Just as he reached the bottom of the stairs he heard her speak. ‘Is she a good fuck, Pete, is that it?’
Oh, for God’s sake, can’t she just let it go now? This is getting ridiculous. All he wanted to do was to end this conversation and get out. But before he could stop himself, he swung around to face her. ‘Yes, she’s a great fuck. She’s the best sex I ever had. Literally ever. Which is quite refreshing after being married to a cold-hearted, uncaring, frigid bitch like you for so long.’
Kate looked at him with such hurt and shock that he almost reached out to comfort her, to tell her that he was sorry and that he didn’t mean it. But before he could, her expression was quickly replaced by contempt. ‘I’m sorry that I’ve been such a disappointment to you for all these years, Pete. Well, I’m delighted for you. Clearly you’ve successfully traded me in for a new model with no previous history. Although does she know that you come with some baggage? She might not be so keen to look after two children. That’s assuming that you still want to be a part of their lives now you’re living the dream?’
‘You know what? She can’t wait to meet the girls – she’s really looking forward to getting to know them and spending time with them. She wants to be a big part of their lives. I think she’ll make a brilliant mum, the girls are going to absolutely adore her. She has so much love to give and she’s already planning for them to come out and spend the holidays with us. So you’ll get what you want in the end, Kate. You’ll get to be all alone and miserable, wallowing in your perfect, pristine house without any of us around to spoil it for you.’
And with that he leaned down to pick up his holdall and hoist it onto his shoulder. He knew he’d been a bastard but he no longer cared. France was calling and he could almost taste the wine and cheese he’d be eating in Paris in a few hours. He’d call Claire on the way to the bus stop and tell her that he’d missed the train but that he’d catch the next available one. Perhaps she’d even wait for him at St Pancras so that they could travel together. He pictured her beautiful, smiling face, greeting him at the exit to the underground station, clutching a coffee for him and opening up her arms to him. He felt a rush of pleasure at the image, which would be a reality in less than an hour’s time.
Yes, he thought, yes, I’ve finally made my decision once and for all. And then everything went black.
27
Kate
She hadn’t meant to kill him. That was literally the last thing she ever wanted to do. To deprive their children of a father was unforgivable, no matter what he had said or done to her. But she had been so incandescent with rage at the horrible vitriol that was coming out of his mouth, the way he had described her, the way he had suggested that this whore would be a better mother than her and in that moment she just wanted to hurt him. That was all – to hurt him like he had hurt her with his words. It was like she’d finally exploded after years of bubbling under, and she was temporarily out of control, a maniac with one sole purpose – to punish the person who had caused all her pain. It was only for a few seconds but it was enough. Horribly, horribly enough.
She’d found out about the affair a few weeks before. To be fair to him, he’d played it out well because she hadn’t suspected a thing before that. It was probably testament to what a sham their marriage had become that she didn’t even notice her husband had been cheating on her for months.
But then one Sunday morning when he’d taken the girls swimming, she heard a phone beeping and out of curiosity she followed the sound to the coat rack. Rifling through his coat, she found his phone nestled in a pocket. He must have put it in there before he left and forgotten about it when he decided not to bother with a coat. Looking at the screen she saw a message from someone called C. It was a link to a website and, underneath, the words:
Three weeks tomorrow x.
The message itself was fairly innocuous but her interest was piqued. Before she could stop herself she’d entered the password to his phone, which she’d known for years. When it came up as incorrect, she frowned. When had he changed his password? She felt a growing sense of unease as she stared at the phone and was suddenly determined to get into it somehow. Taking it back into the kitchen she looked at the clock. She still had another forty-five minutes before Pete would be back.
Staring at the phone she ran through some ideas for passwords. How about the girls’ dates of birth? She tried a combination of them both but again she got the incorrect password message. She tried his favourite football club. Wrong. She tried again with the number one at the end. Wrong. She tried her own name. Wrong. She would run out of attempts and lock the phone if she wasn’t careful. She scanned through the list of possible options in her mind.
Then she remembered an old password he used to use, years and years ago, way before marriage and children. A combination of the name he’d given to his first ever car, Diana, and his year of birth. She’d laughed so hard when he’d told her. ‘Who calls their car Diana?’ She tentatively typed the password in and, to her relief, the home screen appeared. She was in.
She immediately opened WhatsApp, reading the message from C and clicking on the link that she had sent. It was for a hotel in Paris. Was C his PA? she wondered, was this a business trip? But she already knew deep down that it wasn’t. She scrolled right up to the beginning of the message thread, past months and months of messages until she got to the top. Then she started reading.
Twenty minutes later, she reached the end. She hadn’t even realised that she had been clutching her chest with one hand the whole time. Her heart was pounding, her hands were clammy, and she struggled to catch her breath as she tried process what she had just read. The bastard, the absolute bastard. The messages had started off brief – just random days and times but as time went on they had become longer and more explicit.
She didn’t have all the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle but she had enough to see the general picture. He was having an affair with this ‘C’. And they were planning to go to Paris together in three weeks. Was it a dirty weekend away or something more? When she saw how long ago the first message was she felt sick. They’d been at it for months. She couldn’t believe this was happening, yet the evidence was right there in front of her.
