The Anita Waller Collection

by Anita Waller

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘I can hardly feel it now. Thank you for not telling the kids. They didn’t need to know about it, and it would have put the focus on me instead of on the engagement.’

  He shrugged. ‘Don’t be too late back. See you later.’

  She closed the office door, and almost ran downstairs. She picked up the small white teddy ornament she had found in a garden centre and dropped it into her bag. A packet of baby wipes followed it – she liked to keep the headstone clean – and she put on her coat, right arm carefully.

  Her first stop was to pick up some flowers and she chose pink carnations and gypsophila, with one beautiful white rose.

  It was a large cemetery, but the children’s area was quite close to the entrance gates. Over the years, Claudia had got to know one or two of the bereaved mums, but that day the sector was empty of parents. She walked up the slight incline to Ella’s grave and stood for a moment, before kneeling. She took out the old flowers, then wrapped them in the paper the fresh ones had been in.

  She walked over to the rubbish cage, threw them in and filled the vase with water. Arranging the flowers always gave her pleasure; she could do nothing else for her tiny daughter.

  Claudia quickly wiped down the headstone, and then sat on the marble base. She placed the new little ornament centrally at the base of the headstone, then spoke of her love, her heartache; she told Ella her brother was now engaged to be married, and he was happy. She said Daddy sends his love. She always said Daddy sends his love, but privately thought it was a pity Daddy couldn’t deliver that message himself.

  And then she told Ella that Mummy didn’t love Daddy anymore because Daddy kept hitting Mummy, but it didn’t matter because Mummy had a nice new home to go to, and she would be living in it with Aunty Heather.

  Claudia stayed half an hour, then stood and pressed her kissed fingers to the headstone. ‘Love you, baby,’ she said, and wondered if it would ever get any easier. She suspected not.

  She gave a backward glance as she drove away, then wiped the tears from her cheeks. All these tiny graves, all these teddies, birthday cards that were laminated to protect them from the weather, flowers everywhere, some blue, some pink. Gifts for angels.

  Chapter 7

  Heather was standing at the lounge window when Claudia pulled up. She had been crying. Despite everything, she would not have wanted Owen dead, and all she could see was his body at the bottom of the stairs, his eyes open. And to make matters worse, she now regretted not calling the police and ambulance at the time. Unfortunately, it was too late for that; she would either have to return to the house and find him or hope someone else did.

  The door banged, and Claudia called her name.

  ‘I’m in the lounge!’ Heather responded.

  Claudia dumped two pillows on the floor. ‘I called at Tesco and picked these up. I can’t stay long, because I don’t want James thinking I’m in contact with you. He’s going to work early Monday, so I’ll get up when he does and shoot straight across here. What I can do over the weekend is do an online shop for delivery early Monday morning – between seven and nine okay?’

  Heather nodded. ‘That’s fine. If nothing’s happened with Owen before Monday, I think I might have to go over there and discover him.’

  ‘No!’ Claudia looked shocked. ‘James knows you’ve left him, and when I go as well, James is going to go and find Owen, to see if we’re together. Don’t forget we have a key for yours. He’ll find him. The police will find your mobile number, either on Owen’s phone or they’ll get it from James, and for heaven’s sake, be shattered by it when they ring. He’s in Leeds Monday and Tuesday. He’ll be home Tuesday evening, so I guess it will all start to kick off after that. In the meantime, we set this place up, act perfectly normal. Heather, you didn’t kill him, it was an accident.’

  Claudia picked up the pillows and headed for her bedroom. The bed had been put in place and the headboard attached, but only had a bottom sheet on the mattress. There was a duvet cover and pillowcases on the bed, ready for use, and Claudia put the pillowcases on her new pillows.

  ‘There’s no duvet,’ Heather called. ‘I forgot to mention it.’ She walked through to Claudia and looked around. ‘You okay in here?’

  Claudia smiled. ‘I’m okay with everything in this flat. I’ll add a duvet to the online shop, so I’ll be okay for my first night here on Monday. Did you sleep okay?’

