The Happy Couple: An absolutely unputdownable and gripping psychological thriller

by Samantha Hayes

  ‘Oh my God,’ Jo said, dipping her head forward. She had so many questions, she didn’t know where to begin. ‘How did you know that Will and Louise were… having an affair?’ She can hardly bring herself to say the words.

  Suzanne looked down at the floor, where Spangle was lying in front of the hearth, asleep. Bonnie was curled up on the sofa beside her. She rested a hand gently on her back. ‘I walked in on them, Jo. They were alone in Will’s dressing room.’

  Jo closed her eyes, turned away for a moment. She wanted details – all the details – but then she didn’t want to know anything at all.

  ‘The first time was during the Shakespeare run, when I played the queen opposite him. I’d had my suspicions that he was seeing someone for a while, and at first I thought the woman who kept visiting and calling must have been you, his wife. But rumours were going around. I saw someone a couple of times, outside the stage door, picking him up after rehearsals, that kind of thing. An attractive woman. And then when I went into his dressing room during the interval in the last show. He was… they were…’

  Jo held up her hand, stopping Suzanne. She could imagine well enough what they were doing, without hearing it word for word. And it explained why Louise had been gone so long during the interval that night, telling her there was a long queue for the toilet.

  ‘They both looked round and saw me, of course,’ Suzanne went on. ‘I literally had to force myself to move, couldn’t believe what I was seeing. And in the interval, can you believe? By this time, I knew the woman wasn’t you, his wife. I’d already asked around and, at the after-show party, I saw her there with you and the penny dropped. She was so brazen about it, Jo, and when she introduced herself, told me that she was your best friend… honestly, I was speechless. I didn’t know what to do. I felt so bad, I couldn’t even bring myself to talk to you.’

  ‘I’m so sorry you had to witness all that, Suzanne,’ Jo said. ‘That you became caught up in it all.’

  ‘After you’d left the party, Will had words with me. He went from begging to angry and everything in between. He demanded that I shouldn’t tell you, that it would kill you. He told me that you were pregnant and unstable – which clearly wasn’t true – and that you’d likely have a miscarriage from the shock. Then he said you wouldn’t believe me anyway, that he would just deny it and tell you that I’d made a pass at him and I was annoyed for being rejected. He was so full of himself, and tried every trick in the book. He was very convincing and I almost believed he was right, that maybe I had hit on him, that it was all my fault.’ Suzanne laughed incredulously, shook her head. ‘He was a master. Thing is, Jo, I was really hurting at the time. I’d been betrayed by a man who I thought really loved me. But it turned out I was wrong – he didn’t love me at all. It cut me up hard. I couldn’t sit back and watch another woman go through the same.’

  ‘Bill?’ Jo asked.

  ‘Yes, yes, that was Bill.’ She looks away for a second, closes her eyes and juts her chin forward. ‘So I was in no mind or mood to cover up for some other cheating man at that point. Quite simply, I told him you deserved to know the truth about him and your so-called best friend so you could make your own decision whether to kick him out or not. And if he didn’t confess to you himself, I’d tell you.’

  ‘Oh, Suzanne,’ Jo whispered, wondering how Will had managed to keep all this from her. At that moment, her mind was too raw, too fragmented to process all the information, but she knew in time that she would piece it all back together, make sense of Will’s moods that she’d accommodated, put up with, cajoled him through, believing it was work making him depressed, or the pressure of them trying to conceive that was stressing him out.

  ‘I meant business, Jo. We women need to stand up for each other, not stab each other in the back. Bill’s wife had the good sense to contact me when she found out what he was up to. It wasn’t easy to hear, but I’m glad she did. I’d have forever been the “other woman” otherwise, and that’s simply not me.’

  ‘You’ve been through so much,’ Jo said quietly. ‘We both have.’

  Suzanne nodded and the two women sat in silence for a while, each of them processing their own side of the story, matching everything up.

  ‘So you know it was Will who—’

  ‘Who hit me in the car? Yes, I realise that now. But only because of you.’

  ‘Because of me?’

