‘Oh my God,’ was all Maddie could say.
‘I know, it was a cracking plan and I got some good money out of it too.’
‘But what about Mark? He thinks he has a son!’
‘Yeah, well, if you’d done your bit properly, he would never have found out, so that’s on you.’
‘No. NO.’ This time Maddie stepped forward, forcing Jade back, her own finger jabbing at Jade’s chest. ‘It will be like a death for him! You gave him a child and you’ve taken it away! Do you have any idea what that feels like? What kind of excruciating pain that is?’ She wanted to stab and stab at her until Jade’s chest was an open, bleeding sore. Maybe then she would have an inkling of what the death of a child could do to someone. If Maddie had the knife with her now, she wouldn’t think twice about plunging it up to the hilt in Jade’s unfeeling, frozen heart.
‘Oh please! If he loved Ben as much as you claim he does, he would’ve tried harder to see him! He has his new girlfriend, a baby on the way. He’ll forget about Ben soon enough. It’s me you should feel sorry for. He dumped me by text! Used me, then threw me away like rubbish. Then came back for more months later when he was drunk. I was just there for him to use. It serves him right.’
This time Maddie smiled. ‘He’s probably calling the police right now. And when they come knocking, I’ll make sure they know all about your ridiculous scheme. You think I haven’t saved any of our Snapchat messages, but I have. I’ve gone old school and taken digital photos on a camera. It’s all there ready for the police. Evidence of this and of your involvement in Greg’s death. The receipt for the bakery that you just sent me; your fingerprints on my debit card; even that necklace you stole from Gemma is evidence you were in their house.’
Jade snarled at Maddie. ‘You bitch! That is not how this is going down!’
Maddie had a second to notice that Jade’s hands were splayed at her side. Then those hands darted up, ready to shove at Maddie. Ready to shove her backwards. In that split second, an image of Greg and Jemima flickered through Maddie’s brain and she flung herself to the side just as Jade surged forward. Maddie hit the rooftop hard on her right shoulder and cried out in pain, but the sound was muffled by a scream of rage from Jade. Maddie looked over her shoulder to see Jade leaning over the edge of the roof, her arms pinwheeling like a slapstick comedian, before she lost her fight with gravity and fell.
There was a sickening thud from below, mixed with the sound of ceramic shattering.
Maddie got to her feet quickly, her mind scrambling to stay in the moment. She grabbed the baby monitor that had been flung from her hand as she landed, then surged towards the door to the stairs. She took the stairs two at a time, pulling her front door key from her pocket as she did.
At the edge of her consciousness, she could feel her shoulder throbbing painfully but she paid it no attention. She unlocked her front door with shaking hands, almost dropping the key as she struggled with it. A door opened behind her and she spun around. Peggy stood in her doorway in her nightgown, her face unreadable.
‘I heard shouting and a crash. Is everything ok?’ Her eyes flicked to the blood on Maddie’s shirt.
Maddie swallowed against the brick in her throat. ‘Everything is fine, Peggy. Nothing to worry about. Must’ve been something upstairs. You get yourself back to bed.’ Her voice was pitched too high. She tried to smile, but it sat more like a grimace on her stiff face.
Peggy tilted her head and said, ‘I’m sure whatever has happened will sort itself out. What goes around, comes around.’ Then she closed and locked her door.
Maddie flung herself inside. Resting against the door, she tried to get her breathing under control.
What had actually just happened?
Maddie’s curtains to the garden were closed and she was scared to open them. She fully expected to see Jade pressed up against the French doors, a weapon of sorts in her hand, ready to come at Maddie, like in a horror movie when the monster never dies on the first go.
So instead of looking outside, she went to check on Jemima, who was sleeping the peaceful slumber of a toddler, her mouth open and her arms splayed.
Maddie backed out of the room and pulled the door to behind her.
She tiptoed back to the patio door, her heart in her mouth, making it hard to swallow.
She took a breath, then yanked open the curtains. At first she saw nothing and thought perhaps Jade had been fine after the fall, had limped away into the night.
Then the garden was illuminated with flashes of cerise pink, emerald green and citrus yellow as fireworks exploded in the night sky, and she saw the crumpled heap in the far corner of the garden, a pile of limbs draped at unnatural angles among the plant pots not yet filled with flowers and herbs.
18
Maddie sat with Jemima on her lap, the curtains in the lounge drawn to the still dark morning sky. It was 5.30 a.m. and Jemima was already a bundle of life and energy.
Maddie less so.
She had closed the curtains on last night’s fireworks and debated taking a sleeping pill to try and stop her heart from racing. But then she worried that she wouldn’t wake up if Jemima stirred in the night.
So instead, she had lain awake, listening to every sound, the creak of a floorboard or a tap on the window, worry gnawing at her and leaving her red raw. Her hand was still smarting where the knife had bitten into the flesh, but that was nothing compared to
