The Flavours of Love (51 page)

Thank you, also, to
:

My lovely family and my equally lovely in-laws for being the people I can count on. A special mention goes to the real life Aunty Betty for letting me use her name and some of her stories.

My fantastic friends. You’re all so understanding and still speak to me even when I go to ground to finish my latest book.

The amazing Ant and James, always there with the best advice and chats. Love you guys.

The fabulous Quercus peeps for being so, well, fabulous.

To brilliant Jenny for the delicious cover & brilliant Emma for the fabulous PR – keep doing what you do so brilliantly.

To Divine Jo Dickinson (you should totally call yourself that) for everything, really. Thanks for continuing to push me, believe in me and for trusting me to deliver on time, sight unseen.

The experts who helped in so many ways: Nathalie Patey for help with the recipes; those people at Victim Support, especially Mark Hazelby, for info on the homicide process; those at B-eat for info on eating disorders; and the brave women who generously shared their stories in order to help put this book together.

And finally
 …

E, G & M I’m not sure there are enough thank yous in the world for me to express my gratitude to you all for your being my support system, but I’ll keep trying. Big love to you.

Have you heard the story of The Rose Petal Beach?

The legend of the woman who gave up her whole life for love? She walked around and across the expanse of a deserted island, looking for her beloved who had been lost at sea. Her love was so rare and wondrous, so deep and beautiful and pure, that as she walked her feet were cut by the sharp pebbles on the beach and every drop of blood turned into a rose petal until the beach became a blanket of perfect red petals.

Have you heard the story of The Rose Petal Beach?

Is it a story worth killing for?

This is where my life begins.

Not thirty-six years ago in a hospital in London. Not seventeen years ago when I moved out of my parents’ house to live in a smart but compact bedsit all on my own. Not fourteen years ago when I moved to Brighton. Not twelve years ago when I married my husband. Not even nine years ago when I had my first child. Not seven years ago when I had my second child. My life begins now.

With two burly, uniformed policemen, and one slender plainclothes policewoman standing in my living room, about to arrest my husband.

Five minutes ago

Five minutes ago, Cora, my eight-year-old was on her hands and upside down. She was showing her dad what she had done at school that day in gymnastics. ‘I want to go to the Olympics one day,’ she’d said, her curly hair, folded into two neat plaits, hung on each side of her face while her almost concave stomach strained as her arms trembled with the effort of being upside down for so long. Anansy, our six-year-old, was cuddled up in the corner of the large leather sofa, wearing her pink, brushed-cotton sheep-covered pyjamas, while telling a knock-knock joke.

Scott had finally laid aside his mobile and BlackBerry, both of which he’d been on since he walked in the door, all during dinner, and now in the minutes we had together before the girls were meant to head upstairs to bed. I had been tempted by that point of the evening to calmly walk over to him, take both his phones from his hands and then just as serenely put my heel through the
screen of each of them. Maybe if I broke the link, severed his connection with the office, he would finally leave work and his mind would join his body in the house.

Three minutes ago

Three minutes ago, I was nearest the living-room door, so when the doorbell sounded, followed by a short, loud knock, and I had watched Cora collapse happily – but safely – onto the floor, I went to the blue front door. I wasn’t expecting anyone because everyone we knew would ring first – even the neighbours who would drop by had been ‘trained’ to send a text or call beforehand – no one turned up without notice any more. I’d walked to the door with anxiety on my heels. I’d seen a single magpie sitting on the fence this morning as I washed up after breakfast. Then another of those black and white birds was hopping around the garden when I came in from the school run.

When I opened the door and saw who was standing there, three people who had no real business being on my doorstep, I remembered the salt I spilt at dinner the other night that I’d simply brushed away instead of chucking a pinch of over my shoulder. I thought of the ladder I walked under last month before I even realised I’d done it. I recalled all the cracks in all the pavements I’d been stepping on all my life without a single thought for what they might do, how they might fracture my world at some undefined point in the future.

One minute ago

One minute ago, I thought to myself,
Who’s died?
at exactly the same time the policewoman said, ‘Hello, Mrs Challey. Is your husband in?’

I nodded, and they didn’t wait to be asked in, they entered and went straight for the living room as if they’d been there before, as if they regularly came storming into my life and my home without needing an invitation.

Now

And here we are, in the present, at that moment where my life is about to begin. I know it is about to begin because I can feel the world around me shifting: the air is different; the room that is like any other living room with a sofa and two armchairs, a rug and fireplace, and more pictures of the children than is strictly necessary gracing the walls, feels somehow altered now that these people are here. These
police officers
are here. My life is about to begin because I can feel around me the threads of my reality unravelling, waiting to be re-sewn into a new, unfamiliar tapestry.

‘Mr Scott Challey,’ the policewoman says, her mouth working in an odd fast-slow motion.

Everything has slowed down so it takes me an age to reach Cora and Anansy, to gather them to me, to hold them close while the policewoman speaks. And everything has speeded up, so a second ago the police officers were on the doorstep, now they are taking Scott’s hands and handcuffing him.

The police officer continues, ‘I am arresting you on suspicion of—’ She stops then, pauses at the accusation, the crime that has caused all this. She doesn’t seem the nervous or shy type, but apparently she is the sensitive type. She didn’t seem to notice Cora and Anansy before, but now she stops and shifts her eyes slowly but briefly in their direction before giving Scott a look. An intimate stare from a complete stranger that says they share something that does not need to be spoken; theirs is a connection that does not need words. In response, Scott, whose hands are now ringed by handcuffs, whose body is rigid and upright, nods at her. He is agreeing that she will not voice it in front of the children, he is accepting that she does not need to because he already knows what this is about.

Of course he knows what this is about. In the unfolding nightmare, in the girls clinging to me, in trying to comfort them while attempting to take in everything that is happening, I have missed Scott’s reaction to this: his face is anxious, unsettled – but not
horrified.
He is not responding like the rest of us are because he knew it would happen.

What is going on
?

My fingers are ice-cold as I try to turn Cora’s head into my body; Anansy, who has been terrified of the police since I told her if she stole something from the corner shop again they would come and take her away, has already buried her face in my side, her tears shaking my body.

‘You do not have to say anything,’ the policewoman continues, her eyes focused on my husband. ‘But it will harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned, something which you later rely on in court.’

Will this really get to court? Surely it’s a mistake? Surely.

‘Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’

Scott’s impassive eyes watch her as she speaks.

‘Do you understand these rights as I have read them to you?’ she asks. Scott replies with a half-nod, then his eyes are on me. He knows what is going on, he knew this was coming and he didn’t bother to warn me.

Why?
I think at him.
Why wouldn’t you tell me this was going to happen?

He doesn’t reply to my silent question, instead he looks away, back to the door through which they are about to lead him.

When they have gone, I lower myself onto my knees and pull Cora and Anansy closer to me, bringing them as near as I can to make them feel safe, to make me feel safe, to protect us from the world around us that is unravelling so fast I cannot keep up.

This is where my life begins: with the sound of my daughters crying and the knowledge that my life is coming undone.

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