Chapter 16
Lila
At the traffic lights on Crow Road, Lila checked out her reflection in the rear-view mirror.
Her new Prada aviators looked fabulous, especially now that her hair was a bit beach-wave-casual after her lunchtime interlude with Ken.
The very thought of it turned her on. The prospect of being able to have sex with him every day just fuelled the determination to make it happen.
Shaking off the memory of him, she whipped out her phone, pouted, took a quick selfie, then uploaded it to all her social media sites, with the hashtags #fridayfeeling #fabulous #wintershades #pradarocks #eveninDecember.
An irate woman in a Skoda behind her beeped the horn to let her know that the lights had changed. How rude. Did nobody have any patience these days?
She gave her the finger, removed the glasses, then accelerated off. Probably just some jealous cow going home to four brats and a husband that only shagged her when his football team won on a Saturday.
She turned right, then wound her way around the maze of Victorian crescents and terraces that made up this part of the city.
This was one of the finer areas, populated by wealthy professionals, academics and a fair share of the glitterati.
House prices were among the highest in the city, there were fabulous bars and restaurants and she could absolutely see herself living here instead of at her waterfront flat.
Okay, so her place was on the river, but that’s where the glamour ended.
Here, however, she could pop to one of the bijou little delis for lunch and have one of the gorgeous florists deliver her weekly flowers, all white, for the hallway in the house.
Actually, maybe they’d move. Perhaps Ken wouldn’t want to stay in the home he’d shared with Bernadette.
Fine with her. It would be fabulous to find their own place, and work with a designer to make it absolutely perfect.
Her stomach started to rumble and she realised she’d had nothing to eat all day.
One of those bijou little delis was coming up on her left and there was a space right outside it, so she pulled in and jumped out, noting the head turns of a couple of guys who were walking past. Her ego took a bow, then pretended not to notice.
She picked up a goat’s cheese salad from the display and a bottle of Perrier. The cheesecake in the fridge area looked delicious, but she didn’t maintain a size six figure by giving in to temptation, so she ignored it.
Back in the car, she tossed her purchases on to the passenger seat and set off again.
The traffic was slowing down with the mums in their estate cars and jeeps starting to mobilise on the school run, so it was ten minutes later that she finally turned off Great Western Road and into Ken’s street, a gorgeous, curving, tree-lined road of detached villas and townhouse terraces, all of them built some time near the end of the nineteenth century.
Lila didn’t give a toss about architecture, but even she could see that they were impressive buildings.
She crawled along, some weird sensation making her skin prickle. Nerves? Excitement? Maybe a combination of both.
There it was, on the right. Not the grandest house on the street, but still striking by anyone’s standards.
Constructed from stone, it had double bay windows downstairs, and three windows on the front upstairs.
Lila knew the centre one and the one on the right-hand side formed Ken’s bedroom and en suite.
One night, a few years before, she’d been sitting out here, when she’d seen him pull the curtains, then watched as the bathroom light went on.
At the same time a text from him had pinged on her phone saying goodnight.
She’d realised he must be sending it from the bathroom before joining Bernadette in bed.
She’d responded with a suggestion of what they could be doing if he was with her, before adding two kisses and sending.
The return text came with a promise to take her up on her suggestion next time they met.
Always in the future, she thought. Never now. That was going to change.
Her hands tightened around the steering wheel as she spotted the side of a vehicle in the driveway.
It couldn’t be Ken’s. He drove his sleek red Mercedes to work on a Monday, then left it there all week as he cycled to and from the hospital.
It was a peculiar habit that she didn’t fully understand, but she was sure there was some really smart reason for it.
Closer now, she realised the car in the double driveway belonged to Bernadette. A Fiat something or other. Lila sighed. Bernadette was the wife of an eminent surgeon – what the hell was she doing in a Fiat? Where was the Merc? The Lexus? Ken was wasted on her.
Wasted.
She pulled up on the opposite side of the road, and – much as she was desperate to march over and ring the doorbell – she decided there were a few other necessities to take care of first. Food. Make-up. Hair. All of which would give her a chance to scope out the situation.
Without taking her eyes off the house, the garage, the front path, she lifted her phone and dialled the house number again.
Still no answer. How could that be? Her car was parked right there, so she was almost definitely in.
She didn’t strike Lila as the type of woman who would go for an afternoon jog, so she was probably in there lying on the couch watching daytime TV while scoffing a six-pack of prawn cocktail crisps.
Okay, time to prepare. Food first – but after a few mouthfuls of the salad, she put it back to the side.
Couldn’t eat. She was too busy strategizing to take incoming nutrition.
Instead, she gulped back some water and got on with touching up her make-up.
Her foundation was almost flawless, just a couple of slightly shiny patches – that was what happened after Botox – so she damped them down with her Elizabeth Arden sponge and powder.
Hair next. The perfect, poker-straight sheet from this morning had been ruffled by her antics with Ken, so she pulled her battery-operated tongs out of the glove compartment and flicked them on.
Less than a minute later, they pinged and she got to work, adding to the waves so at least they looked deliberate, and not the result of a wild, lunchtime shagging session.
Only when she had restored a gorgeous mane of baby blonde – all her own, no extensions required – did she switch the tongs off and toss them on the floor to cool down.
Lipstick. Should she go with her favourite Revlon red again?
Or go with a softer pink that would be more flattering at this time of day?
Daylight was beginning to fade outside, so she flicked on the car’s interior light, and took a selfie.
Caption: Red or pink pout? Posted. Her phone immediately started pinging with responses, but she ignored them all.
Red. Definitely red. She needed every bit of vampish confidence she could garner.
Butterflies well and truly stirring, she slid out of the car, locked it and crossed the road. Actually, strutted was a more apt description.
