The Stranger in Our Bed

by Samantha Lee Howe

  There was a loud thunk above. I flinched, then glanced back upwards. The spade dropped from Tom’s hand onto the ground above me and he crumpled.

  Then he fell head first into the pit beside me.

  I scrambled to my feet and up out of the hole. A hand reached for me and pulled me up.

  ‘I couldn’t wait any longer,’ said a voice. ‘I rang the police but they were going to take too long.’

  It was a woman and she was wearing a hoodie. I couldn’t see her face until she turned to glance back at the house and the rear security lights lit up her face.

  ‘Mrs Tanner?’ I said.

  ‘I promised I’d protect you,’ she said.

  She hugged me then, dropping the spade she’d been carrying to the ground beside Tom’s.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I said.

  ‘I hit him. He won’t be dead, but he’ll have one hell of a headache.’

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I asked.

  ‘I’ve been watching over you … I couldn’t just leave … knowing what I know.’

  It started to rain. The damp earth on my clothing turned to mud. I glanced into the pitch-black hole. Tom didn’t move.

  ‘Oh my god! Daniel Evans’s body is in there. Tom killed him.’

  In the distance I heard an approaching siren.

  ‘I have to go,’ Mrs Tanner said. Then she picked up the spade. ‘You fought him off. He was trying to kill you. I was never here.’

  She pushed the spade into my hand and then she hurried away, back towards the house.

  ‘Wait!’ I called.

  ‘I’ll be in touch!’ she said. ‘There’s loads to tell you.’

  She passed into the house and disappeared.

  The rain fell in big fat droplets and poured down into my eyes. My hair was plastered to my head – blonde turned into dirty wet streaks that clung to my cheeks. I’d been here before, another time, another moment of betrayal and sadness. Déjà vu. Fear sank down into the pit of my stomach. I was drowning in the endless possibilities of ‘future’. What about my daughter? So small, so helpless, so alone.

  Oh God! Melody. She was in the house …

  I wanted to run, make sure Melody was all right, but I couldn’t move. My limbs were frozen, my whole body weak. I might have been suffering from shock – and no surprise.

  I ran my hand over my face, clearing the water from my eyes. And then my fingers touched the sore sticky wound on my forehead and I found myself staring at the red stain on my palm. The rain eroded the blood, as though it could wash away the evidence of my crime.

  One minute later, a dark shape climbed from the pit behind me and strong arms grabbed me from behind. I was thrown to the ground and then I saw Tom, once more looming over me. His face was a mask of madness. In his hand was the spade. The blade of it was turned down as though to cut right through me. He pulled back his arm ready to finish what he’d started and then a shot rang out.

  The spade fell from his fingers as a bud of dark liquid blossomed on his chest. He fell to his knees.

  I back-pedalled away from him to the edge of the hole. I think I was screaming. And then I was surrounded by my uniformed rescuers and among them, Old Freddie, hunting rifle still in his hands.

  ‘He was trying to kill her,’ Freddie said.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  I was in the Manor office when the phone rang.

  ‘Mrs Carlisle? This is Detective Walker. We have some news finally on the body found in the grave. I thought you’d like to know.’

  Six months had passed since Tom had tried to murder me, and I saw Mrs Tanner again. Old Freddie’s witness statement declared that I was alone with Tom – the old man intervened when he realized Tom was going to kill me. The police told me that a woman rang. The call was anonymous, but it came from our house. I didn’t tell them, even though I knew it was true, that Isadora’s former housekeeper was there and she had saved me. I kept her secret – yet she hadn’t contacted me as promised and I didn’t think she ever would.

  Tom had died in surgery. Freddie was a good shot and he’d aimed to kill. I never asked him why he hadn’t gone to incapacitate, because deep down I knew … Freddie had been watching out for me too. I guess the old man already understood what my husband was, just as Mrs Tanner had.

