The Husband's Secret

‘You sure? I’ve just put the kettle on.’

Cecilia felt too weak to argue. She would do whatever Rachel wanted. Her legs could barely hold her up, they were trembling so badly. If Rachel shouted ‘Confess!’ she would confess. She almost longed for that.

She walked across the threshold with her heart in her mouth, as if she was in physical danger. The house was very similar to Cecilia’s home, like so many of the homes on the North Shore.

‘Come into the kitchen,’ said Rachel. ‘I’ve got the heater on in there. It’s getting chilly in the afternoon.’

‘We had that linoleum!’ said Cecilia when she followed her into the kitchen.

‘I’m sure it was the height of fashion all those years ago,’ said Rachel as she put teabags into cups. ‘I’m not one of those renovating types, as you can see. Just can’t get myself interested in tiles and carpets, paint colours and splash-backs. Here you go. Milk? Sugar? Help yourself.’

‘This is Janie, right?’ asked Cecilia. ‘And Rob?’ She’d stopped in front of the refrigerator. It was a relief to say Janie’s name. Her presence was so gigantic in Cecilia’s head. It felt like if she didn’t say her name it would suddenly burst out of her mouth in the middle of a sentence.

The photo on Rachel’s fridge was casually held with a magnet advertising Pete the 24 Hour Plumber. It was a small, faded, off-centre colour photo of Janie and her younger brother holding cans of Coke and standing in front of a barbecue. They’d both turned around with blank, slack-mouthed expressions, as if the photographer had surprised them. It wasn’t a particularly good photo but somehow its very casualness made it seem all the more impossible that Janie was dead.

‘Yes, that’s Janie,’ said Rachel. ‘That photo was up on the fridge when she died and I’ve never taken it down. Silly, really. I’ve got much better ones of her. Have a seat. I’ve got these biscuits called macarons. Not macaroons, oh, no, if that’s what you’re thinking. Macarons. You probably know all about them. I’m not very sophisticated.’ Cecilia saw that she took pride in not being sophisticated. ‘Have one! They’re really very good.’

‘Thank you,’ said Cecilia. She sat down and took a macaron. It tasted like nothing, like dust. She sipped her tea too fast and burned her tongue.

‘Thank you for dropping off the Tupperware,’ said Rachel. ‘I’m looking forward to using it. The thing is that tomorrow is the anniversary of Janie’s death. Twenty-eight years.’

It took Cecilia a moment to comprehend what Rachel had said. She couldn’t work out the link between the Tupperware and the anniversary.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Cecilia. She noticed with almost scientific interest that her hand was visibly trembling, and she carefully placed her teacup back in its saucer.

‘No, I’m sorry,’ said Rachel. ‘I don’t know why I told you that. I’ve just been thinking about her a lot today. Even more than usual. I sometimes wonder how often I would have thought about her if she’d lived. I don’t think about poor Rob that often. I don’t worry about him. You’d think after losing one child that I’d be worried about something happening to my other child. But I’m not particularly worried. Isn’t that awful? I do worry about something happening to my grandson. To Jacob.’

‘I think that’s natural,’ said Cecilia, and suddenly she was overcome by her own breathtaking audacity. To be sitting here in this kitchen, delivering platitudes along with Tupperware.

‘I do love my son,’ murmured Rachel into her mug. She shot Cecilia a shame-faced look over the rim. ‘I’d hate you to think I didn’t care for him.’

‘Of course I don’t think that!’ Cecilia saw to her horror that Rachel had a triangle of blue macaron right in the centre of her bottom lip. It was horribly undignified and made Rachel seem suddenly elderly, almost like a dementia patient.

‘I just feel like he belongs to Lauren now. What’s that old saying? “A son is a son until he takes him a wife, a daughter is a daughter for all of her life.”’

‘I’ve . . . heard that. I don’t know if it’s true.’

Cecilia was in agony. She couldn’t tell Rachel about the crumb on her lip. Not when she was talking about Janie.

Rachel lifted her teacup for another sip, and Cecilia tensed. Surely it would be gone now. Rachel lowered the cup. The crumb had moved off-centre and was even more obvious. She had to say something.

‘I really don’t know why I’m rambling on like this,’ said Rachel. ‘You’re probably thinking I’ve lost the plot! I’m not myself, you see. When I came home from your Tupperware party the other night I found something.’

She licked her lips and the blue crumb vanished. Cecilia sagged with relief.

‘Found something?’ she repeated. She took a big mouthful of her tea. The faster she drank, the faster she could leave. It was very hot. The water must have been boiling when Rachel poured. Cecilia’s mother made the tea too hot as well.

‘Something that proves who killed Janie,’ said Rachel. ‘It’s evidence. New evidence. I’ve given it to the police – Oh! Oh, dear, Cecilia, are you okay? Quickly! Come and run your hand under the tap.’

Chapter forty-one

Tess tightened her arms around Connor’s waist as his bike swooped and dipped around corners. The streetlights and shopfronts were blurry streaks of coloured light in her peripheral vision. The wind roared in her ears. Each time they took off at a set of traffic lights her stomach lurched thrillingly, the way it did when she was in a plane taking off from the runway.