The Affair_A gripping psychological thriller with a shocking twist

by Sheryl Browne

  SORRY FOR YOUR LOSS

  Justin tried to breathe, but he couldn’t pull air past the fury lodged like acid in his chest. ‘Bastard,’ he seethed, trying and failing to obliterate the image of the smashed mirror in the house of his parents from his mind. ‘Bastard!’ Slamming his fist into the glass, ignoring the cut from the sharp shard that sliced through his flesh, he turned away, heading for the landing. His anger simmering steadily inside him, he went up to check the third floor.

  Having scoured the whole house, including the bathrooms, and checked every window on the basis that the scum who’d broken in might just get it into their fetid minds to come back, he went back into Sophie’s room and sank heavily onto the bed.

  They’d refurbished this room together, he recalled obliquely, he and Alicia. Sophie hadn’t wanted prissy pink walls and florals, she’d said. She’d wanted grungy, whatever that meant. Street art style, an industrial theme, Alicia had knowledgeably informed him. He’d come into his own on the DIY front, putting the metal bedframe and wire storage lockers together. And then he’d put his foot in the paint tray, which had had Alicia in hysterics, coaxing the scowl from his face and making him laugh at his own ineptitude. She had a knack for doing that. They’d fallen into bed exhausted that night, taken time to make unhurried love together, despite their exhaustion, falling asleep with bodies and limbs entwined. Had it been less satisfying for her than for him? Had he been inadequate in some way? Had he always been?

  His mind went back sixteen years, to the day he’d asked her about the girlfriend she’d supposedly been staying with. She’d stayed three, maybe four times. She hadn’t been well after the first time she’d stayed over. A hangover, she’d said, and maybe a bug of some sort. She’d also been subdued. He remembered that well. That was when the doubts had first surfaced. She’d originally said they were going out. Then she’d said they’d stayed home, preferring girl-talk and a film. He’d asked her what on earth they found to talk about. ‘This and that,’ she’d said vaguely. He’d asked her what film they’d watched. She’d looked panicked for a second, before she’d come up with a title. It was a film he and she had already seen together. It was nothing, he’d told himself. She’d clearly drunk enough to make her recollection hazy. Yet, there was something: her body language had been tense. He’d noticed the slight flush to her cheeks, as she’d turned away from him. He’d found himself watching her and, far from the evasive behaviour he’d expected, he’d found her looking back at him, her eyes wide and uncertain, locked right on his. He’d wondered whether it was because she was uncertain about him, his commitment to a marriage he’d been emotionally absent from.

  He should have paid closer attention to his instincts. Maybe then, he wouldn’t be sitting here now, watching his life fall apart. Everything, piece by piece, was disintegrating around him and he had no way to stop it. No one to turn to.

  Staying where he was, trying to get a grip, he counted the words repeated on the graffiti-print wallpaper, starting with one strip, reading to the top, and then travelling down the next. His gaze snagged on a notebook lying on the floor, and Justin stopped counting and reached for it.

  Idly, he flicked it open, his eyes immediately falling on a poem written in Sophie’s neat handwriting, and his breath hitched painfully in his chest.

  I say I’m fine, but I’m crying inside.

  I daren’t let you see, the tears that I hide.

  I’m hurting.

  It’s like he didn’t exist.

  Why can’t you talk about him?

  Tell him how much he is missed.

  * * *

  They say time will heal pain.

  But time can’t bring you back again.

  I’m hurting.

  Truly, how I feel is heartbroken,

  For your short life stolen.

  The words left unspoken.

  * * *

  I miss you, Luke.

  We all do.

  Stay safe with the angels, sweetheart.

  Until I find you.

  Pressing a thumb and forefinger to his eyes, Justin gulped hard. She would be devastated by this. Already broken-hearted at the loss of her brother, Sophie would feel that everything that defined who she was, everything dear to her, had been stolen away from her. She might never recover emotionally. If she couldn’t trust her own mother, her own father – if he wasn’t honest with her, she might never trust anyone again. How would he tell her? How the hell was he going to talk to Alicia? What would he do if she said she was leaving? Would he beg her to stay?

