The Affair_A gripping psychological thriller with a shocking twist

by Sheryl Browne

  Not Sophie.

  He couldn’t lose her. Wouldn’t.

  Leaving the message as it was, he hit send and quickly selected Sophie’s mobile for the umpteenth time since he’d left home. His heart hitching, he slowed as the call began to ring, his gaze shooting towards a coffee shop ahead of him. Her ringtone: Adele. The tune that rang constantly around the house. It had to be hers. She was there, somewhere.

  Shit! He ground to a halt as the phone stopped ringing. She was here. He could sense her. But where? Dragging a hand through his hair, his desperation mounting, he scoured the seated crowd – and his heart almost stopped pumping.

  Looking every bit as vulnerable and lonely as he knew she must be feeling, Sophie was sitting on the far side of the coffee shop.

  Dammit. He cursed silently as a group of kids scraped their chairs back, simultaneously rising from a table directly in front of him.

  His gaze fixed on Sophie, Justin mumbled an apology and squeezed past them, and then faltered as she turned to him with a look of alarm. A feeling of sick trepidation clenched his stomach.

  ‘Sophie,’ he said, making sure to keep his tone calm.

  Time seemed to freeze for one agonising second as she locked eyes with him, and then, as Justin took another tentative step towards her, Sophie shot to her feet, grappling her overnight bag from the back of her chair and almost stumbling over a table as she backed away. Backed away from him.

  ‘Sophie, wait! Please,’ he called desperately, as she turned away. ‘Sophie!’

  ‘No!’ Sophie whirled back around, her expression now one of near hatred, which shook Justin to the core. ‘Go away! Leave me alone!’

  ‘Sophie…’ Bewildered, Justin took another hesitant step. ‘Please. Don’t do this,’ he begged. ‘Come back. We’ll talk, just you and me. We’ll sit down and—’

  ‘No!’ Sophie dragged her hair from her face and glared furiously at him. ‘I’m not going anywhere with you. Why the hell should I?’

  ‘Because I’m telling you to!’ Justin snapped, his frustration, coupled with gut-wrenching fear, spilling over. If she took off now, he’d have absolutely no idea where she was. And the way she was feeling… He couldn’t allow that. ‘Come back here now!’

  ‘Fuck off! You’ve no right! I don’t want to!’ Sophie shouted tearfully. ‘I don’t want to be anywhere near you. Don’t you get it? I just want you to go away and leave me alone!’

  Justin felt the ground shift beneath him. He wanted to go to her, hold her, let her scream, kick him, punch him, if that would help. Anything. ‘I’m your father, Sophie,’ he tried, his voice catching. ‘I’ll always—’

  ‘You’re not!’ Rage now emanated palpably from her. Justin could feel it, like an icicle through his heart. Rage, hate, hurt – all directed right at him. ‘You’re a liar! Both of you! Liars!’

  Uncertain what to do; go forward or back off, Justin watched helplessly as two concerned women stepped towards her, one placing an arm around Sophie’s shoulders, drawing her further back, further away from him.

  ‘He’s not my father. He’s not.’ Gulping back a sob, Sophie addressed the women, and then, seeing Justin step towards her, wrenched herself away from them.

  His blood turning to ice in his veins as she turned to flee, Justin moved fast, almost colliding with the women as he raced after her, only to find two security guards blocking his path.

  ‘I wouldn’t if I were you, mate,’ one of them said, the menacing look in his eyes telling Justin he wasn’t about to let him get past.

  ‘She’s my daughter,’ he said, holding the man’s gaze, praying he would see the desperation in his eyes.

  ‘Yeah, and he’s mine,’ the man quipped drolly, nodding towards his sidekick. ‘Back off, mate,’ he warned him. ‘The police are on their way.’

  The police? Given how efficient he’d found them so far in finding any link that might lead to who killed his son, Justin might have laughed, had he not felt like crying. ‘She’s upset,’ he attempted to explain, tried hard to hold on to his temper. ‘I need to go to her.’

  Fuck this, he thought, as the two men stood their ground, like immovable mountains. Arms folded, feet splayed in a Neanderthal display of aggression, it was clear they weren’t going to let him go anywhere. Determined to get past them any way he had to, Justin’s attempt to push through was cut short by someone grabbing him from behind, seizing his arm and twisting it high up his back.

