The Marriage by K.L. Slater (any book recommendations TXT) 📕

‘I forgot the cash. I’ve got to go back to the shop.’

She’d laughed. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll manage. Hook your game up to the TV and enjoy it.’

He’d realised then that she’d only sent him to the shop because she knew Tom was calling round. The question was, why had she been protecting him? What did Ellis’s dad tell him before he died?

A wave of misery washed over him, like a terrible cramp that reached every inch of his flesh. None of it mattered any more. He didn’t care why Tom had been in the house that day. He didn’t care what his dad had told him that night.

His mum was gone now, and that meant Ellis was officially an orphan.

He wished with all his heart he’d die too.

Forty-Three Bridget

Tom and I sat quietly in shock. I heard Ellis sobbing upstairs in his bedroom. I’d tried my best to explain the terrible tragedy, to comfort him. Tom had tried too, but Ellis wanted nothing to do with either of us right now.

‘I can’t believe it,’ Tom whispered. ‘I can’t believe Coral is dead.’

I looked at him. ‘Did you get your water bottle?’

‘What?’

‘The water bottle you went back to the gym for. Did you find it?’

‘Hardly seems important now,’ he said, incredulous that I’d asked. ‘Yeah, I got it, thanks.’

‘You’re a liar.’ I stood up and glared down at him. ‘I found your water bottle when I went in your gym bag to get your towel. So where did you go, and why lie about it?’

He pressed his cut hand and grimaced. ‘Can we talk about this later?’

‘No, we cannot! It’s a small glass cut, for God’s sake. How bad can it be?’ I reached down and tugged at the cloth around his hand. He let out a yelp as it came off. The wound was quite nasty, but it had stopped bleeding and was already knitting neatly together. The surface was level and there was clearly no glass in it like he’d told the detectives. I walked to the kitchen cupboard and pulled out the first aid kit. ‘Why lie about it being so bad you couldn’t answer the detectives’ questions?’ I selected a large plaster and applied it to the cut before sitting back.

‘I don’t know.’ He ran his good hand through his hair and sighed. ‘It was a knee-jerk reaction. When they mentioned that I’d just been released, it made me jittery.’

‘Fine. I can see how that might be the case. Next question – where did you go when you lied about the gym?’

There were a few moments of silence, and then he said, ‘I’m sorry, Brid, I can’t tell you.’

‘What?’ My mouth dropped open. ‘You can tell me. You will tell me!’

‘I can’t. Please, you’re going to have to trust me on this one.’

‘Trust you? When you’re admitting you’ve lied through your teeth to me?’ My blood was on fire. ‘I don’t want a liar under this roof, so why don’t you crawl back to your mother until you can man up and tell me the truth?’

‘What I mean is, I will tell you, but it has to be the right time.’

My hot-blooded fury turned to ice-cold dread. He had someone else. He’d met some hot young woman at the gym and he didn’t want to break my heart when Ellis was here and I’d had the terrible news about Coral.

Somehow I managed to speak without choking on the words.

‘You don’t get to choose the right time for you.’

‘Brid.’ He covered his face with his hands. ‘You can’t possibly understand.’

‘If it’s another woman, you can tell me,’ I said wretchedly. ‘In fact I want you to tell me, I’d rather know.’

‘You are so far from the truth.’ He grasped my hand. ‘I love you, Bridget. There’s nobody but you.’

He must have seen the relief on my face, because he seemed to collect himself and spoke with some authority.

‘I will tell you everything, I promise. But not now. We need to get things sorted with Ellis first.’

‘Sorted how?’

‘Well, he needs some stuff from home, surely? You said you had a key to Coral’s house.’

‘Yes, but … shouldn’t we ask the police if it’s OK first?’ I fretted. ‘We don’t want it to look like we’re trying to cover something up.’

‘That’s a strange thing to say.’ Tom frowned. ‘What is there to cover up? It’s only Ellis’s belongings we’re after. Her house isn’t a crime scene.’

‘I don’t know, I’m saying how it might look to them.’

‘If we ask their permission, they might well say no, and then we’re stuck,’ Tom reasoned. ‘If they’re annoyed about it, we can play dumb.’

‘I can’t leave Ellis here on his own, not after the news he’s had. Can you stay with him?’

‘He’ll get hysterical if I go near him when he’s in this state. I can go to Coral’s if you tell me what he needs.’

‘I don’t really know. I need to see his stuff so I can decide what to bring back,’ I said. He was right about Ellis kicking off if he came out of his bedroom and Tom was there.

‘OK, well, I’ll call my mum to come over here while we’re out,’ Tom said simply.

‘Your mother? I don’t think so!’

He picked up his phone and pressed a key. ‘Brid, don’t be petty. Not now.’ He held the phone up to his ear. ‘Mum? Can you come over, quick as you can? We’ve got an emergency situation here.’

He told her briefly what had happened, but his voice faded out as I thought about Coral. How she’d been here, alive and well, and now she was cold and dead. The feelings that stirred in my stomach reminded me so much of when Jesse had died.

‘You’re crying.’ Tom touched my cheek when he’d ended the call. ‘Mum’s on her way over. She should be here in fifteen minutes.’

‘I feel so bad now, getting annoyed with Coral. I’d never have been so mean to her if I’d