravan park, thinking that it was that vile detective back again, or Roger, that she would have to face him, smile and kiss him, make small talk while his lies and the doll in the loft were clamouring for attention in her brain, grabbing a vice-like hold of her thoughts.
You were at home and I was at work when that girl was killed.
He hadn’t been at work.
You must have lost the necklace somewhere around the house.
She hadn’t lost it. The accusation was ridiculous. The house was spotless, a sterile mausoleum. She could close her eyes and visualize every square centimetre.
She had finally looked at her watch – ten p.m. Too late to leave now, she had nowhere to go. She’d leave in the morning, as soon as he left for work. When they’d lived in London together as a couple, before, when they’d called themselves DINKYs – Dual Income No Kids Yet – Roger had liked to choose what she wore to dinners out or parties. He liked her to look nice, to make him proud. She would have preferred to choose her own clothes – she wasn’t a child – but the fact he cared so much had made her feel loved and so she’d let him. So many people weren’t loved, weren’t wanted. She hadn’t been, as a child, and she had been determined that her adulthood would be different, that she would be adored.
Nowadays, they never went anywhere and he had no cause to open her cupboard, showed no interest in what she looked like. His only interest lay in keeping her calm. That was how he demonstrated his love nowadays, by moderating her alcohol intake and feeding her pills.
Light from the landing washed over Carolynn suddenly as the bedroom door opened. Eyes jammed shut, corpse-like in her stillness, she listened to him move around their bedroom, removing his clothes, laying them on the chair, every movement, every sound so familiar. She tried to soften her breathing to the regular timbre of a sleeper, but each breath caught in her throat, meeting the air in a stressed, hosing gasp.
The tilt of the mattress as he sat on the edge of the bed, a chill puff as he lifted the duvet and slid in next to her. Would he touch her? She wasn’t sure she could bear it if he did.
The lies.
The dolls.
The necklace.
Tomorrow was a Saturday. Oh God, she hadn’t thought. Roger wouldn’t be going to work tomorrow. Wouldn’t even be pretending. She only had one choice now. To wait until he was asleep and leave. It was her only chance to escape.
34
The woman who opened the door matched to perfection Marilyn’s image of the archetypical seaside bed and breakfast owner: early-sixties, coiffured hair highlighted in honeyed shades and set immovably; orange foundation caked into skin overly lined from too much exposure to the sun and wind.
‘I’m looking for Dr Jessica Flynn,’ Marilyn said.
Her expression shifted from one of welcome to one of suspicion. Tilting her head, she gazed at him through narrowed, powder-blue-lidded eyes.
‘I don’t have any guests by that name.’
Marilyn held up his warrant card, indicated with his other hand Jessie’s mini parked on the drive behind him. The woman’s mouth popped open, a fish gasping for its last breath.
‘I’ll wait for her on the beach.’ Sliding his warrant card into his pocket, Marilyn crunched back up the
