The Marriage Trap: A completely addictive psychological thriller

by Sheryl Browne

  The coffee jug she launched across the room missed him by millimetres, splintering against the wall to send sharp slivers of glass shooting across the floor. The mug hit its target, white-hot pain searing through his cheekbone as it glanced off his face.

  ‘Karla! Stop!’ Raising his hands to defend himself, Jason backed into the hall.

  ‘Get out!’ she seethed, raising the milk bottle, the next thing that came to hand.

  ‘Karla, don’t,’ Jason tried. ‘Don’t do this. Please, for the kids’ sakes, can’t we just—?’

  ‘The kids?’ She stared at him, her blue eyes wild. ‘The kids? Go!’ she screamed, louder. ‘Now! You complete bastard!’

  Jason was shaken. He’d hurt her, in the worst possible way a man could hurt a woman, but he hadn’t considered she would be capable of actual violence. Seeing her gaze sweep the kitchen, probably searching for a more suitable weapon, he backed further away, pressing the back of his hand gingerly to his cheek.

  He hadn’t intended to take much. Essentials, that was all. A couple of hastily packed bags were already in the boot of his car. He’d aimed to stay at a hotel while Jessie was with her family. Now, he was wondering whether he should contact her to let her know he wouldn’t be able to pick her up from the airport. He couldn’t leave Karla like this. Jesus. He stopped on the stairs, panic rising inside him, as he heard cupboards opening and slamming, crockery smashing. Drawers opening, contents spewing out to clang noisily to the ceramic floor. Cutlery?

  Shit. Imagining her selecting the sharpest knife she could find, he debated whether to call someone. Who? Her mother had gone off somewhere, seeking sanctuary from the press. Should he ring the police? God, no. He couldn’t do that. Hearing her sobbing downstairs as he reached the bedroom, Jason felt the guilt he’d been carrying threaten to rise up and choke him.

  A slow swallow sliding down his throat, his antennae on red alert, he waited, and then, hearing nothing but sudden stillness from down below, he moved quietly across to the wardrobe, yanking the case from the top to pack the last of the things he needed in.

  He was grabbing stuff from inside the wardrobe when he heard the creak of a floorboard on the landing. Glancing quickly towards the door, he saw Karla standing there, not moving. Her face devoid of any particular emotion, she was simply watching him; continued to watch him, calmly, as he pushed his clothes into the case. Jason wasn’t sure which was more worrying, the explosion of anger downstairs or this, the ominous silence of suppressed fury.

  FORTY-EIGHT

  KARLA

  THE LAST CHAPTER

  I should be following him. I should be there when he arrives. Instead, I stand frozen to the spot, dry-eyed with shock. I tried to prepare myself for this, but I prayed he wouldn’t actually do it. Prayed so hard. Hatred settles like ice inside me. Not for the man who’s leaving me, but for the man who’s responsible for his leaving. The man who should pay for the unbearable pain he’s caused me, caused my family. The guilt and the shame. Listening to my husband reversing his car swiftly from the drive, keen to be gone into what he imagines will be the safe embrace of his Jezebel, and with my arms wrapped tightly about myself, the knife still in my hand, I make my decision. I can’t follow him. I have something more pressing to do. Jason will find out what a terrible mistake he’s made. He can’t fail to.

  I’m about to turn from the door when a newspaper rattles noisily through the letterbox. I glance at it and then stop. A laugh of bewilderment escapes me as my gaze alights on a photograph of myself and Jason. My mouth running dry, I crouch to retrieve the paper from the floor and register the headline emblazoned across it – DAUGHTER OF OUTED UK BUSINESSMAN IN DODGY RELATIONSHIP. My heart freezes.

  Scanning the photograph, my mind skittering feverishly from thought to thought, I try to work out how they’d managed to get hold of it. It’s one taken in Paris, grabbed from Instagram possibly? Below it, there’s a photograph of my father, his arm draped about a young woman, his hand brushing her breast. Noting his smile – a smile of triumph, almost – and the licentious look in his eyes, I emit another slightly hysterical laugh and brace myself to read on.

  ‘Robert Fenton, the latest multimillionaire businessman accused of implementing non-disclosure agreements, used by some employers to gag employees from reporting allegations of sexual harassment and abuse, appears to have passed some of his dubious traits on to his son.’