  No. Justin dragged an arm across his eyes and got to his feet. He wasn’t going to do that. An affair he might have forgiven, given his own erratic behaviour. But the deceit, the lies she must have told since – he could never forgive that. How could he live with someone who couldn’t possibly have loved him? Alongside the knowledge that Sophie might not be his daughter, that’s what hurt most of all: realising that she probably never had.

  Ignoring the rich droplets of blood on the carpet, which were his own, Justin made his way back to the hall. He was halfway down the stairs when he stopped, noting a darkly dressed figure approaching, visible through the opaque glass in the front door.

  Twenty

  ALICIA

  All sorts of scenarios having raced through Alicia’s mind when she’d received Justin’s text, her first terrifying thought that something might have happened to Sophie, she’d accepted Paul Radley’s offer of a lift home. Once on the way, she’d debated the wisdom of arriving with him, but her first instinct had been to get here as soon as she could.

  Arriving at the house, she fumbled her key into the lock and almost fell through the front door. Relief sweeping through her when she saw Justin standing on the stairs, she took a step towards him. ‘Justin? What’s—’ Oh God! He’d been injured. Her heart lurching against her ribcage, Alicia flew towards him. And then she stopped uncertainly.

  His face white, his expression inscrutable, Justin didn’t move. He simply looked at her as if she were a stranger, and Alicia’s heart, already heavy with guilt and unbearable sorrow, plummeted like a lead weight in her chest.

  ‘Justin, you’re hurt.’ Her gaze dropped to the spatters of blood on his shirt, then back to his face.

  ‘I’m fine.’ Justin scanned her eyes, his own thunderously dark, and then looked past her, his expression hardening.

  ‘Sorry,’ Paul Radley said from behind Alicia. ‘I wouldn’t have come in, but I saw the door was open. You dropped your phone in the car, Alicia.’

  Oh no. Alicia felt her stomach turn over. She’d asked him to let her out of the car away from the house. He must have known why she had. And now he was walking into the hall as bold as brass. Why would he do that?

  ‘Paul gave me a lift to the reception.’ She fumbled hopelessly for an explanation. ‘He came to the funeral and when I got your—’

  ‘Right. Well, now he’s played the hero, Paul can just fuck off again, can’t he?’ Justin cut in angrily, his gaze fixed stonily on Paul’s.

  Cold fear pierced through Alicia like a knife. ‘He offered me a lift, Justin,’ she said, falteringly, willing God to strike her down dead if it saved her husband any more hurt. ‘Jess brought Sophie back and I didn’t have any transport, so—’

  ‘Drives a taxi then, does he?’ Justin interrupted bitterly.

  ‘No, I…’ Alicia shook her head, confused and, above all, frightened. He was bleeding. She needed to know why. She needed to know what had happened. ‘Justin, please, the text. ‘You said it was urgent. Please tell me what’s happened. Where’s Sophie?’

  Justin’s eyes flicked to hers. ‘She’s fine, I think,’ he said, emphasis on the ‘think’. ‘She’s with Jessica.’

  Thank God. Alicia closed her eyes.

  Looking between her and Paul, Justin finally came down the stairs. ‘We’ve been broken into,’ he said bluntly, causing Alicia’s world to shift further off-kilter.

  ‘Broken into?’ She stared at him, shocke
d. ‘But… how? When?’ Not last night. They would have noticed. As devastated as they had all been this morning, they would have noticed a break-in.

  ‘Today,’ Justin supplied, glancing away. ‘The police are on their way.’ He looked back to her. ‘I suspect Paul, who has an uncanny knack for turning up uninvited, might be better off out of the way, if you don’t mind my suggesting.’

  His gaze travelled pointedly back to him.

  Paul nodded understandingly. ‘Of course. My timing couldn’t have been worse, could it? This is unbelievable, when you already have so much to contend with. Please accept my sincere condolences. This must be a very difficult time for you both.’

  ‘It is,’ Justin assured him.

