Chapter 30
I must have fallen asleep because the light has dimmed. The branches of the pepper tree tapping against the window are what wake me. I check the time on my bedside clock. It’s half past five.
I go to the bathroom and stare at my reflection. My mascara is smudged all over my face, and the spots where I rubbed so hard earlier are still red and raw.
I wash my face and redo my makeup. I brush my hair, straighten my clothes, and go downstairs.
Roy’s office door is still closed, and I’m trying to remember if I left it that way when I hear something. A low muttering. I look around. It’s coming from his office.
I tiptoe to the door and put my ear against it. He must be talking to a client because his conversation is peppered with words like, Slow down… I can’t make sense of what you’re saying…. Take a breath…
I feel my hairline prickle. Is that really a client? I stop and listen.
“Why can’t you tell me over the phone?” he asks.
A beat. And then I hear him say, “Oh, my darling.” And I think I must be dreaming. Don’t be silly, I tell myself. I’m his darling.
But then he says it again. “My darling.”
I bend down to listen through the keyhole, which is barely a keyhole anyway, more like a narrow slit, but he’s not saying much. Only short replies like, Shhhh… It’s all right…. Yes, yes, of course I’ll come…
I hear footsteps behind me. I stand up so fast I give myself whiplash. I hold the doorjamb to steady myself.
“Those stupid shoes…” I mumble, slipping my finger in the back of my right pump.
“Mrs. Davies?”
God. You know Roy’s home for her to call me Mrs. Davies.
“Oh, Marie! I didn’t hear you there. My shoe… I think my feet must have swelled up in the heat!”
She’s wearing her dusty-pink coat and carrying her little purse. “I was wondering if…”
“Yes?” I’m straining to hear what Roy is saying while still focusing on Marie.
I can just make out words like mistake and sweetheart.
Marie blinks at me. Can she hear this too?
I give her my sunniest smile, like I’m the happiest person ever, and move away from the door as if to go upstairs. “Sorry, did you want something?”
“No… Yes. I don’t want to disturb Dr. Davies…”
“No. Please don’t. He’s in a conversation with…” I push a strand of hair away from my face. “With a patient. Role play, I believe.”
“I understand. So I was wondering, maybe I could ask you…”
“Yes, yes. What is it?”
“Could I please have the night off tonight?”
“Yes, of course, you can have the night off anytime you like.”
“Oh.” She clutches her little purse, surprised. Why? Did she think I was going to say no?
“But I was going to prepare dinner…”
“No problem, Marie. I’ll do it.”
“So you don’t mind?”
“I don’t mind.” By now I’m speaking through gritted teeth. Please go.
Roy is speaking again.
I’m so sorry about everything. You have no idea how good it is to hear your voice.
“I’ll be back tomorrow late morning,” Marie says. “I’ll do the washing up from dinner then.”
“Yes, yes, that’s fine. I’ll do the washing up. You enjoy your night off.”
Sweetheart…you’re worrying me. Tell me what’s going on?
“Well then. If you’re sure…”
“Positive.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Davies.”
I pretend to go up the stairs while she makes her way out the front door. The moment she’s gone, I run back to take up my position, my ear pressed against the keyhole.
“I’m so sorry about everything,” Roy says. “You’ve got no idea how much I’ve missed you. I think about you day and night. Yes. Yes, sweetheart, let’s meet. I’ll come over now.”
Silence. My ear is pressed so hard against the door that I’ll have an imprint of that lock on my earlobe.
“Okay. Please calm down, sweetheart. All right. I’ll come later.
Yes. Around ten or eleven, after Jodie is asleep.
You have no idea how happy I am to hear your voice.
I’ve missed you so much. Don’t worry, whatever it is, we’ll figure it out.
Oh God. Vee. I made a terrible mistake, but I’ll make it right, I promise… ”
I feel like I’ve been punched in the solar plexus. So Vee, a.k.a. Veronica, is back on the scene. Why?
My head is spinning. Maybe the harpies have had their hand in it. Maybe they called Vee, dear Vee, and told her horrible lies about me. Like I’m jealous of Deborah, like my puff pastry wasn’t buttery enough, like I forage for food in garbage cans.
