I turned and walked quickly away, heading around the corner to where my car was parked two streets back. Before I got to it, however, I had to take a moment. Had to stop. Lean against the garden wall of a convenient mansion. I shut my eyes. My handbag was clasped to my chest and my heart was pounding. I bent my head. I felt sick. I made myself breathe. It was a while before I could raise my head, and when I did, a young chap in a suit, a Barbour over his jacket, was striding by. He did a double take when he saw my face. I believe it might have been very pale.

15

I sat for a moment in my car, my heart still racing. Then I realized I was still on her territory and she could come past at any moment. I started the car in a panic, hands fluttering, and pulled out in a blare of horns as a taxi swerved round me. As the cabbie shook his fist and swore violently out of the window, I made myself breathe, calm down: I’d narrowly missed a collision. My face, when I glanced in the rear-view mirror, was ashen. I drove on carefully, then pulled in, far beyond Amanda’s house, to recover. In the glove compartment I found a toffee and sucked it, needing the sugar. There was an old bottle of water too, which I sipped. I went over the horrible, horrible lunch in my head. I was reasonably sure I’d convinced her my guilty demeanour was about wishing I could have done more to save her brother’s life. I was also sure I’d diverted her with her own imaginary health issues. But had she rung the police? Quite possibly, on a daily basis even, irritating the hell out of them, but I knew from my book research they’d tell her nothing. No details from an ongoing inquiry could be disclosed in case it got in the press. So the neighbour business was bollocks. One thing she had said, though, had startled me and then made me think. About knowing I wanted a divorce. There had been times when I’d wondered what she’d heard.