  Christ. ‘Sophie!’ Ignoring the pain ripping through his bicep as his arm was pushed impossibly higher, Justin struggled to stay upright.

  ‘Sophie!’ He screamed it, his heart splintering as, brought heavily to his knees, he watched his daughter disappear into the crowd.

  Twenty-Eight

  SOPHIE

  Choking back her tears, Sophie kept going. What had she done? She’d wanted to hurt him. She’d wanted to hurt them both as much as she could, but not like this. She should have stopped those security guards. Instead, she’d made them think he was a bloody paedophile.

  Oh God, she hadn’t meant to do that. Pausing to catch her breath outside the shopping centre, Sophie squeezed her eyes closed, seeing again the hurt and confusion on Justin’s face. They’d forced him to the floor. Held him down like the worst kind of criminal. And he’d done nothing. He might be ready to walk away from the nightmare his life had become, from the deceit and the lies her mother had fed him – she could hardly blame him for that – but he’d always loved her as a dad should love a daughter. He couldn’t feel that way any more, that was clear to Sophie, but she couldn’t stop loving him as a father so easily. Part of her, the biggest part of her, would always love him, yet there was another part of her that hated him for being naive enough to allow himself to be deceived. It didn’t matter much now though, did it? She would never see him again. She didn’t want to. Hearing him say out loud that he’d lost his daughter, listening to his lies, his invented reasons – work conferences, whatever – to extract himself from her life now Luke was no longer part of his, that would have been too much to bear.

  Suppressing a sob, she wiped the back of her hand shakily under her nose and tried to think about what her next move should be. Where she could go. Chloe had obviously told Justin where she was. Realistically, she couldn’t have gone there in any case. Chloe’s mum would have been on the phone in a flash.

  Holly! She’d moved away when her parents had decided to run a caravan park in Herefordshire somewhere. Sophie wasn’t sure where, exactly. Holly had been a good mate, though. She might be able to crash there for a few nights, until she got her head around what to do. Holly might even be able to sneak her into one of the caravans, which would buy her some time. She’d be sixteen soon. She could get a job then. An office temp job or something in a shop, maybe. Anything. Stacking shelves in the supermarket would do until she’d secured some accommodation – a single room somewhere or even a bedsit. Then she might be able to apply for a student loan to cover her fees and living costs while she went to veterinary school, which is what she wanted to do.

  It was a plan, at least. She didn’t need them – treating her like a child one minute and then like she wasn’t even a person the next, like she didn’t have feelings. Knowing her mum, she’d probably flipped a coin: heads, an abortion; tails, she passes her off as Justin’s and crosses her fingers. Pity she hadn’t kept her bloody legs crossed, Sophie thought furiously. What am I supposed to do with this, Justin had said. What had he thought she was going to do?

  Scrolling through her contacts, she found Holly’s number and rang her. She couldn’t go over there tonight, as Holly was out with her family celebrating her brother’s birthday, but, after a quick catch up, she arranged to meet up with her in the morning, which left her with nothing to do but wait around. She could kill a few hours at the train station, she supposed, where she wouldn’t look too conspicuous; check out the train times and then download something to read on her phone.

  * * *

  She was sittin
g in Starbucks at the station, wondering whether she could get away with hiding in the loos for the night, when her phone beeped an incoming text alert. From her bitch mum or her dad, she presumed, wavering for a second when she thought it might be him, and then steeling herself to ignore him if it was. She felt bad about what had happened at the shopping centre – none of this was his fault, after all – but he’d been pretty quick to announce he didn’t have a daughter when he’d learned Alicia’s secret, hadn’t he? Warily, Sophie checked the number – one she didn’t recognise.

  Hi, Sophie, hope you don’t mind me contacting you. I would like to have got in touch sooner, but Alicia begged me not to. I realise this all might be a bit overwhelming for you, but could we talk, possibly? I’d love to hear from you, if you’d like to. All best, Paul Radley, your father.

  Stunned, Sophie stared at it, and then knitted her brow. How the bloody hell had he got her number? And why the contact now?

