After You Die by Eva Dolan Read Free Book Online Page B

temporary aberration, something she was going to let him work out of his system before returning to his family, writing it off as just another element of the breakdown which hit him after Holly’s accident.
    Ferreira couldn’t understand it but she knew there were women capable of patiently waiting for a cheating partner to come back to them, apologetic and re-dedicated. The kind of passive-aggressive women who delighted in the martyrdom of their quiet forbearance.
    Warren and Sally made no sense as a couple. He was younger than her, handsome even through his wailing grief and shabbiness, no hiding the good bones in his face and the lean body. She was an almost matronly woman with a grating personality and a teenage son – hardly a catch. Especially placed next to Dawn who had been pretty in that petite and girlish way most men seemed to love.
    Had Warren and Dawn still been close? Closer than they should have been?
    Warren wouldn’t be the first separated man to cheat on his girlfriend with his wife.
    The treadmill began to level out, the belt slowing to a fast walk and then finally a full stop and Ferreira’s attention returned to the room as she stepped down.
    She wiped the sweat off her face and took a long drink of water, looking at what was left of the early-evening crowd; a couple of women on the bikes, another sitting on a power plate by the door, two men grunting among the free weights, their bodies grotesquely pumped and glowing under the lights. A boxercise class was emptying out of the studio at the back of the gym, lots of high fives as the wannabe pugilists made for the juice bar and the changing rooms, veins still flooded with adrenalin.
    In another hour or two they’d be back at home, wine and ready meals and something soporific on the television, softening them up for another Monday morning.
    Ferreira went into the studio to tape her fists.
    The room was close and high smelling, sweat and liniment, the scent of all that suppressed rage and frustration punched out during the previous forty-five minutes, strong enough to give her a contact high if she’d needed it. But she didn’t.
    There was a knot of fury permanently lodged somewhere behind her solar plexus, throbbing dully, pulsing harder every time Christian Palmer entered her mind, insinuating his way in during an absent moment or suddenly breaking through her thoughts, prompted by the sight of a nail head or a short blond haircut, or, more commonly, a police uniform.
    She hadn’t told her therapist about that. If he knew how many times she’d almost lashed out at some PC since returning to work he’d have never signed her off for full duties.
    In her darker moments she imagined digging up Christian Palmer’s corpse and battering it until his skull or her knuckles broke, but it was a thin and unrewarding fantasy because there was nothing left of him, just the lumps of flesh and odd bone fragments scraped off the walls of that cellar his wife had had cremated.
    She’d even been denied the pleasure of spitting on his grave.
    ‘Fourth time this week, you’re keen.’
    Ferreira tucked the end of the bandage into the gap behind her fingers, looked up to see one of the personal trainers watching her. His name tag said
Aaron
and he suited it, a wiry, tan-skinned bloke with a severe undercut and full-sleeve tattoos writhing up both arms.
    ‘Fifth, actually.’
    He smiled. ‘You want to take a go on the pads this time? Most people won’t stand still while you knock them about.’
    Ferreira shrugged. ‘If you’re happy to risk it.’
    He grabbed a set of black and grey pads, shoved his hands into them, smiling at her again, small white teeth, sharp and back slanting. ‘Tell you what, if you can catch me I’ll buy you a drink.’
    She gave him the once-over as they squared up, being blatant about it, and he played up to the appraisal, showed her an Ali shuffle, quick on his feet, ducking and weaving.
    ‘How about this,’ she said. ‘If you can