Unexpected Storm - Chapter One

Caroline
Sep 1
10 min read

Updated: Oct 21

(This is the sequel to Just Breathe, so only read on if you have read that, otherwise it will spoil the story)

It is the first day of Linda’s long-awaited early retirement. She stands in her kitchen, leaning against the countertop with a mug of hot tea in her hands, watching the rain pounding against the window and bouncing off the windowsill. The sparrows, forsaking their premium organic wild bird seed that has been scattered on the bird table in the back garden, are taking shelter in the hedge. Today isn’t a day to venture out, she decides. Even though summer has officially begun, England is experiencing the coldest and wettest June for a long time.

Linda wanders into the living room of her small but perfectly formed bungalow, where her book is waiting for her on the sofa. She settles down with her back resting on one end of her leather Chesterfield sofa and her feet resting on the other end, and beckons her young ginger tabby cat, Nutmeg, to join her. Nutmeg jumps up and settles next to her, making herself comfortable on one of Linda’s plush cushions, allowing Linda to rest her hand on her head and gently tickle her behind her ears.

With her cherished pet at her side, a hot drink on the coffee table, and a new book in her hand, Linda has never been more content. She can’t imagine a better start to her retirement.

She finally has her own home, and she has made the decision to divorce Phil, her cruel and abusive husband, whom she had endured for thirty-five years. She hasn’t heard from him for months, and she is happy to keep it that way. Her personal cloud of crisis and drama has finally lifted. As far as she is concerned, they now live separate lives. She doesn’t want to give him another thought. Their divorce is almost final. Phil’s new lady friend is very welcome to him. Linda has her own bright future to look forward to.

She puts her book down, ignoring the disdainful look from Nutmeg for disturbing her after she has only just settled down, and grabs her mobile phone from the coffee table next to the sofa. She sends a text to her close friend, Charlotte.

I’m on the sofa, reading! Thinking about my holiday. I need another suitcase just for all my books :) x

Charlotte replies, I’ve been cleaning skirting boards on my hands and knees:). Living my best life x

Linda can tell from the smiley face emoji that Charlotte really is living her best life. She has been living her best life since she left the London law firm where she had worked as a matrimonial lawyer and moved to Warkworth last year. After many months of not working, while she tried to figure out what she wanted to do, Charlotte had finally made the decision that she wanted to continue being a lawyer. She is now in the process of opening her own high street law firm in the centre of Warkworth.

The office had once been an old terraced house, whose front door opened onto Bridge Street, directly opposite The Warkworth House Hotel, but was converted into an office in the nineteen-eighties. Previously occupied by a chartered surveyor, it was dull and dreary. Whitewashed walls, bleached plastic Venetian blinds, and dark grey industrial-strength carpets did not lend a welcoming ambience. Morose grey filing cabinets occupied each of the rooms, bearing down on the cheap pseudo-wooden desks that divided the professionals from their clients.

But it is in a perfect location and has rooms upstairs to expand into if Charlotte needs to take on some staff in the future. She picked up the keys from the estate agent a couple of weeks ago, stripped the rooms of the old, neglected furniture and has been getting the office ready to welcome her first clients, whenever anyone needs her. Cosy armchairs, bright cushions, oak desks and lush plants have been ordered to fill the space.

Linda, too, is determined to live her best life, at last. She has sailed the stormy sea of an abusive marriage into the quiet calm of her semi-detached haven, where the television is no longer constantly blaring out football commentary or Formula One track noise. She is free to have peace and quiet in the house, or to listen to the afternoon play on Radio Four, the type of entertainment that Phil had told her was only for ‘toffs’.

She can hear Phil’s voice in her head now, ‘Who do you think you are, listening to that hoity-toity crap?’

Well, now she can listen to whatever she likes, without being called names. The house can be as silent or as noisy as she likes. She will make that decision for herself. If she needs background noise while she reads a book, she can play music or open a window or sit in the garden and listen to the birds singing. It is her choice.

Charlotte is handling her divorce. The matrimonial home has already been sold, the money in the joint bank account has been divided equally between her and Phil, and they have gone their separate ways. In a week or so, the divorce will be final. She doesn’t ever have to see him or speak to him again.

Throughout the negotiations, which have been conducted entirely through their solicitors, he failed to show any concern for her financial status and whether she would be able to afford to pay rent and bills on her small wage from the care home, where she had worked part-time. Consequently, she had failed to tell him that she had inherited almost four hundred thousand pounds following her father’s death, which had enabled her to buy the beautiful bungalow overlooking the river, with plenty of money to spare. She also failed to tell him that she has given up her job at the care home and is now a lady of leisure. Well, what he doesn’t know won’t kill him.

When her offer on the bungalow was accepted, she had confessed to Charlotte about the money left to her by her father, which she should have, strictly speaking, shared with Phil, as they were still married at the time. She told Charlotte that she didn’t want Phil to have a penny of it. Charlotte put her fingers into her ears and began singing ‘la, la, la.’ She told her she had gone temporarily deaf. They never spoke about it again.

The ringing of the doorbell followed immediately by heavy knocking, startles Linda, and she jumps up quickly, brushing her cat to the floor, who miaowes her objection. She hasn’t ordered anything to be delivered, and she isn’t expecting any visitors. She smiles to herself as she makes her way to the front door, imagining Charlotte, ready for a break, a cup of tea and a chat; anything to take her away from her last-minute cleaning duties before she welcomes her first client. She did offer to help her, but Charlotte wouldn’t hear of it.

‘You’re not spending the first day of your retirement scrubbing a dirty office,’ she says. ‘It’s only small, it won’t take me long.’

