Free Dead Alone by Gay Longworth Page A

wide and stood back. Jessie walked into the forty-foot bedroom.
    ‘My room is down the other end,’ said P.J., before Jessie could ask.
    There was an awful lot of space for one small, insecure woman. Too much space. Immaculate. Soulless, like a hotel room. Huge white pillows were puffed up on a huge white bed, white sheets, white duvet, white bedspread. Thick white curtains were draped over an old boat mast; too long for the window, the material cascaded on to the white carpet. Jessie couldn’t decide whether it was virginal, marital or sacrificial. Whatever it was, this white, sunlit room was now a mausoleum. Verity Shore was dead, Jessie knew it, from the hairs on the back of her neck to the chill in her bones.
    The walk-in wardrobe was the size of Jessie’s bedroom and bathroom combined. Row upon row of designer labels and stacks upon stacks of shoe boxes. Jessie was momentarily awestruck. Maggie would have wept at this sartorial altar. The sickly sweet aroma of Estée Lauder’s White Mischief emanated from the clothes.
    ‘Obscene, isn’t it?’ said P.J. ‘Half this shit, she never even wore. The arguments we’ve had about that.’
    Jessie turned to him. He was walking slowly towards her, his eyes on his wife’s clothes. ‘I think she did it to shock me. The price tags. They allcame up on my credit card, of course. How can anyone spend twelve grand on a top?’ Jessie watched him close in on her and said nothing. ‘Where I come from, that could practically buy a house. I swear those shops saw her coming and licked their greedy lips. Talk about the emperor’s new clothes.’ He stopped walking, but continued to talk to his hanging hundreds and thousands. ‘Eventually I had to put a limit on any individual spend. Anything over a thousand and the bank rang me to verify it.’ He turned to look at Jessie. Those piercing green eyes a few centimetres from hers. ‘She didn’t like that one bit.’
    ‘Are you telling me your marriage was over?’
    ‘Not over, poisoned.’
    ‘By Verity?’
    ‘By everything, I suppose. My own stupidity, for thinking that she would change.’ He pinched the bridge of his nose with his finger and thumb and bent his head forward. ‘My own stupidity for believing that women like her married men like me for anything other than money and position.’ He laughed drily. ‘The oldest profession in the book.’
    ‘Talking like this is not going to give people like me a very good impression.’
    He looked up. ‘But it’s the correct impression.’
    ‘P.J., you just called your wife a whore.’
    ‘No Detective Inspector Driver. I called myself a sucker.’ He turned to leave. ‘Do you mind? I can’t stand the smell.’
    Jessie carried on through the dressing room to the bathroom. There were enough mirrors in that room to give anyone a complex. There was no hiding from self-scrutiny. Along one wall was a mirrored dressing table the size of a pool table. More cupboards lined either side of it. All mirrored, of course. Jessie ran her finger along the mirrored surface then looked at it. Not a speck of dust. This room was exceptionally clean. Suspiciously clean. Gleaming bottles of serum, scrub, toners and tonics lined up like an army. A fight against age. To the death. She approached the bath. It stood alone on a pedestal and it smelt of bleach. On the edge of the tub were more goodies. A family of Paul Mitchell bottles. Did women like Verity Shore wash their own hair? Jessie picked up a bottle and shook it. She unscrewed the lid and sniffed. Obviously not. For a second she pictured Verity Shore, an unhappy, over-indulged woman, lying amongst expensive bubbles in her big white pedestal bathtub, sipping from a shampoo bottle.
    She put the shampoo bottle back with the others and returned to the bedroom. A large sash window on the far wall looked directly on to the flat roof of the garage. One big step up. Made easier by the presence of a conveniently positioned window box. The window