The Wife’s Secret: A dark psychological thriller with a stunning twist

‘Antonia! My coffee. I’m waiting!’

Sophie is staring, her green eyes sharp. ‘What are you smiling about? You really must stop that weird on another planet stuff you do. And turn off the radio, it’s hurting my bloody head.’

‘Our former lives,’ Antonia replies, turning away and opening the white, high-gloss cupboards to take out a single pink-dotted teapot with a cup on top and a large mug with Sophie’s cappuccino written on it. She arranges Belgian rolled wafers on a long ceramic dish. ‘Life before marriage, life before you decided we should go more upmarket.’

‘Yup, we bagged a surveyor and a solicitor. Didn’t we do well!’ Sophie replies, throwing her head back and laughing her deep guttural laugh.

Antonia studies her for a moment before taking the lid off the teapot, giving it a stir and breathing in the smell of peppermint. ‘Do you really think so?’ she says as she offers Sophie the wafers.

‘Sami said David had a skinful on Friday. “Unbelievably rat arsed” were his precise words. He wanted to have a fight over some harmless comment Sami made about you, apparently, which was pretty stupid when he could hardly walk,’ Sophie says, ignoring Antonia’s question. ‘What was that all about then?’

‘No idea. You probably know more than me.’

Antonia sweeps the crumbs into the sink as she contemplates last Friday night. She had been sound asleep and was awoken suddenly, the accusatory sound of the doorbell in the dead of night throwing her back to a time she tries hard to erase. She padded from her bedroom and down the limestone stairs, the sound of her heart loud in her ears, and there was Mike Turner peering through the peep hole while doing his best to hold David upright.

‘Sorry, Antonia,’ Mike said, and for a moment she gazed at him, her new name taking her by surprise, even after all these years. But then she rallied, shaking herself back to the dark cold night and the state of her husband.

Mike’s eyes seemed watchful; she found she couldn’t meet them. ‘I know it’s late but he’s had a bit too much,’ he said after a moment. ‘And he couldn’t find his keys. So I thought I’d better— Do you want me to help him upstairs?’

‘I can get myself up my own fucking stairs.’ David pulled himself upright and pushed Mike away. ‘I could’ve found my way home too. Fuck off home and polish your halo, you fucking sanctimonious Irish prick.’

‘Sorry, Mike,’ she said, not knowing what else to say. Her heartbeat started to slow, but she felt panicky, that familiar metallic taste in her mouth.

Mike stood for a moment, looking unsteady on his feet and raking his hand through his dark messy hair. He opened his mouth, as though looking for the right words, but then turned away and lifted his hand. ‘No problem, he won’t remember in the morning. Taxi waiting. Night, Antonia. Take care.’

Antonia fleetingly wondered about David’s surprising behaviour before climbing into bed beside his unconscious bulk. He could drink enormous quantities of booze, but was rarely drunk. She closed her eyes, hoping sleep would overcome the unsought memories jabbing at her mind. But just as she was finally drifting off, David woke up with a jerk. He stared at her face for what seemed like an age before starting to cry, loud, wretched sobs.

‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, please forgive me,’ he wept, pushing his face against her breast like a small helpless child. But then he fell back to sleep as swiftly as he’d woken. Antonia lay there, her silk nightdress stuck to her chest from the tears and saliva, feeling nothing but a queer blankness, tinged with memories of disgust.

‘You’re doing it again, Toni. Stop!’

Sophie’s words bring Antonia back to the muggy September Monday and to the scrutinising eyes of her friend. She feels the tightness in her stomach, the burn of her cheeks and that mild taste of panic. ‘Ready for a top-up?’ she asks, turning away.

‘Less coffee and more cream this time. And different biscuits,’ Sophie replies, picking up the television remote control, pointing it at the huge flatscreen on the wall and flicking through the shopping channels. Then, after a few moments, ‘You know you’ll tell me eventually.’

CHAPTER THREE

‘Lunch calls. Are you ready to go?’ David asks, putting his head around Charlie Proctor’s office door and inhaling the familiar smell of old books and leather.

‘Is it that time already? Thought the old juices were giving me gyp. Turns out it’s just my stomach rumbling for lunch!’

Charlie peers at the ancient oak grandfather clock which dominates the room. He places his hands on each arm of the leather chair, hauls himself up and then steadies himself against the desk. He clears his throat and adjusts his tie before reaching for his overcoat and umbrella.

