A Perfect Cornish Escape

by Phillipa Ashley

  ‘I’m certain it’s him,’ he said.

  ‘Well, it’s not.’ She clung onto her composure by the thinnest thread, convinced he’d been duped in some way. ‘He drowned seven years ago off the cove. Where are you getting this information from?’

  ‘I’m afraid it’s true. I can show you some photos of him right now.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’ She reached for the counter top, feeling light-headed.

  ‘Will you sit next to me and take a look?’

  She didn’t want to look. She didn’t want to be here. He had to be wrong. And she was angry too. ‘You must be mistaken.’

  She glanced at a photo he’d pulled up on his iPad. It showed a man with blond hair and a beard standing outside a bar. There was an auburn-haired woman next to him in a white bikini. Marina’s heart was in her mouth. The bearded blond man … it couldn’t be. It was impossible. It had to be a doppelganger! Everyone had one somewhere, didn’t they? ‘No. That’s not Nate. It’s just someone who looks like him.’

  ‘What about this one then?’ he asked, scrolling down to a shot of the same blond man laughing with two other people, an older man and the same redhead, this time with a ponytail and a wiggle dress. She shook her head. ‘Nope. It must be a coincidence, a lookalike,’ she insisted, yet her heart was pounding at the uncanny resemblance. Even the way he grinned at the camera, so sure of himself, reminded her of her husband. Her dead husband. A wave of anger swept over her. ‘Lachlan, this isn’t funny. In fact, it’s pretty horrible and I don’t know why you’re doing it.’

  ‘Please, sit down.’

  A hand on her elbow guided her onto the swivel chair and despite her indignation, she found herself sinking onto it. What Lachlan was saying was impossible. It was ridiculous … a sick joke. The radio crackled with a message, but she ignored it.

  ‘I’m sorry, but I have no choice. I wanted to wait until we were at home but I couldn’t hold back any longer. What about this man?’ he asked again, pointing to a face on the screen.

  Marina glanced at the third picture and her heart almost stopped. It was the blond man, minus the beard. He was handsome, no doubt, in a rakish way. This time, he was squinting into the sun and had the same half-smile on his face, showing the slightly crooked front tooth that had always irked her husband. The one he said he’d damaged jumping off the harbour when he was a kid. The one she’d always liked because it added character to his features.

  Her anger was swept away by shock and she started shaking. ‘No,’ she cried. ‘No. No. No, it can’t be Nate.’

  ‘I’m afraid it is him. I’ve already spoken to the police in Stellenbosch. He’s been living there under an assumed name for at least the past five years, although he’s now probably under investigation for entering the country illegally. We’re – they’re – not sure where he was before he moved to the area.’

  Marina put her head in her hands. She didn’t need to look at the photo again, or the date. It had been posted only a year ago. It was Nate, no matter how hard she tried to deny it, and how much she wanted it to be his doppelganger. Even if she’d convinced herself of that, Lachlan was piling on evidence she couldn’t ignore.

  ‘I’m so very sorry to have to tell you this, Marina. It must be devastating.’ His voice came from inches away and when she prised her fingers apart, he was there, kneeling on the floor by her side.

  She stared at him. ‘I can’t believe it. I don’t understand …When did you find out about this?’

  ‘For certain … yesterday morning but I’ve had my suspicions for a few days.’

  ‘Days? What? So, you’ve been investigating him – us – that long? Why didn’t you tell me immediately?’ she wailed, knowing she was wildly conflicted. Even in her shock, she knew she meant: why did you tell me at all?

  ‘I didn’t want to believe what I’d found at first. It was only a hunch and, in fact, even when I had the very first inkling he wasn’t dead, I dismissed it as impossible. I didn’t want him to be alive and I certainly didn’t want to tell you that he was …’ He had to look away from her for a few seconds but, finally, he met her eyes again. ‘When we were having dinner and you asked me to look at your review of our weekend away on Facebook, a notification popped up and the banner dropped down and it said “Nate Hudson is alive”. And … God help me, I opened it. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have, but I did.’