  ‘I heard the car coming behind me,’ Suzanne says, her eyes momentarily getting that look in them again – something between fear and rage. ‘It was dark but I sensed it was coming fast, could hear the engine roaring. I stepped onto the verge to get out of the way, turning round at the last minute to let it pass. And that’s when I saw it was heading straight at me – so close, but by then it was too late to get out of the way. And your face, asleep in the passenger seat, was the last thing I saw before the car hit me.’

  ‘Oh Suzanne, how dreadful. How utterly…’ Jo shook her head. She barely had the words. ‘I’m so very sorry. But what were you… what were you doing there? We were at Annabel’s party.’

  ‘On my way to see you, of course. I wanted to tell you the truth. I knew Will would be at the party that night and I’d hoped you would be, too. But when I saw him there, only very briefly, he told me you hadn’t come. That you weren’t well. I’d already found out where you lived, so I decided to get in my car and tell you in person. I hadn’t banked on him leaving the party so soon. I didn’t want to park right outside your house in case someone saw me. So I found a gateway a little way out and decided to walk the last bit. It wasn’t too far and it somehow felt safer.’ Suzanne thinks a moment. ‘So you were there? At the party?’

  Jo nodded. ‘But not for long. And it explains why Will wasn’t keen for me to come in the first place. And also why he suddenly insisted that we leave, almost dragging me out. He knew you were on your way to tell me and, when he saw you on the roadside he purposefully drove into you, to stop you. Suzanne, Will tried to kill you.’

  ‘I know, you’re right,’ she said, nodding, her eyes staring at the floor. ‘He did. He veered off the road to hit me. And he risked your life, too.’

  ‘Christ, I’ve been such a fool,’ Jo said. ‘And to think we were trying for a baby all that time when he and Louise were…’ She shuddered, hating that Louise had got pregnant by him when she didn’t. ‘So it was you who mentioned this area to Will, about how a weekend away in Hastings would be good for a break?’

  Suzanne nodded. ‘Yes, yes, I did suggest it to him once. But that was before I knew anything about his affair. He was asking a few people for seaside recommendations.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have found you if you hadn’t mentioned it,’ Jo said. ‘We’d been planning on coming down for a romantic weekend but never quite made it. Then, after he’d been missing nearly a year, I thought it would be a healing thing for me to do, to come here. So that’s why I looked at house-sits in this area. Did you realise you’d left photos of Will on the mantelpiece when you took the room shots?’

  Suzanne half laughs. ‘No, I had no idea. I probably took them in a hurry. I’d not long had some decorating done and wanted to get some new shots up online to make it look appealing. I knew I’d be away a fair bit and wanted to secure sitters for these two.’ She pats the animals again. ‘Look, Jo, I was wondering…’

  Jo raises her eyebrows as Suzanne tilts her head to one side. ‘I know it’s all been horrific, but… but is there any chance you’d consider staying on here a while longer? I want to go back to the clinic, give the EMDR therapy a proper go. Plus I’ve a couple of voice-over jobs to do in London and one in Edinburgh. And I’d like to take a holiday, too. Visit my cousin in the States. I could be away for a couple of months at least.’

  Jo didn’t need to think for long. The words fell out of her mouth. ‘Yes, yes, I’d like that,’ she said, knowing the last place she wanted to go right now was home.

  Fifty-One

  Seven Weeks Later

  ‘Why is it always
raining at funerals?’ I ask Simon. We’re sitting in the crematorium car park, watching through the drizzle as a couple of other vehicles arrive. I can’t be sure they’re not for another service – I’d not bothered telling anyone about Will’s cremation in person or, indeed, arranged anything other than the few words the vicar would read out. I’d put a simple notice in a couple of papers local to where we’d lived, and had chosen a generic funeral poem from a quick search online. There would be no hymns, no readings by grieving relatives, no stories of a life well lived, and I’d ordered the cheapest wooden coffin available with no embellishments or flowers. And certainly no memorial plaque. I’d instructed the funeral parlour to scatter the ashes in the garden of remembrance.