  ‘Surprisingly well. It’s years since I’ve slept on an inflatable bed. I’ve deflated it now and put it in that broom cupboard thing at the end of the hall. There’s a Hoover in there, by the way, and it works.’

  ‘That’s good. And will you be okay tonight and tomorrow night? You’ll be on your own, and we can’t really communicate. I don’t want James getting any inkling of this. I want him going to work Monday morning a married man, and coming home Tuesday evening separated.’

  Heather sat on the bed. ‘I’m widowed.’ Her tone was bleak.

  Claudia had no idea what to say. Owen and Heather’s relationship had been complex. It had been alcohol, and only alcohol, that had driven the wedge into the marriage; they hadn’t stopped caring for each other, it simply became impossible to live together.

  Claudia moved to sit by her side and placed her left arm around her friend’s shoulders. ‘It’s a one-armed hug,’ she joked.

  Heather gave a weak smile and sighed. ‘The sooner Owen is found, the better. What was I thinking of, not ringing 999 immediately? I hadn’t done anything, he over-balanced.’

  ‘And that’s what will show when he is found, but you would have been taken in for questioning, all the stuff with the bank would have surfaced, and his drinking could have been seen as your reason for helping him down those stairs. Trust me, we’ve done this right.’

  Heather turned her head to look at Claudia’s face, seeking the truth. ‘And you believe I didn’t push him?’

  ‘Of course I believe you,’ Claudia scoffed. ‘I’ve known you for many years, and you haven’t got a bad thought in you.’

  Heather gave a huge sigh. ‘Then I have to just sit it out. Wait for somebody to find him.’

  ‘Ring him,’ Claudia said. ‘And when he doesn’t answer, leave a voicemail. Tell him you’re okay, but you meant it when you said it was over unless he stopped drinking completely. That will reinforce the problem when they find the alcohol in him, they’ll know he fell downstairs because he couldn’t maintain his balance.’

  ‘You’re probably right. And I will ring his phone and ask him to ring me back. I’ll say I can’t tell him where I am, not yet, but I will when I’m properly settled. Then what? We sit back and wait for the police to contact me?’

  ‘That’s about all we can do. And when the police arrive, we ask them to respect our privacy. Nobody must know where we are.’

  Heather was silent for a moment, deep in thought.

  ‘You okay?’ Claudia squeezed her hand.

  ‘I will be. But I want you to go home now. Don’t give him any excuse to go for you, you’ve only to get through two more nights and you’re free.’

  Claudia heard James’s phone ringing as she went in, and saw it vibrating its way towards the edge of the coffee table. James was nowhere to be seen, so she glanced at the screen.

  Marilyn. The ringtone stopped abruptly. Marilyn? She hadn’t heard James speak of anyone with that name before. The sound of the toilet flush alerted her to her husband’s whereabouts, and she headed for the kitchen.

  She sat at the table and looked around her. This kitchen was easily three times the size of the one in the flat, and she didn’t care that she was giving it up. She wouldn’t be living in fear of getting a battering that went a step too far; the coldness of the relationship would be gone, and she could relax. She wanted desperately to be herself, not Mrs Bell, wife of Mr Bell and subordinate to him. Afraid to have an opinion. Scared every time she heard him put his key in the lock when he returned from work.

  She stood to take off her
coat and felt a twinge in her shoulder. At least that was one problem sorted. She swallowed a couple of painkillers, not wanting the twinge to become any more than that and took two steaks out of the freezer. She fancied she might just take the other four with her when she left on Monday. She’d leave James with the shepherd’s pies. The thought brought a smile to her face.

  ‘Oh, you’re back.’ James stood framed by the kitchen doorway. ‘I didn’t hear you come in.’

  ‘You were in the bathroom. Your mobile was ringing, someone called Marilyn, but it stopped before I could answer it.’

  James nodded and moved towards the lounge. Claudia waited a few seconds and followed him. He had the phone held to his ear without speaking; Marilyn had clearly left a voicemail.

