The Missing Wife
Page 1
Copyright © 2016 Sheila O’Flanagan
The right of Sheila O’Flanagan to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in Great Britain in 2016
by HEADLINE REVIEW
An imprint of HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP
First published as an Ebook in 2016
by HEADLINE REVIEW
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library
eISBN: 978 1 4722 1078 4
Cover photography: old wall and foliage © Alexander Leonov, bicycle © joyfull, red door © Belushi, all © Shutterstock.
HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP
An Hachette UK Company
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www.hachette.co.uk
Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
About the Author
Praise
Also by Sheila O’Flanagan
About the Book
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Discover more novels from Sheila O’Flanagan
About the Author
Sheila O’Flanagan is the author of many bestselling novels, including My Mother’s Secret, If You Were Me, Things We Never Say, Better Together, All For You, Someone Special and Bad Behaviour, as well as the bestselling short-story collections Destinations, Connections, and A Season to Remember.
Sheila has always loved telling stories, and after working in banking and finance for a number of years, she decided it was time to fulfil a dream and give writing her own book a go. So she sat down, stuck ‘Chapter One’ at the top of a page, and got started. Sheila is now the author of more than sixteen bestselling titles. She lives in Dublin with her husband.
www.sheilaoflanagan.com
@sheilaoflanagan
/sheilabooks
Praise for Sheila’s irresistible novels:
‘An exciting love story with a deliciously romantic denouement’ Sunday Express
‘Romantic and charming’ Candis
‘Will keep you guessing right up until the end’ Bella
‘One of our best storytellers’ Irish Mail on Sunday
‘A big touching, book sure to delight O’Flanagan fans’ Daily Mail
‘A spectacular read’ Heat
‘Another first class “can’t put it down” novel from Sheila O’Flanagan’ Woman’s Way
‘This is a real must-read’ Closer
‘Her lightness of touch and gentle characterisations have produced another fine read’ Sunday Express
‘A thought-provoking read’ New!
‘A captivating novel of family ties and romance’ Sun
By Sheila O’Flanagan and available from Headline
Suddenly Single
Far From Over
My Favourite Goodbye
He’s Got To Go
Isobel’s Wedding
Caroline’s Sister
Too Good To Be True
Dreaming Of A Stranger
Destinations
Anyone But Him
How Will I Know?
Connections
Yours, Faithfully
Bad Behaviour
Someone Special
The Perfect Man
Stand By Me
A Season To Remember
All For You
Better Together
Things We Never Say
If You Were Me
My Mother’s Secret
The Missing Wife
About the Book
Have you ever wanted to disappear?
When Imogen Naughton vanishes, everyone who knows her is shocked. She has a perfect marriage. Her handsome husband treats her like a princess. She’s always said how lucky she is. So why has she left? And how will she survive without Vince?
What goes on behind closed doors is often a surprise, and Imogen surprises herself by taking the leap she knows she must. But as she begins her journey to find the woman she once was, Imogen’s past is right behind her …
Will it catch up with her? And will she be ready to face it if it does?
Acknowledgements
As always I have to thank Carole Blake, Marion Donaldson and Breda Purdue – my agent, my editor and the MD of Hachette Ireland – three strong women who have been with me for most of my publishing career and who have saved me from myself on more than one occasion.
Thanks also to Jane Selley, who copy-edits with such dedication and who somehow manages to refrain from writing pointed notes in the margins when I make the same stupid mistake over and over! And thanks to Team Hachette/Headline around the world for always being so supportive – with a special mention to Abbie and Fran for such amazing work on my behalf this year.
Special thanks to my translators and overseas publishers who bring a smile to my face when I see all of your wonderful editions of my books.
Merci beaucoup to Derí Molyneux and Séverine Lefeuvre for checking the French.
The inscription above the library at Thebes in ancient Egypt said it offered ‘medicine for the soul’, which is a wonderful description of the joy that books bring to us. Thank you to librarians and booksellers everywhere for the work they do in ensuring that we all have the right medicine!
Of course I can’t thank you, my readers, enough for buying my books and for getting in touch with me on social media to talk about them. You are an amazing group of people and I’m lucky to have you all in my corner.
And finally, to Colm and to the rest of my family, thank you for being so supportive of all my book stuff. But thank you even more for the non-book stuff too!
