The Weekend Away

by Sarah Alderson

  I glare at him.

  ‘You need to keep a straight head,’ he tells me evenly.

  He’s right; I know. Grudgingly, I set the glass down.

  ‘It makes sense,’ Konstandin says, pulling a cigarette packet out of his back pocket. He offers one to me and I take it and let him light it for me. I inhale deeply, letting the head-spinning effect calm me.

  ‘What makes sense?’ I ask.

  ‘The reason Kate hired the escorts.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She hired them to sleep with you so she had something to show your husband. If she could prove to him that you had been unfaithful then maybe he would finally leave you and be with her.’

  It’s like he’s slapped me. The truth is suddenly, brilliantly and harshly, illuminated. ‘If I slept with someone then it wouldn’t just be him who cheated! He’d have an excuse to divorce me. He wouldn’t be the bad guy. He could blame me!’

  ‘Kate thought he only needed a nudge and then he’d be free.’

  ‘And she could make her move. They could be together.’ I drop down onto the sofa, the whisky and the cigarette smoke combining with the knowledge of Kate’s betrayal, making me feel suddenly sick as a dog.

  Konstandin glances over the texts again. ‘It looks like they didn’t speak or see each other for almost a year but then they met up again about four months ago.’

  ‘At Marlow’s christening,’ I say, doing the maths. I was right.

  ‘Afterwards Kate sends a lot of texts pleading with him to speak to her. He ignores them all but for …’ Konstandin abruptly stops reading.

  ‘What?’ I ask.

  ‘Nothing,’ he says. ‘You don’t need to hear it.’

  ‘What?’ I ask, grabbing for the phone. Konstandin keeps a tight grip on it, pulling it away from me but I tear it from his hand.

  ‘Orla …’ he pleads, reaching for it back, but I dance out of his way.

  Rob: I love you, Kate, and one day maybe we can be together but right now I need to be here, with Marlow. I can’t walk out on them.

  Kate: We could be a family. You, me and Marlow.

  Rob: I wish, but I can’t.

  The howl that’s been trapped inside me for days finally bursts free. All the grief and worry and anger erupting out of me. I fall to my knees, hurling the phone across the room. The world collapses in on me. He wanted to be with her. He wanted to be a family with her, to replace me with Kate. He only stayed out of a sense of duty. And all that talk from Kate about a house in the suburbs with a garden, about starting a family. She didn’t need to start one, she was planning on stealing mine! Becoming stepmother to my child! And then probably having a baby with Rob.

  And maybe Rob killed her because she threatened to tell me before he was ready.

  I want to tear a hole in the ground with my bare hands and curl up in it, pull the earth down on top of me and stay there, buried in darkness. I want the pain to stop, the noise in my head to stop, the questions racing around my brain to stop. And then suddenly darkness does fall but it’s just Konstandin, kneeling in front of me, wrapping his arms around me. He holds me, stroking my back, and I collapse against him, sobbing so hard I soak his shirt.

  I don’t know how long the pain consumes me for, how long I cry for. It feels like an eternity, but at some point I become aware I’m hiccupping, not sobbing, and that the sound of Konstandin’s murmurs in my ear in a language I don’t understand are louder than my crying. After I stop crying Konstandin disentangles himself and stands up.

  ‘Let me make you a cup of tea. Or coffee?’

  ‘Coffee,’ I mumble, my head throbbing. ‘Thank you,’ I say.

  He nods, then walks into the kitchen and after a few seconds I follow him in.

  He heats water in an espresso maker as I stand watching. ‘The police say Joaquim and Emanuel have alibis. It wasn’t them.’

  He nods. ‘You should check where Rob was on Friday night. And Toby.’

  ‘It could have been a stranger,’ I say. I don’t want to believe it could be Rob.

  ‘Most murder victims know their murderers.’

  And I don’t want to dig further into that memory I have. I’m afraid to unearth it from the darkness. The moonlight on water. A woman screaming bitch!

  Konstandin pours the coffee into a little espresso cup. ‘I must ask you something,’ he says, handing the cup to me. ‘You’ve never wondered if it was me? If I had anything to do with Kate’s death?’

