The Last Wife: The addictive and unforgettable new thriller from the Sunday Times bestseller
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Copyright © 2020 Karen Hamilton The right of Karen Hamilton to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
First published in 2020 by WILDFIRE
An imprint of HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP
First published as an Ebook in Great Britain in 2020 by WILDFIRE
An imprint of HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library eISBN: 978 1 4722 4435 2
HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP
An Hachette UK Company
Carmelite House
50 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0DZ
www.headline.co.uk
www.hachette.co.uk
Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
About Karen Hamilton
Praise
Also by Karen Hamilton
About the Book
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
About the Author
Karen Hamilton spent her childhood in Angola, Zimbabwe, Belgium and Italy and worked as a flight attendant for many years. Karen is a graduate of the Faber Academy and, having now put down roots in Hampshire to raise her young family with her husband, she satisfies her wanderlust by exploring the world through her writing. Her debut novel, THE PERFECT GIRLFRIEND, was a Sunday Times bestseller. THE LAST WIFE is her second novel.
Praise for The Perfect Girlfriend:
‘Let this supremely enjoyable thriller whisk you up, up and away’ Sunday Mirror
‘Brilliant and terrifying’ Fiona Cummins, author of Rattle
‘This debut novel is written with a gleeful zeal . . . Juliette is such a memorable, grippingly unpredictable character’ Daily Express
‘Be prepared to put your life on hold for The Perfect Girlfriend’ Good Housekeeping
‘A darkly comic tale of obsession, with a terrifically twisted heroine, Juliette’ Best
‘A brilliant example of how to master voice, and a protagonist, Juliette, who is terrifying!’ Ali Land, author of Good Me Bad Me
‘I genuinely couldn’t put it down – Juliette is such a compelling character. Totally gripping and thrillingly different. I loved it’ Laura Marshall, author of Friend Request
‘So addictive it should come with a warning’ Alice Feeney, author of Sometimes I Lie
‘One of the best twisted narrators I’ve ever read. Perfect indeed!’ C.J. Tudor, author of The Chalk Man
‘The perfect holiday read . . . Just watch out for the cabin crew!’ Holly Cave, author of The Memory Chamber
‘Beautifully written, a compulsive read. Compelling from start to finish’ Amanda Robson, author of Obsession
‘This debut is compelling’ Red
‘An addictive psychological thriller . . . Unhinged’ Culturefly
‘Chilling’ Daily Express
‘Grabbed me and wouldn’t let me go . . . Taut, funny and outrageous’ Isabel Costello, author of Paris Mon Amour
‘Brilliant and completely terrifying’ Jill Mansell
‘A terrifying and addictive tale of misguided love and laser-focussed revenge. I loved it!’ Kaira Rouda, author of Best Day Ever
‘A thriller told from a unique and dark perspective with great sense of character building’ Woman Magazine
‘Twisted’ Parade
‘This page-turner is by turns funny, creepy, surprising, scary and exhilarating’ Publishers Weekly
By Karen Hamilton and available from Wildfire
The Perfect Girlfriend
The Last Wife
About the Book
THE BRILLIANT NEW PSYCHOLOGICAL DRAMA FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE PERFECT GIRLFRIEND
Two women. A dying wish. And a web of lies that will bring their world crashing down.
Nina and Marie were best friends-until Nina was diagnosed with a terminal illness. Before she died, Nina asked Marie to fulfill her final wishes.
But her mistake was in thinking Marie was someone she could trust.
What Nina didn’t know was that Marie always wanted her beautiful life, and that Marie has an agenda of her own. She’ll do anything to get what she wants.
Marie thinks she can keep her promise to her friend’s family on her own terms. But what she doesn’t know is that Nina was hiding explosive secrets of her own . . .
For my family
Acknowledgements
As always, there are many people to thank. I’m very fortunate to have the support and encouragement of my brilliant agent, Sophie Lambert. Her patience, insight and wisdom are limitless. The same can be said of the wonderful Wildfire team, Alex Clarke, Kate Stephenson and Ella Gordon, and Brittany Lavery at Graydon House. Definitely included in this list are: Hillary Jacobsen at ICM, Katie Greenstreet and Emma Finn. Grateful thanks also go to the wider team at C&W Agency: Jake Smith Bosanquet, Kate Burton, Alexander Cochran and Matilda Ayris. Also to Dorcas Rogers and Tracy England for all their help. I appreciate your tireless hard work, dedication and passion. An enormous amount of teamwork goes into publishing a book and I am grateful to everyone, including eagle-eyed copy editors Julia Bruce and Chris Wolfgang, and proof-reader Sarah Bance. Huge thanks to the fantastic team at Headline: Rosie Margesson, Jo Liddiard, Siobhan Hooper, Rebecca Bader and Tina Paul; and to all at HarperCollins Canada.