‘Charlie, it isn’t cold or raining and you’re forty-six, not sixty!’ David might say. But that wouldn’t be sporting or, indeed, nice. Besides, Charlie is Charlie, a cliché of his own creation. He was wearing a paisley smoking jacket and an avuncular smile the day they first met at boarding school. The eleven-year-old David had been allocated Charlie’s study. ‘How do. Ten years ago you would have been my new fag. Shame they scrapped them,’ Charlie said by way of greeting that morning and yet it still took David days to work out that Charlie was a pupil, albeit an eighteen-year-old sixth former, and not a benign schoolmaster.

But today David’s thoughts are with Antonia and their weekend. He woke late on Saturday to an empty house, a certainty in his gut that Antonia had left him. He misbehaved on Friday night. He made a scene at the pub, though he couldn’t recall the details. But worse than that he cried in her arms; that he could remember.

Charlie closes his office door with a thud. The ‘Senior Partner’ brass plate shakes. It’s left over from the days when the position of senior partner was handed down from father to son and when it meant something. Now it’s incongruous, like Charlie himself. None of the other partners went to a public school; they went to grammar school or, in the case of the young guns, to a state comprehensive. The flavour of the partnership these days is political correctness, accountability and liberalism. Gone are the days of getting on because of the ‘old school tie’. Nepotism died with Charlie’s old man. David has learned to adapt, to tone down the open vowels and to voice slightly left-wing opinions he doesn’t believe in, but Charlie seems oblivious to it all. Or perhaps that’s part of his act, his survival.

They stroll pass the imposing eighteenth-century St Ann’s church, past the al fresco diners huddling under chic canopies at its side, then continue through the cobbled alleyway to Sam’s Chop House.

It’s dark and quiet as usual on a Monday in Sam’s. David brought Antonia here once, not long after they met. He wanted to show her off, his new stunning girlfriend, never dreaming that one day soon she’d say yes and become his wife. But she was withdrawn, she’d looked uncomfortable in the company of the older lunchtime lawyers and eventually asked if they could leave.

‘Have you decided?’

David starts, his heart seeming to lurch out of place. Charlie is frowning at him, as though he can read his thoughts.

‘Decided what?’

‘What you’re eating of course. The steak is always delicious here. But don’t ask for rare. They don’t bother cooking it at all. Are you all right, David? You’re miles away.’

David glances at Charlie’s face before dropping his gaze to the menu. His mind is in spasm. He’s finding it difficult to focus. There are hugely worrying things to discuss, to confess, but it’s all he can do not to put his head on the table and sleep. ‘Yes, steak’s a grand idea,’ he says. He wonders if he’ll manage to eat it. He worries whether he’ll keep the food down. ‘Shall we order? There’s something I wanted to talk about. It’s pretty—’

‘Let’s try a bottle of that rather nice Chianti. I’ve been stuck in the All England Reports this morning. No one reads case law any more, but they should, David. Back to basics, I say. Now at Cambridge …’

David’s mind strays back to Antonia. Thank God, she came home. He didn’t ask where she’d been. Her absence from White Gables for so long was strange, but it didn’t matter. She was smiling; she was home.

‘Do you know what I fancy doing?’ she said, her cheek cold against his. ‘But we don’t have to if you don’t want to.’

He watches as the glossy red wine is poured and then lifts the glass to his lips. Charlie is still talking, but he can’t concentrate on anything but the wisps of chin hair he has omitted to shave, which are moving in time with his mouth.

‘And I told George Briggs what I thought. Bloody Queen’s Counsel. How they lord it over us mere solicitors. Waste of a Monday morning.’

David wasted his morning too. He sat in his sunlit office with the insurance file on his desk, staring at its cover for hours, but seeing nothing. He needed to work things out in his head, but thoughts of his wife, her fresh face and her laughter, filtered in with the rays through the blinds.

‘Been to the doctor …’

He puts down his fork and looks at Charlie with surprise. Now that Charlie has mentioned it, he does seem pallid, his face puffy and sweaty.

‘Don’t say a word to Helen, it’s probably nothing. You know what these doctors are like, always protecting their own backs. That’s what insurance is for!’

Insurance, David thinks, loosening his tie. That’s nicely ironic.

