The Other Woman’s House Read Online Free PDF Page A

down, no pool of red. The carpet’s beige. Moving closer, I see that there’s a faint mark on it in one corner, but…‘It’s not there,’ I say.
    Kit stands up. ‘I’m going back to bed,’ he says, his voice stiff with fury.
    â€˜But…how could it disappear?’
    â€˜Don’t.’ He raises his fist, smacks it against the wall. ‘We’re not going to talk about this now. I’ve got a good idea: let’s never talk about it. Let’s pretend it didn’t happen.’
    â€˜Kit…’
    â€˜I can’t go on like this, Con.
We
can’t go on like this.’
    He pushes past me. I hear our bedroom door slam. Too shocked to cry, I sit down in the chair that’s still warm from Kit’s body, and stare at the screen. When the lounge disappears, I wait for it to come back, in case the dead woman and the blood also come back. It seems unlikely, but then what’s happened already is also unlikely, and yet it happened.
    I sit through the tour of 11 Bentley Grove four times. Each time the kitchen fades, I hold my breath. Each time the lounge returns spotless, with no dead woman or blood in it. Eventually, because I don’t know what else to do, I click on the ‘x’ in the top right-hand corner of the screen, shut the tour down.
    Not possible.
    One last time, starting from scratch
. I click on the internetExplorer icon, go back to Roundthehouses, retrace my steps: find 11 Bentley Grove again, click on the virtual tour button again, sit and watch. There’s no woman. No blood. Kit is still right. I am still wrong.
    I slam my laptop shut. I ought to clear up the broken glass, and the real bloodstains on my own carpet. I stare down at Nulli’s certificate of incorporation, lying on the floor in its shattered frame. In my shock at seeing the dead woman, I must have knocked it off the wall. Kit will be upset about that.
As if he hasn’t got enough to be upset about
.
    Reframing a certificate is easy. Deciding what to do about a disappearing dead woman that you might have imagined in the first place – not so easy.
    As far as I can see, I have two choices. I can either try to forget about it, talk myself into believing that the horrific scene I saw only ever existed in my mind. Or I can ring Simon Waterhouse.
    Â 
    POLICE EXHIBIT REF: CB13345/432/19IG
    CAVENDISH LODGE PRIMARY SCHOOL
    BULLETIN NO. 581
    Date: Monday 19th October 2009
    Autumn Thoughts from Mrs Kennedy’s class
    Conkers are…
    Silky smooth,
    Velvety and chocolate brown
    And rusty red on the outside.
    Their shiny shells are crusty
    Creamy and cool to touch.
    I love Autumn because
    Conkers fall off the trees in Autumn.
    I love conkers SO much!
    by Riordan Gilpatrick
    Conkers
    They fall off trees
    Hit you on the head.
    You can tie them on strings
    Have fights with them
    You can collect them
    And put them on your shelf.
    Green-brown-orange-red, that’s the colour of…
    Conkers!
    by Emily Sabine
    Well done to both of you – you have really brought Autumn to life in all our minds!
    Thank you!

2
17/07/10
    Betting man that he was, DC Chris Gibbs would have put the odds against Olivia’s persuading the concierge to serve them yet another drink, long after the hotel bar had officially closed, at several thousand to one. Happily, he’d have been wrong.
    â€˜Just one more
titchy
little nightcap,’ she breathed, as if confiding a secret. Where did she get that voice? It couldn’t be natural; nothing about her seemed natural.
    â€˜Well, perhaps not quite so titchy,’ Olivia quickly amended, once she’d secured an agreement in principle. ‘A double Laphroaig for Chrissy and a double Baileys for me, since we’re celebrating.’
    Gibbs tensed. No one had ever referred to him as ‘Chrissy’ before. He prayed it wouldn’t happen again, but didn’t want to make an issue of it.
Fuck
. Did the concierge think he