by Liz Lawler
The Next Wife
An absolutely gripping psychological thriller with a killer twist
Liz Lawler
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Hear More from Liz
A Letter from Liz Lawler
Acknowledgements
Prologue
What was she thinking?
Did she honestly think he would just let her walk out and live a life without him? That there would be no consequences? No price to pay for destroying his life?
She would learn soon enough she was wrong. And be under no illusions about the trouble she was in. There was no hiding place for her, and no escape either. The top of the front door was bolted tightly, too high for her to reach up and unlock it without standing on something, and he’d taken the back door key after locking it and had the key safely hidden in his trouser pocket. He would put it back afterwards, after he’d finished dealing with her. She was somewhere inside this house, and soon, very soon, he would find her. Her perfume would give her away. Lead him where the scent of sweet jasmine and soft lavender grew stronger. He just had to follow his nose. Then he could punish her.
In the kitchen he picked up a heavy mallet, its double-sided, spiked-faced head shiny new. It was well crafted with a generous wooden handle for a good grip. He used one like it often to tenderise tough cuts of meat, to break down tough muscle fibres to a silky softness that melted in the mouth once cooked. This one would only be used once, and then got rid of. He didn’t want reminders, or any microscopic cells of her blood finding their way into his food.
At the bottom of the wide staircase he stood still and listened. The house was never silent. Tick… tick… tick… clocks keeping time, passing time, stealing time with their endless arrogant ticking. Wooden floors and wooden doors creaked and sighed and moaned with age. But once you were familiar with hearing them – these sounds of aging and time – you could hear the other sounds trying to be unheard. She was being very silent, but the longer he waited the harder it would be for her to stay silent and hidden.
His fingertips brushed against the flock wallpaper as he climbed the stairs. The familiar velvet-like texture comforted him – the laurel leaf design in keeping with the period of the house. She had wanted to change and modernise their home, but he was all for tradition. It was a shame she didn’t share the same values, didn’t see the role she had been given to cherish when he placed a ring on her finger. She had broken her vows and thought she could be free.
He stilled halfway up the stairs as he heard a soft whimper. The sound was too young to have been made by her. It cut off abruptly. An infant cry – and his grip on the mallet handle was now less sure. How selfish of her to hide with the child. She must know she put them both in danger. He imagined her hand pressed over the small mouth, her eyes desperately urging the child to be still and quiet. Perhaps she thought hiding together might protect her, might ward off her punishment. She was a selfish mother to have taken such a risk. He was in no mood to be lenient, in no mood to take pity.
At the top of the stairs he strengthened his grip on the hammer. Through the landing window behind him sunlight shone across the oak floor, turning the polished floorboards the colour of autumn leaves, their surface pitted and marked with the imperfections of the past. Mothers and fathers and children had walked this floor and their maids and servants swept it clean. This house had served seven generations, if not more, and soon it would only be him left standing – the last of the line.
There were seven closed doors to choose from, three on each side of the corridor and one at the end. The master bedroom was third on the right and it was to this door he went. As he neared it he heard again the sound of whimpering, followed by a shushing noise as she tried to quieten the child. It was too late for that. He breathed in the air around the door and placed his hand against the grain as if to absorb her essence. He stroked the wood’s silkiness before reaching for the doorknob, the cool round shape of it familiar in his palm. It turned with the lightest pressure and let him in.
Her yelp moved him further into the room with a sudden step. He looked down to where she hid by the side of their bed, her eyes full of fear. Her legs were tented to hide the child from view, her arms wrapped around her knees, and her hands cradling the small head to shut out the sight of him standing there. Sitting like that on the floor she reminded him of a drawing he’d seen by a German artist of a woman cradling a dead child, and he remembered learning about the artist’s husband, that he too was a doctor.
As he raised the mallet from his side, her eyes pleaded with him, but any notion to change his mind passed as he noticed the suitcases on their bed, packed with everything she was taking.
He tried to smile for her, but his face was full of sadness at what she had brought them to. She would get her wish to leave him. He was granting her that, just not in the way she had hoped. She would be leaving behind her suitcases. Leaving behind clothing and shoes, trinkets and adornments, all the things she felt necessary for her new life which she wouldn’t need any longer.