  I open my mouth to deny his question, but what’s the point of lying? ‘Yes,’ I tell him. ‘I’ve considered everyone. Every person we met that night, down to the old man who owns the shop opposite the apartment. I’ve gone mad with wondering.’

  ‘But do you honestly think I might have anything to do with it?’

  I look him in the eye. He gives me his same even gaze as always. The truth is I’ve seen him threaten and beat up a man. I know he’s capable of violence but still I shake my head. ‘No,’ I say.

  He nods, a smile brushing the edge of his mouth. ‘You’re too trusting,’ he says.

  ‘Have you ever killed anyone?’ I ask, the words flying out my mouth before I can stop them.

  ‘If I had, I wouldn’t tell you,’ he answers deadpan, casting a sideways look my way as he pours sugar into his coffee.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Konstandin tells me he has to take care of some business and drops me back at the apartment. ‘Be careful,’ he says as I get out the car. ‘And if anything happens, call me.’

  If anything happens. What does he mean? If the police arrest me I suppose.

  Once I’m back in my bedroom I get to work. I quickly locate the number of Toby’s office and call the central switchboard. I ask to be put through to Toby’s assistant, hoping that they’re still in the office working late, and thank God, they are.

  ‘Hi,’ I say, trying to hide the tremor in my voice. ‘It’s Aisling in accounts.’

  ‘Aisling?’ the assistant interrupts, obviously confused.

  ‘I’m new,’ I say hastily. ‘I’m just calling about the charges on the company credit card.’

  ‘What company credit card?’

  ‘Toby’s card,’ I bluster. ‘Can you confirm where he was Friday night so I can make sure I’m signing off the right things … items.’ I cringe inwardly at how terrible I am at lying. The assistant sighs loudly. I close my eyes. I should have thought harder before I made the call, come up with a better-sounding story.

  ‘He was with clients that night,’ I hear her say, a mouse clicking in the background. She must be going over his diary on the computer.

  ‘Great,’ I say. ‘And after?’

  ‘I don’t know. It just says dinner and drinks with ADC Media.’

  ‘Do you know where?’ I ask.

  ‘Why do you need to know?’ she queries.

  ‘Um, I just need to match the receipt to what’s on the sheet.’

  ‘Soho House in Shoreditch,’ she answers.

  ‘Fabulous,’ I say. ‘Thanks.’ I hang up, adrenalin buzzing. He was in London that night.

  It doesn’t take Toby completely out of the running. He’s not a man to get his own hands dirty. I can fully believe he might be the sort of person to hire someone to ‘solve’ his problems. Or am I being a fantasist? Do people really do that sort of thing in real life? Hire hitmen? Still, I don’t have time to dwell so I move on.

  The next call is far harder to make and the adrenalin firing through my body seems to ratchet up so I’m shaking when I place the phone to my ear.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hi, Denise,’ I say, picturing the child minder on the other end of the phone, probably balancing a baby on one hip.

  ‘It’s me, Orla.’

  ‘Hi, Orla! Rob just picked up Marlow a couple of minutes ago.’

  I check the time. That’s about right. He would have landed about six and gone straight to Denise’s from Heathrow. He hasn’t called me back though, which is odd, unless he
’s panicked about the message I left him and the call from Kate’s phone.

  ‘Are you still in Lisbon?’ she asks. ‘I heard about your friend. I’m so sorry. What an awful thing to happen. What’s going on now?’

  ‘Um, well, I need to stay here and deal with a few things,’ I say, deciding not to mention the fact I might be under suspicion for murder and the police are holding my passport.

  ‘You know I’ll do anything I can to help. I’m happy to have Marlow again overnight. She was a love. So easy.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I say, a pain twisting up my throat at the sound of Marlow’s name. ‘Did you have Marlow on Friday too?’

  ‘Yes,’ Denise says, ‘Actually now you mention it, Rob forgot to pay me for Friday night.’

  ‘Oh,’ I manage to croak, my heart skipping beats. ‘I’ll see to it he pays you the extra he owes.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she says. I hear a child scream in the background.

  ‘Did Rob say where he went Friday night?’ I ask just before she hangs up, keeping my tone light. ‘Why he needed you to look after Marlow?’

