No One I Knew by A McDine (best e book reader for android .TXT) 📕

clues? The covert looks between Stuart and Melanie, the clandestine meetings, the veiled insinuations that screamed AFFAIR? I wracked my brain but couldn’t think of a single example of suspicious behaviour between the pair of them. Sure, they were close, but I was close to Bill and that didn’t mean I was shagging him. If anything, Stuart always curbed his naturally tactile personality around Melanie. I’d always assumed it was because he knew she was reserved and he was respecting her personal space. Seems I was wrong.

Chapter Twenty

The kettle whistled, and I jumped out of my skin.

‘Bloody hell, that reporter really shook you up. I’ll phone the plod if I see him again,’ Bill said, handing me a mug.

We sipped our tea in silence while Bill scrolled through his phone and I picked at the loose skin around my thumb and wondered whether to tell him that the real reason I was rattled was because my husband - his best friend - was screwing his wife. The words formed on my lips, but as I opened my mouth I paused. I could never take them back. And what if I was wrong? Common sense told me I should confront Stuart first. Better to wreck one marriage, that was, if I was honest, already broken, than to wreck two. And did any of it matter, anyway? I’d sacrifice my marriage and my friendship with Melanie in a heartbeat to have Immy home.

I made up my mind. I wouldn’t tell Bill yet. There was no point. I would find the right time to tackle Stuart and now wasn’t the right time.

Bill’s phone rang, and this time he was the one to start. He frowned at the screen and leapt down from his stool as if it was on fire.

‘Won’t be a sec,’ he said, marching through the back door into the garden. When he returned a couple of minutes later, he was smiling.

‘My insurance company,’ he said, sitting beside me. ‘Cheeky bastards tried to push my premium for Audrey up by thirty percent, even though I told them she does less than a thousand miles a year. I threatened to take my business elsewhere and, guess what, they’ve just knocked fifty quid off last year’s premium.’

‘Nice one,’ I said, automatically.

Audrey - named after Audrey Hepburn - was Bill’s beloved Lotus Elan. I was with him when he discovered her rotting away in a ramshackle lean-to on a farm near Birchington. We were sussing out a potential supplier when Bill spotted a hub cap peeking out from under a green tarpaulin. His eyes lit up when he lifted the tarp to reveal a little yellow sports car.

‘A 1964 Lotus Elan GTS,’ he said reverentially, whipping off the tarpaulin and walking around the car. ‘An iconic British roadster and the first Lotus road car to have a steel backbone chassis with a fibreglass body. Look at the wooden dashboard. Stunning. And in Lotus Yellow, too.’

‘Looks more like Bird’s Custard Yellow,’ I said. ‘There’s no time to get distracted by old bangers, we need to go over these costs.’

‘Philistine,’ Bill grumbled, taking one last hungry look at the car before following me over to the farm office.

The meeting with the producer went well. The vegetables were great quality, and the prices were right, and we were about to shake on a deal when Bill said, ‘There’s one proviso. You sell me the yellow car.’

‘What, that old wreck? You can have it. I was going to scrap it, but the bloody thing’s made of fibreglass.’ The farmer laughed. ‘Take it off my hands. You’ll be doing me a favour.’

‘Then it’s a deal,’ Bill said, holding out his hand. They shook, and a week later Bill arranged for a recovery truck to pick up the Elan and take it to a lock-up he’d found to rent in Preston, a couple of miles from his Wingham home.

Over the next couple of years, Bill dismantled Audrey and rebuilt her from the ground up. He replaced her chassis and sent her engine to a classic car specialist to be reconditioned. He restored the wooden dashboard and the interior trim and paid a lad from a local bodywork garage to give her a complete respray in Lotus Yellow. Audrey, insured for almost seventy grand, was Bill’s pride and joy. Melanie often joked that he loved the car more than her, and I was inclined to agree. Audrey only came out on high days and holidays, and never when it was raining. God forbid she ever got wet.

‘She’s running like a dream,’ Bill said now. ‘I’m taking her to Brands Hatch for a track day at the end of the month. You should all come. Bring a picnic and make a day of it.’ He must have seen my look of disbelief because he winced. ‘Sorry, stupid thing to say. Of course you don’t want to come to a track day. I’m a thoughtless bugger.’

‘You are.’ I smiled to show there were no hard feelings.

‘Did you see Mel and Stuart on your travels?’

I stiffened. ‘Why?’

He patted his pockets. ‘We should get going. I’m meeting a supplier at half three.’

‘What time is it now?’

‘Ten past.’

‘Christ, I need to pick Nate up.’ I grabbed my bag and car keys, locked the back door and gave Bill a quick peck on the cheek. ‘Shut the front door behind you, will you?’

I drove to school in record time, drawing up outside on the dot of a quarter past, as the first children trickled out. I left my car double parked, not caring that I’d get a shitty email from the head, and strode towards the gates, trying to ignore the concerned expressions and sad smiles of the mummy mafia.

Stuart normally did the school run and was on first-name terms with them all, but I only knew the mums of Nate’s two closest friends, who’d both texted when they’d heard about Immy, offering playdates and help with the school run. But I couldn’t see either of