If Vee is back and he wants to meet her tonight…that means he’s going to break up with me.
I go straight to the downstairs guest bathroom, grab handfuls of little soaps—those are shaped like stars and moons and smell of lemongrass—and bring them to my nose.
There… Isn’t that better? Doesn’t that smell divine? Look how pretty they are with their perfect shapes and colors.
But it doesn’t work. I picture my linen cupboard and still it’s not enough. I think of my roses, especially the pink ones that look like they were plucked from a Good Housekeeping photo shoot, and all I can see is Deb’s ravaged, tired face.
I put the soaps back in the gorgeous holder—navy and gold—then go upstairs to my bedroom. I sit on the bed, my fingers against my temples.
I have to calm down. I have to think. This can’t be happening. I’m not done yet. And I can’t pull off the pregnancy trick again, obviously.
Maybe I can talk to Veronica. I could press upon her that we are a happily married couple and she needs to find her own man, and anyway, isn’t she with David? Isn’t that what the harpies said?
Yes. Maybe she and David have hit a snag in their relationship, and she’s thinking of Roy again, but she can’t.
She can’t be going around breaking up marriages.
It’s just not right. I need to talk to her.
I need her address. I need to see her face-to-face and deal with the situation.
And to get her address, I need access to Roy’s phone.
Except we’re not that couple who has each other’s phone codes.
But I wonder… I close my eyes, then hold up my own phone in front of my face. When I open them, the phone is unlocked.
I try again, just to be sure, then I try another two or three times and every time, the phone unlocks without me having my eyes open.
Perfect.
Roy stays in his office a while longer, although now with the door open.
I bring him his usual Scotch on the rocks with a spritz of soda, just the way he likes it.
He’s working on his laptop. He smiles at me, not like he’s happy to see me, but like he’s happy, full stop.
Like I could be Marie, and he’d still smile like that.
I stroll around to the side of his desk, my fingers trailing.
“What do you need, Jodie?”
“You,” I say. “I need you.”
He smiles—no, he beams. I haven’t seen Roy this happy for weeks.
“Good news?” I say.
“What?”
“That phone call earlier. You look pleased with yourself.”
“Yes, yes.” He nods, grinning, then catches himself. He frowns. “One of my patients. She’s making excellent progress.”
“That’s nice.”
“What did you want?”
“Marie had to go out. I gave her the night off. I don’t have much time to make dinner, but there’ll be something in the freezer. And I’ll make a nice salad. You hungry?”
He sits back. “Marie took the night off? She knows she has to give me at least twenty-four hours’ notice.”
Ah. So that’s why Marie asked me, and not Roy.
I shrug. “Does it matter?” I stroll closer. I want to see what he’s doing on his laptop. “That means it’s just you and me in the house, all night.”
“Yes, I guess so. Give me a minute. I want to finish this email.”
I glance at the screen. Just a boring email to his broker.
I turn on my heels. “I’ll see what I can rustle up for dinner.”
I rush upstairs and rummage through our bathroom cabinet for some Ambien. I will crush a few pills in his wine this evening, and then, when he’s sound asleep, I will get Veronica’s address. All very straightforward.
What I do once I’m there is another story, but one thing at a time.
Except I can’t find any Ambien. I’ve pretty much taken everything out of the bathroom cabinet—which is quite large, for a bathroom cabinet—and there are no Ambien, no sleeping pills of any kind.
I was certain we had some, but I haven’t taken any for ages, so maybe Roy took them.
I look through his toiletries bag, but I don’t find any there either.
I sit on the edge of the bathtub and drum my fingers on my knee. How could I get my hands on some sleeping pills in the next hour?
Marie. I bet Marie has some Ambien.
I’ve only ventured into Marie’s rooms once in the weeks I’ve lived here, back when Roy showed me the house. I never went back. I have no interest in seeing her living quarters. In fact, I would have happily walled off that little section of the house. With her in it, preferably.
Marie has two connecting rooms: a living room and a bedroom, and a bathroom down the hall that is hers only.