  ‘The man we found was identified as Peter Derbyshire. He’d been missing for seventeen years,’ Detective Walker told me. ‘We now know he met with foul play. We interviewed your mother-in-law about his disappearance at the time. Witnesses implied she was having an affair with the man.’

  ‘Who killed him?’ I asked.

  ‘Maybe your mother-in-law and perhaps your husband helped her hide the body. It might explain his instability. We’ve spoken to his therapist as you suggested. An abusive mother. It all adds up.’

  I put the phone down. It didn’t add up. Even though I had no proof, I knew the abusive mother story had been another of Tom’s lies.

  I walked from the office to the kitchen and looked through the back window to the land beyond. For the time being the work had halted: Daniel Evans had not been found but I had to make sure there were no other bodies out there.

  ‘Charlotte?’

  I turned to see Sara standing behind me.

  ‘There’s a man here to see you. He says it’s important.’

  I took the card she was holding and read the name: ‘Colin Craig. Attorney’. Becki’s divorce lawyer friend. I was surprised he was there but curious enough to invite him inside.

  ‘Bring him in,’ I said.

  I put the kettle on and pulled two cups out of the cupboard.

  Colin Craig was exactly how I remembered him. Tall, smartly dressed – every bit the lawyer.

  ‘Sit down,’ I said.

  I offered him a drink.

  ‘No thank you. I’m just here to deliver something to you.’

  He sat opposite me at the rustic kitchen table.

  ‘Becki probably hasn’t told you, but I’m no longer in need of a divorce lawyer.’

  ‘I know about your husband’s death,’ he said. ‘I’m acting in a somewhat alien capacity for me, though. A third party contacted me and asked me to deliver this to you.’

  He opened his briefcase and held out a bulky envelope.

  ‘I asked what was in it. For obvious reasons I didn’t want to deliver something offensive. But I’ve been assured that it is a letter with some information in it that you’ll need.’

  Colin left when I took the envelope. He’d done his duty and I needed to be alone to read the contents. I didn’t need to ask him how he knew about Tom’s death; the circumstances and the following inquiry had filled several pages in the nationals for a while.

  ‘Aren’t you curious?’ I asked him before letting him out the front door.

  ‘I was paid not to be.’

  I took the letter into the office.

  The room had been significantly changed. As well as new decor, there was a play pen, and a new modern desk on which stood a new computer system that linked me both to the estate and to Carlisle Corp – for which I was the acting CEO until such a time as Melody was old enough to take over. I’d taken to corporate life like the proverbial duck to water. All of my education and recent experiences came to the fore. I was finally a grown-up.

  The antique desk, with the stain of my blood on the corner, was no longer in the house. I didn’t ask Sara or Old Freddie where they put it. Everything that reminded me of that night had been removed.

  I was still having therapy, trying to come to terms with the madness of my husband. It was the thing that delayed my healing. It would probably be the question I’d always ask.

  I sat at my new desk. For once Tina and Melody weren’t in the room with me. Melody was in a baby walker, racing around the house followed by her devoted nanny. She was ten months old, not that far from walking and was a beautiful happy child.

  The office was quiet and I stared at the envelope, recognizing the swirl of perfect handwrit
ing. It was from Isadora.

  The thought that my dead mother-in-law had sent me a letter beyond the grave might have sent me into screaming panic months ago, but now any stress was replaced by curiosity.

  I took the envelope knife I kept in my desk drawer and I cut a neat line through the top. Then I removed the handwritten note. It was several pages long.

  Dear Charlotte

  If you are holding this letter then I am no longer with you.

  I cannot tell you how sorry I am that things went the way they did. I have always tried to protect you even when you believed I was interfering.

  And now for some truths that I couldn’t give you before. You have no idea how difficult it is for me to say this: I’ve recently come to believe that Tom has serious mental problems.

  They may have begun in his teens. Perhaps it was the onslaught of puberty, and maybe I was somehow to blame because I was unhappy and looked outside of my marriage for affection. At this time, I met a man called Peter Derbyshire and we started an affair. But it wasn’t just the usual fling for me. Peter was the love of my life.

