‘You don’t need to change your story. Rebecca was on the scene before you. You hadn’t seen Mitch for some time but you do know that he went off to Italy with me and that we spent ten years together.’ No one else knew that Mitch had deserted me after two months. Oliver didn’t know either, not for certain, but he needed to get this line straight for his defence team.

‘Tell them that you and Rebecca started going out shortly after Mitch disappeared and he was furious when he found out. He was upset and jealous but you also know that he would have been too proud to take her back. You see, Oliver,’ I emphasised, ‘you now have me on your team. My statement will get you off and that bitch will go down for a long time. A very long time.’

78

Amber

Perhaps it was naivety that made me agree to supper with Arthur. I believed my own story that Mitch had wanted to marry me and I was propelled into the satisfying role of grieving fiancée.

Even Dad listened, sympathised and showed not a small measure of pride that his plain, bright little girl had bagged herself such an enviable catch. He wasn’t quite so effusive, however, in his display of sadness at my betrothed’s demise.

It didn’t matter because certainty at the foolproof nature of my plan gave me purpose and led me to Arthur’s front door. Whereas revenge and jealousy were my original motivations, the role of grieving widow was one I was starting to enjoy.

‘Amber. How lovely. Come in.’ I’d never been to Arthur’s flat or any of his previous addresses. The bleakness of his bachelor pad was reminiscent of the visitors’ room in Belmarsh.

Void of curtains or blinds the windows stared directly out onto the street below. While Arthur had proudly announced his address over the phone, carefully accentuating the Highgate postcode, he failed to mention that the flat was on the first floor of a cramped 1970s purpose-built concrete block overlooking the only petrol station in the London N6 postcode.

I didn’t notice the binoculars on the window sill until Arthur hastily lifted them and pushed them into the back of a cupboard. The action stirred uneasy memories.

‘I didn’t think you’d come.’ He seemed genuinely pleased to see me. ‘And you look so well. Let me take your coat.’ He’d always been the perfect gent with never a hair out of place; that was Arthur. Boring, bland and pernickety. Sex appeal had passed him by and been replaced by efficiency and pedantry.