The Marriage K.L. Slater (classic romance novels TXT) 📖

‘Jill was out for the afternoon and it would have been easy to say Audrey had called to see her if she’d returned early. The first thing she did was to deny that Coral had blackmailed me for five years. She said she’d have known about it, that Coral would have told her. I knew she was lying through her teeth, of course. Audrey told me that unless I wanted Coral revealing all to my family and to the college, which would mean losing my job, I had to double the monthly payments. I tried to get out of it but Audrey’s savvy.’

‘Tried to get out of it, how?’ Tyra pushed him.

‘Well, I’d paid a few months at the lower amount and it had nearly ruined us. I earn nothing like what I used to and Jill had noticed money was scarce. I told Audrey that if she continued to fleece me like this I’d have to speak to my wife about selling the house, which would destroy Jill. Do you know what she said?’

Tyra and Irma waited without commenting.

‘She said it would be the best thing in the world for Jill. That hopefully she’d make a fresh start without me!’ His face darkened. ‘That girl didn’t have to keep the child. She was the one who chose to have him so why should I be made to suffer?’

‘Her name was Coral,’ Tyra snapped. Her fingers were laced so tightly together, the knuckles looked fit to burst through her skin. Irma caught her eye and signalled for her to relax and breathe.

‘And so did you agree to pay up?’ Irma pressed him.

‘I said I needed some time to think about it but I knew then that they’d never stop. Whatever I did, whatever I agreed to, they were going to ruin me. I knew that’s what Audrey wanted.’

‘Why did Audrey dislike you so much, do you think?’ Irma had to stop herself adding, apart from the fact you’re a misogynistic, entitled pig, that is?

Briefly, the arrogance disappeared from his face and he actually looked a little rueful. But it didn’t last long.

‘I don’t know,’ he said, offhand. ‘Probably some innocent comment I made that she took the hump over. She’s very over-sensitive, like most wom …’

His voice trailed off as he caught Tyra’s murderous expression. Even Irma had a brief twinge of fear that her colleague might decide to lunge across the desk and throttle him.

‘What comment?’ Irma said.

‘I don’t know, probably some comment I made a few years ago when Tom was about halfway through his sentence. A little joke that she took the wrong way.’ Irma raised her eyebrows in anticipation and he fidgeted in his chair. ‘I’d said something about my wife being out of action and might Audrey be up to fulfilling some of her … marital obligations.’

‘By “out of action” I assume you mean her GP had diagnosed your wife with anxiety and depression and so you weren’t having sex?’ Tyra said bluntly.

‘Heavens!’ He grinned and looked at Irma. ‘They don’t train them in subtlety these days, do they?’

Finally, Audrey’s duplicity was making sense. As Jill’s lifelong friend, Irma had been trying to work out why Audrey had embarked on a persecution of Robert that also seemed to betray her friend. Now the pieces were slotting into place.

‘Did you think about telling the police you were being blackmailed? Or at the very least, did you consider speaking to your wife?’ Tyra said.

‘That would’ve meant massive implications for me.’ Billinghurst folded his arms and scowled. ‘I was in a straitjacket. I had so much to lose whatever option I came up with.’

‘Except one, it seems,’ Irma remarked. ‘If you got rid of Coral, then maybe Audrey would be warned off and the problem would go away.’

‘I told you, I didn’t mean to kill her. I was angry with her but even so, I tried to resolve things amicably. I went round to Audrey’s house first, tried once more to reason with her that the additional payments would ruin us but she seemed completely resolved and wouldn’t be persuaded. I left her house – inadvertently leaving my scarf behind – and contacted Coral directly, asked to meet her and I told her not to mention it to Audrey or the deal was off. Coral was the one who suggested we met in a lay-by near the wood. We sat in my car talking, but she quickly got hysterical when I told her I wouldn’t be selling the house to pay her. She started threatening me with all sorts of despicable things, said she’d tell Jill, tell my employer. Then she got out of the car and ran off. I waited a few moments to see if she reappeared, but she didn’t. So I drove away, and that’s when she dashed out into the road in front of my car. I’d glanced down, just for a second at my phone, and the next thing, there was an almighty thud and I’d hit her. My first thought was to call the police and then all the implications hit me and … I realised this insurmountable problem I had would die with her.’

There were a few moments of terrible silence as Irma thought about the horror of Coral left behind at the scene.

‘But Coral wasn’t the only person who knew all this about you. Audrey did too,’ she pointed out.

‘Crucially, Audrey also had a lot to lose. She’d lose her job at the charity shop if I revealed her part in the blackmail and that’s basically all she has in her sad little life. Jill would obviously never speak to her again either.’ He sighed. ‘I didn’t mean to kill Coral, but when I left the scene and thought it through, I realised it could work. It just might solve all my problems.’

‘Except it hasn’t done that at all, has it, Mr Billinghurst?’ Irma remarked coldly. ‘You have so