TWO MONTHS LATER

Black char chased an orange flame along the paper. Kendra watched, holding onto Ben’s farewell note as long as she could before dropping it into the sink of her new flat in the New Town district of Edinburgh.

Kendra certainly had never imagined in her wildest dreams that she was putting so much pressure on Ben that he’d try to kill himself. Finding the note had been horrifying. She had only sleepily nipped to the loo that awful Christmas Eve, now seven weeks ago, and spotted it shoved under her door. Thinking it was a festive love message, she had ripped it open. The contents made her vomit. She had rushed straight to his house to try to stop him, but the police cordon was already in place.

Standing there in the rain, watching Ben and his family being carried out to ambulances, had been agonising. Rain had pattered on Kendra’s head, creating a tattoo of guilt that trickled down her face and joined her tears as she waited, waited, waited to find out what was happening. Stretching her neck to see over the other onlookers, as rumours flew through the crowd.

As painful as it was, she had decided there and then to walk away.

Kendra had breathed a huge sigh of relief when she discovered Ben had pulled through, after several days in intensive care.

It was a shame Dominique had lost her life. Even more of a shame that Ben, now free of his wife, was on bail facing all kinds of embezzlement and fraud charges. It looked as though he’d be going down for a few years, even with his guilty plea and mitigating circumstances. From what she had gathered from the newspapers, he was staying with his sister, while the children were looked after by that best friend of Dom’s, Fiona someone or other – the lawyer woman. Apparently, she was now their legal guardian, and they were getting counselling alone, and also as a family with Ben. According to the papers, anyway.

Kendra truly hoped they sorted themselves out. What had she done? All she had wanted was to force Ben’s hand. To make life at home so miserable that he would willingly run into her open arms. They loved each other, they should have been together. Why couldn’t he have seen that? Why had he clung to his family?

Why had she pushed Ruby so hard?

When Kendra had discovered Jayne went to the same school as Ruby, it had seemed the perfect way to find out more about Ben’s kids. But Ruby had sounded such a pain. Jayne had confessed to Kendra that she couldn’t stand the stuck-up teenager. She sounded a nightmare. Kendra worried she and Ben’s eldest might not get on. Ruby sounded the type to act up and potentially make Kendra’s perfect new life a misery.

One day Jayne had broken down in front of Kendra.

‘I – I’ve done something awful. I’m so ashamed. What should I do, should I tell my mum?’ she begged, those muddy brown eyes piggy pink with tears.

‘What on earth is it?’

‘That girl I told you about… Ruby. She got beaten up and someone filmed it. I got hold of the video and…’ She sniffled incoherently.

‘Take your time.’

‘I’ve shared it with everyone I know. Got them to share it all over, too. It was just stupid jealousy. I can’t believe I’ve been so mean. And now, she looks totally miserable. We all feel bad about it. Should I tell Mum? Should I apologise to Ruby?’

It had taken a lot to persuade the girl to leave things be, and not even apologise. But Kendra had managed it, buying her conscience with soothing words and a lot of impromptu presents such as lipsticks and eye make-up. Why? Because the mistress had realised Ruby was the key to Kendra’s own dreams coming true.

If Ruby continued to play up, then it would put Ben under increasing pressure at home. At the same time, Kendra would show him what a safe haven her own place was for him. Eventually, he would leap at the chance to leave his miserable marriage and nightmare kids, and begin again with the young lover. Before you could say ‘Bob’s your uncle, Ben’s my husband’ he’d have proposed.

That was her Big Plan.

So, Kendra copied Ruby’s number from Ben’s phone one night. Next day she sent a couple of text messages to the teen, mentioning the fight, to throw the kid off the scent and make her believe it was her peers picking on her. The messages contained nothing bad, just intimating that she wasn’t the most popular person in the world. She wanted Ruby to be miserable and cause trouble at home. It wasn’t something Kendra was proud of, but all is fair in love and war, right, and she’d make it up to the teen once she became her stepmother.

Like Ben always said, you had to bet big to win big. And sometimes there was collateral damage.

As time had gone on, though, Kendra’s texts had become more extreme, more bullying. She had often taken her frustrations with Ben out on the girl.

It had seemed fairly innocent at the time; after all, how bad could a few text messages be? Kendra had felt a bit guilty when Jayne got thumped by Ruby, who had mistakenly blamed her for the messages. But, as Jayne herself had admitted, she’d deserved the punch for sharing the video in the first place. Kendra couldn’t help agreeing; as well as being grateful she herself wasn’t sporting such awful bruising, when she always had to look her best for Ben. Still, after her chat with Jayne, she had gone food shopping and almost bumped into Ruby as she came out of one of the fast food places in the main shopping area of Charlton. It had seemed serendipitous, so Kendra had snatched the opportunity to send the teenager a text about her outfit, knowing the thought of being stalked would put the fear of God into her. That would teach her to pick on Jayne. Ruby needed to learn that violence solved nothing.

When she had seen how annoyed Ben was about the scuffle between his daughter and Jayne, Kendra had known she was on the right track, so continued to add pressure on him and Ruby. Clearly not enough, though, because he had still clung to his wife.

She’d confronted Dominique, bullied Ben’s daughter, and desperation had even led her to pretend to be pregnant.

The website promoting Ruby as a prostitute had probably been a bridge too far, though.

But if Ben had only stopped mucking Kendra around and made a decision, things wouldn’t have got so out of control. She’d never have acted this way if Ben had been a bit more reasonable. Kendra hadn’t expected Ben to try to commit suicide – or that his daughter would get hold of a shotgun. The newspapers were at pains to paint the whole thing as a terrible accident; a domino chain of events that had tumbled to its tragic conclusion. Ruby faced no charge, and the police had even issued a statement explaining that forensic evidence had completely exonerated her. To accompany the article had been a photograph of her, leaning on her boyfriend, with her little sister, dad, and Fiona, them all gazing doe-eyed at Dominique’s headstone. Thanks to Dominique’s life insurance, those kids wouldn’t have to worry about money.

So, on the whole, things hadn’t worked out too badly for them, and the bad things weren’t really Kendra’s fault. But sometimes she did find herself feeling guilty for her part in everything.

Had Kendra pushed Ruby too far?

Just in case, she had thrown her old phone away and got a new one so she wasn’t linked to Ruby’s texts. But there was no reason why anyone would ever suspect her. She rubbed her hands over her face in relief as she thought, accidentally smearing ash over her cheeks. She turned the tap on, rinsing away the charred remains of Ben’s note, then splashing her face.

After all that upset, she had done a midnight flit from her Charlton flat and moved back to Edinburgh. That business with her previous boyfriend had died down, finally, and his family wouldn’t accuse her of being a stalker now if they bumped into her. Hopefully. She’d sold all of the jewellery Ben had given her, so she could afford a nice flat in the expensive New Town area, on the other side of the city from her family, and her ex. She had a plan to find herself a decent man, with some money, to settle down with. Someone who wouldn’t mess her around.

In fact, she already had her eye on someone, which was why she finally felt ready to get rid of Ben’s ‘suicide’ note.

She glanced at the clock – it was time to go. Her soon-to-be new man would be arriving at his favourite café soon, and she needed to ‘accidently’ bump into him.

She dried her face, then popped on a tiny bit of mascara and blusher. Perfect. Grabbing her coat, she sped towards the front door with a smile of excitement on her face. The future was looking rosy.

There was someone waiting on the other side of the door. His hand raised as though about to knock on the door.

Kendra’s heart stuttered.

‘Kendra Wilcox?’ the police officer checked. ‘I’m arresting you on charges of harassment against Ruby Thomas, contrary to section four of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997…’

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