  ‘I’ve not heard you speak of a Marilyn before.’

  He put the phone into his back pocket. ‘No, she’s part of the Leeds staff. She’s not been there long, and that’s the reason she rings me. She double checks before she does anything. She’ll be fine when her confidence builds.’

  Claudia smiled. ‘Just like Sara at work. She’s improving now, but for the first six months she brought everything to me before actioning it. There’s one in every office, isn’t there?’ Claudia returned to her meal planning, knowing the husband she had lived with for twenty-eight years was lying to her.

  James switched on the television. He felt a bit of football might be in order, maybe cool him down. The voicemail had made him tingle and he was thankful Claudia hadn’t listened to it. Hi, Mr President, it’s your Marilyn, and I only wanted you to know that I would love to be stroking your beautiful cock right now. It seems a long time until Monday night. Love you.

  He watched the football that appeared on screen without knowing what was going on. He didn’t listen to the commentators, figuring they knew nothing anyway, and let his mind go forward to Monday night. He would finish his workday early, so that he could get his reports emailed quickly, then he would head for the Travelodge he used whenever he stayed in Leeds. Marilyn was an accident; he hadn’t meant it to happen, but it had, and now he was finding it almost impossible to keep the affair to himself. He wanted to tell the world, but a wife and two kids, albeit adult kids, stopped that. Especially after the surprise announcement of Harry and Emma’s engagement – he needed to be the loving family man for a while yet.

  It would decimate his family; Marilyn understood and accepted that James came with baggage, but he had slowly come to the realisation that he couldn’t go on like this. What had happened the previous Saturday with Claudia was unforgivable, and something that happened far too regularly, but he didn’t know how to put it right. He didn’t even know if he had the energy or the willingness to make things better.

  And to add to his woes, it was obvious David knew the mark on Claudia’s face wasn’t caused by walking into a door. If he told Zoe…

  The ball went in the back of the net, and he raised his head to watch the replay. Things seemed to have improved at Manchester United with the advent of Mourinho, and he had no doubt that the goal would prove to be the winner with only five minutes left to go. With a sigh, he picked up the remote control and switched it off. He would try to be a bit nicer to Claudia, she didn’t deserve his constant criticism and bitchiness.

  He walked into the kitchen and took out a bottle of wine. He poured them both a drink and smiled at her. She reacted with a look of shock.

  ‘To Harry and Emma,’ he said, raising his glass.

  She repeated the gesture and wondered why he was being so nice. Something was amiss. Usually, when she had been to the cemetery, he became so wound up she always tried to avoid being in the same room as him. She wouldn’t let it stop her visiting her daughter’s grave, but she always knew what to expect when she returned home.

  That day appeared to be different. Had he forgotten where she had been? She mentally shrugged and turned towards the food preparation. Two more evening meals, and she would be free… And she could visit Ella without feeling she needed to apologise for loving her tiny daughter.

  Sunday was a long day. The sun shone, although not with any strength, but nevertheless Claudia sat out on the patio for quite some time, drinking tea and reading. She had completed the online shopping order and hoped she hadn’t missed anything. She booked the delivery slot for lunchtime instead of the early slot she had said to Heather, then closed down her laptop. Claudia noticed an absence of pain; she hadn’t had to take any painkillers, so assumed the wound was healing well. It was such a relief that the mole had now gone.

  She wanted to start packing but knew she couldn’t. James had been upstairs working on the computer for most of the morning, and she was damn sure she wasn’t going to do any housework. If he queried why she hadn’t cleaned the bathroom, the chore she usually reserved for Sunday morning, she would simply say it would have to stay as it was, her shoulder was too sore, and she didn’t want to burst any stitches.

  What she really wanted to say was ‘Clean it yourself, you idle manipulative piece of shit’, but knew the resultant beating wouldn’t be good.

  But James said nothing. He even loaded the dishwasher after their evening meal, and she began to worry that he had picked up on the great escape.