  My blood runs cold. Dimly, I am aware of the telephone ringing as, my hands trembling, my knuckles white, I clutch the paper tight.

  ‘In an exclusive interview, Jason Connolly’s birth mother, Julie Ferguson, a former employee of Fenton’s Bespoke Plumbing, reveals that the private adoption of her son was organised by none other than his father, Robert Fenton…’

  I stop breathing. My emotions reeling, I glance up at the ceiling, trying desperately to assimilate. It’s still there when I look back at it, the same ridiculous, ludicrous… fucking lie! My mind races as I try to digest this. Nausea curdles my stomach. Icy fingers of realisation tug at my heart, at my mind, dragging me back to that long-ago day when my father tried to make me ‘see sense’.

  I hear him, his voice oozing paternal concern: ‘I understand you want to be with him, princess. I know love isn’t choosy. I won’t try to influence your decision, sweetheart, I wouldn’t dream of it, but you can postpone motherhood for a while, surely? You’re young. You have plenty of time to have children…’

  He’d been standing over me, his eyes full of sympathy. And something else, something I couldn’t read at the time: panic. I see it now, the cogs of his despicable mind going round as he looked away, groping for a way to save his own skin, his company, which meant more to him – means more to him – than his own children. He’d decided to sacrifice me. He’d decided to sacrifice his grandchild. He’d tried to make me abort my baby.

  All these years? I quash the scream rising inside me. The lies he’s told. The lie I’ve been living. The indescribable hurt… Jason! He knew. My heart lurches painfully. How long has he known? Surely he hasn’t always? No! That’s inconceivable. My thoughts come rapidly now, a mad rush in my head. But when…?

  But I know. I know exactly when. Robert engineered it. Promising him financial backing, he set Jason up, and then cold-heartedly delivered the news that would destroy him, destroy us. Meanwhile, thanks to the insidious seeds of doubt he planted, he ensured that I would be in Jason’s office, checking his internet activity. Closing my eyes, I see Jason’s face, his incredulity, his bitter disappointment. I might as well have driven this knife through his heart.

  He walked away from me. Chose not to tell me. He chose to leave me. My father chose not to tell me, making a conscious decision instead to crush all that was dear to me. To allow me to live with this. My children to live with it.

  Swallowing back the bile climbing my throat, my thoughts swing to my mother. Where is she? Is this why she’s suddenly unavailable, uncontactable? Hiding away, too ashamed to face me?

  They all knew. Fury explodes inside me. They… all… fucking… well… knew!

  I snatch up my car keys and fly through the door, ignoring shouts from reporters as I scramble into my car. Careering it off the drive, not caring if I reverse over any of them, I thump so hard against the kerb that I bite the side of my tongue. The pain is sharp. I relish it, the salty, sour taste of blood in my mouth, hold on to it. It detracts from the unbearable pain in my chest. Does Jason know, now, that I know? Has he seen this morning’s shitty, trashy headlines yet? What will he do? Will he care? The questions keep coming as I drive, the knife – a Japanese stainless-steel chef knife, eight inches in length – comfortingly on the passenger seat by my side.

  He won’t care. He never cared, another part of me, my sister, answers.

  ‘He did, once. I know he did,’ I say confidently. He did. No one can take that away from me.

  But not any more. You tested him. He failed you. He left you.

  ‘He still loves me,’ I fume. ‘I
just need to open his eyes.’

  But he’s our brother. Forbidden fruit.

  Wrenching the handbrake on as I arrive at my destination, I don’t acknowledge her last comment. I pick up my knife and climb out of the car. I haven’t processed this yet. The enormity of it. The impossibility of it. Of us. But it doesn’t have to be impossible. It wasn’t before. If we’d never known… I flail out for something to hold on to. But I am floundering, drowning in a dark sea of hopelessness.

  The gate adjoining the park is locked. Locating the same footholds I used as a child, it doesn’t take me long to scale it. Finding the back door open, I swipe the tears from my face and step quietly in to slip through the utility and across the kitchen. I pause as I step into the hall and listen. I have no idea where in the house my father is. His study, possibly. I want to surprise him. I’m absolutely sure he will be surprised, once he realises the scared little girl he intimidated into silence isn’t scared any more.

