How to Kill Your Husband (and other handy household hints), Kathy Lette [books to read to increase intelligence .txt] 📗

The next day he rang ten times asking if he could take the kids and me out for Christmas dinner. A guilt-edged invitation. But we were celebrating Christmas with my parents, who had reconciled and were about to use the fire insurance money for the shed and its contents to take a Mediterranean cruise. I texted Rory back. Very sorry. Can’t come. Lie follows by email.

Was it a mean thing to do? I don’t know. All I do know is that being abandoned by your husband for your therapist tends to recalibrate one’s view of what constitutes good manners.

In a letter to the North Primrose Primary School parents which arrived around New Year’s Day, the Chairman of Governors wrote: It is with regret that I am writing to inform you of the resignation, with immediate effect, of Claude Scroope from the Headship of North Primrose Primary for personal reasons. We would like to thank him for his outstanding service . . .

Oh, if only they knew just how out and standing his service had actually been.

It went on to say how well the school had performed in the national league tables last year.

That wasn’t the only area in which he’d performed well, I thought, mischievously.

It concluded with The Acting Head, and a position we hope to make permanent in the near future, is now Ms Cassandra O’Carroll.

Was getting the Head position by blackmail an underhand thing to do? Probably. But life had taught me a lesson on maths, not covered in teacher’s training college: when the odds are against you, get even.

PART FIVE

25. Where There’s a Will, I Wanna Be In It

The telephone bell cleaves my cranium like an axe. I fumble for the receiver and croak into it.

It is Quincy Joy, Jasmine’s solicitor. ‘What day is it?’ I say blearily. Through the window, grey clouds slosh across the January sky. In the web of tree branches, wisps of morning mist are snared here and there like hair.

‘Monday. Jasmine’s bail hearing’s been scheduled for this afternoon.’

Bloody hell. Realize I’ve been scribbling this account on and off for a week. ‘It’s all written up for you.’ Yawning, I gather the scattered pages from the floor beside the bed. ‘The way I remember it.’

‘Meet me at Holloway. I’ll have to sign you in as my clerk. Bring your passport for ID.’

Now that I’m Acting Head, I make an implausible excuse to myself about why I won’t be going into school today, totally believe it, and hurry to the prison.

When Quincy strides into the Stalinesque prison waiting rooms (actually, even Stalin would have found this architecture too brutal), I ask her right away how Jazz’s case is looking. Her muddy eyes, deeply set in her serious face, darken. ‘Not that good. The Prosecution have evidence from one Billy Boston that she attempted to hire him as a hitman to bump off her husband.’ She stubs out her cigarette with a grind of her boot heel to comply with the No Smoking rule. ‘He’s on bail for welfare fraud, so the creep is no doubt offering a plea-bargain.’ She swigs at a Starbucks double espresso.

‘Reliable? Boston? First off, he’s a convicted murderer and second, he’s a playwright. Playwrights make a living out of lying!’

Quincy shrugs. ‘What’s a girl to do when there’s someone in her life she would really rather were out of it? She chooses what might seem the most sensible route for any respectable middle-class woman: she pays a man to do it.’ She pauses to cough up half a lung while moaning how badly she needs another cigarette. ‘Most murderers are traced through a direct grievance, so a killing by someone unknown to the victim is more difficult to solve. A lover fits the bill nicely. This is the picture the Prosecution will paint. And they will not want her out on bail, interfering with their witness. Can you stump up twenty thousand pounds, in the slim chance that she does get bail? It’s a guarantee that Jasmine turns up for trial.’

‘Christ! I can’t. I’m a single mother. My self-esteem may be bouncing back, but, hey, so are my cheques. Still, I know someone who can . . .’

When we’re admitted into the Holloway jail interview room to see Jazz, her voice is plaintive with defeat. ‘They’re gonna nail me, aren’t they? I’m going down.’

It hasn’t taken her long to pick up the criminal vernacular. The look in her eyes is reminiscent of the glassy orbs of the taxidermied creatures I’ve seen with Hannah on sale at Christies. The frightened sound in her voice doesn’t match the media’s soubriquet for her as ‘The Merry Widow’. The papers are now running reports about how the wife of David Studlands, past President of the Royal College of Surgeons and distinguished World Health Organisation expert, has been arrested in London and charged with his murder.

‘The prosecutor served me with his notice of additional evidence and he’s building up quite a case against you, Jasmine,’ Quincy elaborates, sitting side-saddle on the chair. ‘So don’t get your hopes up too high.’

‘Case? What case? There is no case.’

‘Apparently you told your hairdresser that there is an afterlife – after your husband dies. And did you or did you not often say that there are only two days when a husband is great fun to be around? The day you marry him. . .and the day you bury him?”

‘Well, that’s right. And “where there’s a will, I want to be in it”. Yes, yes, it’s called wifely humour. I was being facetious. Who are all these witnesses knifing me in the front?’

‘Oh, don’t worry. There’s evidence about that too. Apparently your husband complained to friends that you attacked him with a carving knife.’

‘Listen, I’m a chef,’ Jazz responds. ‘If I had wanted to kill David I would have administered drugs by stages and disguised the bitter taste in spicy foods, such as curry.’

Jazz’s solicitor gags and her