  Tom’s father, Conrad, was indifferent as a husband. I never intended to divorce him, but as my relationship with Peter grew, I couldn’t carry on the way things were. We met frequently at the Manor when Tom was at school, the staff were off duty, and Conrad was in London. I was discreet but it wasn’t enough for either of us and so we began to plan my leaving. Like you and Ewan Daniels – I wanted to be with Peter. We made plans to start a life together. I had every intention of taking Tom with me though. I love my son, and have only ever wanted the best for him.

  But it wasn’t such an easy decision to make. I put it off many times, until at one meeting, Peter raised the question again. He was naturally growing impatient. So, we agreed I would end things that week with Conrad and I’d move out.

  On hearing this Tom burst from my wardrobe revealing he’d been there all along watching and listening. I was horrified to realize my son had been watching us have sex. I didn’t know it at the time, but it’d been going on for months.

  Tom was insane with rage. He was yelling at Peter to get out. Telling him he couldn’t take me away. We both tried to reason with him but he attacked Peter. There was a struggle and Peter tried to avoid hurting Tom, but things got out of hand and when Tom knocked me down during the tousle, Peter swung for him.

  I was mortified. I couldn’t accept that he tried to hit Tom. Tom was only 15 and a child. He couldn’t be responsible for his fear of losing me.

  I sent Tom to his room, and Peter and I had our first and last argument.

  He left. I never saw him again. You see, Tom is everything to me and I couldn’t forgive Peter’s behaviour easily. So I’d told him it was over.

  Over the next few months I was distressed by what had happened. Tom tried to talk to me, but I refused to discuss it with him. I regretted my anger at Peter and decided to call him, but he wouldn’t return my calls. After a few weeks, when he didn’t contact me, I knew it was really over.

  At first Tom, feeling guilty I suppose for what he’d done, tried to comfort me. I told him I’d have taken him with me. He was sorry for interfering. But it didn’t make me feel any better. Then his words turned from kindness to a sort of blackmail.

  ‘You can’t leave Father,’ Tom had said to me. ‘Think of the scandal. And that man wasn’t worth it, Mother.’

  A few months later a detective called to the house and told me Peter had been reported missing by his mother. I couldn’t help because I hadn’t had any contact with him since that night. But it worried me. I had a private detective look for him too.

  The next part of the story is the hardest for me to admit. As I recovered from the loss of Peter, Tom would often find his way into my room. He’d beg me to be happy again and then he’s say, ‘You’re mine, Mother.’

  I grew concerned about his overzealous interest in me. It made me feel uncomfortable. So, I managed to persuade Conrad to send him away to a residential college when he was 16. It was both difficult and a relief to be away from him. I sent him letters and care packages like any other mother would, and I locked what had happened away deep inside myself, trying never to think about it. When he came back, he was behaving normally. Ultimately, I blamed myself. If I hadn’t had the affair none of this would have happened, Tom would never have seen me with Peter, and I wouldn’t have hurt my own child without realizing it. I guess I put his odd obsessive behaviour down to the thought that he might lose me as his mother and it had made him insecure.

  After his return, Tom had a variety of girlfriends that he didn’t treat very well. I tried to ignore his behaviour, telling myself it was part of growing up. But his cruelty made me feel uncomfortable. There was one particular girl that stopped seeing him. I overheard Tom on the phone to her. He called her a ‘slag’. When I asked him about it, he said it didn’t matter – she was nothing to him. But I met up with the girl’s mother some weeks later. ‘Will you ask him to stop calling?’ the mother said. ‘She’s getting scared now, and I’ll call the police.’ I asked her to explain and she told me Tom and Izzy – yes that was her name – had broken up because Tom had hit her. I denied that he’d do that, but Izzy’s mother was insistent. She said it happened after Tom had a jealous rage when she smiled at another boy.

