Nicci French: Killing Me Softly

A few days ago, Clive had met me for lunch and, after all the exclamations of distress and support, had asked, ‘How will anyone ever measure up to him, Alice?’

Nobody ever would. Adam had murdered seven people. He would have murdered me even while he wept over my body. Every time I remembered the way he used to look at me, with such intensely focused love, or saw in my mind’s eye his dead body swinging slowly on the yellow rope, I also remembered that he was a rapist and a killer. My Adam.

But, after everything, I still remembered his lovely face and how he had held me in his arms and stared into my eyes and said my name, so tenderly, and I didn’t want to forget that someone had loved me so much, so very much. It’s you I want, he had said, only you. Nobody would ever love me like that again.

I stood up and opened the window. A group of young men walked past on the street below, lit by the lamp, laughing drunkenly. One of them looked up and, seeing me there at the window, blew me a kiss and I waved at him and smiled and turned away. Oh, it has been such a sad story, my love, my heart.