  Thinking it might be some kind of scam, Sophie hesitated for a second, and then dismissed the idea. Given the content, it couldn’t be anything other than genuine. Fiddling worriedly with her eyebrow stud, she debated and then texted back.

  Were you the guy at the funeral?

  Yes. I wanted to speak to you then, but it didn’t seem appropriate. I’m so sorry for your loss. Px

  Sophie chewed on her bottom lip, hesitated briefly again, and then – ‘Sod it’ – she phoned him. It couldn’t do any harm, could it? Thanks to her bitch mum, the harm had already been done. And at least he’d acknowledged she’d had a loss.

  ‘Sophie?’ he asked, when he picked up.

  ‘Uh-huh,’ Sophie answered guardedly. He’d said Alicia had begged him not to contact her, which smacked of the truth, knowing now what a deceitful cow she was, but… ‘How did you get my number?’ she asked him.

  ‘I’ve been talking to Alicia, hoping I could come to some arrangement about having some contact with you. Fifteen years is a long time to be denied access to your own child. I’ve missed you growing up.’ He drew in a breath. ‘She’s okay with me having your number, apparently, so I guess she’s relented for some reason.’

  Yeah, and Sophie knew why. Because she wanted to pass the shit she’d caused on to someone else to clear up.

  ‘It’s great to hear from you, Sophie,’ he said, sounding as if he might even mean it.

  ‘Why?’ Sophie asked cynically.

  Paul laughed. It wasn’t a derogatory laugh though, more an amused chuckle. ‘I get why you’d be cautious,’ he said. ‘I’ve missed you,’ he added simply. ‘There’s never been a day when I haven’t thought about you.’

  Sophie wasn’t wholly convinced by that, but he sounded sincere.

  ‘So why didn’t you get in touch before then? I mean, you didn’t have to just… not, did you?’

  ‘No,’ Paul conceded. ‘Truthfully, I didn’t want to mess up your mother’s marriage. I cared too much about her to do that. I’d hoped we’d be together. Things weren’t going too well between her and Justin… But that’s history – probably stuff I shouldn’t be repeating. I knew Justin was a decent guy, which actually didn’t make me feel great about falling in love with his wife, and… well, I thought I was doing the right thing, for everyone. I didn’t think it was the right thing by you, to be honest, and I didn’t bargain on missing you so much it hurt, but it did – a lot. And then I lost my wife and kids in a boating accident – I think that was a wake-up call.’

  ‘Oh, shit,’ Sophie murmured, shocked. ‘That’s rough.’

  ‘It was,’ Paul said quietly. ‘It took me a while to get over it – not that you ever do. I realised then that I needed to see you, make sure you were okay. Do you think we could be friends, maybe? Meet occasionally? It would be great to catch up. Not that fifteen years is going to be easy to catch up on.’ He stopped, sighing heavily.

  ‘Sixteen,’ Sophie pointed out.

  ‘Right. Ninth of October. Happy upcoming sixteenth, Sophie.’

  Sophie raised her eyebrows at that. ‘You’ve been marking days off on the calendar then?’ she asked drolly.

  ‘I think that might be deemed a touch obsessive.’ Paul laughed. ‘No, I just remember that date, that’s all.’ He paused. ‘So, how are you, generally?’

  Sophie went quiet. ‘Generally,’ she said, after a second, ‘crap.’

  ‘Oh, how so?’ Paul asked, sounding concerned.

  ‘Stuff.’ Sophie shrugged vaguely. She wasn’t actually sure she wanted to share her sad life story with him. ‘Mum and me had a fight.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said, sounding as if he got it. ‘A bad one?’

  ‘Very.’

  Paul paused, then said, ‘You’re not within earshot of her then, I take it?’

  ‘Nope. I’m at New Street Station. Wanted to give her some space, you know, so I’m going to stay with a friend – just for a few days,’ she lied. She wasn’t sure she would ever want to see her again. ‘Trouble is, my train’s not until morning, so I’m killing some time.’

  ‘You’re there on your own?’ Now Paul sounded surprised.

  ‘Yeah. I’m a big girl now,’ Sophie reminded him.

  ‘Have you eaten?’

  ‘No, not yet. I might grab some chips or something.’

