The Marriage - K.L. Slater (story books to read .TXT) 📗

around to the back to sneak in, to snatch the money off the side, but then I heard them arguing.’

I kept my voice light and unconcerned. ‘Can you remember what they were arguing about?’

Ellis squeezed his eyes closed. ‘I heard Mum say that she knew Dad had told Tom a secret the night he died. And Tom didn’t like what he heard so he hit Dad on purpose. He wanted to hurt him.’

I sat bolt upright. ‘What did Jesse tell him?’

‘I don’t know, but Mum said she knew what the secret was.’ Ellis looked at me, his eyes dark and haunted. ‘And now she’s dead, too.’

My insides had turned to liquid. It was all nonsense, it had to be! If the police heard about this, they might think Tom had a reason to hurt Coral. To shut her up.

‘People say lots of things when they’re angry,’ I told him gently. ‘Your dad’s death was an accident. It wasn’t because anyone had been lying or trying to keep secrets.’

Ellis whipped his head around. ‘He died because Tom punched him and he fell. Why did Tom punch him? Because he didn’t like what my dad told him!’

I pressed my lips together. It was not my job to talk to Ellis about his father pulling a knife on Tom. I didn’t know whether Coral had told him about that detail, but he would certainly find out when he was older, and that would be time enough.

‘If Tom and your mum were arguing in the house, it probably sounded worse than it was, love. You must have seen it in disagreements with your friends at school. People get angry and say stuff to hurt others, and then it blows over.’

‘I haven’t got any friends,’ he said gloomily.

‘Oh, I’m sure that’s not true! Come on now, have a drink of milk and eat your biscuit.’

‘I don’t want a stupid biscuit.’ His arm swept out and knocked the glass of milk to the floor. I gasped and swooped down to snatch it up as his voice rose to a wail. ‘I want my mum and I want my dad. And now they’re both dead!’

I sat on the bed and wrapped my arms around him. I fully expected him to push me away, but he let me hold him and sobbed a hot wetness into my shoulder.

I felt something swelling in my own chest, moving up into my throat. I opened my mouth and a sob escaped, and then I was crying too.

Ellis pulled away from me and turned his back again just as a shrill ping rang out from my phone downstairs on the hall table.

‘I’d better check that,’ I whispered. He didn’t answer.

I padded out and closed the door softly behind me, dabbing my damp face with a tissue. Downstairs, I grabbed my phone. I was expecting a text from Tom saying they’d arrived at Coral’s house, but it was a follower’s notification. From Facebook.

I opened the notification and read Bridget’s most recent public Facebook post.

Thanks to everyone for your condolences. I will pass your kind thoughts on to Coral’s son and my grandson, Ellis. We don’t know anything more yet, but rest assured if the police establish that Coral’s life was indeed taken deliberately, I will not rest until someone pays for it.

My last interaction with Coral had been at the café earlier today. She had later been involved in an accident by Blidworth Woods. Tom had said the police weren’t sure how she’d come to be out of her car and walking on the road, but they were treating her death as a possible hit and run until they’d established exactly what had happened. An investigation would mean that they’d want to speak to the people who’d seen Coral most recently, and that would include me.

I looked at Bridget’s status again. She must have written and posted it after leaving the house to head over to Coral’s. Surely she’d had too much on her mind to think about updating her social media at a time like this!

I ached to speak to Audrey, to get her opinion. She had such great insight into people. But it seemed Audrey had either disappeared off the face of the earth – which was unlikely – or was deliberately avoiding me, and when I thought about what I’d spotted on her kitchen worktop, I felt sick to my stomach about what she might confirm when I did speak to her.

Then something else occurred to me.

Was Bridget planning to frame Tom for Coral’s death in some way? Was this how she’d planned on getting her revenge all along … to get Tom back behind bars, to have Ellis live with her permanently. It might sound dramatic to some but actually, the idea would be quite brilliant.

But that still left the police the question of who, exactly, had killed Coral?

Forty-Five Tom

2009

The friendship group Tom belonged to had unanimously agreed that the year after their GCSEs was the best time at school.

Tom and Jesse and quite a few of the gang had moved on to college together. Not because they were interested in studying, far from it. Tom’s mum was chewing his ear off about what he wanted to do as a job. It didn’t really matter if he’d said he was going to be a doctor or a lawyer; his dad would’ve found something to criticise.

Opting for A levels had got his parents off his back for two years, and that was good enough for Tom, because he hadn’t really got a clue yet what he wanted to do, and neither had any of his mates.

There was a group of about five or six students who took to hanging around together in the sixth-form common room in free periods and at lunchtimes: Tom and Jesse, Coral, plus a few other kids who’d gravitated to joining them most days.

They’d all managed to get jobs in the evenings and weekends at various places to afford nights out. Although Tom’s