Something had shattered. Downstairs in the kitchen, probably a mug or a plate.
I rolled over and spread my arms out wide. I was seconds away from falling back to sleep when I realised the mattress on his side was cold. He hadn’t got up to make tea and broken something, because he wasn’t in the house. He was in Munich at a conference.
I was home alone. And someone had just broken something downstairs.
“Shit,” I whispered as I scrabbled off the bed to put a bra on. I couldn’t confront an intruder braless.
I crept onto the landing and listened.
Silence.
But then, the whine of a cupboard door. The clack of crockery. A brief pause. Then a smash as something was thrown against a wall.
I looked around for a weapon. I grabbed the iron off the board, wrapped the cord around my wrist and quietly crept downstairs.
A woman was in my kitchen. She had her back to me and was looking at the plates she had just smashed. I didn’t hesitate. I ran up behind her and swung the iron into the side of her head. She collided with the cupboards and fell down, so I rolled her over and straddled her, ready to strike again.
“You slept with my husband!” she yelled, clutching the side of her head as tears streamed down her cheeks.
“No, I didn’t.”
She looked confused for a moment.
“What house number is this?”
“Three.”
“Fuck, I’ve got the wrong one.”
I lifted the iron above my head and plunged the pointed end into her forehead. I did it again and again and again until the blood covered the mess both she and I had made.
“I lied,” I said to her twitching body. “This is number four.”
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