He was there again today. He was carrying his lunch in a see-through container, so I could tell it was salad. He didn’t look as if he needed to watch his weight: far from it, there wasn’t an ounce of fat on him. From what I could tell, anyway, and I had been watching him for a while now. Ever since he started work on the building site opposite.

I’ve named him Sam. I know I shouldn’t spend so much time looking at him, I’m a married woman, I’m not supposed to be fascinated by other men. But then Pete wasn’t supposed to.. well, life wasn’t supposed to have turned out as it did.
When I first started working from home, I found it really quiet, so I make sure I go out at lunchtime for a walk. I say hello to the dog walkers, to the regulars at the bus stop waiting for the ten past one. I love baking, so every few days I take something over to the workmen and get them to try my latest efforts. I’ll chat to them at the same time. Sam ate one of my chocolate flapjacks last week. He said it was lush. It made me feel like a teenager as his eyes had lingered on me. Or as perhaps I’d imagined they had.

I thought I’d treat myself to a cup of my special coffee as I’d finally finished my monthly report. It was full of syrup although, unlike Sam, I do really need to watch what I ate. I am rather too fond of my own cooking. Not that Pete minds. He never notices, but that was part of the problem.

From my office I have a good view of them all working on the site. The houses look so sad, their windowless eyes staring out. There seems to be a constant noise of metal on metal, the same that can be heard in so much of our growing city. I could see the builders talking to each other and laughing. Sam was at the front of a group, waving his hands as if he was telling a joke. I like a man with a sense of humour. Pete doesn’t seem to have one.

Then everything changed. A car pulled up and two men got out, grabbing Sam before he had a chance to realise what was going on. I stood up, wanting to shout at them to stop, to leave him alone. Stop telling him his rights and handcuffing him. Don’t take him away. I couldn’t comprehend it and ran over the road, hardly checking for traffic, to ask what the police had said.

A tall guy answered that he’d been arrested for murdering his girlfriend. No, surely it was a mistake, not my gorgeous Sam. And then I thought of Pete. Perhaps it was better the devil you know. After all, he’d only forgotten our anniversary. I’ll just have to remind him next year.