  James’s mind was in another city, and that overrode everything. Even loading the dishwasher had been a pleasant chore; his mind could go where it wanted to go, to the Travelodge in Leeds.

  His phone vibrated every few minutes as he chatted with his blonde temptress, and he didn’t mind at all. They spoke of love, of lust, of plans for the week ahead; they did not speak of any issues surrounding James having a family.

  Around nine, James sent his final text of the evening. He said goodnight and see you tomorrow.

  He did it with a smile and Claudia noticed.

  She frowned slightly. James had said he was in the middle of a discussion with one of the Leeds councillors, regarding a development in the city centre. She had listened to the everlasting pings all evening long but tried to ignore them as she became lost in her book.

  And then James made a mistake. He sent that final text and smiled. He fucking smiled. Claudia knew he wasn’t texting any old councillor, he was texting a female councillor, one he was happy to be texting. Possibly one he was happy to be doing other things with as well.

  Claudia put down her book. ‘I’m going to bed, James.’

  He looked across at her. ‘You okay?’ There was still a half smile on his lips.

  ‘I’m fine. My back’s feeling a little sore, so I’m taking some tablets and going to try to sleep. Don’t wake me when you come up, will you?’

  He stood. ‘I’ll get you the tablets.’

  ‘Make sure they’re not arsenic, won’t you?’ She gripped her book. Had she really just said that?

  ‘I’ll have a rummage around the drawer and make sure they’re paracetamol,’ he said, and winked at her.

  She was in shock. Who was this stranger? A stranger she would be saying goodbye to in eight hours, and it would be goodbye for ever. For over six years he had been a bully, a wife-beater, a sarcastic thug of a man, and then on their last night together he develops a new personality? She wasn’t buying any of it.

  ‘Thank you.’ She eased herself up from the sofa and stood her book on the bookshelf. It briefly occurred to her that these books would have to go with her; he would destroy them if they didn’t. He hated her ability to lose herself in a story, and constantly carped about her ignoring him in favour of a novel.

  She heard him go into the bedroom with her painkillers while she was brushing her teeth, so she brushed for a little longer.

  ‘Night, God bless,’ he called as he went back downstairs, and she rinsed her mouth. She splashed a little water on her face and left the bathroom.

  The tablets were on her bedside table, and she picked up the glass of water to facilitate them going down her throat.

  Ten minutes later she was asleep, drifting off in the middle of planning in her head what she
could get in the car the next morning.

  James opened up his laptop and logged onto the Leeds City Council website. He read through Marilyn’s page, and wondered if they would ever have the courage to be together properly. James had felt happy all day; the previous week had been good, and they had shared several nights, but he thought next week might only be Monday night for them. He had other meetings in various parts of the country that he had to attend, and his job had to come first.

  He finger-kissed the photo on the screen and closed the lid after logging off. They would speak in the morning while he was driving up to Leeds, and once again the thought put a smile on his face.

  He switched off all the lights and slowly climbed the stairs. He needed to sleep; an early start was essential.

  The rain was coming down heavily as James wheeled his small suitcase out to the car. He put it into the boot, along with his laptop, then sprinted back into the house to collect his dark blue suit.

  He bent to kiss Claudia, and she recoiled. ‘I’m not going to hit you, woman,’ he growled. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow night. Don’t forget to check that everything is okay next door. You heard from either of them?’

  ‘I’ve heard from Heather, but not Owen.’

  ‘Well, check the house. Bye.’

  He turned and went towards his car. ‘See you tomorrow.’

  ‘Not if I’ve got anything to do with it,’ she murmured, and closed the door.

  Within a couple of minutes she had two large suitcases open on the bed, and she was packing. She filled the cases with all her clothes, then moved them to the top of the stairs ready for transporting them out to the car.

  Having to lay her back seat flat caused her some shoulder pain and she knew she had to be careful; it took her until nearly eleven to get the little car packed. Almost every part of it was heaving with stuff, and she was aware she would have to make a return journey, but she would come on her own. She didn’t want Heather anywhere near her old home until she had no choice but to be there.