Love You Dead - читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги автора Peter James (71 Tuesday 10 March) #74

71 Tuesday 10 March

For the second time in a month, a grieving woman accompanied her loved one’s body on a flight home after his sudden, tragic death in a foreign country.

And for the second time in that month she consoled herself on the flight, whilst composing and rehearsing her story, with the very acceptable bubbly served in British Airways First Class.

As her glass was topped up by a smiling, sympathetic steward, she dug her fingers into the bowl of warm, roasted nuts. Chewing on a sweet cashew, she switched her thoughts to the book she planned to write one day from her villa on the shore of Lake Como. The villas had gone up in value since that holiday, all those years back with her family. It would take somewhere upwards of fifty million pounds to buy a place impressive enough to be pointed out by a tour boat. Enough to impress her father. And her mother.

‘How do you get to afford one of those? The way you do it, Jodie, is you marry a millionaire.’

Meaning, No way on earth will you, little ugly girl.

She would show them. She longed for the day — the day that would happen — when he ate his words.

On her iPad she entered her password and opened her diary.

Then she typed:

OK, so anyone want to tell me how long is a respectable time to spend with a partner? Husband? Whatever?

It’s a bit of a tired cliché these days, that old saying: ‘Live every day as if it’s your last because one day you’ll be right.’

But honestly?

People talk about managing your expectations. Everyone has different expectations from life.

They say money cannot buy happiness. So I’ll tell you what I’ve learned in my thirty-six years, to date. First, here is a list of things I hate:

1. Marmite

2. Gooey-eyed mummies

3. Holy Joes

4. People who tell you money doesn’t buy happiness.

Here’s a list of things I love:

1. My cat

2. Looking at my bank balances

3. Good quality Chablis

4. Oysters Rockefeller

5. Lobster

6. Jimmy Choo shoes

7. Mercedes-Benz sports cars

Here’s a list of things I want:

1. An apartment in New York. A villa on Lake Como.

2. Private jets, so I never have to take my fucking shoes off again in an airport.

3. Enough money never to have to work again.

4. To marry a man I truly love.

5. To start a family.

Is that so unreasonable? I’d like to think of myself as a woman of simple tastes. I want the best of everything. I want it now, all the time I’m alive. And I’m fully aware that one day will be my last.

When that day comes, I want to die with a big smile on my face. Not, as too many people do, in a hospital corridor with a hung-over medical student jumping up and down on my chest, or withering away from old age or disease in an old people’s home.

Is that really so unreasonable?

Life’s a game.

So sad most of us never realize that.

I feel so lucky I worked that out while I was still young enough to make it happen.

Can you imagine what it must feel like to be on your deathbed thinking of all the things you wish you’d done? We’re not just a long time dead, we are dead forever.

Don’t let anyone tell you any different.

The formalities at London’s Heathrow Airport were less arduous than Jodie had been expecting. She signed over care of her late husband’s body to the Brighton and Hove Coroner, and was on her way down to Sussex, in the back of a BMW limousine, in just over an hour and a half after touchdown.

She had been very fortunate, she knew. It was something of an urban myth that all of ships’ captains could perform legal marriages. To do this they needed to be an officially recognized wedding celebrant, and few were. Very conveniently for her, Rowley Carmichael had chosen to go cruising with a line that recognized, with its romantic destinations, there could be a call for such services, and a lucrative one, so all their captains were legally recognized celebrants.

And what kept that smile on her face broadening by the minute was the knowledge that the moment someone was married, any existing will they had made became instantly invalid.

The only thing bothering her was that Rowley had four children, and would probably have made trust provisions for them. But she had no doubt that at the end of the day she would end up with a decent chunk of change. As any wife would be entitled to. And it would be a substantial addition to her declining savings. But perhaps not the golden egg she craved.

As the black BMW turned off the M25, onto the M23 south towards Brighton, she was only too aware that the real jackpot she sought still lay, at this moment, elusively ahead of her. And she was already busy on her laptop, googling hard, searching for Mr Right across the websites where she had registered.

He was out there, somewhere. And she would find him.

Someone who would be grateful to meet her. Someone rich enough to make all her dreams come true.

Someone rich enough to make Cassie turn in her grave.