  ‘He said he was out for a night with the boys. Taking advantage of you being gone.’ The screaming in the background gets louder. ‘I better go. I’m sorry again for what’s happened.’

  She rings off and I stand there holding the phone, staring at it in disbelief. Where was Rob Friday night? Was he really out with the boys? It’s a possibility I suppose. He did mention a few weeks ago that he was missing seeing his friends. I encouraged him to have a boys’ night out. Maybe he decided to take advantage while I was gone. But why didn’t he tell me about it? I guess when I spoke to him on Saturday the conversation was all about Kate going missing. He wouldn’t have brought it up necessarily. Remembering something else, I check my messages from him. He sent me a photo of Marlow on Friday night – of her eating spaghetti covered in sauce like an Oompa-Loompa. The bastard. It was a deliberate deception, to make me think he was with her. The photo is an old one from a couple of weeks ago. I know because in the background is a vase of flowers, ones that Rob bought me for Mother’s Day that I threw away before I left for Lisbon because they’d wilted.

  Frantically, I do the calculation. It’s possible Rob could have flown over to Lisbon Friday and back to London Saturday morning, and then I suppose he could have come back again on Sunday when I called and asked him to. It’s only a two-and-a-half-hour flight. If that was a drive we wouldn’t think it was any time at all, the distance from London to Birmingham. But if he did fly over then there would be records of it. He wouldn’t have been so stupid to put the flights on the joint credit card. He’s hidden his affair for years, paying for hotel rooms, without me finding out. He’s clearly an expert at duplicity and leading a double life; it’s not a stretch to think he could pull something like this off.

  If he was on a boys’ night out I can easily confirm it.

  I call Tom, his best friend.

  ‘Hey, Orla,’ he answers. I can hear a football game going on in the background on the television. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Hi, Tom,’ I say, wondering if he’s heard about Kate. He might not have seen my post on Facebook and if he hasn’t spoken to Rob then there’s a chance he hasn’t heard yet. I don’t know if the UK press has picked up the story.

  ‘Were you out with Rob on Friday night?’

  He doesn’t say anything and I can practically hear his brain whirring over the top of the footie commentary. I realise too late that I’ve blundered into the conversation. What if Tom knows about Kate and Rob and the affair? He might think I’m calling to sniff around. He might be panicking about whether he’s meant to provide Rob with an alibi.

  ‘Er …’ he stammers. In the background a massive cheer goes up and the commentator’s voice rises an octave.

  ‘Tom,’ I interrupt coolly. ‘I know about the affair. I know about Rob and Kate.’

  He draws a breath but says nothing, confirming that he knew. The bastard. I wonder if I’m the only one who didn’t. I feel like such a damn fool.

  ‘Orla …’ Tom starts but I cut him off again. I don’t want to hear his apology or his excuses. And I most definitely don’t want to hear the note of pity in his voice.

  ‘Just tell me if he was with you on Friday night; that’s all I want to know. You aren’t betraying him. He’s the one who’s betrayed me. I’m owed the truth on this. You know I am.’

  He pauses for a brief second, weighing his loyalty to Rob over his debt of guilt to me. ‘No, he wasn’t with me.’

  ‘There was no boys’ night out?’

  ‘No, there was. A few of the lads, we met up down the pub. Rob was meant to come but … he didn’t make it.’

  My heart gives a little stutter. ‘Do you know why?’

  ‘No,’ Tom answers, then a little contrite, adds: ‘I didn’t ask.’ Which means he thought he was seeing Kate.

  ‘Thanks,’ I say and hang up before he can say anything else. He’ll probably dive right onto a call with Rob, to warn him, so I pre-empt him by dialling Rob immediately.

  The line’s busy. Shit. I shouldn’t have given Tom a heads up. Not that it probably matters. What matters is finding out where Rob was on Friday night.

