Page 29 of Dissection of a Murder
I’ve been staringat the message from@JustAnotherDumbBlondefor the last twenty-four hours. The lawyer in me keeps asking the same questions:Who are they? What do they want? What do they know?
Most of the message can be explained away. Harmless. But the other stuff…that’s complicated. More dangerous. It could cause a lot of damage. I’m very aware a Google search could unearth what they’re referring to in seconds, if they knew what to look for.
The “sexual inappropriateness” is obviously referring to Chester, which means someone’s been watching me. I’m sickened, thinking of it.
I look like a hypocrite.
I need to find out who@JustAnotherDumbBlondeis. It “sounds” like a woman. But when I click on her profile, she has no followers, and the only account she follows is mine. She hasn’t posted any photos, which means one thing: this account has been set up explicitly to troll me, and I need to find out why.
—
Every Friday at 7:30 p.m. I visit my mother-in-law. It’s an odd setup, but she’s seventy-eight years old and in the very early stages of dementia. I’ve always liked Audrey; she’s a no-nonsense, well-spokenwoman who still lives in the house where she raised Julian. It’s a massive Victorian semi-detached property in one of the leafy suburbs that’s way too big for her, but she refuses to move “until they carry her out of it in a box.”
Balancing two bags of fish and chips in one hand and a bouquet of vibrant candy-pink roses in the other, I open the front door without any resistance, which means she’s left the lock off the latch again. I shudder at the thought of anyone having free access to this house. I had two extra locks and a chain placed on the door last week and told Audrey she must lock the door at all times for her own safety. I, more than anyone, know how dangerous it is for a vulnerable woman to be alone, especially in the winter, but she still lives in the 1960s, when people left their doors wide open all night.
“Just me, Audrey!” I shout, my voice echoing in the hallway against the sound of Classic FM which creeps out of the dining room. This property would look beautiful if renovated: light and airy. But it’s been kept the same for decades, all yellowing flock wallpaper and swirly garish carpets.
She’s sitting in her chair by the window in the lounge. Heating on full blast. A salmon-pink dress with a formal collar hangs off her frail body. She wears a sparkly silver brooch above her collarbone. Audrey does not do casual.
“There’s no need to bloody shout. Who else is it going to be on a Friday night at this time?” she says, wide-eyed. Her immaculately coiffed white hair curls neatly around her wrinkled face. Audrey is the kind of woman who wears a full face of makeup even when she’s not leaving the house. She’s been like this for as long as I’ve known her. It’s become harsher in recent times, though; her classic ruby-red lipstick could have been applied by a child. The baby-blue eyeshadow she used to wear so subtly, so elegantly, is now pulled all the way up to her eyebrows.
“I didn’t want to scare you,” I tell her, closing the long, green velour curtains, glimpsing my reflection in the large sash windows. It makes me uneasy; someone could be looking in and you wouldn’t see them. “And you really shouldn’t leave your door off the latch. Anyone could walk in.”
“What a vulgar thing to say!” she replies in a voice that suggests I’ve uttered the most ridiculous thing, despite the fact that I, myself, have just demonstrated the very point I’m making. “Who on earth would want to bother an old woman?”
“You’d be surprised,” I tell her, throwing off my long puffer coat.
“Not everyone is a murderer or a psychopath, you know. Leave your work in the courtroom. And go and lay my supper out, I’m starving.”
Audrey used to have an active social life. It’s tailed off in the last six months because she’s become quite forgetful, and it’s taken real organization to keep her connected to the local community. She won’t hear of getting any help in, so I came up with the idea of bringing her supper on Fridays, as a way of making sure she’s OK. The routine anchors her in reality, and she doesn’t see it as—god forbid—help.
Because Audrey is very proper, we eat in the dining room off a Royal Doulton dining set, with freshly brewed tea out of a teapot. The dining room overlooks the garden, which is starting to overgrow as autumn takes residence. I should call the gardener to sort it out. Audrey has an old record player in here, and she makes me play her crackly old vinyl when we eat. Today, I play Gerry and the Pacemakers’ “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” It makes me smile.
“I always used to take Julian for fish and chips on a Friday, you know,” she tells me. “When he was very little. To Whitley Bay.”
She tells me this story every week, and every week, I pretend I haven’t heard it before. I was the one to notice it, initially. How she’drepeat things or forget details and names more than I’d consider to be normal. I told Julian but his response was that she’s just “getting older.” He struggled to accept it. His father died when he was just six, so his mother was the only person in his life for a long time.
“He always used to complain, Julian,” she goes on. “The chips are too soggy, the chips are too hot. There was never any pleasing that boy. Is he coming tonight?”
She asks every week, and every week the answer is the same.
“He can’t make it today, Audrey. Working on a big case, but he’ll be around soon. Stuck with me, I’m afraid!”
A vague, lost smile settles on her face. Her eyes hop around the room and settle on a framed photo on the wall. It’s a picture of our wedding day. Lake Garda in the late afternoon sun. We look so happy and in love. I was super-blonde back then and only recently have started to go darker; I have had caramel and mocha lowlights put in ahead of winter.
The wedding was an intimate ceremony. I didn’t want the full shebang, so it was just the two of us and a witness off the street. Julian and I spent the following two weeks exploring Italy and it was beautiful. The photo almost looks out of place, surrounded by landscapes in dark wooden frames.
“What was her name again?” Audrey asks, looking up at the wedding photo.
“That’s me, Leila.”
“I knew the other one wouldn’t last,” she says, taking a sip out of her teacup.
It’s difficult having conversations with Audrey these days. She switches between topics so quickly, it’s challenging to keep up.
“The wife. Whatwasher name again?” she goes on. “Samantha…Sarah…”
She’s talking about Julian’s ex-wife.
