Mine

by J. L. Butler

  The fire services came first and then the paramedics, who had to come from Colchester.

  I could barely speak to any of them and let Martin take control, not even wanting to watch or listen. Instead I found a quiet corner of the house and hugged my knees close to my chest, the sound of the sirens and their blue lights melting away into the darkness, as Sophie was taken off to hospital and the fire team realized that they had nothing left to do.

  A voice on the breeze reached me, yelling that the causeway was flooded and it would be another hour before traffic could get through, although Inspector Doyle from Belgravia police station had been notified and was already on his way.

  ‘How are you doing, love?’ A female police officer came into the room and put a blanket over my shoulders. ‘Is there a kettle anywhere?’

  ‘No. You won’t find one here,’ I said.

  She looked at me, as if she was wondering what sort of life I lived here in Dorsea House. No doubt she imagined me as a mad Miss Havisham, and certainly I felt a mental fragility in common with one of Dickens’s most famous characters.

  ‘By the way, I think a friend of yours is here to see you.’ When I looked up, Tom was hovering in the doorframe.

  I struggled to my feet and let him wrap his arms around me.

  ‘You made it,’ I said into his shoulder.

  ‘Just made it over the causeway. Better late than never.’

  ‘Well, you missed all the action.’

  He didn’t find it funny.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Fran.’

  ‘I didn’t need you,’ I replied.

  ‘No, you never did.’

  He meant it as a compliment, and I allowed myself to smile back gratefully.

  ‘I heard people talking,’ he said. ‘Apparently Sophie Cole is alive. They’re amazed she survived the fall.’

  I nodded, not sure I would ever be able to forget the sight of her lying on the concrete, like a puppet with its strings cut.

  ‘Sophie is one of life’s survivors. She’s fit, strong. I’m sure she’ll live.’

  ‘I should go. I think Martin wants to talk to you.’

  ‘Just stay for a bit longer,’ I said, not sure how I felt about being alone with Martin.

  ‘I was wrong about him,’ said Tom after a second. ‘I was sure he was the one who killed Donna. I apologize. I should have trusted your judgement.’

  ‘No, I was wrong about him too,’ I said, more to myself than to my friend.

  ‘Tell him I’ll meet him outside,’ I said after a moment.

  I was ignored by everyone as I shuffled on to the drive, the blanket around my shoulders trailing along the gravel. I knew that someone would want to interview me eventually, but I was a bit-part player now. There was a bench on the front lawn under a beech tree and I perched on its edge as I watched Martin follow me outside.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said as he sat down beside me. ‘Thank you for being there.’

  He didn’t reply, just reached out a hand and squeezed my shoulder.

  ‘How did you know to follow Sophie?’ I asked. I was trying to piece it together, but my head felt too foggy.

  ‘Because I know how smart you are. When you called me and told me that you were at Dorsea and you had the necklace, I knew that you were testing me, goading me to come to the house. But I thought, I hoped, you’d have done it to Alex too. And I was right. My only surprise was that it was Sophie who left the house to come and find you, not Alex.’

  ‘So they were in this together?’ I said slowly.

  Martin put his cold hand over mine. ‘I don’t know. I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough.’

  He paused before he spoke again.

  ‘I can’t believe Sophie would do this. You think you know people . . .’ he said quietly.

  I looked up and saw that he was crying.

  ‘Don’t, it’s over,’ I said softly.

  ‘I just wonder what they did with her. What they did to Donna,’ he said, blinking away his tears.

  I slipped my arm through his awkwardly.

  I felt as if I was sitting next to a stranger, but I didn’t want to see him like this.

  ‘We need to find her body,’ said Martin, composing himself. ‘She’d like a big funeral. Donna loved people. We’ll get everybody there. She’d like that.’

  I felt tears well in my own eyes. So much so that it was difficult to focus on what was in front of me. I wiped my face with the back of my hand as I heard the sound of feet crunching across the pea-shingle. I looked up and saw a uniformed policeman, one with an air of command about him.

