Free Out of the Blue by Isabel Wolff Page A

describe as an expression of enormous relief. In the
laundry basket in the corner were some shirts. Graham and I both sniffed them.
But there was no whiff of alien scent, no tell-tale lipstick marks, just the
familiar aroma of Peter’s sweat.
    “We’re doing well,” I said to Graham. His ears pricked up and
he wagged his tail. Then I took Peter’s corduroy trousers off the dumb valet and
turned out the pockets of those. All I came up with was a packet of chewing
gum—unopened—and some lint.
    “No condoms or billets-doux—my husband is innocent,” I
declared. By now I was rather enjoying myself. Relief was flooding in. I’d
already checked the glove compartment for foreign knickers but found not so much
as a thong. I’d done 1471 on the telephone, and it had read back to me Sarah’s
number. I couldn’t check his briefcase, of course, because he’d taken that to
work.
    “Ah—his mobile phone statement,” I said as I spotted an
envelope marked One-2-One lying on the window sill. It had been opened, so I
just slipped it out and read the bill. There was one 0207 number on it which
appeared over thirty times. So I went downstairs, cunningly pressed 141 to
conceal my number (as advised by Moi! ) then dialed
it with a thumping heart.
    “Andy Metzler Associates,” said a female voice. I immediately
put the phone down.
    “It’s just his headhunter,” I said to Graham. “Peter’s
blameless. Gimme five!” He held up his right paw and I shook it, then looked at
the magazine again. Most love cheats are caught out either
by unfamiliar numbers on their phone bill, or by suspicious entries on their
credit card statements . Now, I didn’t actually know where our credit
card statement was, as I don’t get to see it. This is not because Peter’s hiding
it from me, but because it comes in a brown envelope and I never, ever open
brown envelopes. It’s a kind of phobia, I suppose. I’ll open any number of white
ones, but brown ones I avoid. So Peter always deals with our credit card, and
I’ve never ever seen the bill. In any case, I hardly use my card as it’s so easy
to over-spend. I rummaged in the bureau in the sitting room and found a small
black folder labelled “Credit Card”.
    “So far Peter has passed the fidelity test with flying colors,”
I said to Graham. “This, my darling doggo, is the final stage.” I examined the
top statement, which was dated January the fourth. As I expected, there were
very few entries; we’d used the card to book theater tickets at Christmas, we’d
bought Katie some books from Borders, and there was a sixty-pound entry for WH
Smith for a new computer game for Matt. Then there was a fourth entry, for some
flowers. My flowers, obviously. They’d cost forty pounds and had been ordered
from a place called Floribunda. I know where that is—it’s in Covent Garden, near
Peter’s office. So that was that then. No unexplained restaurant bills. No
references to country house hotels. No suspicious mentions of Knickerbox or La
Perla. My investigations were at an end. But as I snapped the folder shut and
went to put it back, I suddenly felt my heart contract as though squeezed by an
alien hand. Those flowers on the bill weren’t my flowers. How could they be? My bouquet had only been sent yesterday. The bill
for my ones wouldn’t appear until the February statement in three weeks’ time. I
could hear my breathing increase as I lowered myself onto a nearby chair. I went
into the hall, looked up Floribunda in the phone book and dialed the number with
a trembling hand. What would I say when they answered? What on earth would I
say? Please could you tell me who my husband ordered flowers for on December
eighteenth as I’m suspicious that he’s having an affair. Perhaps I could pretend
to be the recipient and claim that they’d never turned up? I’m so sorry, but you
know the flowers my husband Peter Smith ordered on the eighteenth of December?
Yes, that’s right. Well I’m