The Trophy Wife by Valerie Keogh

Author:Valerie Keogh [Keogh, Valerie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Boldwood Books
Published: 2023-01-01T16:00:00+00:00

48

After a beat, Ian Carlton continued the story, ‘Your father’s employer told the police you were going to take up a position with them, so there was no reason to suppose you had gone elsewhere. Based on everything they had discovered, the police made the natural assumption that you were in the car along with your parents, and that along with them, you were killed in the accident. A memorial mass was held a few weeks later and’ – he hesitated and looked at me across the desk before taking a steadying mouthful of his whisky – ‘a gravestone was erected.’

My grip on the glass I held was so tight I wondered it didn’t crack, cut me, and make me bleed regret. ‘A gravestone?’

‘In South Bristol Cemetery. It was where your parents had said they wanted to be buried.’

I nodded as if I had known that. I hadn’t. Why would I? Death wasn’t something we had ever discussed. Death wasn’t something I expected, certainly not then. Not now.

A thought struck me. ‘I’ve been writing to them. All these years. Did no one wonder?’

Carlton’s hand moved to the folder, fiddled once more with the contents, and withdrew a bundle of letters and cards. ‘These?’ he said, holding them up and looking directly at me, the first hint of censure in his eyes. ‘You never included an address. You signed them “J”. I had no idea who they were from. Thought it might have been a distant relative. I had no way of knowing it was you.’

I had been so careful to prevent my parents intruding on my Oxford idyll, so determined they wouldn’t arrive unannounced and somehow spoil it. So bloody well determined to keep that part of my life separate from my wonderful new one. And I needn’t have bothered. It had all been for nothing.

The solicitor looked at his watch, not bothering to be discreet. I suppose he usually charged by the hour, wondering vaguely if he would bill me for this.

My whisky-fuzzed brain was a few steps behind in processing all it had heard. There was something niggling, something important. Then it came to me. ‘What about my National Insurance number? When I started working, wouldn’t that have alerted someone?’

Carlton shuffled restlessly in his chair. ‘I’m afraid an error was made at the time.’

‘Go on.’

‘Ben Jones was semi-retired. He worked part-time, helped with the routine paperwork.’ Carlton hesitated, as if reluctant to lay the blame on a colleague. ‘Your death was registered, obviously, but it appears he missed out informing the National Insurance contributions office.’

‘So I was able to use it without alerting anyone to the mistake.’

‘Yes. Of course, I will have to contact the authorities now.’

I had nothing to be afraid of, the mistake hadn’t been mine, so my fear wasn’t from the ominous word authorities, just what it represented. More people knowing and the horrifying idea that the lie I had told all those years before would escape. ‘Is that necessary?’

He pulled his head in like a giant Galapagos tortoise.

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