  Someone had broken in while they were at the funeral? While they were burying their child! Alicia felt anger unfurl inside her. The absolute bastards! ‘Have they touched anything?’ she asked, her blood running cold as she imagined the things they might have touched, desecrated, stolen. Memories broken. Her children’s things. Her baby’s. Please… not her baby’s. She swallowed back a jagged knot in her throat. ‘Have they taken anything?’

  His hostility seeming to wane, Justin turned his attention to her, focussing on her at last. ‘I’m not sure. I’ve looked, but—’

  ‘Have they been in the nursery?’ Feeling sick now to her very soul, Alicia stepped shakily towards the stairs.

  ‘Alicia, wait.’ Catching her shoulders, Justin stopped her. ‘You need to wait, Alicia. The police said not to go into any of the upstairs rooms. They said not to touch anything.’

  Alicia wavered, every one of her emotions colliding. This was her punishment. She’d lost her dear precious child, but she would not let the lowlife who’d done this sully her baby’s memories. She prayed his tiny space hadn’t been invaded. It still smelled of him. Her baby!

  Clamping a hand to her mouth, she pushed past him. She had to see. She had to know.

  ‘Alicia!’ Justin was right behind her as she stumbled up the stairs.

  Finding the nursery untouched, Alicia gave way to the sobs climbing her throat, and thanked God for this one small mercy. Her next thought of her daughter, she squeezed past Justin to Sophie’s room.

  Seeing nothing obviously missing or touched, she allowed herself to breathe out, and turned to go to the main bedroom.

  Close behind her, Justin caught her arm as she neared the door. ‘You shouldn’t go in there, Alicia,’ he said quietly, his eyes now holding a warning.

  There was something he didn’t want her to see. Something he knew would upset her. She searched his face. There was no anger there now, just heartbreaking bewilderment and so much pain. Concern also, for her. Guilt consuming her, Alicia dropped her gaze. ‘I need to, Justin,’ she said. ‘I have to know.’

  Once inside the door, she stopped dead. Studying the mirror in disbelief, reading the cruel message left there, realising it was Justin’s blood at the smashed centre of it, that her husband would be suffering because of it, because of her, Alicia felt her heart falter.

  It wasn’t whoever had broken into their house who’d sullied their memories.

  It was her.

  Twenty-One

  JUSTIN

  It had taken every ounce of Justin’s willpower to control himself when Alicia had come home with the man who might well be Sophie’s father. Now he was restraining himself from asking her to stay, instead of going to her sister’s and leaving things hanging between them. But then, knowing what he now did, Justin guessed it was him, rather than a houseful of tainted memories, she might prefer to be away from.

  He supposed he should be grateful, given the lack of police resources, that the detective in charge of the hit-and-run case had turned up personally. They were giving the break-in some priority, but the scene of crime officers seemed to be taking their sweet time trying to establish whether they might have any forensic evidence to go on, meaning Alicia would most likely take up Radley’s offer of a lift to her sister’s. How ironic that when Justin had asked him to leave, wanting the bastard out of his house and away from his wife, the police had requested he wait around – to eliminate any fingerprints he might have left, they’d said.

  He’d gleaned from Radley’s expression that he’d been more than happy to oblige, eager to hang around Alicia. Was he getting some perverse kick out of it, humiliating the man whose wife he was having a seedy affair with? Justin glanced contemptuously to where he stood in the middle of his lounge, looking at him as if he were weighing him up. Prat. Justin sucked in a terse breath and turned his attention to Detective Inspector Taylor, willing him to hurry it up.

  ‘What about the writing?’ Alicia asked him, as DI Taylor scribbled in his notebook.

  ‘We might have been able to get a handwriting analyst on it. Unfortunately, now the mirror’s smashed and spattered with blood…’ Shrugging hopelessly, Taylor looked regretfully towards Justin.

  Justin glanced down. It had been a kneejerk reaction. Probably the only one who would understand why he’d reacted that way was Alicia, because she knew the circumstances under which he’d found his family.

  ‘So, it’s just the items you mentioned that you think are missing?’ Taylor double-checked, referring to his notes. ‘One half-carat diamond ring; one ladies’ Radley watch; one ladies’ nine-carat gold bar-and-chain bracelet; and one yellow gold locket, enhanced with a white gold floral motif?’

