I squirm as he kisses me. He runs his fingers through my hair. He tells me he loves me and I smile, hating myself as I do so. Always well behaved, always doing what I am told. We are in the kitchen and the kettle has just boiled. I imagine picking it up and pouring it over his head, his puffy red skin peeling away from the face that I have grown to hate. In my mind, his scream is a high-pitched wail as his flesh blisters and burns.
I’ve had this fantasy before, but I never pick up the kettle, just like I never pick up the knife or any of the other things I think about killing him with. I am not brave, or maybe R is right, maybe trying that wouldn’t be bravery at all, it would be stupidity.
He slides his hand under the hem of my skirt and between my thighs. I really don’t want to and so I place my hand on his, stopping it from moving any further upwards. I know he won’t be happy; he doesn’t like to be denied anything. I remind him that he said he had to go to the new building site in the park because he left his phone there earlier today. I don’t really care that he has lost his phone, but I don’t want to have sex with him right now.
He looks down at my hand and I see the anger just seconds before he slaps me. He storms out of the house and I am alone. I call that a win.
I grab a bottle of gin; I am running out and so I make a mental note to get some more. I have already decided to finish this bottle before he gets home. I know he won’t let me refuse him sex a second time in one day and if it’s all the same, I would rather be drunk when it happens.
There is a knock at the door, and I know before I answer who will be standing there. DS Imogen Grey and DS Adrian Miles. I am relieved to see him at the house again. I thought R had done something to him and that’s why he’d stayed away. Maybe I have overestimated R’s reach.
There is no use fighting the police anymore. Even though they haven’t got R yet, they seem determined. It’s the first time R hasn’t been able to weasel his way out of trouble with the police and I don’t think he likes the loss of power. I have no doubt he will try anything to redress the balance.
DS Grey tells me she has been to visit the house in Oswestry. I have a mixture of emotions when I hear this. I have both good and bad memories of R in that house, before he turned into the monster he is now.
Although he was never quite right, when I think about our history I can’t understand how I hadn’t realised what he had done. Now, the police have found a body. It’s not a total shock, let’s put it that way. I should have known sooner, or at least suspected.
I wonder what the house looks like now. I have no doubt it will have changed significantly in the past ten years. I only hope the family who moved in managed to build some happier memories than the ones I have. It was the beginning of the end for me. Then we moved here, a fresh start, I had no idea that it meant isolating me from everyone I had ever known. My whole life revolved around R and I was completely dependent on him for everything. He knew what he was doing.
The detectives tell me that Jimmy Chilton was assisting them. I knew from the first moment I met him that he couldn’t be trusted. There was something intrinsically weak about him. Now, I feel like maybe I judged him harshly. I had no idea he was helping the police; I didn’t think he would have the courage to do something like that.
Something the detectives tell me about the house in Oswestry jumps into my mind. I try not to think about those days when everything changed – they are too upsetting for me. I can accept what came after, but to go from feeling loved by a person to them making you feel so ashamed and disgusted with yourself, it’s hard to come to terms with something like that. It’s hard to remember them the way they used to be.
You wonder what you did wrong to bring about this change in them. But the greenhouse … I used to love tending to the garden. It was one of my great escapes in life and R bought me a greenhouse. I remember Clive letting me watch him install it and so I know it wasn’t Clive’s body under the installation. It was then that Clive offered to help me get away. R must have found out. I wonder where Clive’s body is now. I have no doubt that he is dead, as well.
There is only one other person I can think of who would be under the greenhouse. I am sure R found it hilarious, watching me potter about in there, looking after the flowers, knowing who I was walking on. I see how everything is a game or a power play to him. He doesn’t care about me – maybe he never did. It’s all about him.
If I am right, then the police will definitely be able to arrest him. That body will be conclusive proof of what he has done. I need to get to him before the police do, though. I need to get to him because, if it is who I think it is, I don’t want him to go to prison. I want him to die.