‘My blood pressure and cholesterol are sky high, apparently. He’s given me some tablets, but he took an armful of blood for more tests and gave me a stern warning about lifestyle choices. You know the sort of rubbish they talk, less food, less alcohol, less stress. Hell, David, they’re the things I live for, so I’m not telling Helen and neither must you.’

David nods, but he’s meandered again. Ten-pin bowling, he’s thinking. He and Antonia went bowling on Saturday afternoon and then stayed in the complex to eat burger and fries. He’s nearly forty and he’d never been bowling before – and how Antonia had laughed. Like a girl. A beguiling girl he didn’t know.

‘And then there’s Rupert,’ Charlie continues, pouring more wine into David’s empty glass. ‘Helen thinks it’s normal to experiment, to misbehave, to be downright rude at times. But if anything is causing my blood pressure to reach boiling point, it’s him. We’ve got to meet the headmaster next weekend to convince the school why he shouldn’t be expelled before he sits his Michaelmas exams. My questions to him will be “Where the hell do the pupils get the drugs from? Why doesn’t the school do something about that?”’

David studies Charlie’s face. It has changed from a grey sweaty white to a livid red, all the way down to his thick neck, housed in a too-tight white collar.

Now is definitely not the time to confess, he thinks. It’ll just have to wait.

‘We’ve decided to go through with IVF again,’ Sophie says suddenly, pulling out the elastic band with some difficulty and then dragging her bitten nails through the thick mass of her hair.

Antonia raises her eyebrows but makes no comment. Nothing from Sophie’s lips surprises her any more and it’s best to allow her friend to spill it all out before making any remark. There are many occasions when Antonia is economical with the truth, or when she evades an answer by changing the subject, but Sophie can never hold anything in for long. As a child she was alarmingly honest about everything and everybody, her mum and her youngest brother targeted the most. ‘Your breath smells, Uncle Frank. That dress makes you look fat, Mum. You know Dad loves me more than you, don’t you, Harry? Does Grandpa have a foreskin?’ That was just family: girls and boys at school were easy meat. An older girl once cornered her in the corridor. ‘Do you know what a complete and utter cruel bitch you are?’ she asked. ‘No I’m not,’ Sophie replied fearlessly. ‘I’m just honest. If you don’t like it, get out of my way.’

Antonia never got out of Sophie’s way. Sometimes she dearly wishes she had. ‘You’re mixed race, Antonia. Or black if you like. So why don’t you just admit it? There’s nothing wrong with it.’ Honest or cruel, Antonia has yet to decide.

‘Don’t look at me like that, Toni,’ she now commands. ‘I know what you’re thinking, but Sami wants us to try one last time. You know what he’s like about family. Mother Martha had five kids and so she expects to have a hundred and twenty grandchildren or something. And if I’m up for all the prodding and poking, those bloody hormone injections …’

Antonia takes a breath. The real reason for Sophie’s infertility is the one secret she has managed to keep. It has to be said.

‘Sophie, why would you want to go through it again when you’re pretty sure it won’t work? Why put yourself through it? You hate hospitals! And it’s hardly fair to Sami, you’re giving him false hope.’

‘Oh shut up, Antonia.’

Sophie stands and paces, her hands on her hips and her eyes ferocious. ‘You really take your saintliness to extremes at times. Is there a Saint Antonia? Is that why you chose the bloody stupid name? Besides, you’re the one with the problem if you really think having a baby is a fate worse than death. Most normal women want a child, it’s what nature expects and I’m no different. You’re the bloody freak, not me.’

It’s ridiculous, Antonia knows, at thirty years old, but on these occasions she still wants to cry. Instead she stands, walks to the sink and turns on the tap. Sophie will never change; her best line of defence is to attack and the assault is invariably below the belt. But when it comes to babies, she doesn’t care whether Sophie thinks she’s unnatural or odd. She doesn’t have and never has had any desire to procreate. There are enough unhappy people in the world without adding to their number. David understands. She told him from the start she didn’t want children and he accepted it at face value, saying it was fine and that he’d have the snip. He’s never broached the subject again and never asked why.

David, oh, David. The thought of Friday night catches her breath again. He accepts her as she is, he doesn’t ask questions, analyse or dig too deep like her former boyfriends. He doesn’t want to control her, thank God. He’s steady and reliable. Isn’t he?

She feels Sophie’s breath on her neck, then a hand on her back and the inevitable flutter somewhere deep in her stomach.

‘I fancy a drink, Toni. Shall we open a bottle?’

