‘How long have you been back?’ she asks.
‘Not long.’
‘Did you have a good time with Raj?’
‘Not really.’
‘Oh.’ She licks her lips. ‘Are you coming to bed?’
‘Who was calling?’
‘The publicist… Pamela. It’s a bit late, isn’t it?’ She rolls towards the clock and then back to me. ‘It’s earlier than I thought…’
‘You should call her back,’ I say.
‘Why?’
‘Because people know, Charley. It’s out there.’
She pushes herself up, resting on her elbows, still blinking from the tiredness and lack of light.
‘What’s out there?’ she asks.
I don’t reply at first because I can see in her face that she already knows. There’s a resigned acceptance that she knew this would happen sooner or later. I want her to say it, but she doesn’t.
‘You left our wedding voluntarily,’ I say, surprised by my own calmness. ‘There was no abduction, no knife. Probably no mask. Probably no shed. No escape through the woods. You made everything up.’
Even through the gloom, I can see the wideness of her dilated pupils. Puppy-dog eyes, scared and cornered.
Charley whispers a single, scared word: ‘How?’
‘Just call Pamela.’
She does and I go downstairs, not wanting to listen to it. I find myself back on the laptop, except, by now, the photos have all disappeared. I refresh the page but can only get ‘this user’s album is empty’.
Raj had cleared everything out, not that it matters, of course. It’s easy enough to download a photo and save it somewhere else or take a screengrab. The damage is done.
When Charley gets into the living room, she’s already dressed, shoes and all. She’s pale and washed out, as if she’s seen a ghost. ‘I have to go out,’ she says.
‘No. You have to tell me what’s going on.’
It wasn’t that long ago that I was happy to wait for the explanation. Now I need to know.
She tilts her whole body to the side and sighs. When she offers her hand, I don’t take it. ‘I will,’ she says. ‘I’ll tell you everything, I promise. But I have to go out.’
‘It’s after ten on a Saturday night. Where are you going?’
She bites her tongue, then turns into the kitchen and takes the car key from its hook. I get to the front door before her, standing with my arms spread across it like a giant spider.
‘I want you to tell me,’ I say.
‘Please let me go. It’s important.’ She’s unerringly calm.
‘I’m important… or I thought I was.’
She reaches out and cups my chin. Her touch is delicate and soft. ‘I’ve not forgotten that… but I have to go.’
Charley reaches for the catch and I step aside. There’s a softly spoken grimness about the way she’s talking that makes me think I don’t know her at all. Her eyes that were once so green and vibrant are grey and lifeless. The woman I knew was only ever a stranger.
It’s like she’s broken. Suddenly, the anger has gone.
I step to the side.
‘Can I come with you?’ I ask.
She opens the door but pauses for the merest of moments. ‘Yes.’
And so we’re in the car. I don’t know where we’re going, but it’s dark and the roads quickly become narrower. We’ve been driving for a few minutes when Charley whispers so delicately that I can barely hear her over the engine.
‘They think I’m a fraud,’ she says. ‘That’s what Pamela says they’re going to say in the papers tomorrow.’
It’s brutal, I know that, but what other reply can I give. ‘Are you?’
Charley is quiet for a full minute. Maybe two. She stares straight ahead towards the road, continuing to drive. I’m not sure she even blinks.
And then she tells me what really happened fifteen years ago.
Forty-Three
15 Years Ago
Charley Willis, 13 years old
I burst through the front door, calling after Mama and Father, hoping they’re home. When there’s no reply, I call for them again, stopping in the hallway and listening as my voice echoes around the empty hall.
‘Hello?’
There’s no answer. It’s not necessarily a surprise because one of them is often out when I get home from school. I usually make myself a sandwich and then do some homework in the reading room. If it’s nice outside, I might go into the garden.
It’s rare they’re both gone, though.
But I’m so excited!
I move through the hallway, still listening carefully in case they’re upstairs, or perhaps in the garden.
‘Mama?’
Nothing.
The kitchen is empty and so is the dining room. I look through the window towards the back garden, but that’s clear, too. There’s nobody in the reading room, nor the TV room. I knock gently on their bedroom door upstairs, but there’s no reply. There is nobody in my room, nor the ones that used to belong to Martha and Liam.
I return downstairs, my excitement starting to deflate. It’s such a shame. I so wanted Mama to know what I’ve done.
At the bottom of the stairs, I’m about to head towards the reading room when I hear the faint sound of voices. There are two, but they sound distant. I’m not sure where else to look but follow my ears. It’s like a game of hotter and colder. Ten steps towards the living room and the sound is getting colder, back towards the front door and it’s warmer. Onto the driveway and it’s hotter still.
My parents are in the double garage at the side of the house. There used to be two cars, but now there’s only one and the other side is filled with boxes. Sometimes I wonder if we’re getting ready to move out.
The regular door at the side of the large metal garage door is open and I edge inside. Mama and Father are close to the boxes, but they stop talking when they see me.
‘I’m going inside,’ Mama says.
‘I’m not done yet!’ Father shouts back.