And when that too was all gone, every physical reminder swept away, he would be left with only the memory of her – a scent of sweet jasmine and of soft lavender – that would become part of the air he breathed. Become part of the house forever.
Chapter One
Martha King shivered as she looked through her binoculars at the face of the man getting out of the car. She shivered not from the cold air blasting under the collar of her coat, but from seeing that face again. No matter how many times she had seen him over the last two weeks, the shock didn’t seem to lessen. It was uncanny how his features hadn’t seemed to change, how he didn’t seem to age. The house he was entering seemed to have stood timelessly too. The f
ront door, the same dark green; the heavy curtains, with the same curved swags. Nothing altered. Nothing changed, except the height of the hedges grown above the stone wall wrapping the property nice and neat, private and safe from prying eyes.
And the woman, of course. She was a change.
Martha thought the house would lay empty forever, would never have a light on inside or a car on its driveway again. Watching and waiting and for it then to happen had tested her sanity and given her a false hope that the lights on inside the house were from before. And then cruel reality reminded her it was the present. Her memories were fading on so many other things, like paper drawings bleached from the sun – she had difficulty seeing them clearly. Yet here, they were painfully vivid. She had been kindled by those memories when she saw the new couple arrive. Rooted to the spot, stuck in a trance, just seeing, disbelieving; a silence in her ears as her eyes took their fill, before a sound intruded. Her laugh, as she was carried over the threshold. The sound of such joy shocked Martha’s ears awake, shocked her that such a sound could be allowed after what happened. As if regard for the past was all forgotten.
They’d been ensconced in their new home for over two weeks now, and Martha was there every day watching. Casually passing by, or stopping outside to stand and stare as if looking up at something of interest in the sky. On the odd day when rain was predicted, she took shelter in a spot under a tree in the field behind the house, and used her binoculars. Or she would go in the car, as she had today, parking it down the street to wait out the rain. If anyone noticed her, and so far not a single soul seemed to have, she was ready with her answer – she was a birdwatcher, a lover of nature, and spring was the best time to spot wildlife – and be ready to show her copy of Collins Complete Guide to British Wildlife from the library. For now, though, she was invisible. Just an old lady pottering about with her shopping bag containing a thermos, sandwiches, binoculars and library book, minding her own business.
A pattern had emerged over the last few days. Each morning he would step out of the house at seven thirty, wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase, get into his car and drive to the hospital. Martha followed him the first day and found driving behind him in peak-time traffic a challenge. She’d caused a bother to other drivers somehow, with car horns blaring at her for something she had done wrong. Since then she only drove to the house, as the car found its own way there, and watched the comings and goings of his new wife, just like she was doing now.
She was certainly full of energy, this new wife – light and quick as she came out of the front door and bounced on the balls of her feet in her running shoes. She stretched arms and legs, bending and pressing and limbering in her bright blue Lycra for over a minute, and then proceeded off at a pace down the road, her long dark hair up in a ponytail, swinging from side to side across her shoulders. Martha gazed after her and then, realising the house stood empty, she made her way up the drive to peer in through windows she once looked out of.
Her anguished cry trapped the air in her throat, and she had to relax the muscles in her face and purse her lips in order to breathe out. She had expected it to look different, changed from her memories of it, not for it to be exactly the same. The lamps, the paintings, all of the furniture – it was all just as before. He had changed nothing for his new wife.
Martha didn’t need to imagine what it felt like to be inside this house. She could feel, as if she was touching it now, the raised threads of the brocade fabric as she smoothed the arms of the small Queen Anne chair. Her chair, reserved for her when visiting. A tear in the fabric, where an arm was worn, had been mended with black thread for lack of silver, but was only noticeable if you knew where to look or where to touch.
A heavy sting inside her chest had her quickly fumbling in her coat pockets for the tiny pump bottle. Her memories had brought back to life images and sounds so real that if she knocked on the window they would see her standing there looking in, as clear as she could see them looking out. She could hear music, and her eyes darted to the corner of the room where the piano stood. His graceful hands were moving over the keyboard, playing a melody that once soothed her but now made her shiver.