Sophie kisses her cheek, then steps away to the glass-fronted wine fridge, crouching down to select a bottle.

‘This looks expensive,’ she says when she stands. ‘Come on, darling, don’t sulk, who knows what might happen?’ She places her chin on Antonia’s shoulder and softly blows a curl from her face. ‘You will be there to hold my hand, won’t you? All the way?’

‘You know I will,’ Antonia replies.

There’s a tremor in David’s large hand which he tries to ignore as he struggles to insert the tiny key into the lock of his bottom desk drawer. He extracts the yellow file and stares at its cover where his secretary has written ‘Indemnity and Claims’ in red marker pen.

He blows out his cheeks. Red for danger.

He glances at his closed office door before taking a deep breath. Then he opens the file quickly, like ripping off a plaster. As though that will make a difference. As though speed will alter the fact that the renewal date for the firm’s insurance has passed, undeniably passed, and he hasn’t done anything about it.

‘Goodness me, the renewal date has passed. The practice has no insurance in place. If there are any claims for poor legal advice or mistakes, the partners will be personally liable! How did that happen?’ He tries feigning surprise to himself, but it doesn’t wash, even in his mildly inebriated state. As the partner in charge of indemnity and claims, he’s always known about the date, roughly known, at least. But he’s put it on the furthermost back burner of his mind. Because. Because he knows.

He’d opened a savings account with a great rate of interest a year back. A deposit account for the firm and for the partners, but with himself as the sole signatory.

‘What shall we call it, David?’ the bank manager had asked over a long lunch.

‘Insurance,’ he replied.

‘But of course!’ the manager laughed.

He paid in the huge premium up front. It was a great plan. There’d be less whingeing about the cost of ever-increasing insurance premiums from the partners when renewal came. A nice little nest egg of interest to put towards the following year’s premium, too. It made sense. Charlie agreed. ‘I knew you were the man for the job, David. Excellent work.’ The other partners concurred and he enjoyed the rare praise.

He stares at the renewal notice in the file and then circles the premium figure with a pencil, whistling softly. Nearly a hundred thousand pounds and it has to be paid now. In a litigious society the firm must be covered for negligence claims. Claims for cock-ups, in short. He nods, his mind racing with thoughts of what to do. Cheque lost in the post? Yes. A backdated letter for the file? Absolutely. But the thing is to get it paid. PDQ. But there’s a problem, a huge heart-thrashing problem. Even though he hasn’t been able to bring himself to look at the ‘insurance account’, he knows without a doubt the money isn’t there.

CHAPTER FOUR

The Manchester rain hammers against the roof of Mike’s car. The traffic is at a standstill, Princess Parkway chock-a-block, with no sign of movement. He looks to his left. The queue at the drive-through McDonald’s is immobile with morose folk seeking their hunger-fix. Once, years ago, he and Olivia vowed their children would never eat junk. They wanted to do nothing but right for their girls. Mike sighs: how time and experience changes everything.

There must have been an accident, he thinks, as he strains to see beyond the line of traffic in front of him. No habitual impulse of a prayer pops into his head, he forced those thoughts out long ago. His Catholicism, drummed in during childhood, had once burned deep, creating a wound he thought would never heal. That profound belief or fear or superstition, or whatever it is, that there is a god. No, not a god, but The God. But that scar has healed; when he needs his faith, he finds it has gone.

He switches from Radio 4, to 2, to Capital, listens for a moment to Rihanna and thinks of his girls dancing, giggling, showing their pretty white teeth. ‘Look, Daddy. Watch us dance!’ It’s a happy thought, he knows this, but he’s lost the feeling of happiness, its sense, its touch.

He turns off the radio and watches the rain splatter and spread against the windscreen. It’s making shapes he’s never noticed before. Interesting, he thinks, but the ruse doesn’t work for long; his bleak thoughts are too dominant, too powerful for Rihanna, or the rain, or even his lovely girls.

Shaking himself, he tries to resurface, to focus on the traffic tailback and the noise of the vehicles happily jam-free on the flyover ahead. He looks at his watch, knowing that he should text Olivia, but wondering what he should say. ‘Stuck in traffic’ is the obvious choice, but he can predict the reply, ‘How long will you be?’