  ‘Oh my God. But why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘It was a message from a woman who claimed to be living with a man she thought was Nate. I … we were having such a great time together. I was so happy and you seemed to be too. I thought it was a troll and a malicious hoax and … I didn’t want it to upset you so I deleted it.’

  ‘You read my messages and you deleted one?’

  ‘I admit, it was a terrible thing to do, but I genuinely wanted to protect you … and also –’ he closed his eyes ‘– honestly, I didn’t want it to be Nate. I convinced myself it was malicious and I tried to ignore it, but I couldn’t, could I? No matter how much I didn’t want him to come back, I had to follow it up, and then you told me about the visit to your solicitor. I knew then that I had to make certain, for everyone’s sake – for yours most of all. If this woman’s claims came to nothing, I thought I could dismiss it and you’d never know and she’d leave you alone.’

  She let out a howl of anguish. She felt like she was being ripped in two. ‘How could you do this?’ she cried, so horrified that he’d lied to her, and unwilling to even process the even more awful possibility that Nate really was alive and had put her through years of hell.

  ‘I couldn’t help myself. I care for you. More than that, I love you. It was wrong of me – beyond wrong – to look at that alert, but it was impulse, a bad impulse, and now I can’t undo the past or its consequences. It’s not a hoax. This woman lives in Stellenbosch and when I got home, I checked her profile and her friends. There was a man. He looked like Nate in some ways though he had a different name. I’ve spent a lot of time since digging around and I started to form the opinion that Nate really might be alive …’

  Form the opinion. It sounded so cold, as if he was talking about a case involving strangers, not ripping her life to shreds with his truth.

  ‘This woman who contacted you,’ she said, each word feeling like a hot coal in her mouth, ‘is she his girlfriend?’

  ‘Yes. She lives with him at a vineyard, which she owns with her parents. For one reason and another, she came to believe – or perhaps accept – that he wasn’t who he said he was. I think he might have been borrowing money from the business—’

  ‘Oh, Jesus.’ That sounded so much like Nate that Marina felt sick. ‘A vineyard?’

  ‘Yes. It’s a small-scale operation apparently but they must make a living from it.’

  ‘But Nate didn’t – doesn’t – know anything about wine making. He never even drank it. He said it was all like gnat’s piss. He only ever drank beer.’ She was aware how bizarre her statement was: worrying about stupid stuff like that when she was going through the biggest betrayal imaginable. Was hers a normal reaction? Who knew? There was no normal any more. No one to ask who’d been through the same experience.

  The world was full of grieving widows, but who on earth had had their husband come back to life?

  In this new and terrible world, everything was possible and nothing was unimaginable.

  ‘So, why did she try and contact me now?’ she asked, shaking with shock.

  ‘She claims she couldn’t hold back her suspicions any longer. She said she found an old photo in his wallet, and a business card of a pub in Porthmellow. It led her to you, eventually.’

  Marina was sickened. Everything Nate had done, or was doing, was a lie. His whole life was a fabrication. His love for her. Everything.

  ‘Have you actually spoken to … to her?’

  ‘Not by phone, but my contact in South Africa has. Once I knew for certain that Nate was alive and had it confirmed by the police over there, I knew
I couldn’t rob you of the opportunity to know everything that I do. The only decision I could make was to tell you before you see your solicitor.’

  ‘Oh God. I – I – I can’t – I don’t know what to say. I’m—’ What could she say? That the man she’d mourned, grieved for, screamed and cried over, wished was safe and well … was after all?

  ‘I don’t know what to think. How I should think? I don’t want him to be dead. I’m relieved he’s alive but what he’s done to me is – it’s …’ She put her face in her hands. Her world was out of control, spinning. She yelled at the air, she screamed out her pain, not really knowing who she was screaming at: Nate, the cruelty of fate, Lachlan, herself, anything and anyone because there was no anchor she could cling to – only chaos. She was glad he wasn’t dead, and she was angry at him for not being dead, and horrified at herself for being angry … She didn’t feel human, more like a raging animal trapped in a cage.

  Lachlan was by her side, his hand resting on her back. She didn’t have the strength to move it. She barely had the strength to breathe.

