Jade really did think Maddie was going to throw up. She had gone from a translucent white to sickly green in seconds.
‘So if you ever go to the police or even suggest it wasn’t an accident to anyone, I’ll have you.’ Jade smiled sweetly, her teeth showing like a rabid animal, enjoying the game she was playing. ‘All it will take is one little call to the police suggesting they fingerprint the box. Now, maybe you should go and lie down. You look a little pale. Let me know when you’re ready to discuss our little arrangement again though.’
*
Maddie burst into her flat and did in fact rush straight to the bathroom to throw up. When it was over, she sat and hugged the toilet, gasping and panting, feeling her chest ache.
Maybe she was having a heart attack.
Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.
She couldn’t take in what Jade had told her. How had they got to this? She thought back to all the conversations they had had, the times Jade had talked about their apparent ‘deal’. She was so sure Jade had been joking… wasn’t she?
The more she thought about it, the more she started to question herself. All those weird outbursts when she had felt uncomfortable with Jade’s words, her demeanour. She had ignored it, brushed it away as if it was nothing, good manners dictating that she politely ignore what was right in front of her. But what about all those thoughts she’d been having herself? Running away with Jemima? Wishing ill on Gemma? Was this karma?
She pushed away from the toilet, flushed it and stood staring at herself in the mirror above the sink. She was waxen, her skin slick with oily sweat. She looked away.
She needed to think, to figure out what to do, but all her mind kept thinking about was whether he had suffered. Had he been scared? Of course he had. Oh God, had Jemima been with him at the time? Maddie could feel panic clutching at her chest again.
She lurched into the kitchen to the corner cupboard where she kept the few bottles of booze she owned. There was an unopened bottle of whiskey in the back of the cupboard. She’d bought it in case Greg wanted a drink when he came over. She usually hated the stuff, but it seemed fitting that this was what she latched onto now, cracking open the seal and pouring three fingers into a glass. She necked it, feeling the heat of it jolt her. She poured another more sensible measure and sat down heavily on the kitchen floor, the bottle between her legs.
Time to think.
What did Jade want? Mark out of the picture so that she had Ben to herself.
Which means she would be expecting Maddie to return the favour, maybe by killing Mark somehow.
There was no way she could do that.
Maybe she could talk to Mark, get him to drop the custody battle altogether. But then she’d have to explain why she was there, wouldn’t she? Jade hadn’t actually told her how to find Mark yet, but she wouldn’t be happy with Maddie just giving him a stern talking to, would she? Not after what Jade had just done.
But what about Ben? The idea that Jemima would grow up without knowing Greg made Maddie go cold. She couldn’t do that to Ben too. He was such a quiet, sensitive boy. This could only hurt him.
Her brain swirled and dived in and out of thoughts, intertwined with memories of Greg, the other night when he’d been here, the last time she had seen him.
She took another swig of the whiskey, wincing as it went down. She needed to pull herself together and figure this out, find out whether the police were suspicious, whether Gemma was suspicious. Because if they dug too deeply, Maddie could be in real trouble. Who would believe her if she said she had thought it was just a joke? Then there was that conversation she’d had with Greg only days ago. Incriminating to say the least.
She needed to talk to Gemma, find out what actually happened. And to think she’d suspected Gemma at first.
She also needed to start building some evidence on Jade. Just in case.
What had Jade called it? A security blanket?
Her heart dropped through the floor of her stomach again. That was why Jade had insisted on them using Snapchat for their messages. It was because the messages vanished once they were read. Maddie hadn’t screenshotted any of Jade’s messages, but she knew for a fact Jade had screenshotted hers. She thought it was just because she wanted to keep track of their conversation, but it was all evidence against her.
What had she said in those messages? Had she joked back about killing Greg? Made some flippant remark that would be incriminating if taken out of context?
Oh God, could this get any worse?
She needed air and space.
She drained the glass, grabbed the bottle and fled the flat, heading up the stairs, past Jade’s door to the roof.
It was empty tonight. No Luke in a deckchair; no cans of beer. Just the town laid out below her, the lights twinkling innocently.
She desperately wanted to knock on Luke’s door, but also didn’t want to drag him into this.
No, she was on her own.
She stepped right up to the edge, her toes hanging in mid-air, and leant forward slightly, feeling a brief sense of weightlessness. The bottle dangled from her hand, heavy at her side. She unscrewed the cap and brought it up to her mouth, now used to the spicy bitterness of the alcohol. It was indeed helping to dull the pain in her chest. She swayed a little in the cold night air, goosebumps standing up on her bare arms.
Look at those people below me, casually going about their business. They haven’t incited a murder today, have they? They aren’t being framed for something they haven’t done.
They aren’t scared and alone.
She started to weep again, but silently this time, the tears huge glass marbles rolling down her cheeks. She pitched forward again, this time further, felt her heels lift slightly from the roof.
What would it feel like, she wondered, if she just leant all the way forward? Was it high enough to die from here?
Would anyone care? Who was left to care? Only Greg would’ve missed her. Her mother was dead, her father hadn’t tried to speak to her in decades, she had no friends and no husband anymore.
A fat tear fell onto her top lip, salty with grief. She tipped forward some more, feeling buoyed by the breeze.
But if she did fall, if she decided to end it all now, would that be seen as an admission of guilt? Or would the police just put it down to her being the distraught ex-wife? Sorry, distraught wife since they were still married. That would be suspicious too, wouldn’t it? Oh God, his life insurance! Had he changed any of it?
She was getting dizzy thinking about it again. She swayed and this time one of her feet left the ground completely. Her heart froze and she flung herself back from the edge, twisting her ankle painfully in the process.
She panted into the night air, then limped over to Luke’s deckchairs and dropped into one, this time oblivious to the groans of protest from the wood and fabric beneath her.
She tried to steady her breathing with another swig of whiskey, then set the bottle at her feet and sat all the way back in the chair, staring up at the night sky and letting her mind work through the thoughts ricocheting around her skull.
‘You ok?’ a voice said behind her. Luke lowered himself into the other chair.
‘Yes… no…’ she replied.
‘One of those nights, huh?’
‘You could say that.’
They sat in silence for a bit and Maddie felt like it helped, just a little.
‘Have you ever looked out into the night and wondered why we bother with it all?’ she said quietly. ‘Why we carry on putting one foot in front of the other when everything is ultimately out of our control?’