  ‘Mr Joy?’ he said, looking unsure.

  Martin nodded.

  ‘Inspector Bannister, Colchester force. Inspector Doyle from the Met is on the way, but I thought you should know this before he comes . . . One of my colleagues is with Sophie Cole at the hospital. They’ve managed to have a short conversation with her . . . Obviously, we’ve not been able to confirm this yet, but she’s telling us that your wife, Donna Joy, is still alive.’

  Chapter 47

  I woke up alone in the oyster shed to the sound of a gull cawing and wheeling overhead. The stars had dissolved and the night sky had paled. The sun was beginning to rise across the estuary, its pinkish rays making long metallic ribbons across the water, the bleak beauty of the landscape replaced by something almost pretty.

  It was a moment before I realized that it had been the sound of knocking that had actually woken me up.

  Inspector Doyle stood at the door of the shed. ‘Someone said you’d come out here to get some sleep.’

  ‘I was almost delirious. I just needed a rest.’

  ‘How are you feeling?’ he asked, coming inside and sitting on a rickety chair.

  ‘Felt better,’ I replied, noticing my dry throat.

  ‘Where’s Martin?’

  ‘Still at the house.’

  I looked at him expectantly. ‘Have you spoken to Sophie Cole yet?’

  ‘My colleagues have. From what I can gather, she’s got a broken back, legs, ribs. We’re waiting on a full evaluation but she’ll probably have to stay in hospital for a few days before being transferred somewhere else.’

  ‘Has she been charged?’

  He nodded. ‘Intent to commit grievous bodily harm. And for perversion of the course of justice.’

  I was disappointed. I knew that Sophie had wanted to kill me. The charge didn’t seem to fit the crime.

  ‘What about Donna?’ I said, sitting up. ‘Have you found her yet?’

  Doyle paused before he spoke.

  ‘Apparently she’s in France. Sophie Cole has given us an address. A couple of my officers are on their way to check it out.’

  ‘France? What’s she doing there?’

  Fragments of memory came back to me. Phil watching Donna go through international departures at the Eurostar terminal, Martin buying his grandparents a farmhouse in the Loire.

  ‘Hiding out,’ said Doyle simply.

  I shook my head to indicate that Doyle was going to have to explain further.

  ‘Donna Joy staged her own disappearance. Donna and Sophie. They were in it together.’

  I paused to take it in. Imagined what was going on behind the scenes. Was Sophie Cole already trying to plea bargain, pushing blame onto her missing friend?

  ‘She wasn’t abducted?’

  Doyle shook his head.

  ‘We’re not sure why they did it, yet. Hazarding a guess, I’d say they wanted to frame Martin to make some fraudulent claim on the business.’

  I nodded. ‘That was what Martin thought. There’s a clause in his partnership agreement that if Martin brings the business into disrepute, Alex Cole can acquire his shareholding.’

  I sat up higher against the day-bed but immediately felt dizzy and brought a palm to my forehead.

  ‘Are you all right?’ said Doyle with a look of concern.

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘You should go and get yourself checked out at the hospi
tal. I obviously need to take a statement from you, but that shouldn’t take long. Then I can give you a lift into Colchester. I have to go back to the hospital too.’

  He hesitated.

  ‘I’m sorry you had to go through this, Fran. You should have left it to us. What you did was bloody dangerous.’

  ‘I know,’ I said, still feeling shaken. ‘But when you’re desperate, you’ll do anything to try and put things right.’

  ‘I assume that’s why you lied to us.’

  I tried to read his tone but couldn’t tell if his remark was support or criticism.

  ‘I knew how bad it looked, following Martin and Donna that night. That’s why I told Sergeant Collins that I went straight home after I went to Donna’s studio. I was wrong, but I was scared.’

  My heart was beating fast. I knew where all this could end; being charged with an attempt to pervert the course of justice, disbarment from my profession.