  Treading carefully, I walk towards the study, press my ear to the door – and then pause. Now I’m surprised. The wanderer returns. The hard knot of anger tightens inside me. My mother, it seems, is home. Come to clean up now the shit has hit the fan? I smile ironically. She never could stand a mess.

  I swap the knife into my other hand and wipe my sticky, wet palm on my jeans. Then I swap the knife back and reach for the door handle. I’m about to push the door open when my mother’s voice, filled with venom, freezes me to the spot.

  ‘I knew about your arrangement with Julie, you bloody fool,’ she sneers. ‘About Jason. Did you honestly not wonder why she kept coming back to you for more money? Because I told her to.’

  ‘You… blackmailed me?’ Robert’s voice is shocked.

  ‘Ha! I’d say it was you who was doing the blackmailing, wouldn’t you? Buying people’s silence, paying people off. Threatening them. What did you tell Sarah’s mother when she was forced to leave the child you undoubtedly refused to acknowledge on your doorstep?’

  ‘I’m not listening to any more of this,’ said Robert, his tone agitated.

  ‘You will damn well listen.’ My mother’s heels are sharp against the wooden study floor, her words… incomprehensible.

  Sarah? But… she’s my twin. We were inseparable. Two sides of the same person.

  Do you think that’s why he killed me? Sarah’s voice is small, tremulous.

  I am too shocked to answer. Too shocked to breathe.

  ‘How old was she? Eighteen? Nineteen?’ My mother snatches me back to the conversation unfolding behind the closed study door. The conversation I’m not supposed to hear. The conversation she should have had with me! ‘What did you threaten her with, Robert, after compensating her for ruining her life? She didn’t sign one of your silly contracts, did she? Did you tell her to keep quiet or she would never work again? Did you threaten to tell her parents?’

  ‘Diana, you need to stop this,’ Robert says tightly. ‘You’re upset. You need to think about what you’re—’

  ‘Upset? I’m not upset.’ My mother laughs derisively. ‘I don’t care. I never cared. Do you honestly think I was sitting at home nursing a broken heart while you were entertaining other women? I’ve been seeing Michael for years.’

  Silence for a second. Loud. Ominous. Then, ‘You’re… sleeping with someone else?’ says Robert, sounding choked. ‘Since when?’

  ‘Oh, before we were married,’ says my mother, her tone almost flippant. ‘And after we were married. Now.’

  Cold trepidation prickling my skin, sweat wetting my armpits, I step closer, press my forehead against the door.

  ‘And you stayed with me?’ Robert emits an incredulous laugh.

  ‘Played dutiful wife!’ my mother counters. ‘Cleaned for you, picked up after you, put up with you. And every single day was sheer—’

  ‘Spent my money, lived a life of luxury,’ Robert seethes, his tone menacing, dangerous. ‘Stole my money! And all the while you were fucking—’

  ‘She’s not your daughter!’ my mother bellows.

  It falls silent again. A silence so charged I can feel the static crackling between them as I flail to grasp the enormity of what she’s just said.

  ‘Michael is Karla’s father. Do you understand?’ My mother goes on, forcing the shock hard home.

  I’m not my father’s daughter? My heart beats frantically in a combination of confusion and disbelief. Michael? Desperately, I sift through my memories. He’s there, on the periphery. And I realise that, somewhere inside me, I’ve always remembered him. A man who was often part of our lives, when we were too small to wonder why.

  I see him. I see Sarah and I skipping along beside him, our small hands trustingly clutching his big ones as he led us through the park, pointing out dragonflies and butterflies, a kingfisher by the water. His twinkling eyes and dark chestnut hair. His warm smile and his lyrical lilting brogue as he entertained us with tales of Ireland, telling us of rich, green landscapes that were a ‘feast for the eyes’.

  He’s my father. Even as the penny drops sickeningly into place, it’s as if part of me already knows, has always known.

  ‘It was all for nothing!’ my mother screams it. ‘Your attempts to pay Julie off, your lies, your cruel, cruel deceit… You’ve destroyed her life, your son’s life, for nothing!’