  He handed her a box of tissues and she dried her face but couldn’t stem the tears.

  ‘Do you want me to call anyone? Tiff? Your mum? A doctor?’

  ‘I don’t need a doctor. I need … Oh God, I don’t know what I need. I don’t know what I feel.’

  ‘There’s no precedent for this, no plan or guide. Nothing I can say or do. It’s out of anyone’s experience and I’m so bitterly sorry that you had to hear it from me.’

  ‘Then why did you make the decision to rake up the past and drop this huge fucking enormous bomb into my life!’ She drew in a huge juddering breath, dimly aware that she was angry at the wrong person but unable to help herself. The normal rules were gone. Only this raw and terrified essence of herself was left. ‘Oh God, please don’t tell me he’s married someone else …’ She felt sick. ‘Does he have a family … kids?’

  ‘The woman said not. And they’re not married,’ Lachlan told her.

  Marina felt as if her heart had been rent in two, as if the life she’d carefully, painfully reconstructed had been torn apart all over again. She’d accepted Nate was dead, grieved for him, always given him the benefit of the doubt. That was the narrative she’d written for him. He’d drowned in a tragic accident that day seven years before off Porthmellow Cove. He was far from perfect, and she’d always known deep down that he might have had his secrets … ones she perhaps hadn’t wanted to know about … but this?

  ‘How could he have let me think he was dead? How could he have let me go through that pain? All the time he was living somewhere else, making a new life for himself. How could anyone be so cruel and so callous?’

  ‘I don’t know, Marina. Some people are … They just are. I don’t know his reasons. Only he knows them. Honestly, I’m gutted to be the cause of re-opening this pain.’

  ‘I wish you hadn’t. I really wish you hadn’t!’

  Her cry was met with silence. Did he wish the same? Hot tears trickled down her cheeks and she tasted salt on her lips. She dragged her hand across her face and forced herself to ask the questions she had to ask, while knowing the answers could only bring more pain.

  ‘Have you told the British police?’

  ‘Not yet. I wanted to be sure it was him first … and to tell you, to warn you. You had the right to be the first to know. Like I say, I didn’t want to believe it either. The last thing on earth I’d ever want to do is hurt you. Yet that’s the job that’s fallen to me: to tell you this news.’

  ‘But … but …’ the questions flew in at her like harpies, attacking her all at once and scrambling all sense. This man – who she’d only let into her life a few months ago yet who she had trusted so readily – had ripped that wound open, overturned all those certainties, crashed into her past life without her asking.

  She felt broken … and that the trust she’d placed in Lachlan had also been damaged. It felt as if it was beyond repair.

  ‘Please go.’

  He got up. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you, but I had to tell you this. There was no way I couldn’t, once I’d found out the truth.’

  ‘I didn’t want the truth. I had the truth. My truth. Now you tell me that my husband lied to me, cheated on me, let me think he was dead. That he has another partner and another life.’ She gasped. ‘Oh God … Just go. Go.’

  ‘OK. I’ll go, but I’m not moving from my place until I can see you again. I’ll be here when you want to talk to me, or cry on me, or hit me. I’m sorry about this. It’s a terrible shock but once I knew, I couldn’t un-know it. I had to make sure it was true. It would have been wicked to keep silent. I will always be here for you, Marina. Believe that.’

  After he’d left, she stood for a while, her arms wrapped tightly around herself. She was frozen. She heard people on the coast path, kids shouting on the beach, the gulls screeching, life going on around her like a movie in which she played no part.

  She knew that she was in shock, but all the ways she helped others to deal with it had failed her.

  She had to turn over every stone, see what horrors crawled out, but that meant looking at the photos, seeing Nate’s new life, the one he’d left her for so cruelly, so selfishly. It might even mean talking to him … seeing him again. Her stomach clenched and she felt very hot and light-headed.

  She rushed to the cloakroom and threw up.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Tiff was home late. She’d spent her Saturday afternoon interviewing an author at an arts festival in St Ives, after which she’d met Dirk and they’d gone to a classical concert. Dirk wasn’t on call but when they’d neared Porthmellow, he’d been paged to join another lifeboat crew on a difficult shout. She’d leapt out of the Land Rover outside the station and walked up from the harbour alone as twilight fell.