What do I do now? She looked at the clock and realised that she had to decide because Pete would be back soon. Closing her eyes, she took a few deep breaths to calm herself down and made a snap decision – she wasn’t ready to deal with this right now, she needed time to get her head around it. If she confronted him now, she’d have to do it with the girls around and she knew she’d absolutely lose it. No, she needed to calm down first and to work out how she was going to approach this. She’d put the phone back, she decided, and pretend like nothing had happened for now. Standing up quickly she had to clutch the back of the chair to steady herself. But then Pete would know that she’d read the message, she thought. Shit shit shit. Could she mark it as unread? She pressed a few buttons and breathed a sigh of relief when it worked. Then she put the phone back in his pocket.
There were hours left to go before the girls went to bed. After that, she could have it out with him but until then she’d have to act normal. How the hell was she going to do that when she knew what she did? She wanted to scream and yell, to throw every insult under the sun at him the minute he walked through the door. The bastard, the utter bastard! How could he have done this to her? And to their children? All this time, she had been trying so hard to make the perfect family home for them and it had all been for nothing – he’d been enjoying a whole other life with another woman. Maybe I could find a way to forgive a one-off fuck, she thought, we’re hardly love’s young dream at the moment and I’m not naïve, these things happen. But this was totally different. He wasn’t coming to her admitting his mistake, begging for forgiveness and asking for another chance. No, quite the opposite, he was in deep with this other woman. A couple of messages had unsettled her. Was he thinking of leaving them? Was this Paris thing more than just a few days away? I
t was hard to tell because the messages were usually vague but she had a sinking feeling that there was more to it. She felt in the pit of her stomach that he had checked out on their marriage. What was she going to tell the girls? What was she going to tell her friends and family? She’d be left to face the music, alone and humiliated, while he swanned off into the sunset.
And what have I ever done to him but try to be a good wife and mother? she thought angrily. I’ve always been loyal to him. I gave up my career to raise our children, I stayed at home so he could continue to live his old life like nothing had changed. And this is how he repays me? But even as she told herself that she was blameless, she knew her words were only half truths. She felt the last shred of self-confidence that she had only just been hanging on to start to rip apart. Who was she kidding? She was hardly the dream housewife. Yes, she had done these things, but she had failed at it and she had resented it. She had blamed him – he knew it and she knew it. And this was her comeuppance.
But she didn’t deserve this. No one deserved this. The lies, the deceit – they’d been together for over fifteen years, he owed her more than this. He had never actually told her that he was unhappy and he should have spoken to her first, he should have confronted the situation head-on and given them a chance to fix it before he went looking elsewhere. Would it have even made a difference, she wondered? Even if they’d still been as in love as ever, would his head have been turned by this woman anyway? Had there been other women? Did it simply come down to the fact that he was a cheater? How had it all come to this?
The sound of children dumping swimming bags on the floor by the front door and running into the kitchen jolted her out of her thoughts.
‘Mummy, Mummy!’ Maggie shouted, immediately climbing on to her lap. Kate wrapped her arms around her daughter and held on to her tightly, breathing in the familiar smell of chlorine and trying not to cry. ‘What’s for lunch, Mummy?’ Lily, always ravenous after swimming, asked as she stuck her nose in the fridge.
Before she had a chance to answer, Pete walked in. He looked at Kate and frowned. ‘You okay, Kate? You look pale.’
‘I think I might be coming down with something, actually,’ she replied. ‘I’m feeling a little peaky.’
‘Poor Mummy,’ Maggie said, putting her little hand on her mum’s forehead. ‘Do you need some Calpol?’
She smiled weakly. ‘Thanks, darling, I think perhaps I just need to rest up for a little bit and then I’ll be just fine. So how about you and Daddy go out for burgers?’
The girls squealed with excitement and Pete didn’t look disappointed either. He loved McDonald’s and it was a rare treat in their household. ‘Are you sure you’ll be okay on your own?’ he asked.
She nodded. ‘I’m fine, you go.’
‘Should we bring you anything back?’
‘No, it’s okay, I’m just going to go back to bed for a bit. I’m sure I’ll be fine later.’
After he’d ushered the children back out of the house, Kate considered making a coffee before pouring a glass of wine instead, and sat down to decide on her plan of action. She would have to confront him tonight and tell him that she knew about the affair. He’d probably deny it at first but once he realised there was no getting out of this situation he’d have to admit it. Then what? She doubted that he was going to get down on his knees and beg for her forgiveness. Was it worth trying to persuade him to fight for their marriage? Did she even have it in her for a fight anymore? Should she just pack a bag for him and present him with it that night, telling him to go? Should she leave with the girls and go to Erin’s house? No, she decided immediately, this is our home and he is the one who has to go.
So that was it. They’d have it out and then she’d kick him out.
And shit! They were meant to be going to Greece next week. Well screw him, she thought. Me and the girls will go without him and we’ll have an amazing time. And he can stay in miserable old London, shagging his mistress and doing whatever he wants. I don’t care. He won’t be my problem anymore, I’ll have kicked him out.
