Chapter 5
Kath’s house smells of baking and fresh laundry. When Maya and Nish had been toddlers and Nadeeka would pick them up from Kath’s house, she would sniff their clothes and get the heady scent of lilac and lavender.
‘She’s washed their clothes again,’ Nadeeka said to Scott one time.
‘So?’
‘They were only with her for a couple of hours.’ Nadeeka had felt judged. Did Kath think her granddaughters were grubby? Had Nadeeka not used the right washing powder?
Scott had shrugged. ‘Maybe they got muddy.’
‘Did the girls make a mess?’ Nadeeka had asked Kath, the next time she picked them up.
‘Oh, goodness, no, love, they’ve been good as gold.’
‘Only, their clothes were clean on this morning.’ Nadeeka had lost the battle to keep her tone light. ‘But maybe you don’t think I’m looking after them—’
‘Oh, love!’ Kath had clasped her hands either side of Nadeeka’s face.
‘You’re a brilliant mum. I just like helping you out, and I enjoy taking care of them.
I used to have three boys and a husband to keep me busy, and now it’s just me.
’ She had moved away, busying herself at the sink. ‘But if you’d rather I didn’t . . .’
‘No, it’s lovely.’ Nadeeka had felt like a bitch. ‘You’re lovely. Thank you for looking after us all.’ Her own parents had gone back to Sri Lanka to care for her dad’s parents, and Nadeeka envied her friends whose mums were on hand to support them. She was lucky to have Kath nearby.
Now, Nadeeka watches as her former mother-in-law takes a load of washing from the tumble-dryer and starts folding it. ‘Can I help?’
‘You just sit quietly. You’re terribly pale.’
It’s only the start of December but Kath’s house is Christmas--ready, with tinsel draped over the clock on the wall, and a wooden nativity scene on the kitchen windowsill. On the dresser behind Kath is a large snowman with a head on springs that nods as she moves about the kitchen.
Nadeeka’s phone beeps and she looks at the screen, hoping she’ll see Jamie’s name there; that she’ll discover it’s all been a terrible mistake.
But it’s DI Burton, thanking her for the contact details for Jamie’s parents.
The parents Nadeeka hasn’t even met. She’ll see them for the first time at his funeral, she supposes, and the thought squeezes her chest tight, because a funeral makes all this seem real.
Jamie in a coffin. Jamie being carried into church, being lowered into the ground. She lets out a sob.
‘Oh, love.’ Kath drops her washing and puts an arm around her former daughter-in-law. The vertical lines between her brows deepen.
‘I was thinking about the funeral,’ Nadeeka says in a small voice.
‘When do you think it will be?’
‘The detective inspector said we’ll have to wait for the post-mortem.’
‘Of course. They can tell all sorts from the angle and depth of the knife wound, you know.’ Kath watches a lot of crime dramas. ‘Is the DI your FLO? Family liaison officer,’ she adds, seeing Nadeeka’s blank expression.
‘I suppose so. I can call him any time, he said. Day or night.’
‘That’s right.’ Kath nods sagely. ‘They’re on duty 24/7, are FLOs. Even sleep in the family’s house sometimes.’
Nadeeka wonders if DI Burton will offer to do that.
The thought of taking the girls back to a murder scene is horrific, but what other choice does she have?
They can’t just walk away from their home.
She pictures DI Burton making himself -comfortable on the sofa, and tries to imagine if it would make her feel safer.
‘He said the forensics team will be finished by tomorrow,’ she says, feeling as though she’s reading lines from a script. How is this her life now?
‘They’ll be using luminol, I expect. It detects even a tiny trace of—’ Kath stops abruptly. ‘Sorry, love, I was forgetting myself. You know you and the girls can stay here as long as you need to.’
‘Thank you. I want to keep the girls in their routine as far as possible, otherwise they’ll know something’s wrong, but I’m so scared of going back there.’ Nadeeka picks at the skin on her bottom lip. She drops her voice to a whisper. ‘I’m scared they’re going to come back, Kath.’
‘Maybe Scott could move back in. Just till the police have caught the perps.’
‘Oh, no, I don’t think—’
Nadeeka breaks off mid-protestation as Maya runs into the kitchen, skidding to an excited stop in front of the table. ‘-Daddy’s here! I just saw his car!’ She looks at Nadeeka curiously. ‘Have you been crying?’
‘Only a tiny bit. I’m okay.’ Nadeeka forces a smile to prove it and, satisfied, Maya dashes off again.
They haven’t told Maya and Nish that Jamie is dead.
There was an accident, was all Nadeeka had said when she arrived at Kath’s.
Jamie’s at the hospital. It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the truth; but then how can you tell a nine-year-old and a six-year-old that their mother’s boyfriend has been brutally murdered a few feet from the sofa on which they curl up to watch TV?
Nadeeka listens to the commotion in the hall as Maya and Nish greet their dad as though he’s been gone for weeks instead of a couple of hours.
They adore Scott, and Nadeeka had harboured hopes that, one day, the girls would love Jamie too.
They had been starting to, she thought, although the process hadn’t been helped by whatever Scott was saying or doing on his weekends with the girls.
