Page 27 of The Dead Ex

I’ve never done that before.

She leaves without making her next appointment. That’s two clients I’ve lost in the space of a few days. One thanks to the police. The other due to my own stupidity.

I try telling myself that it’s not the end of the world. I still have other clients on my books. Even though I haven’t been here long, I’ve had some good responses to my adverts and through referrals.This is a small seaside town. People talk. That’s good and bad. What if the last client spreads the word about her eye? How many onlookers had spotted the ambulance at the bench?

It’s not going to be long until my secret is out once more and I’ll have to move. Again.

Because the truth is this. No one really likes the thought of someone who can – at a minute’s notice – go ‘crazy’. That’s whathe said to me when it first happened.

David. The man whom I have every right to hate. The man I could easily destroy if I wanted. And maybe now’s the time.

I walk across to the desk where I keep my important papers. I open the file marked ‘Bills’. It’s still there, hidden between the neatly filed copies of receipts, in case I ever need it. Should I have told the police? Probably. But althoughI’m angry with David, it’s Tanya I really blame. She’s the bitch who lured him from me. I suspect she was there all the time, even before the E word stole my life.

And this piece of paper implicates her too.

Is David’s disappearance connected? There’s only one way to find out.

I feel myself babbling on in my head. Typically, after a seizure, we’re unable to function very well. It can be hardto speak or understand things around us. Memory is impairedand there’s a general sense of confusion. Getting back to ‘normal’ may take hours or days. Often we sleep for most of the time. Certain artists with epilepsy claim they find their condition ‘useful’ because it gives them ‘an awareness of an altered state’ before, during and shortly after.

Yet right now the effect on me is different.I just want todosomething. And right now, that means having it out with the woman who stole my husband.

I lock the windows, which are rattling in the wind. Turn off the music. Pack my meds – even though I might not take them – in my small case with a change of clothes in case I get an incontinent seizure. Put on my red jacket.

I’m at the door now. I open it. And jump.

‘What are you doinghere?’ I demand.

Detective Inspector Vine looks down at my bag in a movement clearly designed to be casual but which is more of a risk-assessment. ‘Going somewhere?’

‘To see a friend,’ I retort with more confidence than I feel.

‘I need to show you something first.’

He is waving a file in his hand. The sergeant – the same one as before – is at his side.

‘May we come in?’

It might sound likea question, but it isn’t. I could refuse him entry – he hasn’t mentioned a search warrant – but if I do, it makes me look guilty.

I find myself being almost marched to my own kitchen table. He opens the brown envelope. There’s a photograph inside.

I stare at it. The image looms in and out. Eventually, I manage to speak. ‘Where did you get this from?’

‘Someone who works for your husband. Shedidn’t realize the significance until recently.’

‘Significance?’ I repeat, partly through shock and partly to buy myself time.

‘The thing is, Vicki,’ chips in Sergeant Brown, ‘that this picture was taken just before your ex-husband disappeared. You told us that you hadn’t seen him since 2013. Five years ago. Yet here you both are. Is there something you’d like to tell us?’

8

Scarlet

12 March 2007

The phone call came on Scarlet’s fourth day at the Walters’. They were having breakfast, and the ginger boy was fighting for the last piece of toast.

‘Listen,’ hissed Dawn, the girl with the turned-up nose. ‘She’s talking about you.’