Chapter 1
Standing in the line of passengers boarding the intercity coach, Imogen started to panic. A cold sweat dampened the back of her white cotton blouse and she froze on the spot, wedged behind a tall man in a brightly coloured Madiba shirt and an impatient Parisian woman who’d been checking her watch every five minutes for the past half an hour. The woman made a disapproving sound, indicating that she should get a move on, but Imogen stayed where she was, on the bottom step of the coach, clutching the handrail, unable to move.
‘S’il vous plaît,’ said the woman through cl
enched teeth.
‘I’m sorry.’ Imogen moved to one side. ‘Go ahead.’
The woman pushed her way past, followed by the remainder of the passengers, while Imogen remained at the doorway, unsure of whether or not to board.
‘Madame?’ The driver looked at her enquiringly.
‘Yes,’ she said hesitantly. ‘Yes. I’m … I’m getting on now.’
But she could hear his words in her head.
What on earth d’you think you’re doing? You can’t manage on your own. You’ll make a mess of it. You always do.
She shut him out. He was wrong. She wasn’t going to make a mess of it. Because she had a Plan.
Don’t make a complete fool of yourself. It was his voice again as her hand tightened on the handrail.
She wouldn’t make a fool of herself if she stuck to the Plan. It was foolproof. Hopefully. And she’d already successfully carried out the start of it. There was no need to doubt herself about the rest. Besides, she thought, it’s too late to back out now.
It’s never too late.
This time the words were her mother’s, one of the many clichés she’d liked to use on a daily basis. But in this case, they were true. It wasn’t too late. She could still walk away without too much collateral damage. Whatever problems that might arise from her actions could be fixed. She could find a way to explain them.
But going back and trying to make excuses wasn’t why she was here now. It wasn’t why she’d spent so long refining the Plan. Nevertheless, she had a choice. Go forward, or go back. She reminded herself that this was the chance she’d been waiting for. Her first opportunity to execute the Plan. How would she feel if she let it slip away?
She took a deep breath and began to climb the steps.
The coach was comfortable and air-conditioned, which was a pleasant relief after the unexpected humidity of the June day. The exhibition hall had been hot and crowded, and she’d spent a lot of time wishing she’d worn something lighter than the navy wool business suit Vince had told her was appropriate for her business trip to France. But whenever she’d broken out in a sweat that morning, she’d been unsure if it was because of the suit, or because she was worrying about what she was intending to do and the way she was going to do it.
She walked down the aisle of the coach. Having let so many people board ahead of her, her choice of seat was limited. She slid into the first one available, beside a long-legged young man with earbuds in his ears who was busy scrolling through playlists on his phone. A student, Imogen decided, as she glanced at his stubbled cheeks, logoed T-shirt and ripped jeans. She felt a pang of nostalgia for her own student years, even though she wouldn’t have considered them to have been typical. Unlike many of her peers, she hadn’t wanted to travel or have assorted life experiences. She’d wanted to put down roots. Her own roots in her own place instead of somewhere decided for her by someone else. That had been very important to her. Unfortunately.
She gave the young man a brief smile, but he was far too busy with his phone to notice.
The driver put the coach into gear and it moved slowly away from the station.
A few minutes later, they turned towards the Boulevard Périphérique and Imogen’s phone buzzed.
She counted to ten before she looked at the text.
Are you at the airport? she read.
On the way now, she replied.
How long?
She looked at the facades of the buildings around her as the coach driver waited for the lights to turn red. They were mainly office blocks of glass and steel. They could have been anywhere in the world.
Twenty minutes.
Text me when you arrive.
OK.
Love you.
She hesitated before sending her reply. Love you too :)
She saw a sign for the airport as they moved forward again. The coach gathered speed, then turned in the opposite direction. She exhaled slowly. The student beside her was still absorbed in his music. Imogen stared out of the window. When the coach passed an exit marked ‘Disneyland’, she sent another text.
At airport, it said. Phone battery about to die. Talk later. This time she didn’t add a smiley face.
She picked up her handbag from beneath the seat in front of her and opened it. Then she slid her engagement and wedding rings from her finger and dropped them into the bag. After that, she took a hair clip from a small bundle in one of the side pockets and used it to pop out the SIM card holder on the phone. She took the card from the cradle and held it between her teeth while she closed the phone again. As she bit down hard on it, she realised that the student had begun to watch her.
‘You’ll damage it,’ he said in French as he removed one of the buds from his ears.
‘I know,’ she said in the same language once she’d taken the card from her mouth.
