Her brain swirled and dived in and out of thoughts, intertwined with memories of Greg, the other night when he’d been here, the last time she had seen him.
She took another swig of the whiskey, wincing as it went down. She needed to pull herself together and figure this out, find out whether the police were suspicious, whether Gemma was suspicious. Because if they dug too deeply, Maddie could be in real trouble. Who would believe her if she said she had thought it was just a joke? Then there was that conversation she’d had with Greg only days ago. Incriminating to say the least.
She needed to talk to Gemma, find out what actually happened. And to think she’d suspected Gemma at first.
She also needed to start building some evidence on Jade. Just in case.
What had Jade called it? A security blanket?
Her heart dropped through the floor of her stomach again. That was why Jade had insisted on them using Snapchat for their messages. It was because the messages vanished once they were read. Maddie hadn’t screenshotted any of Jade’s messages, but she knew for a fact Jade had screenshotted hers. She thought it was just because she wanted to keep track of their conversation, but it was all evidence against her.
What had she said in those messages? Had she joked back about killing Greg? Made some flippant remark that would be incriminating if taken out of context?
Oh God, could this get any worse?
She needed air and space.
She drained the glass, grabbed the bottle and fled the flat, heading up the stairs, past Jade’s door to the roof.
It was empty tonight. No Luke in a deckchair; no cans of beer. Just the town laid out below her, the lights twinkling innocently.
She desperately wanted to knock on Luke’s door, but also didn’t want to drag him into this.
No, she was on her own.
She stepped right up to the edge, her toes hanging in mid-air, and leant forward slightly, feeling a brief sense of weightlessness. The bottle dangled from her hand, heavy at her side. She unscrewed the cap and brought it up to her mouth, now used to the spicy bitterness of the alcohol. It was indeed helping to dull the pain in her chest. She swayed a little in the cold night air, goosebumps standing up on her bare arms.
Look at those people below me, casually going about their business. They haven’t incited a murder today, have they? They aren’t being framed for something they haven’t done.
They aren’t scared and alone.
She started to weep again, but silently this time, the tears huge glass marbles rolling down her cheeks. She pitched forward again, this time further, felt her heels lift slightly from the roof.
What would it feel like, she wondered, if she just leant all the way forward? Was it high enough to die from here?
Would anyone care? Who was left to care? Only Greg would’ve missed her. Her mother was dead, her father hadn’t tried to speak to her in decades, she had no friends and no husband anymore.
A fat tear fell onto her top lip, salty with grief. She tipped forward some more, feeling buoyed by the breeze.
But if she did fall, if she decided to end it all now, would that be seen as an admission of guilt? Or would the police just put it down to her being the distraught ex-wife? Sorry, distraught wife since they were still married. That would be suspicious too, wouldn’t it? Oh God, his life insurance! Had he changed any of it?
She was getting dizzy thinking about it again. She swayed and this time one of her feet left the ground completely. Her heart froze and she flung herself back from the edge, twisting her ankle painfully in the process.
She panted into the night air, then limped over to Luke’s deckchairs and dropped into one, this time oblivious to the groans of protest from the wood and fabric beneath her.
She tried to steady her breathing with another swig of whiskey, then set the bottle at her feet and sat all the way back in the chair, staring up at the night sky and letting her mind work through the thoughts ricocheting around her skull.
‘You ok?’ a voice said behind her. Luke lowered himself into the other chair.
‘Yes… no…’ she replied.
‘One of those nights, huh?’
‘You could say that.’
They sat in silence for a bit and Maddie felt like it helped, just a little.
‘Have you ever looked out into the night and wondered why we bother with it all?’ she said quietly. ‘Why we carry on putting one foot in front of the other when everything is ultimately out of our control?’
He heard him shift in the chair next to her. ‘We do it for the people around us, I guess.’
‘What if you have no one?’
‘Everybody has someone.’
They sat in silence again. Maddie bit on her lip to stop herself from breaking into great heaves and gasps again.
Eventually, Luke said, ‘For what it’s worth, I’m really pleased we met.’
*
Jade was pleased with how that had gone.
Ok, so Maddie was visibly shocked, perhaps a bit more than Jade had anticipated, but all things considered, the air was now clear and Maddie knew exactly where she stood.
She had to laugh out loud when she thought about Maddie saying she had thought Jade had been joking.
What a load of bullshit.
Maddie had known from the start that she had been serious. But Jade had to give her a Noddy badge for playing around with that excuse. She’d be good if the police ever did get in touch.
Not that Jade cared much either way. She was convinced she was in the clear. Everything pointed to Maddie and, as long as she played things cool, Maddie would be too terrified to grass on her.
And if Greg had left her anything
