On Robert’s 82nd birthday, his 35 year old wife, Jennifer, left to spend the weekend in Paris with her 19 year-old lover, Jean-Pierre. This wasn’t for the first time. Ever since his stroke three months earlier, Robert had been forced to watch as Jennifer packed a small suitcase for her trips. He had not left his bed during these months, except for going to the bathroom in a wheelchair with the assistance of Lena, his sturdy Polish carer.
On this occasion, Robert had to watch while Jennifer placed in her case a black, see-through negligée, sundry toiletries, and a selection of gifts for Jean-Pierre, including a silk tie from Harrod’s, a box of liqueur chocolates from Fortnum and Mason’s, and an illustrated edition of the Kama-Sutra from Foyle’s.
Since Jennifer had her own bedroom, her insistence on packing in front of him was, for Robert, proof – if any were needed – of how much she hated him. Hated him, that is, simply for still being alive and for delaying, therefore, the day when she would inherit his wealth. Even if he were to change his will, joint ownership of their houses in Chelsea, Venice and Capetown guaranteed that she would come into a great deal of money.
Jennifer closed her suitcase, blew Robert a kiss, said ‘Toodle-oo’, and went downstairs. As she walked out of the front door to the waiting taxi, she shouted out to Lena that ‘the old one’, as she always called her husband, needed the toilet again.
Jennifer and Jean-Pierre spent the day after her arrival in Paris as they usually did – in the bed of their hotel room, only emerging in the evening for a meal at a nearby restaurant. When they returned to the room, Jean-Pierre lay on the bed and found a movie on the TV. Jennifer soon joined him, carrying two brandies from the mini-bar and the Fortnum and Mason’s liqueur chocolates, which she placed between them. Each of them sipped a brandy and bit into a chocolate. Because they ate the chocolates at the same time as one another, they also died at the same time as one another, thirty seconds later.
A policewoman went to Robert and Jennifer’s house in Chelsea the following morning and told him that his wife and a ‘friend’ had died the previous evening from swallowing an as yet unidentified poison. The officer was not sure that Robert had taken the news in, but Lena promised to make him understand what had happened.
Ten minutes after the policewoman had left, Robert sprang out of his bed, took a shower, and hurried down the stairs to the kitchen, where Lena had instructed Alexa to play a piece by Chopin. The two of them then danced to the mazurka she’d requested. Lena – short, stocky and a graduate in Toxicology from the University of Gdansk – nestled her head against Robert’s chest while their bodies gently swayed together.
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United Kingdom • 82 years old