  ‘Just don’t get into any more trouble,’ he said with the comforting ghost of a smile, and I felt my whole body relax.

  Chapter 48

  Martin came with me to the hospital but I didn’t want him to be there. Donna was alive but my relationship with her husband felt dead.

  He waited with me in A&E. I was a priority case, apparently, speeded through on a nod from the police, but still it took two hours to be seen and treated. I was given a chest X-ray and some paracetamol for my headache.

  ‘Let’s get back to London,’ said Martin, settling an arm across my shoulder. ‘Finally we can go back to the loft.’

  ‘I think I should go home,’ I said carefully.

  ‘We’ve had some resolution tonight, Fran. But it doesn’t change the fact that Pete Carroll is dangerous. For a minute I thought he might have had something to do with Donna’s disappearance. I thought he might be so in love with you, he was willing to kill Donna and frame me to get me out of the picture.’

  ‘If you ever get bored of finance, you should consider a career in writing fiction,’ I smiled, wanting to shake him off.

  He looked at me and put both hands on my shoulders. ‘Move into the loft. Maybe not now, this week, this month. Perhaps we should wait until all this is over and we can get on with our lives and start afresh. But I can’t wait to live with you.’

  I couldn’t deny that he was beautiful. That his green eyes were the most extraordinary colour, that he had the most muscular and tanned forearms that were the very definition of manliness. Living in a multimillion-pound warehouse conversion with Martin Joy, having incredible sex on tap, and a lifestyle that was straight out of a movie would be a dream for thousands of women. But not me, not any more.

  His eyes narrowed, as if he’d felt my rejection.

  ‘You don’t believe any of those rumours, do you? That I hit Donna.’

  I didn’t say anything.

  ‘Fran, it’s bullshit. Donna set me up. The whole thing was lies.’

  ‘I believe that,’ I said quietly, although I still couldn’t shake the thought of his bullying in the workplace. He had never denied that.

  I pulled away and put my hand on his shirt.

  ‘I need the bathroom. Then I want to find a coffee. Do you want one?’

  ‘Sure,’ he said distractedly. ‘I’ll wait here.’

  I walked down the corridor until I came to the coloured, annotated map on one of the walls, directing people towards cardiology, outpatients and the eye clinic; every department, every ward was listed as I looked to see where I was going.

  I’d heard Inspector Doyle on the phone, heard where he had to go to see Sophie Cole, and I followed the map to get there.

  At some point, I affected a limp – I always said I had potential as an undercover spy – and no one stopped me as I made my way towards the private room where Sophie was recovering.

  I didn’t need to see two plain-clothes policemen talking at the door to know which room Sophie Cole was in. I hung back and watched as one cop glanced at his watch and disappeared down the corridor to speak to a nurse. When the second cop took a call, walking towards the window to get a better signal, I knew it was my chance.

  She looked like a ghost lying on the thin bed.

  Her back and both legs had been broken. She was attached to a drip. One arm was in a cast, both legs were cased in pins and rods, but Martin had already told me that the doctors were not sure if she would ever walk again.

  Her bed was slightly raised so that she could look around the room. She moved her neck slowly. I wondered if it hurt her.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked in a small voice.

  ‘I wanted to see you.’

  She looked as if she was about to point out that I shouldn’t be here, but as if it was too exhausting to bring it up, she looked away.

  ‘Why did you do it, Sophie?’

  I waited for a reply but she remained silent.

  ‘You have to tell me. You owe me that. You and Alex have everything. Was it not enough?’

  ‘Alex had nothing to do with this.’ It was said with an almost undetectable note of regret.

  ‘Then why?’ I whispered, taking a step closer to the bed.

  The silence almost swallowed the room.

  ‘The value of the Gassler Partnership is its algorithmic model,’ she said finally, a dribble of saliva sliding down her chin. ‘All their technology was built around a system I created. It was my idea.’

  ‘You weren’t a computer scientist.’