Except that she never did. She could never really understand or explain why. Was it because she preferred to stay in denial about her life and her marriage, because she was waiting for him to say something, or because she was simply too tired or too afraid for a confrontation? Either way, they had all trooped back from McDonald’s, high on fast food and she’d simply put the kettle on and got on with her day. So many times she was on the verge of saying something, of confronting him and asking for the truth, but each time the words couldn’t quite escape from her mouth. She hated herself, with every minute of every day that she pretended that everything was fine, she hated herself and what she had become. Yet still, she did nothing.
They even went on holiday together and the bastard pretended everything was fine the whole time. Oh, he was the doting father, tossing the girls around the pool and making them shriek with joy, chatting to the other parents around the pool, all the other wives cooing over him like they always did. Normally it made her feel proud, that he was hers, but now she just felt defeated. In the evenings he’d go to the bar and order her favourite drink, presenting it to her with a flourish. She waited for him to say something, or for her to say something, but neither of them did. It was like they were both actors in their ridiculous travesty of a life. One night there was a live singer at the hotel bar, crooning out some horribly cheesy tunes and some of the other couples got up to dance.
‘Go on Mummy and Daddy, have a dance,’ Lily pleaded. She looked at Pete and he looked at her, and then he scooped Lily up and carried her to the dance floor. ‘I want to dance with my little princess,’ he said, and she wrapped her little legs around him. So Kate had grabbed Maggie and taken her on to the dance floor. To any onlookers, they would have seemed like a perfectly happy family. Inside she was in bits. On the plane home, while the girls slept, she had sobbed quietly.
‘What’s wrong?’ Pete had asked, looking at her in concern.
‘Oh, it’s nothing,’ she replied. ‘I always get sad after a holiday.’
He nodded, then grinned. ‘Remember when we went to Thailand before the kids came along and you cried all the way home? I kept trying to console you but you weren’t having any of it. You just kept saying, “It was just so lovely, Pete”. Then we got home, you put the washing on, unpacked, poured a glass of wine and said, “It’s so lovely to be home”.’
The memory of the couple they used to be, the person she used to be, had made her sob even harder. He had put his arm around her, the first time he had held her all holiday, and said: ‘It’ll be fine, Kate. You’ll be fine when we get home.’ In that moment she had loved him and hated him in equal measures.
They got home and life carried on as usual. Hours turned to days and before she knew it the day that had been marked in her mind from the minute she saw that message from ‘C’ – three weeks tomorrow – arrived and she still hadn’t said anything. She had lain awake in bed for most of the night, watching him sleep and contemplating waking him up to confront him. She almost did it several times, reaching out a hand to prod him awake, before withdrawing it again. The previous night he’d packed a bag and toiletries – he thought he’d been subtle but once she was alert for the signs of deception they were so obvious that she couldn’t believe she’d missed them before. She hadn’t breathed a word of what she’d found out to anyone, not even Erin. She was too embarrassed and too frightened to admit that it was really true. What the hell was she going to do on her own? The thought terrified her more than the thought of actually losing Pete.
But still she didn’t say a word. Not even when he woke up, looked across at her to check if she was awake (she was but she was pretending not to be). Not when the girls bounded in a few minutes later and climbed into bed. And not when he enveloped both girls into a big bear hug. Not long after that, Rachel arrived to pick up the girls. It had been a strange coincidence that they had a breakfast fundraiser at the school the day that she kn
ew he was due to go to Paris. Surely it was a sign that she should finally confront him? Lily and Maggie had asked her to go to the school event too but she knew that it was the very last chance she would have to talk to Pete. Somehow, she had always known that it would come down to the final moment.
When he walked into the kitchen she breathed in the familiar lemon scent of him for what, she realised, might be the last time in a long time. She wanted to throw herself at him, to beg him not to go, to stay and fight for their marriage but she didn’t. Instead, she made breakfast. While they ate, she made small talk with him, watching him closely for any signs that he was going to break and tell her everything. But he seemed so normal, as if nothing was wrong. She couldn’t understand it at all. She waited, and waited, willing herself to say something and finally, as he got up to leave, the strength that she had been lacking for so long finally surged up inside her.
‘Were you ever going to tell me about her?’
She saw his whole body go rigid. She could practically see the cogs in his mind whirring as he tried to work out what to say and what to do. She had a fleeting moment of satisfaction about the fact that she had outwitted him, this man who thought he was so clever, before remembering that it was really her who had lost.
After that, it was all a bit of a blur. The furious exchange, the angry words spoken to each other. In that moment she had been desperate for him not to go with this other woman even though she knew that their marriage had fallen apart long ago. She couldn’t bear the thought of him being with someone else. She felt all the rage and the resentment that had been sleeping inside her for so many years come to the surface. What a pretence their marriage had been! All this time they had been lying to each other – her pretending that everything was fine and him thinking she was a cold fish.
The Missing Husband: a tense psychological suspense full of twists Page 22
