The Widow by Fiona Barton Page B

the morning.’
    They scrape their chairs back and stumble to their feet. Kate walks me to my door and makes sure I’m safely inside.
    â€˜Don’t answer the phone,’ she tells me. ‘If I need to talk to you, I’ll knock on the door.’
    I nod.
    It’s boiling hot in my room so I lie on the enormous bed with the windows open to let out the heat of the radiators. Today is playing over and over in my head on a loop and I feel dizzy and out of control, like I’m a bit drunk.
    I sit up, to stop the room spinning, and see myself reflected in the window.
    It looks like someone else. Some other woman who’s let herself be taken away by strangers. Strangers who, until today, were probably banging on my door and writing lies about me. I rub my face and so does the woman in the window. Because it is me.
    I stare back at myself.
    I can’t believe I’m here.
    I can’t believe I let myself agree to come. After everything the press have done to us. After all the warnings Glen gave.
    I want to tell him that I don’t actually remember agreeing, but he’d say I must have done or I wouldn’t have got into the van with them.
    Well, he’s not here any more to say anything. I’m on my own now.
    Then I hear Kate and Mick talking on the balcony next door.
    â€˜Poor thing,’ Kate says. ‘She must be exhausted. We’ll do it in the morning.’
    Whatever ‘it’ is. The interview, I suppose.
    I feel dizzy again. Sick inside, because I know what is coming next. There’ll be no more massages and treats tomorrow. No more chat about what colour the kitchen units are. She will want to know about Glen. And Bella.
    I go into the bathroom and throw up the chicken I’ve just eaten. I sit on the floor and think about the first interview I gave – the one to the police, while Glen was in custody. It was Easter when they came. We’d planned to walk up to Greenwich Park the next day to see the Easter egg hunt. We went every year – that and Bonfire Night were my favourite times of the year. Funny the things you remember. I loved it. All those excited little faces looking for eggs or under their woolly hats, writing their names with sparklers. I’d stand close to them, pretend they were mine for a moment.
    Instead, that Easter Sunday, I sat on my sofa while two police officers went through my things and Bob Sparkes questioned me. He wanted to know if Glen and I had a normal sex life. He called it something else, but that’s what he meant.
    I didn’t know what to say. It was so horrible being asked that by a stranger. He was looking at me and thinking about my sex life and I couldn’t stop him.
    â€˜Of course,’ I said. I didn’t know what he meant or why he was asking me that.
    They wouldn’t answer my questions, just kept asking theirs. Questions about the day Bella disappeared. Why was I at home at four, instead of at work? What time did Glen come in the door? How did I know it was four o’clock? What else happened that day? Checking everything and going over the same things again and again. They wanted me to make a mistake, but I didn’t. I stuck to the story. I didn’t want to make any trouble for Glen.
    And I knew he’d never do anything like that. My Glen.
    â€˜Do you ever use the computer we took away from your husband’s study, Mrs Taylor?’ Inspector Sparkes suddenly asked.
    They’d taken it the day before, after they searched upstairs.
    â€˜No,’ I said. It came out as a squeak. My throat betraying me and my fear.
    They’d taken me up there the day before and one of them sat down at the keyboard to try and start it. The screen lit up but then nothing happened and they asked me for the password. I told them I didn’t even know there was a password. We tried my name and birthdays and Arsenal, Glen’s team, but in the end they unplugged it and took it away to crack it