Thanks are extended to the wider writing community: booksellers, librarians, readers, bloggers, reviewers, authors, thank you for being so generous with your time. Thanks to my writing friends: my fabulous Faber group (five years since we first met!) and to the Ladykillers for the support and
many laughs. Thank you to all the readers from around the world who take the time to get in touch.
A huge thank you to Nicci Cloke (Phoebe Locke) for her patience, kind support and for the endless tech help (especially the time I sent photos of my laptop in a panic!). Thanks also to Nicci for introducing me to Arabel Charlaff, a psychotherapist who offers a service called Characters on the Couch. The therapy scenes in this book are partly as a result of attending psychotherapy sessions in character and attending Arabel’s course at the Faber Academy. Thank you to Arabel for taking the time to answer my questions. Huge thanks also to Amanda Reynolds for all your help (another excellent listening ear).
Some more thank-yous: Graham for your photography advice, Susan for answering dog-related questions (and Amanda too), to my mum and in-laws and to my wonderfully kind friends who helped out in the summer holidays childcare-wise: Henri, Lindsay and Nicolette.
A mention and hello to my local book group: Danielle, Jemma, Jo, Linda, Lindsay, Steph and Vicki.
A friend of mine, Sharon, wanted ‘to be in the book’ so her name features as part of the novel’s book club.
To all my friends who make me laugh and spread the word, too many to list individually, but I want you to know that I appreciate it. I hope I tell you.
Thank you, of course, to my mum, dad and sister, in-laws and my wider extended family.
Finally, thank you to my husband and sons, who have to live in the same house as me when I’m in my own thoughts and inhabiting a different world. Their love and pride in what I do means everything.
Prologue
Clients trust me because I blend in. It’s a natural skill – my gift, if you like. I focus my lens and capture stories, like the ones unfolding tonight: natural and guarded expressions, self-conscious poses, joyous smiles, reluctant ones from a teenage bridesmaid, swathed in silver and blood-red. The groom is an old friend, yet I’ve only met his now-wife twice. She seems reserved, hard to get to know, but in their wedding album she’ll glow. The camera does lie. My role is to take these lies and spin them into the perfect story.
I take a glass of champagne from a passing server. I needn’t be totally on the ball during the latter half of the evening because by then, people naturally loosen up. I find that the purest details are revealed in the discreet pictures I snatch during the final hours, however innocuously an event starts. And besides, it seems this event is winding down.
The one downside of my job is the mixed bag of emotions evoked. I rarely take family photos any more, so normally I’m fine, but today, watching the wedding festivities, the longing for what I don’t have has crept up on me. People think that envy is a bad thing, but in my opinion, envy is a positive emotion. It has always been the best indicator for me to realize what’s wrong with my life. People say, ‘Follow your dreams,’ yet I’d say, ‘Follow what makes you sick with envy.’
It’s how I knew that I must stop deceiving myself and face up to how desperately I wanted to have a child. Delayed gratification is overrated.
I place my camera on a table as the tempo eases and sit down on a satin-draped chair. As I watch the bride sweep across the dance floor with her new husband, I think of Nina, and an overwhelming tide of grief floods through me. I picture her haunted expression when she elicited three final promises from me: two are easy to keep, one is not. Nonetheless, a vow is a vow. I will be creative and fulfil it. I have a bad – yet tempting – idea which occasionally beckons me towards a slippery slope.
I must do my best to avoid it because when Nina passed the baton to me, she thought I was someone she could trust. However, as my yearning grows, the crushing disappointment increases every month and the future I crave remains elusive. And she didn’t know that I’d do anything to get what I want. Anything.
Chapter One
Ben isn’t at home. I used to panic when that happened, assume that he was unconscious in a burning building, his oxygen tank depleted, his colleagues unable to reach him. All this, despite his assurance that they have safety checks in place to keep an eye out for each other. He’s been stressed lately, blames it on work. He loves his job as a firefighter, but nearly lost one of his closest colleagues in a fire on the fourth floor of a block of flats recently when a load of wiring fell down and threatened to ensnare him.
No, the reality is that he is punishing me. He doesn’t have a shift today. I understand his hurt, but it’s hard to explain why I did what I did. For a start, I didn’t think that people actually sent out printed wedding invitations any more. If I’d known that the innocuous piece of silver card smothered in horseshoes and church bells would be the ignition for the worst argument we’d ever had, I wouldn’t have opened it in his presence.
Marie Langham plus guest . . .
I don’t know what annoyed Ben more, the fact that he wasn’t deemed important enough to be named or that I said I was going alone.