The gate squeaked as it opened and she checked out the car to her left. The driveway was big enough for two vehicles, one directly in front of the garage and one to the left of it. That’s where the Fiat sat now.
Surreptitiously, she peered in the front room windows – no sign of life. Bernadette must be in the back of the house. Time to do this.
Only when her Revlon red nail polish was pressing the doorbell, did Lila notice that her hands were shaking. No time for weakness now.
Remove obstacles. Conquer challenges. Remove obstacles. Conquer challenges.
She still jumped when the bell rang.
Five seconds. Ten seconds. Fifteen seconds. Nothing.
Come on, how long does it take to answer a door? Was daytime TV really that engrossing?
She rang it again.
Five seconds. Ten seconds. Fifteen seconds. Nothing.
Maybe she was out in the garden at the back. Lila looked to each side of the house, but there were fences at both, stopping anyone from getting to the rear of the home. Fuck. Irritation mounting, she pulled her phone from her Mulberry Bayswater and dialled the number once again. Ring ring.
She could hear the chirp of the phone inside the house. Five seconds. Ten seconds. Fifteen seconds. Then Ken’s voice cut in again, asking her to leave a message. Nothing. Again, fuck.
She strutted back to the car, threw her bag across to the passenger side and then climbed in, making a conscious effort to think about this rationally.
The house was empty. The car was there. So chances were that Bernadette hadn’t gone far.
Go or wait? Wait. She hadn’t come all this way to have wasted her time.
Throwing lipstick caution to the wind, she picked up the salad and finished it, eating slowly, chewing every mouthful twenty times as her mother had always told her.
That passed fifteen minutes or so. Still nothing.
She finished the water. Still nothing. And now, she was beginning to feel the need to pee. Damn it.
Another five minutes. Still nothing.
She just about needed to be peeled from the roof of the car when the ring of her mobile phone cut into the silence.
She checked the screen. Head office again.
What was it with them today? They were driving her nuts.
She flicked it straight to voicemail. There was no way she wanted to get into a conversation about orders, or travel, or team-building bloody sessions, in case Bernadette came back and she lost her window of opportunity. And now she definitely needed to pee.
Trying to take her mind off it, she picked up her phone and flicked on to her Facebook – 206 likes for her last post, and they were about fifty – fifty as to red or pink.
She scanned the comments. One said, Stunning either way, hunni! Lila checked the name of the person who’d posted – nope, no idea. She’d never met them in her life.
Another one. Wow, looking great as always! #beautygoals #princess #babe.
She’d never actually met the person who wrote that one either, although they made it sound like they hung out every night after work.
She had over 2000 Facebook friends and she actually only knew about fifty of them.
As for true friends? Well, none of them really.
She’d never needed friends. The girls at school and university had all been so jealous, she’d never bothered keeping up with them, and then she’d met Ken, and landed this job, and – before her dad moved back here full time – she did loads of things with her mum, so her life just seemed to roll on without the need for anyone else.
Some people might think it was a bit strange but it suited her just fine.
The buzz of the adoration gave her enough of a high to dilute the annoyance that she was wasting her time here.
But she really, really, needed to pee.
Sod it, she couldn’t wait any longer. She was furious. Bloody Bernadette wrecking her plans again. Today was proving to be an absolute bust and she had to redeem at least some of it. She checked the clock. Three-forty.
She’d hoped that she would have a long, lazy afternoon with her mum, or an even longer, sexy afternoon with Ken if his surgery schedule changed, so she hadn’t made her usual Friday afternoon appointment at the salon. Still, Suze would definitely find a way to fit her in for something. Anything.
Horns blared as she did a swift U-turn then sped back in the direction she’d come from. Salon, it was. She could take care of everything else later.
Friday rush hour traffic was really building up now, so what should have been a fifteen-minute journey took twenty-five.
And oh, she now needed to pee so badly. She practically abandoned the car outside the salon – one of the junior staff could come and move it – before dashing in, straight past a surprised Suze at reception and rushing into the loo.
An exhalation of relief later, she checked her reflection in the mirror, washed her hands and then returned to the desk.
‘Hey Suze!’ she chirped breezily. Just because she was having – lunchtime quickie aside – a completely shit day, didn’t mean the rest of the world had to know about it. ‘Do you have a slot for a blow-dry? Maybe an updo? I know I don’t have an appointment, but I just feel the need to be pampered.’
Suze greeted her with a smile that didn’t quite reach the eyes.
She’d always suspected Suze wasn’t her greatest fan, but she got a thirty per cent discount in here because Suze and Cammy had been friends for, like, ever.
Although, like his friendships with Josie and Val, Lila didn’t get it.
It wasn’t like they were particularly interesting.
And why did he need female friends when he had her?
‘That’s so spooky, you walking in right now. Someone was in here, just a few minutes ago, and asked for you.’
‘Really, who?’
Suze shrugged. ‘I didn’t get her name. Really pretty. Maybe thirty. Blonde. She had an accent – sounded like Inverness or Aberdeen. I always get the two of them mixed up. Anyway, she said she was a friend.’
Lila quickly flicked through her mental Rolodex for a clue but there was nothing. ‘A “friend” friend, or a Facebook friend?’
Suze shrugged again, her attention already back on the computer at the desk. ‘No idea. I prefer to wait until the second appointment before I hold them down and grill them for every detail of their lives.’
Lila fought the urge to bite back with a bitchy retort.
As for the ‘friend’ who had asked for her?
It could be anyone. A few of the nurses and a couple of the doctors she’d interacted with in hospitals or at conventions were from up north, so it could be one of them.
Or perhaps it was someone who had come across her on Facebook and liked her page – one of those strangers who acted like her very best friend.
‘Anyway, I told her to pop in next door and speak to Cammy, so you might want to talk to him. It was only about ten minutes ago, so she’s probably still there.’