Читать книгу The Breakdown: The gripping thriller from the bestselling author of Behind Closed Doors - Б. Э. Пэрис, B Paris A - Страница 15

FRIDAY, JULY 31ST

By the time the afternoon comes, I’m desperate to see Matthew. The weather isn’t brilliant so I hang around in our room, waiting for his call to tell me what time he’ll be arriving. I watch a bit of television, relieved that there’s nothing on the news about Jane’s murder, yet strangely annoyed that two weeks on from her violent death, she’s already been forgotten.

The phone rings and I snatch it up.

‘I’m at the house,’ Matthew says.

‘Good,’ I say happily. ‘You’ll be here in time for dinner.’

‘The thing is, when I arrived, there was a man here from that alarm company, practically sitting on the doorstep.’ He pauses. ‘I didn’t realise you’d actually gone ahead with it.’

‘Gone ahead with what?’

‘Well, the alarm.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘The guy said he agreed with you that someone would fit the alarm this morning but when the technician turned up there was nobody in. They’ve been phoning every half an hour, apparently.’

‘I didn’t agree to anything at all,’ I say, annoyed. ‘All I said was that we’d get back to him.’

‘But you signed a contract,’ Matthew says, sounding puzzled.

‘I did no such thing! Be careful, Matthew, he’s trying it on, pretending I agreed to something when I didn’t. It’s a scam, that’s all.’

‘That’s what I thought. But when I said that as far as I was concerned we hadn’t decided anything yet, he showed me a copy of the contract with your signature on it.’

‘Then he must have forged it.’ There’s a silence. ‘You think I went ahead and ordered it, don’t you?’ I say, realising.

‘No, of course not! It’s just that the signature looked a lot like yours.’ I sense him hesitate. ‘After I got rid of him I had a look at the brochure you left in the kitchen and, inside, there’s a client copy of the contract. Shall I bring it to the hotel so that you can see it? Then if it’s not above board, we can do something about it.’

‘Sue the pants off him, you mean,’ I say, trying to lighten things, trying not to let any doubt cloud my mind. ‘What time will you be here?’

‘By the time I’ve showered and changed – about six-thirty?’

‘I’ll wait in the bar for you.’

I hang up, momentarily annoyed that he could think I’d order an alarm without telling him. But a little voice is mocking me: Are you sure, Cass, are you really sure? Yes, I tell it firmly, I am sure. Besides, the man from the alarm company had seemed like the type of person who would do anything to get a contract, even if it meant lying and cheating. I’m so confident I’m right that when I go down to the bar, I order a bottle of champagne.

It’s waiting in an ice bucket when Matthew arrives.

‘Tough week?’ I ask, because he looks horribly tired.

‘You could say that,’ he says, kissing me. He eyes the champagne. ‘That looks good.’

The waiter comes to open the bottle and serves us.