  I’m jangling with nerves, my stomach writhing like it’s filled with live eels. What if Rob was here? It seems more and more likely. What if he followed me and Kate to Lisbon, panicked about what Kate might say or do? What if he lured her outside the apartment that night after he saw us bring home Joaquim and Emanuel? Or he could have emailed her and arranged to meet her. Maybe when she had that phone call with him outside the restaurant he was telling her to meet him later, arranging a rendezvous time and place. But why then would she have slept with Emanuel? That’s not the behaviour of a woman dying to leap into the arms of her lover. It’s the action of a woman scorned who’s on the rebound.

  I try to picture Rob and Kate fighting. Rob’s never been physical with me so it’s hard to picture. I can see Kate maybe slapping him, screaming at him, begging him to leave me. But maybe with her he’s a different person. I would never have expected he would cheat on me, so how well do I really know him? And, if he thought she might destroy his life by telling me, would he have had enough incentive to hurt her or even silence her? I’m succumbing to the idea that it must have been Rob. It’s all adding up.

  Of course it could have been an accident. Maybe she went for him and he restrained her and accidentally pushed her. She could have fallen and hit her head. Did he see she was unconscious or think she was dead and roll her into the water to hide his crime?

  The problem is I don’t want to believe it was Rob. And at the end of the day, this is all wild conjecture – my imagination trying to fill gaps. I need to know!

  Think, Orla, think, I tell myself. If he did fly over here to Lisbon on Friday night how can I confirm it? It comes to me in a flash. He wouldn’t be able to resist the points. Rob is religious about collecting air miles. It’s part of his economising, tightwad, accountant nature. He would have bought a flight on his credit card and added the miles to his Avios account and I have access to the Avios account as it’s a joint one. He wanted to make sure we both capitalised on the points. Last year it paid for a return flight to the Canaries where we went for a winter break.

  I log into my Avios account, struggling to remember the password. It loads slowly and the tension makes me want to scream. The whisky from earlier has worn off and now I feel exhausted, my nerves spent. I’m clinging on by my fingernails to the very edge of sanity. When the page loads it takes me a few seconds to navigate to the statement and there I see the evidence I don’t want to see.

  Three return flights to Lisbon in total. My own flight on Friday afternoon, plus another flight to Lisbon at six thirty-five p.m. the same day with a return at six the next morning. A third flight on Sunday is the one Rob took back here when I begged him to come over. Goddamn it. My legs give way and I sink to the floor, not even making it to the bed. He was here. He was in Li
sbon the night Kate died … was murdered. What do I do with this information?

  I try his number again. It goes straight to voicemail. He’s probably on the phone to Tom who’s warning him I’m on the warpath. I send a text, debating what to write. In the end I type: I KNOW. Then press send.

  He doesn’t respond. And when I call again five minutes later it rings and rings and he doesn’t pick up. What’s going on? He must be avoiding me, the coward. He’s probably freaking out that I know the truth, trying to figure out how much I know and how, and what lies he might be able to get away with now Kate’s not around to contradict them. I like to imagine his panic. I hope he’s experiencing one hundredth of the anguish that I’m going through, but still, I need him to pick up.

  I spend five minutes trying to figure out my next move and finally I type out a text. I KNOW WHERE YOU WERE FRIDAY NIGHT. CALL ME BACK OR I WILL TELL THE POLICE.

  Chapter Thirty

  After I hit send, I wait, sitting cross-legged on the floor, holding the phone, barely breathing. Seconds later the phone jerks alive in my hand. It’s Rob.

  ‘You bastard,’ I say, answering.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ he asks.

  He’s decided to opt for innocence. I draw a breath that feels like fire, then let it roar out of me. ‘Don’t you dare try and lie to me again! Don’t you dare deny it. I know! I’ve read all the texts. I’ve seen the messages you sent to her. I know everything!’

  There’s a pause that’s so long and so dark that it feels as if I’ve plummeted into a void. A yawning abyss is opening up between us. I can feel it.

  Finally, I hear him take a breath. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispers, his voice cracking.

  ‘No! You don’t get to be sorry!’ I yell. I’ve started crying and angrily I swipe at my tears and take a deep breath. I’m not going to act the hysterical jilted wife. I must stay in control. I don’t want the details of the affair. Not right now. I don’t want to hear his excuses or apologies. I only need to know one thing. ‘Just tell me,’ I say through gritted teeth. ‘Did you kill her?’