  Jason. My stomach churns with sick realisation. His pitiless persecution of him, the hurt he’d caused him – it was all for nothing – other than to protect his reputation.

  Unsteady on my feet, I reach shakily for the doorframe. A bead of sweat drips from my hair, tickles my eyelashes. Using the back of my hand, I wipe it away, rest my forehead harder against the door – and then freeze as I hear the low growl beyond it.

  ‘Bitch’ – my father snarls it again and I snap my head up, my hand reaching unbidden to wrench the door handle down.

  His back is towards me, his wide shoulders hunched over my mother, who is forced against his desk; his hands – hands that lash out and destroy – clutched hard around her throat.

  For a second, I am petrified, uncertain, everything inside me frozen. And then a rasp, like a dog coughing, escapes her, and rage – red-hot, all-consuming – erupts, and I am behind him.

  Sinews tensed, the knife held high above, a toxic mixture of anger and raw grief broiling inside me, I am poised to drive the blade between his shoulder blades when he crumples.

  Bemused, I step back as he flops forwards, landing heavily, his bodyweight on top of my mother.

  Uncertain what to do, disorientated, I take another faltering step back as she shoves him off. And another, allowing him space as he buckles at the knees and slides limply to the floor. I look down and see the crimson flower blooming slowly beneath him, the paperknife protruding at a right angle from his neck. I don’t move. Watching in fascination, I see his splayed arm twitch, his fingers crawling along the carpet – a vain attempt to escape – and then I snap my gaze back to my mother.

  She has a hand to her throat. It’s bruised and sore. ‘Karla,’ she croaks, her voice raw. She is crying, upset, stepping towards me, reaching out for me.

  Who is she? I back away.

  ‘Karla!’ she cries, desperation in her voice.

  Clamping my hands over my ears, I don’t answer. I am not listening. I don’t want to hear. I can’t listen to any more lies. I can’t.

  ‘I did it to protect you!’ she calls, following me into the hall as I turn to flee.

  ‘Liar! You did it to protect you!’ I scream, pausing to glare at her as I thunder up the stairs. ‘Was it worth it? All the secrets you kept, the lies you told, the people you sacrificed so you could feather your fucking nest, was it worth it?’

  ‘Karla, please… Let me explain.’

  ‘No!’ I keep going, past my parents’ room and the room beyond it, which became mine, and on up to the third floor, where I bang open the door to a room that has rarely been ventured into since the funeral. As I hear my mother hurrying along the landing, I turn the ke
y in the lock. It’s a sturdy lock. It will keep her out for a while. I wish I’d turned the key all those years ago. I wish I could turn back the clock.

  And be with me? Sarah asks hopefully.

  I don’t know, I answer silently. I don’t fit anywhere. I’ve no idea who I am. Who anyone is. I don’t want to be… anywhere.

  ‘Karla,’ Mum says tremulously outside.

  Ignoring her, I head for the window. Sarah and I used to look out over the park from here, telling stories of charming princes and wicked witches, sharing our dreams.

  The sharp wind cuts through me as I throw the window open. The heavy rain that’s now steadily falling spatters my face. I can’t stand outside without stooping any more, but I can sit comfortably enough on the wide window ledge. The man who thought he was my father said he would build a balcony here, once, so we could all eat together, looking out over the park. He said he wanted to do it himself at the weekends. He never did. He was always too busy nursing his hangovers on Sundays.

  Shifting slightly, once I’ve lowered myself, I clutch my knees tight to my chest and rest my head. I can see Sarah, smell her, smell my mother’s Poison perfume. We would sneak into her bedroom and steal a spray sometimes.

  I can smell the alcohol, too, that wafted from his body the night he killed her. He’d been drinking all day before he’d gone out to his club; drinking to forget what he’d done. I squeeze my eyes closed as I see his face, puce with rage, his eyes, bloodshot and bulbous, as he strikes out at Sarah. I hear it: the dull thud, as her head smashes heavily against concrete.

  I smelled the brandy on his breath when he crouched down in the garden beside me, trying to wake her. Later, up here in the bedroom, I could smell it when he lay his heavy bulk on her bed. I tried to tell him about her odd breathing. He wouldn’t listen to me. ‘Go back to bed,’ he slurred, and then grunted and rolled over. Rolled onto her.