The Perfect Widow

She could stay on here for hours, waiting, watching, and all these little householders would actually feel safer for having her around. She smiled and dealt with the last blob of chocolate. She was willing to bet the neighbours were in her camp. Suspicious, but unable to voice the dark thoughts in their heads. Yet. They didn’t know as much as she did, but they were all waiting, just the same. Just like her.

Then Louise’s door cracked open. Yellow light shone behind her, highlighting that hair. She wasn’t in the yoga gear this time, she was in flowing black trousers. Becca couldn’t see the detail, except for the way the fabric fell, caressing as nothing ever had on her own body. Pricey. Of course. A sweater, equally black. Soft, understated. Was it a bit fluffy? A boat neck, they called that. Ordinary clothes, on anyone else. On Louise, they developed a special sort of grace and elegance, her collar bones rising up, carved like a dancer’s. Becca wished she hadn’t finished that Twix. Then wished she had another to crunch to oblivion. Then she thought about the calories and felt sick. The usual backwash of guilt.

Louise strode out, oblivious. Though Becca was sitting there large as life – well, larger, as her mother would have said with a sigh – Louise never seemed to see her. Was she invisible to the woman? Or just so insignificant that Louise didn’t give a toss? It would make things harder if Louise did know she was here, and Becca wouldn’t be able to watch her like this. But sometimes, like tonight, she was tempted to lean on the horn, make the bitch look up, acknowledge her existence, at least.

But Becca stopped herself and Louise moved fluidly on, eyes never once flicking to the parked car. She went round to the side, unlatched the little hutch that cocooned her wheelie bins. Not for her the vulgarity of an exposed rubbish bin, oh no. That sort of thing had to be tidied away, hidden, so she could pretend that she and her brood didn’t generate used teabags, carrot tops, coffee grounds, tissues, rotten fruit, sanitary pads … the usual detritus of human life. Now she was pushing the bins out onto the street, one at a time, putting her back into it. Becca watched with a smirk. That’s a proper work-out for you, isn’t it, love? None of this pointless stretching and bending that you pay through the nose for.

When all three bins were finally out there, beyond the garden wall, Louise smoothed her hair back from her forehead and went back inside. Ha. Don’t like the donkey work, do you? Not such a clever idea to get rid of the hubby after all, was it? Once the door clicked shut and the outside light went off, Becca decided reluctantly that it was time to move on. The show was over. For tonight. She turned the key in the ignition and flipped on the headlights at last.

She drove back through the dark streets to her empty flat, a silent promise running through her head. I’ll be back, Louise, don’t you worry.

I’ve got my eye on you.

Chapter 12 (#ulink_e31bd1e9-4fbe-58c9-a6d1-a5c8b622567b)

Then

Jen and I kept in touch. The idea of losing her made me feel dizzy. What would I do? How would I know if I was getting it right? So we got into a habit of having drinks after work and bitching about our bosses, though my heart wasn’t in the whingeing. I loved the company almost as much as I loved my desk – and Patrick.

We became even better friends once she’d left the company. From the outside, I liked to think we were now peas in a pod, but keeping tabs on her felt like touching wood, keeping myself grounded, checking I was really where I needed to be. So much of what I now was, I owed to her template. And having a friend like her was proof of how far I’d come. The girls at school would have collapsed in amazement if they could have seen me, swanking about in wine bars, with gorgeous, poised Jen. She would definitely have been one of the popular gang back in the day, the ones in giggling gaggles, while the likes of me slunk past, friendless and invisible.

So I was surprised, one night, to see her in stacked heels with chunky ankle straps, far from the pure lines and vertiginous height of the stilettos she normally favoured. Perhaps I wasn’t the only chameleon in town.

I’d worried about her, once she’d got the sack, but of course she’d found a job within seconds of leaving. Who wouldn’t snap her up? She was with an ad agency now, and her clothes seemed to be edging out to match. Nothing crazy, just a zing of colour, a bag by a bad-boy designer. It disconcerted me. I understood why it was imperative that I reinvent myself, but Jen? She’d been perfect as she was. I’d seen her as the fixed star in my firmament, an ideal to aspire to, a goal I was – sometimes – close to reaching. But if Jen herself had to change, what did that mean for less perfect mortals like me? Was there nothing but constant messing and fixing ahead? Would I never really know what I was aiming for, let alone attain it?

It turned out, of course, that she’d fallen for one of the account directors, all flash car and expense account lunches. Perfection wasn’t enough; now she had to be trendy with it. We were all just lumps of clay when it came to getting our man. My mother had been the same, bending over backwards for whatever lowlife had had her that week.

I didn’t know it then, but the germ of a resolve was forming, as I sat at the bar with Jen, sluicing my week away with white wine spritzers. I’d always have more work to do than anyone else to fit in, make the grade. That I accepted. It was my fault, the price I’d be paying in perpetuity for being my mother’s daughter, and for daring to try to escape that life sentence. And though I was willing to tweak the externals as far as they needed to go, I now promised myself that, inside, I’d be true to myself. Whoever that was.