How long will this go on? The gloom, the pestering, dark thoughts. He had them before as a teenager, but they were intermittent then, somehow controlled by the guilt of the priest’s regular Sunday words, ‘There’s always someone worse off.’ But this time it’s been months and he bores himself. It’s truly pathetic. Always the same, it’s the little things that pull him down. He can go for hours without giving it a second thought and then something will happen to make the black dog bound in. Today it was an email circulating around the office inviting the staff to contribute to a present for one of the associates, the newly proud father of a healthy son. An everyday office occurrence, but enough to throw him.

A knock on his window makes him start. His mobile is still in his hand, text unsent.

‘Are you all right, mate? Need a push or has the car just stalled?’

Mike notices the blare of horns behind him and the empty road ahead. It’s still raining.

‘Yeah, just stalled. Sorry.’

As he slips the car into gear, the black dog lurches forward and then settles in for the ride.

‘Get up to your bedroom, now!’ Olivia bellows as Mike walks through the front door of their semi-detached Victorian home. He shakes the rain from his hair and puts his briefcase down in its usual place by the stairs.

‘What’s going on?’ he asks, looking from mother to daughter. It’s unlike Olivia to scream at Rachel. Or at anyone. What is it that she always says when they watch Question Time? ‘He’s shouting. Ha! He’s lost control of the conversation.’

‘I will not have any daughter of mine speak to me like that,’ Olivia replies breathlessly.

Rachel spins round on the stairs, the knuckles of her slim hand white against the stained wood of the banister. ‘Well, it’s true. You tell us to be honest. You’ve been a cow for weeks, Mum. We can’t do anything right. We might as well not exist for all you bloody well care.’

‘Rachel, go to your bedroom,’ he says quietly. ‘Your mum’s right. Don’t you ever speak to her like that again.’

Rachel stares at him, her face pained with reproach. ‘I knew you’d take her side,’ she says, before running up the rest of the stairs.

He stands for a moment, the slam of Rachel’s bedroom door loud in his ears. He shakes off his jacket and looks at Olivia. She hasn’t moved and her face is set. He’s never seen her so angry. ‘It’s raining,’ he murmurs, looking for time, wondering how best to handle such an unexpected situation.

‘What’s going on, Olivia? This isn’t like you two.’ He reaches out, placing his hands at the top of Olivia’s arms to draw her in. She’s trembling. He can feel the anger rising from her as she pushes him away, the flat of her hand firm against his damp shirt.

‘And how would you know?’

He stands and stares. Is Olivia laughing? He isn’t sure. He hardly recognises her.

‘How would you know?’ she repeats. ‘Tell me, Mike. You’re never here. And even when you are here you’re in some unreachable place. You don’t notice me, you don’t notice the girls.’

‘That isn’t true.’ He sees his daughters in his mind, dancing to Rihanna. ‘Of course I notice you all. Come on, Olivia, this isn’t like—’

‘When was the last time you gave me a compliment?’ Olivia isn’t laughing, she’s crying, but the soft contours of her pale face are gone. ‘When was the last time you bought me a box of chocolates or some flowers? I had my hair cut last week and you didn’t even notice.’

He gazes at her hair. It’s blonde, elfin short; it suits her petite face and her frame. ‘I did notice. Of course I noticed. It looks lovely. But flowers, chocolates? Come on, Olivia, you don’t do chocolates.’

‘Fuck the chocolates, then. Fuck everything. You just continue to take it for granted that I’m going to be here, the little wife with a smiling face when you come home, your bloody dinner waiting on the table.’

He catches his breath. This is Olivia, calm, capable, witty Olivia; Olivia who takes everything in her stride. She’s never been and will never be ‘the little wife’. She’s clever, opinionated and strong. He stares again, aware that life has shifted, that the world has somehow moved without him noticing.

‘What do I do on a Tuesday, Mike? You never ask me how I am, where I’ve been, what I’ve done. I could be anywhere, with anyone. You’re just so used to me I’ve become invisible.’

‘That isn’t true. Really. You never said,’ he replies quietly.

‘I shouldn’t have to say anything. If you loved me, Mike, you’d see, you’d know.’

She stares at him for a moment, searching his face, her amber eyes wide and sad. ‘What’s the point?’ she mutters, then walks into the kitchen and closes the door.

A wisp of a thought enters Mike’s head, an impulse to turn around and walk out of the door he entered only minutes earlier. But it’s only a thought and only for a moment as his eyes catch the pink fur of Hannah’s favourite slippers. She’s under the stairs, hidden from view, her arms around her knees and her blonde head buried.