  I talked to Tom and he denied the whole thing. He said the girl was not what he thought she was, and then refused to discuss her again.

  When Tom went to Oxford and began talking about you, I was relieved. Then, when Conrad and I met you, I realized you were a sweet girl and I was happy to see Tom in love. It was a good thing he’d broken up with Izzy, and I began to believe that had all been a lie on the girl’s part after all

  It didn’t occur to me how similar you and I were until much later. I was just so pleased Tom was happy.

  At your engagement party I overheard one of the wives of Conrad’s colleagues commenting on how Tom was ‘marrying his mother’. You’ll remember we held the party at the Manor? I caught the woman looking at the painting of me at the top of the staircase. I looked up and I could see what she meant. You were a younger, prettier version of me.

  I left the party and went to my bedroom to think. I tried to convince myself I was imagining it, and it was a silly remark for the other wife to come out with anyway. After half an hour I decided I couldn’t hide away any longer and I returned to the party to see you both dancing together. You looked so happy, that I decided I was worrying unduly.

  Oh Charlotte, I know you thought I was interfering, but my plan was never to offend but to help you. I don’t think I did this as well as I could have. If only I could have seen a little into the future.

  The first time I began to suspect that things weren’t right was the night before your wedding. I came upstairs after overseeing the decorations in the marquee. Everything was prepped and I’d taken care of every single detail.

  By then Conrad was sick and he was in the hospital having chemotherapy. You know how that was, Charlotte, and how he just managed to hold on long enough to see you both married?

  So, I was sleeping alone. I hadn’t looked for any other comfort elsewhere. I knew Conrad wouldn’t be around much longer and felt that one day in the future, at some point, I might find companionship again. Maybe even the same depth of feelings I’d had for Peter. I was thinking all of this when I entered my bedroom and found Tom in my room.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I asked.

  I was immediately uncomfortable, though I didn’t know why. He put his hand down on the sheet then snatched it back as if a snake had bitten him.

  ‘I hate satin,’ he said.

  I blinked. I didn’t know how to respond. His face became a mask of fury and I knew he was remembering that day and my affair with Peter. I experienced a burst of fear of him for the very first time. But no sooner had the rage appeared than his face smoothed out and he smiled at me.

  ‘Goodnight, Mother,’ he said. ‘Get some sleep. We have
a big day tomorrow.’

  Then he stood up and strolled from the room.

  Do you remember my warning the next day? I said to you: ‘Are you sure you want to be a part of this family? The world of Carlisle is not what it seems.’

  I should have warned you better, I know. But how could I without appearing like an overprotective mother who thought you weren’t good enough for her son?

  After the wedding though, you were both so happy that I stopped worrying. I’d never seen Tom behave with anyone the way he did with you. He was a gentleman. Not the arrogant boy I knew he could be. He treated you so well. Declared over and over to me how he wanted to make you happy.

  When Conrad died, Tom stepped up and became the man of the family. I let him do that because I thought it was good for him, even though I knew Carlisle Corp would possibly become more important to him than his marriage. It was always the case in the Carlisle relationships: the Corporation was a demanding mistress. But I soon realized that this was not a problem. Tom was on the surface always a devoted husband.

  I watched for signs of unhappiness in you. There didn’t appear to be anything to worry about. Although I guessed that someone of your intelligence was bored at times. Hence why I suggested having a child to you so often.

  Finally, I was able to put all of my concerns to rest. As the years went on, Tom was just … normal. Happy. I didn’t think his childhood trauma mattered at all.

  This brings me to more recent events of which you are more familiar.

  Outwardly Tom was only concerned about the company: his days were spent wheeling and dealing, and he barely gave you a thought beyond what you might make for supper.

  But the truth was Tom showed very little interest in the company. This didn’t matter because Conrad had all of the right executives in place. Tom was always going to have an easy job, as Carlisle Corp ran itself.

  But it gave him too much time to think, and Tom was obsessed with you, Charlotte. I just didn’t know how much.