Page 10 of The Stranger in Room Six

If I’d married Imran instead, we’d be making love every morning just as we did in halls.

We’d talk, really talk, in a way that Gerald and I had never been able to.

The touch of Imran’s hand would still send electric shocks of excitement all these years on.

His voice would melt both my body and soul.

But now those chances have gone. I am here, a widow, on my way to the magistrates’ court to plead guilty to manslaughter.

‘That’s my advice,’ the lawyer had said. ‘There were witnesses who saw you do it.’

‘But I didn’t mean to kill him,’ I’d kept repeating numbly.

‘That’s why it’s manslaughter and not murder,’ he’d replied softly. ‘With any luck, you’ll only get ten years.’

Ten years? This can’t be happening.

But I do what I’m told and am taken back to my cell for another night. Tomorrow, I’ll be taken to the crown court to formally enter my ‘guilty’ plea.

It all seems so complicated, but I am too exhausted, too shocked, too worried about the girls, to hear some long-winded legal explanation.

Instead, I sit on the stained mattress in the police cell, head on my knees, too stunned to cry.

My daughters’ faces swim into my mind: Elspeth with her ‘please say this isn’t happening’ look; Gillian with her reprimanding glare and cold voice, as she interrogates me about Imran’s letter.

‘Is that why you killed Dad? So you could be with him?’

In vain did I try to explain that the letter had meant nothing. Yes, it had been signed off with a kiss, but he’d meant it in a purely platonic way. People do that nowadays, don’t they? He was just an old friend – fine, ex-boyfriend – from university days who had got in touch out of the blue.

‘But why did you ask him to find you a lawyer?’

‘I don’t know,’ I’d said.

How could I explain to an eighteen-year-old – the same age I’d been when I’d first met Imran – that I needed someone who had really known me? Known the person I was before I’d married Gerald and tried to be someone else.

It doesn’t make sense, not even to me.

I think now of Imran’s face when I told him to leave the police station. The face I’d barely had time to take in: those same compassionate eyes; his aquiline nose; lips that had pressed mine so passionately all those years ago.

‘Please,’ I’d said. ‘Go. I shouldn’t have called you. The girls have got it wrong. They think you and I are having a thing.’

‘But Belinda,’ he’d said softly, ‘we’ve always had what you call “a thing”.’

‘Then why didn’t you stay and ignore your parents?’ I’d wanted to say. ‘Why did you leave for that bloody arranged marriage? Why didn’t you stay and fight for me?’

If only I’d been braver.

If only he had been braver too.

Then he’d gone. And now here I am alone, about to go to court for a crime I didn’t mean to commit. All because a husband I didn’t even love had had an affair with another woman.

There’s a certain irony there. Or madness, I’m not sure which.

‘Belinda Honour Wall. How do you plead to the manslaughter of Gerald Arthur Wall?’

The court is almost empty. Just my girls with Gerald’s brother, Derek, and a couple of reporters. Elspeth is weeping. Gillian is staring straight ahead, ignoring me.

Karen isn’t here and nor is Imran. Of course he isn’t. I’d told him not to come, hadn’t I?

‘Guilty,’ I whisper.

My lawyer asks if I can be bailed until my sentence hearing comes up.

The judge mentions a six-figure sum which is almost the value of our house.

Gerald was always checking it against other properties in the local paper.

Had he been doing that in preparation for leaving us, to see how much his share would be?

‘I don’t have that kind of money,’ I say to my lawyer.

‘Your friend Mr Raj said he was happy to put up whatever it takes.’

But how would that look to my daughters?

‘No,’ I say, shaking my head. ‘I can’t accept.’

‘Belinda, if you don’t take it, you’ll go to remand prison until you’re sentenced. Are you sure about this?’

I nod numbly. Anything is better than the girls questioning Imran’s involvement further. I’ve already lost Gerald; I can’t lose them as well.

‘Belinda Honour Wall. You will be remanded in custody at …’

The words wash over my head. Elspeth’s sobs have turned into wails. Gillian has her arm round her sister, leading her out of court without a backward glance.

I’m taken down the back steps of the building into a windowless police van, where I’m then strapped into a cubicle. Someone else is on the other side, hammering against the dividing wall. ‘Shut up,’ roars the guard.

‘How long will it take to get there?’ I call out nervously.

‘About three hours.’

‘How will my daughters find me?’

‘They’ll be given details in due course and you’ll be told how to apply for visiting rights.’

Prison. Visiting rights.

The words fly around my head. I wish now that Karen had been in court so I could have yelled out to her, demanded to know exactly what was going on between her and my husband.

And in that moment, I feel that anger – the fury that had made me push Gerald – rushing back.

‘You bastard,’ I whisper. ‘If you weren’t already dead, I would definitely kill you.’