I came to love those evenings, chucking Chardonnay on my own troubles, sighing along with Jen’s non-existent worries, pretending to take them seriously. She dithered endlessly about which dishes to cook for her dinner parties, stressed about the nuances of who’d said what to whom at the agency. I knew that these things didn’t matter, they were tiny glitches in an otherwise perfect life.

Sometimes it amused me to enter into them with Jen, pretend that I cared whether she served watercress soup or rhubarb fool. But part of me was always leaning back from the table, chair tilted on two legs in the way people used to warn me about at school, as if toppling was the thing I had to fear. I couldn’t help but be angry that I was forever shut out of feeling such mundane concerns. How could I care about gravadlax, when I knew that I was worthless? And how could Jen be hanging on for my opinion? If she cared what I thought, that meant she was worthless too. It was a spiral of nihilism that no one wanted to know about or go down, least of all me. So I’d push it away, lean forward, and debate liver pâté versus smoked duck starters as though my life depended on it.

Jen knew, of course, about my passion for Patrick. How could she not? Twice a day, more often if he went out for lunch, I’d been transformed right in front of her eyes from the reasonably together, elegant young woman I’d fashioned in her likeness, into a tongue-tied, beetroot-blushing idiot. She didn’t need to be Hercule Poirot to realise something was afoot.

‘Made your move yet?’ she’d josh me every time we met, knowing the answer would be a mumbled negative. ‘Come on, Lou. You’ll be old and grey by this rate. Or he’ll get snared by someone else.’

This was my dread. That, during the many hours of the day when Patrick wasn’t under what I thought of as my roof, he’d wander into the clutches of another. I couldn’t bear the thought.

Jen was patient, talking through strategies with me, week after week. We were like chess grandmasters, trying to outwit Deep Blue. Would that scenario work, or was this the way forward? It was much more time-consuming than our actual jobs.

I was the one who came up with the idea. I’d move off the desk, into Patrick’s department. It was a measure of how desperate I was at this point. The desk was, without a doubt, the best part of my life – apart from these sessions with Jen – and I wanted to hang on to it like a wino clutching their last can of Special Brew. On the other hand, I was getting nowhere with Patrick; if I was more colleague than underling, and in his own space instead of marooned out in reception, surely something would give?

Jen was unconvinced. Did this reflect doubt in my abilities to hold my own in the inner office? I’d like to think not. But then, she’d never dared try it herself. As we both knew, she was less flexible than me. I seriously doubted she’d ever have been as much of a whizz with our current comms package as I now was, even if that manual hadn’t gone walkabout. And she had that very ordinary failing, of believing that if she couldn’t do something, no one else could. Least of all her erstwhile junior.

Sometimes I thought she might still have a soft spot for Patrick herself. She’d sat up straighter when he was around. But then, of course I could see why. Her own boyfriends – she always had one on the go – were generally so wet, I felt like handing them a towel. Nothing wrong with them, they just didn’t measure up to Patrick. Then along came Tim from the ad agency, the one she’d become trendy for.

On paper, Tim was great. Tall, solvent. An account director. He was, she whispered, ‘so artistic’. I assumed that meant he did strange stuff in bed. He certainly looked a bit more edgy than her previous numbers. Enough to get her reconsidering her wardrobe, at least. But at my age, I felt I was looking for a lot more than he could offer. Even Jen, after the initial thrill wore off, started treated him like a mildly disappointing pet she’d somehow got lumbered with, at least in our chats. I couldn’t understand it. She was only five years older than me. Surely she should be living a little, before she settled?

But it cut me to the quick when she turned up to All Bar One with an extra glow about her. I was just wondering what it was, and how I could get it – new moisturiser, special eye shadow? – when she flashed her left hand at me. There it was, a rock of a ring. I’d thought she was wasting her time with Tim, and hoped I was the one getting it right, wanting more. But the sight of Jen’s diamond cluster made me realise I wanted one too.

Obviously I didn’t want Tim. And I didn’t envy Jen at all, being stuck with him for life. But I did immediately buy into all that wedding stuff. Well, it’s inevitable, isn’t it? Every little girl is brought up on a solid pink diet of handsome princes, ballgowns, fairy godmothers and, crowning it all, the massive fuck-off wedding at the end. I hadn’t had a lot, growing up, but my mother had always been willing to stick a DVD on, keep me occupied while she got up to … whatever. I’d more or less taught myself to read, freeze-framing the credits of Cinderella.

Part of me knew the whole idea was seriously flawed. Relationships didn’t last. I only needed to look at my mother to see that writ large. But the fact that her own romantic quest had been never-ending, despite the pitiful results, showed me how hard-wired the desire for a happy-ever-after was. As a young girl, I’d sneaked books of fairy tales out of the school library and read them under the covers at night, Matilda-style. And I still loved a bit of chick lit. Who doesn’t? From Sophie Kinsella all the way back to Jane Eyre, the idea was the same. Man equals happiness. Once you’ve got rid of the madwoman in the attic.

I would have questioned it more if every cell in my body weren’t crying out for Patrick. If I had him, oh, if I did, my troubles would be over. I knew that, and no one could tell me any different. I’d seen the kindness behind his confidence, you see. He had the most beautiful manners, the way he always held the big glass doors open for colleagues. He had charm, at ease with everyone from the chairman of the company to the security guard. And he was fun. He told the best jokes, he set the tone.