Mama strides out of the garage back into the house. Father is a little behind, calling after her, while I trail after them both. I follow them all the way through the house to the living room. Mama looks as if she’s about to start shouting at Father when she turns to me instead.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asks harshly.
I offer her the envelope, bouncing on my heels with bundled excitement. I know this is going to make her happy. Whatever they’re arguing about will go away now.
Mama snatches the envelope and removes the card from inside. She scans the page and then hands it to Father.
‘What do you think, Mama? Did I do good?’
The page is the best thing I’ve ever managed. It’s one A after another. Maths: A. English: A. Sciences: A. I’ve got the clean sweep, one of only five people in my entire year. I even got an A in Information Technology and I don’t particularly like that.
Father glances at the page quickly and then looks to Mama. ‘What do you reckon?’ he asks. ‘Do you think it’s worth leaking?’
Mama turns to me and then back. ‘Who cares? It’s not like I can phone up a producer and tell them we’ve got some smart-arse for a daughter, is it?’
Father spins the envelope and certificate off to the side like a Frisbee. It sails through the air, landing face down with a swish next to the sofa.
‘You could tell them you’re going to lose some weight,’ he says, ignoring me.
Mama has both hands on her hips. ‘Oh, you’re one to talk. It’s a good job we’ve got separate rooms. It’s like sleeping next to a poached elephant.’
Father presses himself high onto the tips of his toes. His voice booms like thunder. ‘I’m not the one they call Wide-Load Willis. You must think I don’t know about all that chocolate you keep hidden at the back of the cupboard with the bedding. It’s like a bloody sweet shop in there. What the hell’s wrong with you?’
‘Right – because downing a bott
le of wine every night is so much better.’
I hate it when Mama and Father fight. It’s been happening so much recently that it’s hard to escape. I usually go and hide under the covers in my room, holding my hands over my ears and hoping it all goes away. Either that, or in the wardrobe behind the clothes hamper. I feel frozen to the spot this time. It’s like they’ve forgotten I’m here and if I were to move they’d be angry with me.
Father is shouting as loudly as I’ve ever heard him. ‘I’m not the one who’s supposed to be a lifestyle guru, whatever the hell that means. Your whole career is supposed to be about being fit and healthy, now you waddle around like a sweaty warthog. No wonder they don’t want you on television. They’d need a widescreen camera.’
‘Says the man who gets through a bottle of hair dye every week. No one’s convinced, you know. People laugh at you. Badger head – that’s what they call you. “Look, there goes Badger Head mincing down the street. Didn’t he used to be famous?”’
‘At least I’m not known as a whore. Everyone knows you shagged that producer bloke with the floppy hair. Christ, he was half your age.’
Mama’s laughing but it doesn’t seem like she’s finding this funny. ‘You’re just jealous,’ she says. ‘When was the last time you could even get it up?’
Father’s fists are balled.
‘STOP!’
It takes a second for me to realise I’m the one who’s shouted. I’ve roared like a lion. Mama and Father have both turned to stare at me as if I’m something completely new they’ve stumbled across.
‘Please stop,’ I add, quieter this time. ‘Please.’
Father takes a step away, but Mama marches across the living room and bends so that we’re eye to eye. Hers are the same colour as mine, but they’re furious.
‘You listen to me,’ she says. ‘The only reason you exist is so we could sell the story to those idiots out there who lap it all up. I had a book coming out. Your father was in line for a few panel shows. A new child nine years after the last one. What a story.’
She takes a small step back, but her eyeline doesn’t change.
‘You’re nothing. Do you hear me? You’re numbers on a bank statement, you’re the worst mistake we ever made. And after all that – after everything we’ve done for you – all you can do is think of yourself. You piss in corners. You mess all over your bed. You invade our conversation because your teachers can’t see you for what you are. None of this is about you. You are nothing – and that’s all you’ll ever be.’
Mama straightens herself, smooths her top and steps away. There are tears in my eyes and, even though she hasn’t touched me, it feels as if she’s slapped me in the face. My whole body is tingling.
I look up to Father, hoping he’ll say something. My bottom lip bobs and I almost beg him. He stares down at me and it’s with such disdain that I know he doesn’t love me. He never has. I’m the worst mistake they ever made.
Mama turns back to Father. ‘What shall I do?’ she asks. ‘Do you have the number for that Greg guy? I heard he’s off to Channel Four…’
It’s as if the past minute hasn’t happened. As if their argument before that was in my imagination. Father replies calmly to her, but I don’t hear what he says. It’s like there’s somebody else controlling me. As if an idea has been planted into my mind and now I have to do it. I walk into the kitchen and open the drawer that’s filled with cutlery. I know precisely what I’m looking for because I’ve washed and dried it up so many times. It’s on the left-hand side, sheathed in a plastic case.
I slide out the thick knife with the pointy end that Mama uses to dice beef. It glimmers in the lights. So, so shiny. So, so sharp.
Then I go back into the living room.
Forty-Four
Now
Seth
I don’t know what to say. Charley has spoken so calmly, so assuredly of the horrors to which she was subjected that I don’t have the words. It’s so awful that I’m shaking with rage on her behalf. I feel sick. It actually hurts.
