Life After Julie

“No, I’ve not heard from her, Cynthia,” said John, hoping his impatience wasn’t detectable. He pictured his mother-in-law sitting in her hallway, telephone receiver clutched in her arthritic hand. She still had an old-fashioned phone with a cable that got so twisted she had to sit right next to it in the draughty hall of her council flat in Peckham.

“How long is it now?” she asked. John wasn’t sure if the crack in her voice was emotion or a bad connection.

John sighed. “Six weeks, Cynthia. Julie walked out six weeks ago.”

“You think she’s with this other bloke?”

“That’s what she said, as she stuck a finger up at me and our twenty-year marriage.”

“What was his name again?”

“What?”

“The bloke she left you for, what was his name?”

“Mike,” said John. “His name was Mike.”

Why had he chosen the name Mike?

“Have the police tried to find him?

“Why would the police be involved, Cynthia? She’s not missing; she left me.”

“But that doesn’t explain why she hasn’t called me, or her sister.”

He hadn’t really planned this properly. How long before Julie’s sister called the police? If Julie and Bev had been closer, the police would probably already be involved. But Julie and Bev rarely spoke. She had called her mum most weeks, though. Eventually, Cynthia would convince Bev that something wasn’t right, and then the cops would come knocking, and John would need a convincing story.

“I have to go, Cynthia,” he said. “There’s someone at the door.”

“Okay, John.” She knew he was lying. She sounded disappointed.

“Bye, Cynthia.”

He ended the call without waiting for her response and slipped his mobile phone back into the pocket of his jeans.

He walked to the window of his flat and stared out across the quadrant.

John was on the tenth floor, so he couldn’t decipher who was out enjoying the brief spell of sun.

John thought of Cynthia, probably in her tiny kitchen now making herself a mug of tea, worried sick about her daughter. He felt a wave of guilt. It wasn’t Cynthia’s fault that Julie had driven him mad — constantly made him feel like shit.

He wondered what state her body would be in by now. Would the wall cavity, inside which he’d bricked it up, create a vacuum that kept it fresh for longer?

He still marvelled at how smoothly the whole plan had gone. He’d persuaded her to come for a drive; taken her to the building site in Essex where he’d been working. He’d known he wouldn’t be able to convince her to come onto the site with him. But the house was nowhere near any other buildings, and once he’d parked in the driveway, they were completely shielded from view. She’d opened her mouth, probably to demand “Why the fuck have you brought me here, you prick?” when he’d stabbed her the first time. Just a carving knife, but it did the job nicely. She’d stared at him with an expression that combined so many emotions he couldn’t single one out. Shock must have been one of them. He’d continued to stab her at least twenty more times, even though she was dead after the fourth or fifth.

He’d dragged her body out of the car before too much blood had spilt onto the seats, although he’d still had to spend a good hour scrubbing them afterwards.

He’d wrapped her in bin-liners first, making the package as air-tight as possible to contain any smells, then carried the bundle to the cellar of the house where he planned to stash it.

He’d been a bricklayer all his working life. He’d been working on rebuilding a section of the cellar wall that week, which is when he’d had the idea. The cavity was just wide enough to shove the corpse, and then he’d just had to finish the job.

He’d been back on site the next day, working elsewhere in the house, but he’d snuck down to the cellar at one point, admired his handy work. Whispered a final “fuck you” to the woman who had made his life a misery.

Down below, a group of kids were running and screaming happily in the quadrant. John remembered being a carefree kid. Life before Julie.

He headed to the kitchen. He fancied a beer, and there was no-one to tell him it was too early.