  ‘I’d prefer the garden of forgetfulness,’ I’d said to Simon after hanging up from making arrangements a couple of weeks earlier, after his body had been released. Mum had already been into the house and got rid of all Will’s belongings. Either taken them to charity shops or the local recycling centre.

  ‘We’d better get in,’ Simon says.

  ‘Thanks for being with me,’ I say, reaching out and taking his hand. ‘I couldn’t have faced the long drive up here alone. Nor the few who’ll be here. His parents are dead and he’s an only child.’

  ‘You mean your mum and dad?’

  ‘Them, but a couple of others too. Mum’s actually been quite helpful and understanding these past weeks, but it’s only because she’s been proved right. Our relationship is improving, though. I’d like to think that in time, it will be stronger.’

  ‘We’ll get in and then we’ll get out. You don’t have to speak to anyone. Hell, if you like, we can leave now. There’s no need for you to even be here.’

  ‘I know, and you’re right. But it feels like some kind of closure for me. As if I’m finally signing off and checking out.’

  ‘I get that. Come on, then,’ he says, unfastening his seat belt and getting out. I do the same. It’s as we’re just stepping inside the low, brick-built eighties building that I become aware of another car pulling into the car park, the hiss of tyres on the wet tarmac. I’ve already spotted my parents, a couple of Will’s cousins, one or two colleagues from school, but no one else. Between us, we’ll barely make up a single row of seats.

  In the chapel, we sit down – not at the front, but a few rows back. Simon is wearing a dark suit, a plain black tie, and I’m wearing a grey dress that I made years ago. I take off the silk scarf I’d tied around my neck when we left East Wincombe early this morning. Despite the rain, it’s warm inside, the overhead heaters making me perspire. I notice Simon loosen his collar.

  And then Will is carried in, four of the funeral directors’ men taking the place of any fond relatives. I look down, tune out of whatever the vicar recites, picking at my nails, wishing it would all hurry up and be over.

  ‘That wasn’t so bad, was it?’ Simon says as we walk back to the car. ‘As these things go.’

  I look up at him, giving him one of my stern stares that he says he’s grown so fond of over the last few weeks; usually we end up laughing about it. But not today. He pulls me close, his arm around my waist. Somehow, I’ve managed to fight back the tears.

  ‘I meant meeting your parents,’ he continues. ‘They seem OK, though your mother is maybe a little intense.’

  ‘That’s because Mum is intense. And she clearly likes you,’ I say. ‘Especially when you told her you’re a chief inspector.’

  ‘Not because of my good looks, charm and wit, then?’ he says. ‘Come on, I’ll buy you a coffee. Or something stronger. You look as though you could use something before we head back.’

  ‘Sure, thanks—’

  And that’s when I see her. I stop, frozen in my tracks.

  Louise is standing beside the car that pulled in earlier, the one I spotted before the service.

  I take hold of Simon’s arm, putting my head down as we continue walking to his car. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ I whisper, breaking into a semi-run.

  ‘Jo, wait,’ I hear Louise call out.

  I freeze again, squeezing Simon’s arm. ‘What the hell is she doing here?’

  ‘What do you want to do?’ Simon asks.

  ‘I… I don’t know,’ I say, glancing up at him. I look over and see Louise’s wan face. She’s lost weight. Looks pale, gaunt and unkempt. Nothing like the vibrant, successful friend I thought I knew. ‘Let’s just go. I’ve nothing to say to her.’

  I carry on towards Simon’s estate car, hearing footsteps behind me, following us, getting closer.

  ‘Please, Jo. I need to talk to you. Just for a moment. Will you listen?’ Her voice is getting louder, nearer. When we reach Simon’s car, I spin round.

  ‘What the hell do you want?’ I snap, scowling, my eyes glaring. ‘What have you possibly got to say to me that—’ I stop, speechless when I see Louise standing there, holding a baby carrier. With a baby in it.

  Will’s baby.

  And then she’s holding him out to me, both hands taking his weight, her arms trembling with the strain.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I whisper, sidling closer to Simon, looking up at him again. He’s about to speak, but Louise beats him to it.

  ‘I’m going to the police, Jo. I can’t live like this any longer.’