Charlotte promised to let her know when she had finished, later in the afternoon, and Linda could walk round to the office and they’d go to the Bridge End Cafe for cake and coffee. Linda told her that she’d look forward to it.

‘Oh, it’s you,’ she says as she opens the door.

‘Are you expecting someone else?’ It is PC David Benson, the dreadful misogynistic policeman who was convinced that Linda had been responsible for Phil’s disappearance last year, when in fact Phil had simply left her for a few days; whether to punish her or simply for his own amusement, Linda never found out. PC Benson seemed to have been of the preposterous view that she had murdered her husband, cut his body into tiny pieces, and buried him in the back garden, even though there wasn’t a scrap of evidence to suggest such a thing.

Linda feels like telling him to mind his own business. What has it got to do with him whether she is expecting someone or not? ‘I just thought it might be the children from next door,’ she says, as politely as she can. ‘Their ball keeps coming over the back fence into the garden.’ She has no idea why she just says that. There aren’t any children living next door, but for some reason, she doesn’t want to tell him that she thought it might be a friend, calling to collect her for a coffee. Her social life has nothing whatsoever to do with him. ‘What can I do for you?’ she says.

‘I have some news about your husband,’ he says. When Linda doesn’t reply, he continues, ‘It’s quite upsetting, I’m afraid.’ He examines his huge black boots, head down. When Linda hesitates, he looks up and continues, ‘Can I come in or do you want to discuss this on your doorstep? I’m sure you wouldn’t want all and sundry listening?’ He looks over his shoulder at a man walking past with an old dog and scowls at him, as though the man has shown the slightest sign that he wants to stop and listen, when in fact he has done nothing of the sort and has walked on, seemingly oblivious to the conversation on the doorstep.

Linda’s thoughts whirr. She is baffled as to why he is talking to her that way. Why does he have to be so hostile? Is she imagining it, or does he have an ugly sneer at the corner of his mouth? She wishes she could slap it away. Why is he trying to make her believe that he wants their conversation to be private, as though he has her best interests at heart? Since when has he ever cared? He knocks on my door, mentions upsetting news, and then manages to make me angry with just a few words. Evidently, it isn’t only Phil who has the power to do that. It seems that he and this policeman are cut from the same cloth.

Reluctantly, she agrees that he can step inside, but she remains in the hall, rather than leading him into the kitchen and making him tea, like she did the last time he was in her home, the day that he had accused her of telling lies to the police and she had heard him call her a ‘manipulative bitch’ to his colleague, PC Fielding, as they were leaving when he believed that she was hiding something and not telling them the whole truth. She wants him to say what he has to say and leave as quickly as possible. So far, her lovely new home has not been sullied by aggressive male behaviour and she has every intention of keeping it that way.

‘What news do you have?’ she asks, wanting him to get to the point. She crosses her arms, feeling a sudden chill in the air.

‘I’m afraid your husband…’

‘Soon-to-be ex-husband, thank goodness,’ she interrupts.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘I says soon-to-be ex-husband,’ says Linda slowly and a little more loudly, as though he had failed to understand her the first time. ‘We no longer live together. The divorce will be finalised next month.’ She feels it is important for him to know that she has finally extricated herself from Phil’s grasp. She wants to tell him that Phil is a cheat, a liar, a bully and a downright thug and that she has finally seen sense and left him months ago, but as his personality seems to mirror PC Benson’s, she doesn’t see the point.

‘Oh,’ says the policeman. He fiddles in his jacket pocket and brings out a notepad, as though the answers to any questions he may have about Linda and Phil’s relationship would be in there. He flicks it open and squints at one of the pages. ‘I did go to your previous address, but the new occupants says that you had moved. Luckily, they had your new address.’

Here he is again, just like the last time he had interrogated her in her kitchen, making statements without asking questions. This time, Linda doesn’t want to play verbal games with him; she just wants him out of her house as quickly as possible.

‘Yes, this is my new address. I do live here,’ she says with all the patience she can muster,

‘But Phil doesn’t and he never has. Did they tell you that he did?’

‘Who?’

‘The new owners of our old house,’ says Linda with a sigh.

‘No, no, but I assumed that he did because you did,’ he says. ‘I didn’t check on the electoral roll, you know, with you not being here that long. Look, I’m sorry, there’s been a mix-up about the addresses, but if you wouldn’t mind giving me your husband’s address while I’m here, I’d be grateful.’

Is that a flash of humanity across his face? There one second, gone the next. Linda wonders what Phil has done and why the police are looking for him. He has never been arrested before, as far as she knows. He doesn’t have any criminal convictions or anything like that, although, if they hadn’t lived in a quiet village where seeing a police officer on patrol was a rare occurrence, he most certainly would have been arrested for being drunk and disorderly on quite a few occasions. Maybe his new girlfriend has made a complaint against him. Good for her. That would make sense. That’s why the policeman thought the news would be upsetting. After all, telling a wife that her husband is wanted for beating up his girlfriend would be a shock to most people. Thankfully, Linda doesn’t care what he has done.

However, she is curious.

‘He lives in Amble, at number 2 Acresfield Close,’ says Linda. ‘What has he done? I know there’s privacy laws and all that, so you might not be able to tell me all the details about his arrest, but you says that you had some news.’

PC Benson looks confused for a moment until it dawns on him what Linda is thinking. ‘Yes, yes, I do have news, of course. Not about his arrest though. I’m really sorry to tell you that Mr Matthews is dead.’

This book is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters, and incidents portrayed in it are entirely a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.