In the end I order us pizza and we sit in the living room with our banquet spread out on the rug in front of us. I need to keep Chris close. How long has he known the truth of what I did? How long has he had to plan what he will do next? I have to watch him closely, figure out if he knows that I know. I have to assume he does. So, what now?

“Have you spoken to your parents?” I ask him as I pick pepperoni off a slice of Meat Feast.

“They think it’s all a big storm in a teacup.” He shrugs. “I hope they’re right.”

“But they’re taking things seriously, aren’t they?” For all that I had married a psychopath, I was genuinely fond of his parents. Well, his mum at least.

“Sure. Lisa will make sure they don’t need to go out.”

Lisa has been his sister’s best friend since they were toddlers. She lives three doors down from his parents with her husband, two children, three dogs and a cat called Mittens. Boring and predictable is how Chris describes her. I always think of her as safe. The one you would want around when the world is coming to an end.

Part Two

Chris

Chapter Thirteen

I never thought Megan would actually kill her. Damn, that girl was hiding some deep-seated anger she’d never shared with me. If only she’d brought that passion to the bedroom every once in a while. Maybe then I wouldn’t have had to make my own fun, wouldn’t have felt the need to toy with her so much. Poor little Megan, with her messed-up family and her constant terror that her mind was starting to get away from her like a slippery fish. It was all just so easy.

I’ve debated whether I should tell my story. You could argue that I’m something of an accomplice, an enabler of Megan’s deception, what with keeping the body in my shed and all. I don’t know the punishment for “perverting the course of justice,” but it’s probably obscenely harsh relative to being the one actually lumping someone round the head with a wine bottle and then stuffing their body into a chest freezer. But this whole thing is just too good not to share. So, I’ll take my chances.

Besides, Tom, that ginger-haired twat who thought he could fuck my wife, will be the one who swings for this eventually.

Are you sitting comfortably? Have you got a nice cup of tea next to you, or possibly a glass of wine? Well, then let me begin. Right back at where this all started.

I knew exactly who Megan was that first day I introduced myself on the train to Guildford. Having already read her social media profiles—Facebook, Insta and LinkedIn—I knew she’d just taken a job with a large consultancy and was trying graspingly hard to wash away the shame of the exposé her sister had written. All it took was a gin and tonic (and a slightly warm one in a tin at that—she never did have any class) and a little flattery. “You’re nothing like her,” I had told her.