Page 66 of The Dead Ex

I’m inside before Tanya can close the patio doors on me. It’s really hot in here. An absolute suntrap.

‘Where is he?’ I say, grabbing her arms.

She pulls away. ‘If I did know where he was, I’d havethrown him out by now for playing around. Now get out of my house.’

‘When did you last see David? What kind of mood was he in?’

My husband was always in moods, although he’d kept that hidden at first.

Tanya was staring at me, hate shooting out from her black eyes. ‘What do you think you are?’ she snarls. She has tiny white teeth. A bit like a rat. ‘The police?’

That squeaky little-girl voice is really irritating me. There’s no way she’d been born with that. I can imagine her cultivating it as she grew up to snare the right kind of man.

‘I just want to clear my name,’ I say, trying to be reasonable.‘The police are after me. I need to prove that I had nothing to do with his disappearance.’

What the hell is she doing now? Tanya has grabbed something from the top of a pretty cane chest of drawers. I recognize it immediately. It’s a wooden love spoon which Dad had bought Mum during their honeymoon in Wales. I’d brought it back with me after Dad’s death, revering it as one of Mum’s few remainingpossessions. In the divorce, it must have ended up in David’s pile. I’d been looking for it for ages. How dare he? It wasn’t as though it was valuable. He must have known I’d miss it. Maybe that was the point. Now Tanya is waving it in front of me as if she is considering poking my eyes out with it. There are red blotches on her face and arms.

Distract! I used to be good at that. So I hold outthe papers I’ve been keeping safe. It was my surety, I told myself. A get-out-of-jail-free card. One day I might need it. And now the day has come.

‘Did you know that our husband has been money laundering?’ I say softly.

‘ “Our” husband?’ Tanya laughs, putting down the spoon. ‘You’re deluding yourself, Vicki. I’m his wife now.’

Once a wife, always a wife. Did David’s first ex – Nicole’s mother– feel the same about me?

‘Look. He’s been buying houses for cash.’

I flourish a page from the deeds I’d come across when going through David’s study just after he’d announced he wanted to split. For a clever man, my husband could be rather stupid. Why hadn’t he hidden them better?

‘The paperwork has got you down as a co-owner every time.’

Tanya’s face goes rigid. ‘That proves nothing. It’sjust business.’

‘With all these houses? I’ve got evidence to show there are eleven of them, each worth several million. What would the company want those for?’

Her eyes glare. ‘An investment.’

‘Then why not put the money in the business account? He told me that he was short of cash towards the end of our marriage.’

‘That was five years ago. Things have changed.’

It’s possible. But I don’tbelieve her. Lying is an art. And I’ve learned from the masters.

‘I know a bit about money laundering, Tanya.’

‘Hah! How?’

I think of a woman I’d come across who’d been done for fraud. She used to boast that she still had a ‘hidden stash’ for when she came out.

‘You’d be surprised. But I do know that people oftenbuy houses with cash to get rid of large quantities of dirty money. Where didit come from? What’s David been doing?’

For a minute, I think Tanya’s going to say something, but then her mouth tightens. Her face is getting redder and she seems slightly unstable. Clearly, I’ve hit a nerve.

‘Perhaps,’ I say, ‘the sensible thing is to hand this to the police.’

‘Why haven’t you done so already?’ Then she notes my expression. ‘You can’t bring yourself to shop him, can you?’

I ignore the question because the true answer would make me look like one of those pathetic divorcees who can’t get over their exes. Which I suppose I am.