As she walked away, she could hear hushed conversations strike up. She could only imagine what they were saying. The prurience, the speculation. Did she know? Did she allow it? Did he bring diseases home with him?
It was all so unfair. She had done nothing wrong. Sally had done nothing wrong. But it was they who had been branded, as accessories to his behaviour. How could she have been so bloody stupid? She had given Christopher her heart and trusted him with it, even after their first bust-up over his use of pornography. She thought he’d turned over a new leaf, but he hadn’t. Instead he’d lied and lied and lied. Why hadn’t he talked to her? Why had he been so selfish?
She was back in the house now, though how she’d got there she couldn’t really say. Without hesitating, she charged upstairs. Flinging open the chest of drawers, she grabbed an armful of Christopher’s things and threw them out of the window down on to the drive below. Again and again and again. Cleansing the house of his presence.
Grabbing some lighter fluid and matches from under the kitchen sink, she marched out through the still open front door. Dousing the messy pile generously, she threw a match on to it, then watched the clothes – clothes she’d bought for him – burn.
Snap, snap, snap. From their vantage point in a van across the road, the plain-clothes police officers recorded every second of her despair, before calling it in.
DC Fortune took in their report, then rang off. The show was about to start and he didn’t want to miss a minute of it. He had given his fellow officers the dull gig – no one really expected their surveillance of Jessica Reid to throw up anything. The plum job was the Matthews funeral that was about to get under way.
Lloyd Fortune stretched, yawned, then settled himself down into position. Watching and waiting. That was the drill on these sorts of operation. Looking across the road, Lloyd saw the Matthews family leave the house. There were plenty of people on hand to support them – extended family, friends from the church – so many that four funeral cars had been hired. Lloyd scanned the heads to pick out the Matthews family amongst the well-wishers. He caught a glimpse of the eldest daughter shepherding a grandmother into the first car. Like the others, she looked blank with shock, even after three days had passed.
Lloyd surveyed the street. Was their killer out there? Watching? Enjoying her success? Snap, snap, snap went the camera, taking in every passer-by, every parked car. Lloyd was exhilarated by the prospect of seeing the killer in the flesh and felt his pulse quicken.
