Dead Man's Footsteps

on a deckchair in her garden, soaking up the last of the summer, trying to prolong her tan. Through large oval sunglasses she looked at her watch – the gold Rolex Ronnie had bought her for her birthday, in June, and which he had insisted was genuine. But she didn’t believe that. She knew Ronnie too well. He would not have spent ten thousand pounds when he could have bought something that looked the same for fifty. And certainly not at the moment, with his financial worries.
    Not that he ever shared his problems with her, but she could tell from the way he had recently tightened up on everything, checking her grocery bills, complaining about the money she spent on clothes, her hair and even her lunches out with her friends. Parts of the house were looking embarrassingly shabby, but Ronnie refused to let her call in the decorators, telling her they would have to economize.
    She loved him deeply, but there was a part of him that she could never reach, as if he had a secret internal compartment where he kept and fought his private demon, all alone. She knew a little of what that demon was – his determination to show the world, and in particular everyone who knew him, that he was a success.
    Which was why he had bought this house, just offShirley Drive, that they really could not afford. It wasn’t big, but it was in one of the most expensive residential districts of Brighton and Hove, a tranquil, hilly area of detached houses with sizeable gardens along tree-lined streets. And because the house was modern, on split levels, it looked different from most of the more conventional Edwardian mock-Tudor houses that were the mainstay of the area; people did not realize it was actually quite small. The teak decking and bijou outdoor pool added a touch of Beverly Hills glamour.
    It was 1.50 p.m. Nice that he had just called. Time zones always confused her; strange that he was having his breakfast and she was having her cottage cheese and berries lunch. She was happy that he was flying back tonight. She always missed him when he was away – and, knowing he was a womanizer, she always wondered what he got up to when he was on his own. But this was a short trip – just three days, not too bad.
    This part of the garden was completely private, shielded from their neighbours by a tall trellis interwoven with mature ivy and a huge out-of-control rhododendron bush that seemed to have ambitions to be a tree. She watched the electronic pool sweeper cruising up and down the blue water, sending out ripples. Alfie, their tabby cat, seemed to have found something interesting at the back of the rhododendron and was walking slowly past, staring, then turning, walking slowly past again and staring some more.
    You never knew what cats were thinking, she thought suddenly. Alfie was a bit like Ronnie, really.
    She put her plate down on the ground and picked up the Daily Mail . She had an hour and a half before she needed to leave for the hairdresser. She was going to havehighlights put in and then go to the nail studio. She always wanted to look nice for him.
    Luxuriating in the warm rays of sun, she turned the pages. In a few minutes she would get up and iron his shirts. He might buy fake watches, but he always bought the real thing in shirts, and always from Jermyn Street, in London. He was obsessive about them being ironed properly. Now that the cleaning lady had gone, as part of their economy drive, she was having to do all the housework herself.
    Smiling, she thought back to those early days with Ronnie, when she had actually liked doing his washing and ironing. Ten years ago, when they’d first met, when she’d been working as a sales demonstrator in duty free at Gatwick Airport, Ronnie had been putting back together the broken pieces of his life after his beautiful but brainless wife had run off to Los Angeles, to shack up with someone she’d met on a girls’ night out in London, a film director who was going to make her a star.
    She remembered their first holiday, in a small rented flat outside Marbella, overlooking the yacht basin of Puerto Banus. Ronnie had drunk beer on the balcony, looking enviously down at the yachts, promising her that one day they’d own the biggest yacht in the harbour. And he knew how to romance a woman, all right. He was a master at it.
    She had loved nothing better than to wash his clothes. To feel his T-shirts, swimming trunks, underwear, socks and handkerchiefs in her hands. To breathe in his manly