  ‘What?’ I say, my eyes flicking from the baby back to Louise.

  ‘I can’t live a lie any more. It’s destroying me, but worst of all, it’s destroying Jack. I’m not the mother he needs.’

  Jack… I think. Will’s middle name. William Jack Michael Carter…

  I stare at the baby, watching his roving eyes, his constantly mobile face and changing expression. He’s grown these last few weeks, as if he’s sucked the life from his mother and, while he is thriving, looking so very like Will, I see that his mother is not. She’s a husk, a shell. Less than ten per cent of the woman I remember.

  ‘Please, take him,’ Louise says, her voice thin and brittle – like the rest of her. She steps closer, holding out the baby carrier.

  ‘So, wait, what? You, my so-called best friend, who stole my husband away to God knows where, had his baby, lied constantly to me for what, at least two years, and was the cause of his death… now you want me to look after the baby I helped you give birth to when I didn’t know what a back-stabbing bitch you are?’

  ‘Jo, wait, it’s not like that. I mean, yes, it is. It’s exactly like that, but…’ She bends down, putting the baby carrier on the tarmac between us, holding her back and wincing as she hitches up her grubby tracksuit pants. She sweeps her hair off her face and I notice the roots showing through, how her nails are chipped and broken.

  ‘Indulge me, then, Louise. Tell me what it is like. You have exactly one minute before I’m leaving.’ My arm tightens around Simon’s.

  ‘Firstly, I know you won’t believe me, but I’m sorry. It… it was wrong. So very wrong how things turned out, and I know that, but it just happened. And once it started, it didn’t feel as though there was a way back—’

  I raise my hand. ‘Stop. I don’t want to hear that. Fifty seconds left.’

  ‘Will was struggling, emotionally, and he turned to me for support, for advice. I’m a lawyer after all, and a family friend. He trusted me.’

  I wince at the word family.

  ‘I didn’t know details to start with, but I offered him a… a shoulder to cry on as well as, eventually, a place to stay.’

  ‘A place to stay?’

  ‘My parents’ cottage. It’s where he’s been all this time.’

  ‘But I thought they were letting it out?’

  Louise shakes her head. ‘I visited him there whenever I could. Took him things. He’d left with nothing, after all. Just walked out of his job. And he fully planned on coming home after a couple of days. He just needed some time out, he said. To clear his head. To think. And eventually he told me why he was in such a state – or rather I had to prise it out of him, after all the nightmares.’ Louise hangs her head. ‘
I’d stopped over at the cottage for a few nights, telling Archie I was away on business. Will was in a terrible state. He couldn’t sleep, tossing and turning, talking to himself. Then, when I asked him, begged him to tell me what was wrong, he told me what had happened… He confessed to everything about the accident. About him running over a woman. He needed to get it out, off his chest.

  ‘At first, I thought he just wanted me to help him legally, to get advice. But by then, our emotions had got in the way. Or rather, my emotions had got in the way. I was falling in love with him, Jo. He gave me things Archie couldn’t—’

  ‘Oh please, spare me the fucking violins,’ I say, raising my hand. ‘So he confessed to the hit and run, right? It wasn’t an accident, just so you’re clear about that.’

  Louise nods. Sighs and takes a breath. ‘I bought him things. Everything he could possibly want – a new phone, clothes, food, a laptop. That’s where my money was going, why Archie got mad at me.’ Louise hangs her head. ‘Then, when he wanted to come home to you, I said no. Jo, I wouldn’t let him leave. I pretty much kept him prisoner.’

  ‘What?’ I shake my head, not understanding. ‘And what, you expect me to feel sorry for you?’

  Louise closes her eyes briefly. ‘When he confessed to what he’d done, I… I… and I’m not proud of this, Jo, but I was in way over my head by then. Things weren’t good at home with Archie, despite appearances, and my feelings for Will had taken over. I was in love with him. When he told me he wanted to come home to you, that he wanted to be with you, that he missed you… I flipped. I told him that if he left the cottage, left me, I’d turn him in to the police and tell them what he’d done. I had his confession recorded and backed up. I even played it back to him to prove I was serious.