  ‘Look, it’s only a suggestion,’ Paul said, ‘and you can say no – I’m not likely to be offended, since you don’t even know me – but do you fancy meeting up? I could come and get you. We could grab a pizza or something. You could even crash here, if you like. Once you’ve established I’m not too weird, that is.’

  Sophie wasn’t sure about that.

  ‘Or just share that bag of chips, if you don’t fancy doing anything else. On me, obviously.’

  ‘Last of the big spenders.’ Sophie smiled. ‘Okay,’ she said. He sounded all right. Normal. And she couldn’t sit around here all night. She’d already seen a few homeless people being moved on.

  ‘Great,’ Paul said. ‘I’ll be with you in half an hour. Maybe forty minutes. I just have to have a quick shower. I’ve been in the gym. Don’t want to make a bad first impression, do I? Oh, where are you?’

  ‘Starbucks, or else just outside. I’ll keep an eye out for you.’

  ‘I’m the tall, dark and handsome one,’ Paul joked.

  ‘And modest.’ Sophie laughed. ‘See you soon.’

  She liked him, she thought, ending the call. He definitely didn’t seem weird.

  Twenty-Nine

  ALICIA

  Hearing Justin come through the front door, Alicia stopped breathing.

  He’d already told her what had happened over the phone. ‘She ran from me,’ he’d said hoarsely, and then stopped. ‘I tried to…’ He’d stopped again. Alicia had heard his voice crack, felt his unbearable, palpable pain, and her heart had torn apart inside her.

  Sophie had worshipped him. She’d had the best relationship it was possible for a daughter to have with a father.

  Alicia clenched her fists. Why had she done it? Why had she waited, knowing this would eventually come out? That when it did, it would tear her beautiful family apart. Jessica had been right. She’d lied to herself and everyone else. She was everything Sophie thought she was – a selfish, unfeeling bitch.

  ‘So, she already had her overnight bag packed?’ DI Taylor asked her.

  Alicia hardly heard him, her gaze going past him as the lounge door opened – hoping to see what, she didn’t know. If he met her gaze, which Alicia was petrified he wouldn’t, there would be nothing but hurt and disappointment in his eyes. Open contempt, too – that would be there. How could it not?

  Seeing the gash on Justin’s cheek, his dishevelled appearance, Alicia felt another part of her curl up and die. ‘Justin…?’ She moved instinctively towards him, and then stopped as he fixed her with a stare that could freeze an ocean.

  He didn’t speak as she faltered, turning his gaze quizzically towards DI Taylor instead, obviously wondering why he would come again personally.

  ‘What ha
ppened to you?’ DI Taylor asked, turning to look at him.

  Justin smiled ironically. ‘Security guards weren’t too keen to let me go,’ he said, his expression wary as he glanced between Taylor and the woman police officer with him.

  He looked utterly exhausted, jaded to his very bones. Alicia wished there was some way to take his pain away, but there was none. She couldn’t go to him, hold him. Dear God, how much she wanted to do that. There was nothing she could do but take herself, the cause of his pain, away. Her guilt threatening to choke her, she glanced down as Justin’s gaze came back to her. She could feel his eyes on her, studying her, obviously looking for some clue as to who this stranger he’d lived with, loved with all of himself, was. In the edge of her vision, she saw him walk across to her, stand a foot away. The space felt like an iceberg between them.

  Tentatively, Alicia reached out to him, placing a hand on his arm, and Justin flinched, physically flinched at her touch, and Alicia knew. She’d lost him. There would be no going back. Even if their beautiful, precious daughter walked through the door right now, there would be no going back for any of them. She’d done that.

  ‘So, what do you propose to do?’ he asked DI Taylor. His tone was tight with pent-up emotion. Emotion that surely had to be vented, if he wasn’t to go the same route he had once before, driven slowly and steadily out of his mind by grief.

  ‘I’m afraid there’s nothing much we can do at this juncture,’ DI Taylor said, with an apologetic sigh.

  ‘What?’ Justin reeled where he stood. Alicia knew this was too much to take on top of his frustration with the police’s lack of progress in regard to Lucas and the crash. ‘My daughter is missing and you’re telling me you’re going to do nothing?’ Raking a hand furiously through his hair, he stared at Taylor, stunned.