Raising her tongue she sprayed liquid into her mouth, ignoring the slight burn as she repeated the action. She rested her forehead against the windowpane, waiting for the sharp stinging in her chest to ease. It would settle in a moment and then she would be on her way.
Her eyes closed to shut out the ghosts in the drawing room. How could he bring his new wife here and not change a thing? Had he no care to change it? Was he happy to have his new wife touch the same things, see the same things? Maybe he got a kick out of watching her walk around the house touching things, unsuspecting; felt pleasure at her not knowing? Martha suspected he did. He would not have changed. A leopard cannot change its spots. No more than this man can change his ways.
Adrift in the memory of it all, she lost time and stayed still, standing with eyes closed and memories open. She was startled out of her trance as something touched her shoulder, and she swung around too fast. The woman neatly saved her from falling, and Martha gratefully kept a grip of the hands holding her upright, trying to catch her breath and offer her gratitude. ‘Oh, my dear, you gave me a fright, but thank you for catching me.’
Up close, his wife had startlingly blue eyes, the same turquoise as the hydrangeas Martha chose for the grave.
Her smile was warm and generous, and her voice full of care. ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you. Are you here to visit me?’
Martha shook her head. ‘No, my dear, I’m not. I thought this was my friend’s house till I peered in the window and saw that it isn’t. Silly me, I’ve got my roads mixed up, I think. Hers is the next road along.’
‘Do you want to come in and catch your breath, have a glass of water?’
Martha stepped back from the window. ‘No, thank you, dear. I’ll be on my way as she’ll be waiting. You have a lovely home. Have you been here long?’
‘No, not long at all,’ she replied, smiling again as if unable to contain her happiness for any length of time. ‘I’m newly married and I’m getting used to everything being new, including my new name. Which, by the way, is Tess Myers.’
Martha did well to hide her surprise, lowering her eyes and moving her shopping bag to the other hand. ‘That’s your husband’s name then, is it?’ she asked.
‘Yes. Dr Daniel Myers. That’s my husband.’
Martha bade her goodbye, offering thanks again for being saved from a fall, her hands trembling so badly she had a job to get the car keys out of her bag. As soon as she could she got into the car and sat in it shaking, her mind whirring with what she had just learned. He had changed something after all, which would allow him to hide in plain sight. He’d changed his name.
Chapter Two
Tess held a wooden meat mallet up to the light, wondering if it would be unhygienic to use it on the steak. She’d found it in a drawer of kitchen tools that she’d not got round to cleaning yet. It might have been there years. The utensils all looked old – the potato masher and rotary egg whisk had green-painted handles. She decided against using it. The steak probably didn’t need tenderising as it was a nice dark red with a good trim of fat along its side.
She’d not given much thought to preparing this meal as her mind was buzzing over getting the job. She hadn’t expected to hear back so soon, after having the interview only that morning.
The thought of going back to work filled her with relief. She was not cut out to stay at home. There was only so much cleaning her brain could take. Deciding where to start each day, whether to shine old furniture back to new again or clean a cupboard full of tacky Delftware that had been left unused for too long, was not how she wanted to spend her days. She’d prefer to pay for a cleaner, and would when she was back at work. After working for a living for the last decade she wanted to get back out there and do the job she had trained for. Otherwise she’d stagnate in this new place a
nd get lonely.
Apart from the occasional nod she got from the quirky old lady she met a few days ago, she didn’t know anyone yet. She had spent the last month getting to know her new home with its far too many rooms. Its grandness made her feel like she was a visiting guest. It would embarrass her to ever say she had a drawing room and a library with a proper rolling library ladder for the wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling built-in bookcases. She’d only got as far as dusting the old books, but they’d all seemed very highbrow in blocks of different colour denoting different collections. She still expected to wake up and find she had been living in a dream house.
To be told they were moving somewhere new had come as a complete shock and not how she’d imagined starting married life. She assumed that they would live at his flat in London on the doorstep of St Mary’s Hospital where they both worked. But in the blink of an eye her old job was gone, as he’d got a new one in the city of Bath. Two weeks after their honeymoon they moved. She’d been alarmed at the idea of leaving the familiar for somewhere she’d only heard of, resisted being swept up in the vortex of his excitement for living somewhere new.