  ‘No. But I pulled all the strings. I found them the best quants, the best computer and data scientists, I set it up. But my name wasn’t above the door or on the letterhead. There were no shares in my name, no credit from the industry. No credit from Martin or Alex. They’d pushed me out.’

  I watched her eyes trail out of the smoked-glass window as if she were collecting her thoughts, no doubt wondering how she would do things differently if she had her time all over again.

  ‘Have you any idea what it’s like being married to men like Martin and Alex?’ she said, looking me in the eye now. ‘Men obsessed with money and status, men consumed with ego and their own sense of self-importance. Right now, you’re only seeing the good stuff,’ she said, trying to smile like a benevolent old sage. Instead her expression looked pained and cracked.

  ‘You’re impressed with their confidence, their easy charm, the baubles they bring you, the clothes and the handbags. They use those things to reel you in. Then they trap you and control you.’

  I knew she was struggling to breathe but I was desperate to hear it all.

  ‘You make excuses for them for a long time, and then you can’t stand it any more, but they bring in the clever lawyers – people like yourself – to screw you.’

  ‘So this was about money,’ I said slowly. ‘Donna would have got an eight-figure settlement. Was it not enough? It would have been more money than she could have spent in a lifetime.’

  ‘It was easy to persuade Donna it wasn’t enough,’ she said, with a whisper of triumph.

  Her voice was getting weaker. I moved as close to the bed as I could. Close enough to see her bloodshot eyes and hear her shallow breaths.

  ‘Alex was having an affair. Not with Donna. With some bimbo at work. He’s so stupid, he had no idea that I knew,’ she said, not looking me in the eye.

  ‘I could see how it was all going to pan out,’ she continued. ‘The algorithm was being constantly upgraded by the team I had put in place. It was getting better all the time. But I knew that the more profitable and valuable the business became, the more I would get slowly squeezed out of my marriage, replaced by some tart who contributed nothing but flattery and sex. So I decided to do something about it.’

  She gazed out of the window as if she were remembering how it all happened.

  ‘Donna had wanted to leave Martin for years. She never really loved him but she loved the lifestyle, which was why she stayed with him for so long. I never thought Martin would have the balls to file for divorce but when he sai
d their marriage was over after Donna’s New York trip, I knew it was time to put the wheels in motion. I told Donna to file for divorce first. Found her a great divorce lawyer. ‘The Piranha’. But I knew Martin would find a great lawyer too. I knew he wouldn’t give up half of everything he’d worked for without a fight. And when it started to look like Donna might not get 50 per cent, I reminded her how unjust that was. I told her there was another way.’

  She was fading fast, too weak to talk. I helped her fill in the gaps, speaking out loud as I tried to work out her plan.

  ‘So you staged her disappearance. You knew that Martin would be the only suspect, you knew how to take advantage of the morality clause in the partnership agreement.’

  ‘Donna did her bit, composed some diary entries about Martin’s nasty temper and started buttering her sister up. Told her a few stories about domestic violence – that wasn’t difficult to believe. She went to her sister’s house – took her passport. Poor cow never went anywhere, obviously never noticed it had gone.’

  Sophie paused to catch another breath. ‘The week of the FDR she invited Martin to her house. He still couldn’t resist her. They had sex. She asked him to leave.’

  ‘And you picked her up.’

  ‘I’d arranged to go out with Alex that night. I had to sort his alibi out, just in case. We got home. I put a Zopiclone in his drink, and picked a fight with the intention of sleeping in the guest room. When Alex was out cold, I collected Donna and drove out of London. I’d arranged for someone to get her on a ferry to France, under the radar. Jemma’s passport was too risky to use at this point. By the next morning she was in France. She was to stay just outside Paris until I could get her somewhere further out. She wanted to go to Bali. She liked it there. It wasn’t hard to sell her the idea of a couple of years in the sun.’

  ‘And then what?’ I said, not believing the audaciousness of the two women.