With the Holly problem solved, I enjoy a relatively peaceful few months.
I look on this as a period of consolidation. I finally give up renting the flat in North Acton, closing down the original utility accounts and paying a junk removal company to take away all of Dominic Gill’s belongings. The money I was paying towards the lease and bills every month, while not a huge sum, can now be funnelled into my offshore savings account; I’m still only sitting on a few grand, though.
In the autumn I suggest to Alice that we take out a joint life insurance policy. I’d insure her life without her knowing if I could, but modern industry safeguards mean that that’s no longer possible. The insured party has to consent to a medical, apart from anything else. We’ve no mortgage and therefore no endowment policy, and Alice takes care of the insurance on the house. I never even raised the subject when we first got engaged, but to cover my tracks now I suggest it as preparation for having a kid.
Of course, I don’t want a ruddy kid. But Alice is thirty-three now, so I reckon it will take a few months to happen, by which time I’ll be gone. I can’t risk leaving it any longer than that. Some of Dominic Gill’s friends are asking questions, and big brother Simon has been pushing to meet up when he comes down to London. In October I agree to a meeting, then cancel at the last minute, but he immediately tries to rearrange it for a few weeks later. He’s clearly not going to give up, and the more I flake, the more questions he’ll start to ask. So a million-pound death benefit now accrues on Alice’s death. Or on mine, naturally.
In December, when Alice goes for a consultation with a top gynaecologist and is given a fertility gold star, I panic slightly. I’ll do it today, I decide. The length of steel binding wire that was sitting around in Dominic Gill’s flat for a couple of years is now in my desk drawer at work, along with a lethally sharp five-inch bradawl. I pocket them and head to Comida’s office, stopping off at an outdoor sports outlet in Cheapside to buy a black fleece top, gloves, trainers and a balaclava. I buy a couple of skiing accessories too, so as not to arouse the sales assistant’s suspicion, then ditch them in the nearest bin.
Alice has texted me to tell me when she’s leaving, so it’s easy enough to follow her. She takes her usual route to the Overground station at Shadwell and I jump on the same train. Unfortunately, the train fails at Dalston Junction and we all have to get off. The scenes at the station are so chaotic that I almost lose sight of Alice, but eventually spot her bright red coat heading up the Balls Pond Road. She veers off in an incoherent direction, clearly without a clue where she’s going, but the narrower and more deserted the streets, the better from, my point of view.
I planned to grab her as she cut through Paddington Green Cemetery when she got off at her usual stop of Kensal Rise. The so-called West London rapist has carried out a couple of attacks round there and so obviously if something happened to Alice, the police would be led to the conclusion that this psycho was responsible. We’re now in the badlands of North East London, which isn’t quite as convincing, but then again, it is gang territory. So stuff can happen to people. Especially muggings and stabbings.
Alice has turned off into the Mildmay estate and clearly hasn’t a clue where she’s going. I speed up and get closer as we enter a no-through road, and I can tell she knows she’s being followed but is too scared to look back. I get to a few yards away and then I freeze, my fingers touching the cold steel of the wire in my pocket.
I can’t do this to Alice. Not like this. She’s my wife. I never fell in love with her, but I do still like her. I don’t think I could watch her suffering. Make her suffer.
I’m struggling to shake off this paralysis, to stick to my original plan, when there’s a deafening noise. It takes me a couple of seconds to realise what’s happening. The rape alarm. The one that interfering cow JoJo gave her last spring.
I turn on my heel and take off before anyone else gets near, sprinting back to Balls Pond Road and flagging down a passing black cab. The rush-hour cross-town traffic is frustratingly slow, but the taxi eventually drops me in Waverley Gardens before Alice has made it home. I race upstairs and grab suit trousers, shirt and tie and put them on so that it looks as though I’m just back from the office.
I plan to dispose of the top, gloves, shoes and balaclava outside in the wheelie bin, but as I’m heading towards the back door, I hear her coming up the front path and have to dart into the study. I shove the shoes to the back of one of the drawers of my desk, then put the clothes in after them. There’s just time to grab a bottle of wine with one hand and a corkscrew as she comes in through the front door and bursts into tears in my arms.