There was always a little more backchat for a few days after they came home; a little less enthusiasm for Jamie’s suggestions.
Jamie had found that hard, Nadeeka knew, although he had been stoic about it.
Just give her space, he had said one time after Maya had shouted at him and stormed upstairs to her room.
My being here is a big change for her. Soon afterwards, Maya had snuck back down to give Jamie a picture she’d drawn of him, before running back to her room, suddenly shy.
She needs to apologize, Nadeeka had said, but Jamie was putting the drawing on the fridge. This is an apology, he’d said.
Tears prick the back of Nadeeka’s eyes at the memory, and when Scott comes into the kitchen, Nish hanging off him and Maya chattering non-stop about her day, she’s crying again.
‘What’s up with you?’ Scott’s wearing a pair of black Lycra leggings, an Under Armour hoodie zipped up over his running vest. ‘Dickhead not the Mr Perfect you thought he was?’
Nadeeka lets the tears fall, her face slack and her eyes unseeing as she blinks at her ex-husband.
Jamie was never Mr Perfect, but then Nadeeka never claimed to be Mrs Perfect either.
And maybe she and Jamie wouldn’t have been forever, but shouldn’t they at least have been given the chance to find out?
She drops her head, not wanting the girls to see her tears, but Kath’s already on the case. ‘Girls, I think I left my glasses in my bedroom. Would you see if you can find them?’
‘I’ll find them!’
‘No, I will, I’m the best at hide-and-seek!’
Their socked feet pound up the stairs. The buzzing in -Nadeeka’s ears is back, making Kath’s voice sound muffled, as though she’s speaking through a pillow.
‘The house was broken into,’ she’s telling Scott. ‘Jamie was attacked with a knife and he died. Nadeeka and the girls are staying here until the crime scene investigators have finished gathering evidence.’
So concise, Nadeeka thinks. She wouldn’t have known where to start.
She can’t seem to order her thoughts; everything is swirling around as though she’s in a snow globe.
Was Jamie’s killer the woman he was having an affair with?
Was he even having an affair? It’s disorientating to think she may never have the answers.
The kitchen falls silent. Thumps and bangs come through the ceiling as Maya and Nish rampage through Kath’s room.
‘Fucking hell, Nads.’ There’s no banter in Scott’s voice now. ‘I’m so sorry. That’s . . . I don’t know what to say.’
‘It’s awful,’ Kath says.
‘I’m really sorry.’ Scott pulls out a chair and sits opposite Nadeeka. ‘I know how much you liked him.’
He’s trying to sound sincere, Nadeeka knows, but there’s an edge to his voice. Like Kath’s unspoken I warned you about moving so fast, Scott is holding back on what he really thinks.
She gives a tight nod. Maybe Scott’s glad Jamie’s dead.
Maybe he considers it karma for her throwing Scott out; for moving another man into what used to be their home.
He unzips his hoodie and it falls open to reveal a bright orange singlet with a perfect crease across the chest. Nadeeka wonders whether the Spanish girlfriend does his ironing, or whether he still drops his laundry round to Kath’s.
‘Good run?’ she says.
He shrugs. Looks away. ‘It was all right. I pushed out a 15k, so I’m happy with that.’
‘Where did you go?’
‘The nature reserve at Castledean. There’s a trail there.’
And Nadeeka pins it down, that whisper of a thought she’d had when she’d called Scott’s mobile and Kath had answered.
Scott always takes his phone when he runs.
He uses an app with a motivational coach who talks him through each session and shoots him verbal high fives every few minutes.
Nadeeka had given it a go once, such was Scott’s enthusiasm for it, but had found it so unbearable – You go, girl!
You’ve got this! Way to go! – that she had switched back to her audiobook after barely a kilometre.
‘How come you didn’t take your phone?’ she asks him now.
Scott shrugs. ‘I guess I forgot it.’
‘I thought you couldn’t run without the motivational coach.’
‘The race rules say no headphones, because the route crosses a couple of roads, so I figured I’d better practise without it.’
‘So did you forget it, or did you decide not to take it?’
‘What’s with the interrogation?’ He’s speaking loudly now – defensively – and what had begun in Nadeeka as mild curiosity is now outright suspicion.
‘Or did you actually go somewhere else?’ she says. ‘Somewhere you shouldn’t have been?’
‘Now, now . . .’ Kath raises her eyebrows at Nadeeka. ‘You’ve had a terrible shock, love, but that’s no reason to—’
‘It doesn’t matter, Mum.’ Scott shakes his head, letting out a short, sharp breath as he does.
He looks Nadeeka in the eyes. ‘You’ve had a shitter of a day, Nads, so I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and put all this – ’ he circles the air around her ‘ – down to that.’ He pushes back his chair, scraping it against the floor tiles. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, Mum.’
He shouts a goodbye to Maya and Nish, who race down the stairs to catch him before he leaves. Kath walks out to the car with them, but Nadeeka sits motionless at the kitchen table, her mind in overdrive.
So Scott forgot his phone. Or he decided to try running without it. Either excuse is plausible, she supposes. But who runs a fifteen-kilometre trail without breaking a sweat, and comes home with a spotless running vest still bearing knife-sharp folds?
A liar, she thinks. That’s who.