  ‘Hello!’ she called, walking through the cottage sitting room to the kitchen. ‘I could murder a nice cup of tea.’

  Marina was slumped in a chair at the table, her face streaked with mascara, a box of tissues in front of her. Tiff’s first thought was that she and Lachlan had had a huge dust-up, or that there’d been an accident. Her stomach turned over.

  She dropped her bag on the floor and rushed over. ‘Marina? What’s happened?’

  Marina sat like a zombie. ‘I can’t even tell you.’

  Tiff was horrified by the state she was in. ‘For God’s sake, what’s the matter, love?’

  Marina stared at her. ‘It’s Nate … he’s alive.’

  Tiff had seen and heard many things in her time – shocking, upsetting, impossible – but none had caused her to grab hold of a chair for support. She’d been ready for bad news but this was way beyond her imagination.

  She kept one hand on the chair, wondering if Marina had been in an accident after all, and was in shock. ‘Nate? He can’t be.’

  ‘He is,’ she cried. ‘Lachlan saw a Facebook message from a woman who wanted to contact me. She’s been living with Nate and was suspicious about who he really was.’

  Tiff was still so gobsmacked that her cogs were turning more slowly than usual. ‘Wait … What?’

  ‘It’s true. Nate lied and let me – and everyone who cared about him – think he was dead. He let me go through all that pain because – well, God knows why, but it’s probably to do with money. I didn’t want to think the worst of him. I never thought he would do that, but Lachlan’s saying he has more debts in South Africa … and a partner.’ Tiff recoiled at the anger in her cousin’s voice.

  ‘Jesus. Don’t say he’s married this woman?’

  ‘No, but he does live with her. Lachlan says she owns a vineyard.’

  Tiff took a second to process the onslaught of news, picking up on Marina’s last statement. ‘Hold on a minute … did you ask Lachlan to investigate this?’

  ‘No. I didn’t. I had no idea what he was doing or I’d have – God, I don’t know what I’d have done. I wish I didn’t know in so many ways, but it’s too late. No one
can ever put the genie back in the bottle.’

  ‘And Lachlan did all this without your permission?’ Tiff repeated. ‘He read your messages and went searching for Nate even though you and he thought he was dead?’

  ‘He says he thought the first message was a hoax and he didn’t want to upset me.’ Marina was aware how that sounded and she was still angry but …

  Tiff’s eyebrows shot up. ‘That’s quite a leap, from curiosity to investigating this woman and Nate.’

  ‘He was in the RAF military police, Tiff, and once he had his suspicions, I don’t think he could help himself. I’m not happy about it but that’s not my concern right now! Lachlan checked out the photos of Nate on this woman’s page and he thought the guy looked like Nate, albeit he’s changed his appearance. I’ve seen the photos of him. He’s dyed his hair and grown a beard but it’s him.’ Her voice wobbled.

  Tiff put her arm around Marina. ‘God, Marina, I’m so sorry. This is absolutely horrifying.’

  ‘I can’t believe it myself. I don’t know how to deal with it. I feel as if I’m drowning.’

  ‘No wonder,’ said Tiff, handing Marina a tissue while trying to tease out more details of what exactly Lachlan had discovered. While she made a cup of tea and comforted Marina as best she could, Tiff’s brain skipped rapidly on from the shock of the revelation to its likely consequences. The police would have to be informed, of course, but she was sure Marina knew that.

  However, inevitably the media would also find out and then … God help her.

  They might find out even sooner than the police … but it would not be from Tiff herself. This was devastating for Marina and Tiff would never betray her.

  However, many people would.

  She sat down at the table with her mug. ‘Marina, my love, who else knows about this? Apart from Lachlan?’

  Marina stared into her drink. ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘He must have spoken to contacts in South Africa, and here, maybe?’

  ‘Yes, a few, I think … I hadn’t thought about it too much. I was so angry with Lachlan, I sent him away.’