She balanced it between her thumb and forefinger and began to squeeze. After a while, the SIM card started to bend. She kept the pressure on until it had doubled over and the tiny metallic bands had cracked. The student shrugged. Imogen sat back in her seat and stared straight ahead.
Vince Naughton always had a plan. He liked to have his day scheduled and he hated being taken by surprise. Years earlier, at one of those corporate think-ins and staff bonding days, which he thought were a total waste of time, a colleague had called him controlling. Irritated by her snap assessment, Vince had said that he wasn’t controlling but he did like to be in control, a comment that resulted in a round of applause from the group and left his colleague looking embarrassed. A few months later, Vince had been promoted and she’d left the company, which made him feel vindicated. It was good to know how things were supposed to pan out, he thought. And good to ensure that they did.
Which was why, when he turned into the car park at the hotel in Cork, he was within ten minutes of the arrival time he’d set himself – the ten minutes was to allow for the unexpected. Vince believed in allowing for the unexpected. It was why he was one of the company’s better associates. He thought of every eventuality. Very few things ever surprised him. He planned for the worst and hoped for the best. It had served him well all his life.
He parked the car, checked in at reception and went to his room. He’d specified a first-floor room if possible, and he was pleased that the conference organisers had met his request, although the room itself overlooked the car park instead of the river, which he would have preferred. Nevertheless, everything else was fine: the Wi-Fi worked, there were tea- and coffee-making facilities, and the TV was a modern flat-screen on the wall.
He sat on the bed and sent a text.
Arrived on time. Room OK. Text me when you’re home.
Then he left the phone on the bed and went into the bathroom to have a shower.
According to the bus timetable, the journey would take more than eleven hours. There were, of course, infinitely quicker ways to travel from Paris to the south-west of France than by road (although if she’d driven herself, Imogen knew she could easily have cut the time in half). A flight would have taken less than ninety minutes, but catching a flight meant having to give your name and credit card details, and she hadn’t wanted to do that. The train would have been the best option of them all, given how superb the French rail system was, and would have had the added advantage of taking her exactly where she wanted to be. However, although she might have been able to buy a ticket without having to reserve it, she felt sure there were plenty of CCTV cameras throughout the marble concourse of the ultra-modern Montparnasse station, and she didn’t want to be caught by any of them. She’d watched too many news reports with grainy images of unsuspecting people going about their daily business not to know that public places were hotbeds of CCTV surveillance. She realised that it was possible she’d been caught on camera buying the coach ticket too. But she didn’t think so. Besides, nobody would have expected her to take a bus. That was why it was part of the Plan.
It began to rain as they arrived at their first stop, four hours in
to the journey. Imogen dodged the languid, heavy drops as she hurried into the service station and made her way to the ladies’. In the cubicle, she took the battery out of her phone and threw it into a red plastic bin. At their next stop, another four hours later, she disposed of the phone itself in a blue bin near the coach park. It was the first time in more than fifteen years that she hadn’t had a mobile phone, and it was a strange sensation. Even though the phone had been useless without the SIM and then the battery, it had been a part of her. Now it was gone. She wanted to feel that everything it signified was gone too, but the truth was that she wasn’t feeling anything at all. Other than apprehensive. Or maybe just scared.
When she got back on to the coach, the student was playing a game on his own mobile, his fingers tapping urgently at the screen. He looked up as Imogen settled herself in her seat and gave her a faint smile before turning back to the game.
She was pretty sure that she’d received more texts by now.
Are you home yet?
Where are you?
And then perhaps the voice message.
‘Haven’t you charged your damn phone? Ring me.’
But she wouldn’t be ringing. That was part of the Plan too. And because she’d destroyed her phone, she had to stick to it.
She held her hands out in front of her. They were shaking.
The student finished playing his game and took the buds from his ears. He turned to Imogen and asked if he could get by her so that he could take his rucksack from the rack. She stood up while he got his bag and rummaged around in it. Then he slid back into his seat and she sat down again. He lowered the plastic tray in front of him and put a bottle of water and a triple-decker sandwich wrapped in cling film on it. He had other food too – a KitKat, a chocolate muffin and a couple of bananas. He offered one of the bananas to Imogen.
‘No thank you.’ They continued to speak in French.
‘Are you sure?’ he asked. ‘Maman packed all this for me. I like my food, but two bananas is one too many.’
‘It’s good of you to offer,’ said Imogen. ‘But I’m not hungry.’
‘Fair enough.’ He unwrapped the sandwich and took a large bite.