And, on the rare occasions when he was alone, he changed the energy in the building as soon as he set foot in the door. I knew, before looking up, when he’d arrived in the mornings. Something changed in the very air of the place. There was a new feeling of urgency, full of promise. He usually stayed much later than I did – he was hard-working as well! – but if he ever left before me, the life went out of the building the moment the door swung closed on his sharp suit.

There were other men around who were confident, some who were good-looking too. But there was no one who combined it all like Patrick. It made him irresistible to me. He was so different from anyone I’d met before, so open in what he wanted. He seemed so honest and free, unafraid to aim for the top, unabashed about looking at me. He wasn’t, like my mother’s men, giving me sneaky little glances, opportunistic, speculative. He had no reason to hide, nothing to feel guilty about. He made me feel clean, instead of dirty. He was the chance of a new life, the hero who would, finally, save me from the fiery dragon.

So when I saw the ring sparkling as hard as it could on Jen’s freshly manicured hand, I suddenly saw my own future in those glittering facets. This would be me! Me and Patrick. I mouthed all the right things, oohed and ahed at the proposal (actually not bad – Tim had got down on one knee at an up-and-coming Soho club, managing to fuse the arty and the traditional in a way that couldn’t fail to melt Jen’s heart) and pledged to help her arrange the wedding. After all, it would be good practice for my own.

Jen’s success, again, had shown me the path. I could get what she had. And I would. All I needed was a strategy to follow. I’d been idling away until now, not realising how serious the game was, not conscious that everything, including me, had an expiry date. But Jen’s ring had shown me the prize I should be aiming for, and had also reminded me that I needed to get on with it. Things changed. Look at Jen. She’d left the desk, and yes, she’d still thrived and found Tim. But if I left, would I ever see Patrick again?

I had him near me, five days a week, yet I was relying on chance, fate, kismet, something other than myself, to organise things for me. Everything about my life so far should have told me that wasn’t the way to go. If I wanted something, I had to go out and get it done myself.

Chapter 13 (#ulink_585cafa0-1b94-52f7-8a5c-7cd2910a49b9)

Now

Becca

Becca threw her biro down onto her cluttered desk. It ricocheted off yesterday’s sandwich wrapper and rolled onto the floor. She grimaced as she rooted for it, but a decision had been made all the same. She needed to sort this out. There was no other way. She’d been worrying at this puzzle for what seemed like forever, after what she’d found online. She’d been going through the motions here, doing her job to the best of her abilities, but her mind was always … elsewhere. All right, on Louise. Checking up on the woman was becoming a habit. Too much of one, people would say. But she knew there was something there. It wasn’t imagination. Nor obsession. Not this time.

She still didn’t have quite enough at her fingertips to dare to confide in anyone else, though. She stared away from her screen, accidentally catching Burke’s eye. His sandy hair was plastered down today, his usually mild blue eyes giving her a shrewd glance. She bobbed her head back. She could just imagine what he’d say if he knew what she was spending her time doing.

She yawned and drooped back over the latest report, struggling to fill it in. Registering all this stuff had never seemed so pointless, when she knew that, not more than ten minutes’ drive away, sat a woman who was literally getting away with murder.

Becca knew Louise Bridges was a bad ’un, she could smell it on her. There was no doubt in her mind that there was more to the whole business than it seemed. So what if the coroner had taken one look at the grieving widow and rubber-stamped everything? So what if no one else seemed to bat an eyelid at the way Mrs Bridges was carrying on with her life as though nothing had happened?

As usual, the thought of Louise filled her vision and she stood up abruptly. At the desk opposite, a colleague stopped scratching behind her ear with a pen and ran their eyes up and down her, then turned away. Becca felt more conscious than ever of the soft rolls straining against her uniform trousers. Across the way, Burke tutted, then went back to his in-tray. He’d be happy doing paperwork forever. Routine, structure, block capitals on the dotted line. This wasn’t what she’d joined the police for.

Why had she joined? It was partly something that her mother couldn’t reproach her for. She was never going to get a job doing anything her mother really rated. The sort of glamorous career celebrities dabbled in, between interviews with Hello! The police, though, that was solid, respectable. Her mother could see the point of it. It seemed to cancel out that one brief wobble Becca had had, the depression. She’d been ill, but she was better.

Unfortunately, it turned out that she didn’t want to do the bits of the job that Mum thought would keep her nicely out of trouble. She wanted to do the tricky stuff. Search out the hidden. Make deductions. And, above all, make sure people didn’t cheat justice.

One person in particular.

It was going to be a slog, she could see that. So far, no one had ever seen her potential – apart from poor old Dad. She’d have to claw her way up alone. But this Louise Bridges business could help her. Becca would just have to prove them all wrong about the woman, simple as that. Shatter some illusions.

And no, it wasn’t going to be like last time. She was perfectly fine now.

She was just a person who liked to focus.

Chapter 14 (#ulink_9f98cb70-f385-5a7e-a598-0715f036510b)

Then