Chapter 31 Boyfriends and Husbands
Boyfriends and Husbands
The knocking rouses me, bleary-eyed and dry-mouthed, from sleep. Sunlight pours in through my open curtains, the glare blinding.
Memories of the police station, and DI Cobham, flood back. I feel a tumbling kind of hysteria growing inside me.
The knocking begins afresh. I scramble up, straighten my crumpled clothing from the night before, flatten my bed hair into something vaguely presentable, and head to the stairs.
The knocking is crowned with one soulful chime of the doorbell.
I peer down the banister to the hallway, the silhouette of a woman visible beyond the frosted glass. For a second, I wonder if it might be the female police officer checking up on me but as soon as I swing open the door and see who it actually is, I wish it were the police.
Marina is staring back at me, her eyes playing over my bed-mussed hair and creased shirt, before she remembers to pull a tight smile.
“Morning,” she says crisply. It’s actually 12:17. “Sorry to bother you. I’m Marina, from across the road.” While she doesn’t look friendly, she does look good, her weekend getup effortlessly perfect: shorts, gladiator sandals, broderie-anglaise cami, and beads, her hair glossy and loose.
“Number Fifteen,” she adds.
“Oh, yes, hi,” I say.
Is she here to tell me off for harassing her friend last night?
Marina holds my gaze expectantly, an uncomfortable silence forming. She seems to be waiting for something, for me to do something.
“Do you want to come in?” I ask, unsure what else to do.
She frowns slightly, looks back at her house, then to me, and nods awkwardly.
“Okay, I guess,” she mutters, before squeezing past me as I hold open the door.
She looks into my living room as we pass it heading toward the kitchen.
“You work from home, don’t you?” she asks, and I don’t know why, but I don’t like the way she says it.
“I do.” It’s a lie I’ve said so often this week that I’m starting to believe it myself.
“I’m so sorry for the inconvenience,” she rambles on, “bursting in on you like this on the weekend. What a pain. I can totally understand how that would be an annoyance—people assuming you’re always in and available,” she says.
“Not at all,” I reassure her. “Can I get you a tea, coffee, water?” I am still unclear why she is here.
She looks surprised at the question, before course-correcting. Her eyes scan my kitchen, my furniture, my appliances, my finishes, coolly appraising it all.
“Oh. Okay. Sure,” she answers. “Coffee. If you’re making it.” She keeps her tone bright, noncommittal. “I just mean you must get a lot of packages, being in all the time, working from home.”
The coffee machine thunders, then splutters to a stop.
“What do you do?” she asks, her tone upbeat but awkward.
“Luxury branding,” I answer, popping oat milk in her coffee—I know she drinks oat milk because I saw it in her transparent recycling bags.
“I’m fixed-income macro trading, for my sins,” she says, without being asked. She flashes me a row of perfect white teeth.
“Wow, interesting.”
“Yep.” She takes the coffee I hand her, stares down into it, that appraising gaze again. Perhaps the oat milk was Chris’s or Eric’s, not hers.
“Do you want to sit down?” I ask.
She looks mildly horrified.
“Oh, I’m so sorry. That’s so kind but I really only came over to collect my package. Sorry. Our package. I mean, thanks for the…coffee and everything but…” She stops and shrugs helplessly, then gently sets her coffee cup down on the table.
I feel life drain from me as I recall the imaginary package I told Eric about last night.
“Oh! Right! Yes. The package, okay,” I blurt, mortified, because of course there isn’t one.
“Exactly,” she says, with a relieved smile. “Eric texted me this morning. He said you were very eager to get it off your hands.”
I feel my cheeks fill with blood. “Yes, of course. I’ll just…go and get it. I think I put it on the bookshelf in the…I’ll be right back.”
In the living room, I mouth a few choice swear words to myself before making “I’m looking for something” noises, my brain working overtime for an excuse. There’s no package, obviously.
After opening and shutting a cupboard or two, I bite the bullet and head back to the kitchen.
Marina is standing by the back door, fiddling with the lock, when I enter. She looks up suddenly when she sees me, hands raised as if I’ve caught her.
“Sorry—your cat was trying to get out.”
I spin around and see Blue, looking sheepish under the kitchen table, his old vandalized red collar that I rescued from the upstairs bin bag back around his neck with a large black AirTag carabiner dangling from it, the words Help Me just about visible to the keen eye.
“Oh my God,” I blurt, pushing past her. “Don’t worry—I’ll get him. He hasn’t had breakfast yet.” I grab him and plop him back on the stairs and watch him trot up and away.
“Oh my goodness. He’s beautiful. He looks so familiar,” Marina coos. “I must have seen him around.”
Sweat prickles my hands. “Yeah, I put a photo of him on the group earlier this week. You probably saw him there.” I hope this puts an end to it.
“I’d love to have a cat but I’m just not home enough,” she confides.
“Couldn’t Chris, or Eric, look after it? While you are out?” I try, the opportunity too good to miss.
Her forehead creases at the mention of their names.
“Eric doesn’t live with us. It’s just me and Chris. And Chris is away a lot.”
She absentmindedly rubs her face, smearing her mascara in the corner of her left eye.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
Marina’s attention snaps back to me. “Excuse me?”
“I was just asking if you’re okay.”
Marina instantly reddens at the question. She clears her throat and looks at her watch.
“Oh my gosh. Sorry. Look at the time! I was only supposed to pop over here for a second. I left something…in the warming oven,” she adds. “Could I just get the package?” she asks, her hand outstretched expectantly.
But there is no package.
“I’m so sorry, the truth is…I thought the package I received was for you, but it was for a Mary Lamb, at Twenty-one. I can’t believe I mixed the names up. I’m so embarrassed after making such a fuss.”
Marina’s veneer of charm drops slightly; she stares at me for a second. “I see. Right. Yes, of course, that happens. I was surprised to hear about it, because I haven’t ordered anything in weeks.”
—
From behind the curtains of the front window, Chris opens the door before she reaches it, his expression becoming serious as she speaks, his gaze flicking across the road to my house. I pull back from the window as the pair talk intensely.
I wonder if she did recognize Blue.
It’s then I realize that if Chris is home to answer the door he must have been home last night when Eric was there. Perhaps they are just all friends? But do friends argue the way Marina and Eric argue? Something is going on in that house, I know it.
When I look back, I catch sight of Chris throwing one last concerned look at my house, before disappearing inside his.