I decide to start there. It doesn’t take long, and unfortunately I don’t find anything remotely useful in her sad little cabinet.
Just a few aspirins and an expired bottle of bicarbonate of soda.
Next, I try the door that leads to her living room.
It’s locked. Uselessly, as it turns out, since Roy and I both have keys.
It does make me wonder: Why would she lock her door?
Does she think we might get burgled? Does she worry that robbers would plunder her sad little underwear drawer while skipping over Roy’s collection of luxury watches?
I unlock the door and walk in. The first thing that strikes me is the smell. It’s sweet and light, like linen mixed with honeysuckle.
I turn on the light and survey the room.
There’s an armchair covered in sheepskin that looks extremely inviting.
Unless you’re a sheep, I suppose. There’s a large, green potted plant in the corner, a coffee table, a TV on the wall, a square table, and two chairs.
On the mantel are a small bouquet of daisies that turn out to be fake and a handful of photographs.
But I don’t let my curiosity distract me. I don’t have much time. I open the connecting door that leads to the bedroom. It’s fresher and much nicer than I remembered. The bedspread is a soft, pale blue blanket; her pillows are big and fluffy, and the bed is covered with smaller cushions.
I rummage through her little bedside table.
There’s a romance novel by an author I’ve never heard of, a small packet of tissues, more aspirin, a handful of hair clips…
And then, bingo. In the drawer beneath, a whole bottle of sleeping pills.
Different brand, but who cares as long as they do the job?
The only problem is that the bottle is unopened, but then I always forget how many pills I’ve taken, so why wouldn’t Marie?
“Jodie? Where are you?”
My heart skips a beat as Roy’s voice floats up the stairs. I quickly unscrew the bottle and shove a handful of pills in my pocket.
I’m about to lock the door when I notice a photograph among others on the mantel. I step back into the room, my heart racing. I pick it up.
It’s a photograph of Marie with Roy and Deborah in front of a massive Christmas tree in the hall at the bottom of the stairs.
The three of them are beaming. Marie and Deborah are standing close together, their heads slightly tilted toward each other, while Roy is standing a little apart, his hands in his pockets, the way he often stands.
I peer closer at the photograph. Marie looks younger, happier. She’s still wearing her uniform, but it looks more like cosplay than her actual vocation. Her hair is loose and her eyes are shiny. Deborah looks like she looks in every other photograph around the house. Beautiful, happy to be alive.
Then there’s another photograph of Marie standing next to a man in a wheelchair. He looks like her, and I wonder if they’re related.
But the photo that really jumps out is the one of Marie and Deborah alone, also taken in front of the Christmas tree.
They have their arms around each other’s shoulders, and they are laughing like friends, rather than employer and employee.
They genuinely look close, and for the first time, it occurs to me that Marie must have been genuinely upset when Deb died.
I mean, she said so, of course, but then, she would.
She’s the hired help; she’s hardly going to say, Good riddance, I never liked her.
It makes me soften toward Marie as I lock the door. I’m about to go back toward the stairs when I remember there’s another room on this floor, at the opposite end of the corridor. We didn’t go inside when Roy showed me the house.
“It’s just an old attic space under the eaves,” he’d said. “Typical in these old Spanish colonial houses. Too small to do anything with.”
I take off my shoes and pad down to it. It’s locked, but I have the keys. I try them one by one until, bingo.
My heart is racing as I slowly open the door. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dim light and make out the dusty, whitewashed walls, the sloping roof with its exposed beams, the single bed…the wooden chair.
“Jodie? You’re up there?”
I close the door and race down the stairs, still holding my shoes, and I don’t put them back on until I get back to my bedroom.
“Coming!”
“Have you seen my Montblanc pen?” he shouts from the bottom of the stairs.
“In the living room, on the bookshelf,” I shout back.
I sit on the bed and press my fingers against my temples.
My heart is racing. I feel sick. So that’s where he kept her, locked up, alone. And that’s why he gave Marie a week’s leave. Marie would have heard her otherwise. And Marie would surely have helped her. And then he killed her, the day Marie came home so someone else would find her.
I am so close to exposing him. I can taste it. But first, I need to take care of Veronica.