‘I should’ve told you before,’ she whispers at the end.
I want to hug her, to hold her close and stroke her hair, but, because she’s driving, all I can do is touch her shoulder. It’s a pathetic, nothing gesture, but I don’t know what else to do.
‘Are you okay?’ she croaks.
It makes me splutter with a humourless laugh. ‘Me? It’s you this happened to.’
‘I’ve done my crying. I did it all when I was thirteen.’
She sounds so unruffled that it sends a shiver along my spine.
‘How did it never get out that your parents were treating you like that?’ I ask.
‘It probably would have done eventually. Martha didn’t realise how bad it was until I went to live with her. They were worse with me than they were with her. Afterwards, everyone wanted to say how brilliant they were. What was the point in arguing?’
Charley glances up to her mirror, indicates and then takes a turn off the motorway.
‘My feelings for you have never changed,’ she says. ‘Never.’
‘Then why leave the hotel after our wedding and tell everyone you’d been taken?’
Another glance to the mirror. ‘In time. We’re nearly there. If he’s seen those pictures, then everyone’s in danger.’
‘Is that where we’re going?’ I ask. ‘Liam’s house? I recognised his baseball cap in Raj’s photos. I did wonder where he got my phone number from.’
Charley doesn’t seem surprised that I know. She’s as calm as she has been since we left the house. ‘I didn’t give it to him,’ she says. ‘Not directly. He must’ve stolen it from my phone. I didn’t know he was going to call you. I didn’t know he was going to meet you or leave my dress in some bush, either.’
She sounds particularly spiky about that – but then I have no clue what actually happened between them in the days after she walked away.
‘But you never got on,’ I say, ‘and then you left our wedding to go with him.’
‘I’ll explain. I promise.’
She’s still cool and emotionless and I’m not sure if I should be scared for her or myself.
Charley turns off the road and the car bumps into a pothole and then over the kerb until we’re on the driveway of Liam’s house. When we were here before, I was stunned at how big it was. Pillars and big bay windows on the outside, everything sparkly and new on the inside. Everything is dark now. None of the lights are on, upstairs or down. The driveway is clear. No cars.
‘Looks like no one’s home,’ I say.
Charley ignores me, stopping the car abruptly with a squeaky skid. She gets out quickly and races to the front door, ringing the bell and pounding it with her hand.
‘Liam?!’
I follow her, but there’s not a lot I can do. Charley crouches and jabs at the letter box, getting a mouthful of dark bristles for her trouble. ‘Try the window,’ she says.
The house is symmetrical on the outside. One arching window on either side of the front door. Charley goes one way; I head the other. The curtains or blinds seem to be open, but the glare from the moon makes it hard to see much of anything. I press my face to the glass, cupping my eyes with my hands as a shield. There’s a television in the corner, a fireplace, a sofa… grim, dark shadows licking the corners of the room.
It’s only as I shift around the window that I see what I missed first time round.
Oh, no.
Forty-Five
15 Years Ago
Charley Willis, 13 years old
I’m sitting in the kitchen hugging my knees to my chest when there’s a knock on the front door. The knife is at my side, glistening with thick crimson. There’s a trail of red from the living room to the kitchen.
Whoever it is knocks again, louder this time, but I don’t move. I’m not sure I’ll ever move. I just want to sit here by myself.
The letter box clatters and then a voice echoes through the house. ‘Is there anyone in? I can�
��t find my key.’
Martha.
The letter box snaps back into place with a clang and then there’s a scrabbling. A minute or two passes and then the door bangs open.
‘What the hell is it with this family?’
Martha’s voice echoes through the house. She slams the door and then her feet clip-clop across the hallway. It’s only a moment and then she’s in the kitchen.
‘Char? What’s wrong?’
I’m not looking at her, but I somehow know exactly what she’s doing. Her rucksack hits the floor and then she follows the drips of blood into the living room. It takes her a while to return and, when she does, she’s walking very slowly. She’s on tiptoes, in fact. Martha is suddenly on the floor next to me, hugging her knees as well.
‘I want you to listen to me very carefully,’ she says. ‘Are you listening?’
I don’t move. My whole body feels floppy and useless, as if I want to lie down and never get up.
‘Will you nod if you can hear me, Char? It’s really important.’
I nod. Only a little.
‘This is what we’re going to do, okay? I’m going to go into the garage and get a couple of those big blue rubble sacks that are in there. You’re going to take off everything you’re wearing and put it all – including your shoes – into the sack. All right?’
‘But then I’ll be naked.’
‘Don’t worry about that for now. Nobody can see. You need to be really still though. Don’t make any more footprints around the kitchen and don’t touch anything. Don’t go back into the living room. I’ll lift you out and then you need to go upstairs and get into the shower. You need to wash everything away from your face, your arms, your legs.’ She stops for a moment. ‘It’s okay if there’s a bit of blood on your hands. Do you understand?’
I blink for what feels like the first time in a long time. Martha places a hand on mine, rests her head on my shoulder.
The Wife’s Secret: A gripping psychological thriller with a heart-stopping twist Page 24