‘I’m working,’ I tried to explain. ‘The invitation is obviously a kind formality, a politeness.’
‘All this is easily rectifiable,’ he said. ‘If you wanted me there, you wouldn’t have kept me in the dark. The date was blocked off as work months ago on our calendar.’
True. But I couldn’t admit it. He wouldn’t appreciate being called a distraction.
Now, I have to make it up to him because it’s the right time of the month. He hates what he refers to as enforced sex (too much pressure), and any obvious scene-setting like oyster and champagne dinners, new lingerie, an invitation to join me in the shower or even a simple suggestion that we just shag, all the bog-standard methods annoy him. It’s hard to believe that other couples have this problem; it makes me feel inadequate.
One of our cats bursts through the flap and aims for her bowl. I observe her munching, oblivious to my return home, until this month’s strategy presents itself to me: nonchalance. A part of Ben’s stress is that he thinks I’m obsessed with having a baby. I told him to look up the true meaning of the word: an unhealthy interest in something. It’s not an obsession to desire something perfectly normal.
I unpack, then luxuriate in a steaming bath filled with bubbles. I’m a real sucker for the sales promises: relax and unwind and revitalize. I hear the muffled sound of a key in the lock. It’s Ben – who else would it be – yet I jump out and wrap a towel around me. He’s not alone. I hear the voices of our neighbours, Rob and Mike. He’s brought in reinforcements to maintain the barrier between us. There are two ways for me to play this and if you can’t beat them . . .
I dress in jeans and a T-shirt, twist my hair up and grip it with a hair clip, wipe mascara smudges from beneath my eyes and head downstairs.
‘You’re back,’ says Ben by way of a greeting. ‘The guys have come over for a curry.’
‘Sounds perfect,’ I say, kissing him before hugging our friends hello.
I feel smug at the wrong-footed expression on Ben’s face. He thought I’d be unable to hide my annoyance, that I’d pull him to one side and whisper, ‘It’s orange,’ (the colour my fertility app suggests is the perfect time) or suggest that I cook instead so I can ensure he eats as organically as possible.
‘Who’s up for margaritas?’ I say with an I’m game for a big night smile.
Ben’s demeanour visibly softens. Result. I’m forgiven.
The whole evening is an effortless success.
Indifference and good old-fashioned getting pissed works.
Ben snores after drinking, but I lie still, resisting the urge to prod him. There’s no point in antagonizing him. It was actually my therapist who first planted the idea of playing it cool in my mind. Judy had implied (annoyingly, because I always want her to be on my side) that Ben’s feelings mattered, too.
Last week’s session began awkwardly as I struggled to find things to say, once again doubting the benefit of talking things through. Secrets develop out of necessity, and I’d already offloaded enough. Perhaps I’d simply run out of things to say or finally got bored of my own voice. But clearly not, becau
se there I was, sitting opposite her. Again.
Fighting the urge to leave, I studied the titles on the bookshelf behind her.
‘I hate silence.’
It was the best I could come up with until a thread of thought tugged. Relief. I grasped and ran with it: a list of all Ben’s good qualities and the positive aspects of our relationship.
I’m glad I persevered because I left the appointment buoyed up, full of hope. I imagine that if anyone ever found out that I was seeing someone they might assume it was because of Nina and her shock diagnosis the summer before last, but it was way before that. Not even Ben knows. I like keeping it to myself, a lost hour each week, tucked away on the other side of the New Forest.
Now that Nina has popped into my consciousness (and how can she not), I’ll lie awake for even longer and my irritation with Ben will escalate until I’m forced to silence him. I get up, scrabble around for my clothes on the floor, put my underwear and T-shirt back on, drink the glass of water I had the foresight to place beside me, and go downstairs.
Wine and cocktail glasses scatter surfaces of the living area through to our galley kitchen. It looks like the aftermath of a party, not just four of us. I switch on the tap and down a pint of water. I diluted my cocktails, so I don’t feel too bad, but I want to flush out as many toxins as I can. It can’t do any harm to try.
This is a good opportunity to work as I’ve been so busy lately that I have a backlog. I clear a space at the dining table and open my laptop.
I love editing. There’s something so indulgently omnipotent about the process because I get to choose what people retain as a memento of their special events. I try not to abuse their trust. I take my time, studying faces, expressions, colours, shadows, scanning for the unexpected to focus on. People think they can hide their feelings, but it’s impossible, in my opinion, to succeed at it one hundred per cent of the time. It takes practice. The way I do it is that I imagine that I’m being constantly filmed, which isn’t difficult nowadays. It’s hard enough to avoid surveillance, let alone everyone with their phones at the ready.