Sarah May - The Rise and Fall of the Queen of Suburbia - A Black-Hearted Soap Opera

Linda wanted Joe to finish his story and start making an effort with Winke so that in, say, two weeks’ time, Joe could ring him to talk about the possibility of offering Nieman double glazing at a reduced price to people who were getting kitchens designed and fitted by Quantum. She also wanted to ask Daphne whether they’d considered getting their original Laing kitchen replaced? The Nassams at No. 6 and the Saunders all had Quantum kitchens.

Joe let his chair fall forward, forcing his belly into the edge of the table.

‘Guess what I found when I opened the freezer? The missing tenant. Well, one of them.’

‘Oh, come on,’ Daphne looked cross. ‘Not in the freezer, surely.’

‘Seriously – I’m not kidding you.’

‘He’s not,’ Mick added.

Here was Joe talking about dead people, Linda thought. Dead people here in Littlehaven, where the only thing people should have to worry about was whether they ought to take advantage of the new offer by Quantum Kitchens and have Nieman glazing – at a reduced price – put in at the same time. Why was Joe the one rocking back on his chair legs, laughing, when she was the one who got to open the letter from the bank telling them they’d missed a mortgage payment.

‘It was in the papers and everything,’ Joe carried on. ‘The head was in the bottom drawer and everything else was in those freezer bags with labels and dates written on them. Each bag had a different date on it – never worked that one out. Must have been something personal; a private joke or something between the killer and her victim.’

‘Wait,’ Daphne said, ‘it was the wife who killed the husband?’

‘Well – according to the estate agent it was a husband and wife who left without paying their last month’s rent, only, technically speaking, I suppose the husband never vacated the property after all because he was in the freezer the whole time.’

‘Why don’t you two go and watch some TV?’ Linda whispered to Jessica.

‘Who’s “you two”?’ Jessica asked, staring back at her.

‘You and Paul.’

‘I need to go and see if Ferdie’s okay.’

Linda saw this as her last opportunity to reclaim the evening for six people. She’d managed with the gazpacho, but she just didn’t know how to make six salmon steaks into eight.

‘Ferdie’s fine.’

‘Who’s Ferdie?’ Paul asked.

‘Ferdie’s our dog,’ Linda said, then to Jessica, ‘and Ferdie’s fine.’

‘How do you know – have you been upstairs?’

‘Jessica!’

‘I’m going.’ Jessica shunted her deckchair back into the breakfast bar.

‘So what is this Kontagion thing?’ Winke said, looking at her T-shirt as she stood up.

‘Last year’s Glastonbury T-shirt for Youth CND,’ she mumbled.

‘You went?’

Jessica looked at Linda. ‘I wasn’t allowed to go – a friend brought it back for me.’

‘I think Paul should go to Glastonbury,’ Winke said, his mind on neither Paul, who was sitting opposite him, nor Glastonbury.

‘That was very good gazpacho, Mrs Palmer,’ Paul said as Jessica left the room.

‘What the hell’s gazpacho?’ Joe asked Mick.

Linda wondered briefly if anyone was checking Paul’s alcohol intake. Then whether anybody needed to – how old was he, anyway? ‘Teenagers,’ she said nervously.

‘You’re okay, you escape all this with a boy,’ Dominique said to Daphne. Then, turning to Linda, ‘I mean, when did you last get to use your own phone?’

Linda gave what she hoped was a sympathetic shrug. Jessica didn’t seem to phone anybody, and nobody phoned Jessica – apart from Mr Browne, who lived at No. 14.

‘And all the cupboard space taken up with cheap makeup – Delta doesn’t seem to stick to one brand, she just gets bored and moves on to the next one.’

‘Tell me about it,’ Linda said, hoping Dominique would leave it at that.

‘And that’s just the ongoing stuff. This afternoon – while we were out – the girls nearly set fire to the house.’

Linda tried to look surprised.

‘Some accident with a crimper – you should see Steph’s hair.’

‘Will Jessica be going to university next year?’ Daphne asked, turning to Linda. ‘I mean, what’s the procedure for someone her age, in her position?’

Linda didn’t know. She hadn’t thought about anything much beyond the feature Trevor Jameson was going to run in the County Times , and now she came to think of it – what was going to happen with Jessica next year?

‘You should think about an American university for Jessica – maybe wait four years, let her mature … specialise … get her head round the direction she’d like her research to take. I’ve got a good friend at Berkeley you and Joe should speak to.’

‘Anyway, you got your picture in the paper, didn’t you?’ Mick was saying to Joe.

‘I did.’ Joe looked pleased. ‘Yeah, I did.’

Linda put the mandarin cheesecake on the table and tried not to look at Daphne’s face. She had a feeling that Daphne would have an opinion on frozen mandarin cheesecake.

‘Well, it’s not soufflé,’ she said, because nobody else was saying anything.

‘Since when has anyone here made soufflé?’ Dominique asked.

‘Oh, come on, Dom, I know you make soufflé …’

‘I’ve never made soufflé in my life before. Have I ever made soufflé before, Mick? Mick?’

Mick looked up. ‘What’s that?’

‘I said, have I ever made soufflé before?’

‘You and soufflé? Never. Dom doesn’t cook, she – well, she just doesn’t cook.’

‘So you’ve never made soufflé?’ Linda persisted, thinking of Delta in the kimono; Delta who had lied to her. Why?

‘Linda, I’m telling you …’

‘Well,’ Linda lifted up the cake slice, her stomach vibrating with nausea, ‘this is mandarin cheesecake.’

‘I love mandarin cheesecake,’ Paul said.

4

Taking one last look at herself in the mirror, Dominique turned off the light in the en suite and went through to the bedroom where Mick lay with his head propped in his hand and A History of Winemaking open on the pillow.

‘You’re tired,’ he said, looking up at her.

She nodded, still yawning. ‘I don’t know how you can read – aren’t you drunk?’

‘I’m not drunk.’

‘You looked drunk tonight.’

‘Just doing a good impression – to make it look as though I was enjoying myself. For your sake.’

‘You weren’t enjoying yourself, then?’

‘Come on, Dom.’ He paused. ‘We had mandarin cheesecake.’

‘You shouldn’t pretend for my sake.’

‘I should.’ He shut the book and sat up, pushing the dressing gown off her left shoulder.

‘I can’t sleep,’ Stephanie said, walking into the room and bringing the smell of burnt hair with her.

‘Steph –’ Mick fell back onto the bed.

‘Come on, baby, it’s sleep time. And you can’t sleep in this,’ Dominique said, lifting the yellow hard hat off her daughter’s head. Stephanie was dressed in the full emergency services outfit she’d insisted on wearing to bed earlier and in the end Dominique had given in.

‘What time is it?’ Steph pulled the hard hat sharply back down onto her head.

‘It’s after midnight.’

‘Then it’s tomorrow. That’s late.’

‘It is late and you should be in bed now.’

‘I want to see Dad.’

‘Dad’s trying to sleep.’

‘But he just waved at me.’

Dominique turned round to see Mick lying with the pillow over his head and his right hand in the air, waving.

Stephanie squealed and jumped onto the bed as Mick pulled the pillow off his head and threw it at her. ‘I made up some new jokes,’ she said, bouncing up and down.