I remain in the van parked up the street from the house where we will never live. The coppers and forensic teams searching it come and go but no one pays me any attention. I’m past caring how long the investigation will take and what we’ll do with the place once they give it back to us. They can bulldoze it as far as I care.
If the last few months have been hell, then the last few weeks have been spectacularly bad even by our standards. I have fucked things up royally, and it’s all my own doing. Almost everyone in my life has good reason to hate me right now. A month after my secrets were splashed across the newspapers, Mum still can’t look me in the eye because she’s missed four years of being in the life of a grandchild she had no idea existed. Mia is livid because I had a kid with someone else and have cheated on her for almost our entire relationship. And Emma is furious with me for dragging her name through the mud in a national newspaper. A group of teenagers called her a ‘slag’ on the school run yesterday.
I know I’ve handled this badly, and if I could go back to when we found the bodies, the first thing I’d change is how we dealt with the press. Me, Mum and Dad were adamant that we didn’t want anything to do with the media and couldn’t understand their fascination with us. It took Mia with her PR hat on to point out that they were interested because she’d had a brush with fame and we were a young,
attractive, pregnant couple who, through no fault of our own, bought a house where so many bodies were found. It was like the plot of a horror movie. But they kept harassing us for interviews.
Away from Mum and Dad, Mia tried to talk me into doing just one so they’d leave us alone. But even the fistfuls of cash they were throwing at us weren’t enough to make me want that kind of exposure. She was used to it with that idiot of an ex of hers, but I wasn’t. The house was the story, not us. But really, I was scared of what they’d dig up about me. Emma and Chloe are not the whole story.
I should have put the brakes on my second family immediately and kept well away to protect them just as much as my marriage. But then things started getting really bad with Mia’s postnatal depression or whatever it is she still hasn’t got treatment for, and when she pushed me out of the bedroom and made me sleep in the lounge, it was the final straw. I started seeing more and more of Emma. It was, well, familiar and comfortable, like slipping on an old pair of trainers you’ve had knocking around for years but don’t want to wear every day. God knows I needed a bit of normality.
I thought interest in us had long passed, especially after I lost my rag on that fake broken boiler call-out by the journalist and photographer – so I stopped being so cautious when it came to going to Emma’s place. How dumb was that? I pretty much gift-wrapped and handed them a much better story on a plate because everyone loves reading about a love rat.
None of this is Mia’s fault. I’m the liar in this marriage, not her. And now I’ve just tossed away the last six years. The newspapers have got what they want: my relationships with the three women I care about the most are in pieces, and I have no idea how to repair any of them.
AUTOPSY REPORT ON TWO BODIES FOUND IN THE GARDEN OF 45, HIGH STREET, STEWKBURY
Body 1 –
These are the remains of a largely skeletonised adult human. The skeleton appears complete except for the skull and upper five cervical vertebrae. There is partial clothing present over the anterior aspect of the body but much of it has deteriorated. Some bloodstaining is apparent on the remaining blue shirt over the chest region and centrally a ragged defect noted. There are three major abnormalities of the bones. The first is a defect measuring just under one cm on the volar aspect of the right forearm; this could represent a defence wound. The second is an induration measuring
0.5 cm on the fifth rib; this is likely to be from a sharp force injury such as a stab wound. Finally, there is a healed fracture to the left tibia, which probably occurred many years prior to death. The dimensions of the hip bones are in keeping with this being a male and the state of the bones puts the age between seventy-five and eighty-five years. It is not possible to give a definitive cause of death as the skull and cervical vertebrae could not be examined; however, the injuries identified point towards the death being traumatic in nature, probably due to injury by a knife or other sharp object.
Body 2 –
These are the remains of a largely skeletonised adult human. The skeleton is complete except for the skull and the upper six cervical vertebrae. Remnants of clothing are present over the anterior aspect of the body including part of a dress and a cardigan, much of which appears bloodstained. The major abnormalities of the skeleton seen are multiple < 0.5 cm cut marks on the bones of the right radius, right humerus, right clavicle and also the anterior pubic rami; this is consistent with sharp force injury. In addition, there is also a left-sided Colles’ (wrist) fracture which was probably sustained around the time of death. The dimensions of the hip bones are in keeping with this being a female and the state of the bones puts the age somewhere in the region of eighty and ninety. Although the lack of skull and cervical vertebrae preclude a definite cause of death, it is highly likely that death was traumatic in nature, probably from a knife attack. The fracture to the wrist could have occurred in relation to a fall or struggle around the time of death.
