He shrugged and smiled. ‘I’m in a good mood. I thought I should buy you a little treat to celebrate.’

A good mood?! What rubbish! He was just trying to butter her up. It made her even angrier to know that he thought she was that stupid. They said hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Well, he’d scorned her and now she was furious.

She couldn’t hold it inside any longer. The time of reckoning had come.

‘I can’t believe you,’ she muttered through clenched teeth.

He frowned, looking genuinely puzzled. ‘What? I thought you’d be pleased. You’re always going on about how I never buy you flowers.’

‘Up to much next weekend?’ she asked, her eyes flaring with anger.

He shrugged. ‘I’m doing some business, that’s all.’

‘“Business”?!’ she said sarcastically, making quote marks with her fingers. ‘That’s bullshit and you know it!’

His mouth dropped open. For once he looked quite taken aback. He clearly hadn’t been expecting an outburst of this magnitude. Well, let him have it.

The accusation finally burst from her lips, fuelled by the pressure of having been held in for so long. ‘You’re meeting that bitch, Kaia! You’re meeting her next Friday, aren’t you? The eighth. A dirty weekend in Torquay. I heard you talking about it on the phone. And I saw her name in your diary!’

Rick gulped at her, his black eyes wide with shock. He looked like he’d been punched.

‘What do you know about Kaia?’ he whispered dangerously.

‘That private eye. The one you murdered. It was me who sent him.’

His features darkened and his jaw clenched. ‘That was you?!’ he whispered.

‘Yeah, that was me! I’ve had enough of your bloody lies and deceit!’

‘You. Silly. Fucking. Bitch,’ he growled.

‘I wanted to find out the truth about you and this Kaia. I wanted to prove it.’

‘It’s not what you think,’ he said. ‘I’m not having an affair.’

She wasn’t going to believe that. He was a liar.

‘Then who the fuck is Kaia?’ she demanded.

‘None of your fucking business!’

‘You’re cheating on me!’

‘No, I’m not!’

‘They say “happy wife, happy life”. Well I’m not happy! And that means your life is about to get really unhappy. Because I want a divorce!’

‘You what?’ he looked at her incredulously.

‘You heard me. It’s over!’

65

Sitting on the sofa in her undercover apartment, Bailey once again examined the amulet that Jennifer had given her, the small green stone cobra twisting slowly on the thin gold chain as she held it up in front of her.

It was unbelievable to think that it had been created over three millennia ago. She peered at the hieroglyphs, making out amongst them a kneeling man, a bird, a flower, a zig-zag line of water. They were tiny pictures that were also words with meanings and she wondered what they said exactly. Being a protective amulet, she supposed they formed some kind of magical inscription.

She debated what to do with it. It didn’t feel right to wear it around her neck. At least not yet. But, in keeping with Jennifer’s intentions, she would try and keep it somewhere on her person. Opening her handbag, she carefully placed it into one of the internal pockets.