  Alicia nodded. ‘I’m not sure about Sophie’s things. I’ll have to speak to her,’ she said, sounding and looking more exhausted than Justin had ever seen her. ‘The locket,’ she added, as Taylor closed his notebook, ‘it has photographs of my children in it. The one of Lucas was the last one we’d taken of him.’

  Hearing the heartbreak in her voice, watching the tears slide slowly down her cheeks, Justin choked back his own emotion. He had the photo of Luke on his phone, but it was the significance of it being stolen on the day of his funeral that was breaking her heart. He was halfway towards her when Mr Magnanimous himself beat him to it. ‘I’ll take you to Jessica’s, when you’re ready,’ Radley said, smiling sympathetically.

  Alicia looked up at him, and then got to her feet.

  And Justin felt her slip away from him another inch.

  ‘No,’ she said, taking him by surprise. ‘It’s kind of you to offer, but I think I’d rather take a taxi.’

  Radley also looked surprised, Justin noted, or possibly slightly irritated. ‘Oh,’ he said, his smile now on the tight side. ‘Are you sure? It’s no trouble.’

  ‘Positive,’ Alicia said, nodding adamantly. ‘I have some things I need to do. You might as well get off.’

  She wasn’t looking at him, Justin noticed, but Radley was looking at her, definitely perturbed. The man was obviously a cocksure son of a bitch who wasn’t used to being turned down.

  ‘I’ll show you out,’ Justin said, pushing his hands in his pockets and nodding towards the front door. He would quite like to physically escort him out, but he guessed that wouldn’t be a smart move with police in the house.

  Closing the front door behind him, having declined to shake the hand the bastard had the gall to offer him, Justin took a second and then went back to the lounge.

  Finishing her call, to a taxi company, it sounded like, Alicia wrapped her arms about herself in that way she’d adopted. She looked cold, haunted, alone with her grief.

  She shouldn’t be on her own, not now. He had to stay here until the forensics officers had finished their business, but… ‘Why don’t you call Jessica?’ he suggested. ‘She won’t mind coming to fetch you.’

  Alicia shook her head. ‘I’d rather she didn’t leave Sophie. And I don’t want Sophie coming with her and seeing police here.’

  Justin understood. Sophie would have to know, but they could break this news to her gently, he supposed. There would be no way to soften the blow regarding her parentage.

  Swallowing back his anger, which would serve no purpose right now, he walked across to Alicia.
Whatever was happening between them, she needed not to feel the kind of emptiness he knew she would be feeling. The kind of desolate loneliness that would drive her further into herself. He’d been there. He might not have surfaced, if not for her. If he wasn’t misreading things here, which clearly spelled out that three was a crowd – and he didn’t think he was – then maybe he should be the one to bow out.

  Not gracefully though. He would fight for Sophie. Though he felt jaded to his very bones, he would never give up on his daughter. Never. As long as she needed him, he would be there. And if one day she didn’t… Justin quashed a stab of anguish in his chest. He would cross that bridge when he got there.

  Alicia didn’t relax into him as he eased her into his arms. She didn’t tense, though. Justin didn’t read too much into that, but he was taken aback when she rested her head lightly on his shoulder, staying like that for a second, before looking up at him, her eyes awash with such raw emotion that it tore him apart. ‘Will you ring me?’ she asked him, her voice small and defeated. ‘If you hear anything?’

  Feeling a sharp lump slide down his throat, Justin nodded. ‘I will, I promise,’ he said hoarsely, and pressed his forehead lightly to hers.

  Twenty-Two

  SOPHIE

  Sophie hesitated, her thumb hovering over her phone when she saw it was her dad calling. But she couldn’t call him Dad any more, could she?

  Was he ringing to break the news, say, Hey, how’re you doing? Oh, by the way, I’m not your father? He could hardly just leave it, could he, now he’d finally found out something that was basically a life changer?

  Her heart missed a beat at the thought that he would want to change his life – but he’d have to, wouldn’t he? It’s not like he’d want to stay with a woman who’d turned out to be a cheating, lying bitch.