The Last Wife: The addictive and unforgettable new thriller from the Sunday Times bestseller

by Karen Hamilton

  I drop tiny hints at my guilt at falling out with him not long before his death. It’s tempting fate (a tiny bit) but I trust Christian to keep anything he guesses to himself. From my patchy online research – I’m cautious with my searches – it seems that therapists don’t have a legal duty to report a crime; it’s an ethical decision based on their beliefs. I think Greg would approve of these small clues. He loved figuring out if the bad guy was going to get caught.

  My mind flits. I want to get everything off my chest. I have a feeling that it’s time to say goodbye to Christian for good.

  ‘I’m trapped,’ I say. ‘By my own choices.’

  ‘You do have options, Marie,’ he says gently.

  I nod as if I do. ‘I know,’ I lie. ‘Thank you.’

  When it’s time to say goodbye, I want to tell him how sorry I am that there are some people who are beyond help and that I am one of them. Christian is one of the good guys, he tried his best with me. I’m going to miss him and his understated wisdom.

  I wait outside on the street in the rain for Stuart to pick me up. I’m too emotional and tired to drive. I told Stuart that Christian is my grief counsellor. It’s true, really.

  Stuart is late.

  I don’t take out my umbrella. I enjoy the sensation of getting wet, the fresh drops on my face. I’ve always found it hard after a therapy session to switch off. This time is no different. I can’t erase the image of Greg’s eyes, the sound of the stone hitting his skull or Camilla’s hardened expression and the knife penetrating Greg’s throat.

  Was it the exhaustion, was it anger, fear? What was it that made me so determined to get involved, to silence him? I’m still shocked by own rage. The desire came from somewhere deep within. I genuinely felt such a rush of protection towards my family, that it was inevitable. If not then, if not that way, then maybe another. It’s hard to know. I’d love to debate it – properly debate it – with Christian, rather than hint ‘at something bad, something irreversible, feeling enormous guilt at being the last person to see my friend alive’, but I have to work within the only safe boundary I’ve got. Which is myself.

  When Stuart pulls up, I open the passenger door, sit down and twist around to face the back and give Jack a smile. His car seat is empty.

  ‘Where’s Jack?’

  ‘Deborah is looking after him. She’s going to pick the children up from school, too. We’re not expected back for a while.’

  Stuart doesn’t take the expected route home. Instead he drives towards a different part of the forest.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘We need to talk.’

  I don’t like the sound of this at all. Yet, I can’t think of the right things to ask or say.

  It’s only as he starts driving up a track, that I realize where he’s headed. The lodge. My insides knot.

  He pulls over.

  My heart beats faster.

  ‘I think this is the spot. It looks like the place from the news,’ he says before he switches off the ignition and twists around in the driver’s seat so that he can fully look at me. His expression is intense. ‘You’re going to need me, in a perverse kind of a way, just like Nina did. To be your alibi.’

  Oh. My. God.

  ‘You’ve been acting strangely,’ he continues. ‘I recognize the signs. Guilt. I appreciate what you’ve done, Marie. Greg was a bad man. He targeted Nina when she was vulnerable.’

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘She told me about him. She didn’t want me finding anything out after she was gone that she couldn’t atone or apologize for.’

  ‘But you’ve never said anything—’

  ‘I didn’t blame her. I blamed him. Then, I was so grief-stricken after she died that in the grand scheme of things, it didn’t seem important any more. But he kept coming to the book group, getting friendly with Camilla, then you, as if he thought I didn’t know. When you told me he was with Camilla that one night, I was concerned. Yet things have worked out. After all, give someone enough rope . . .’

  I don’t know Stuart at all, any more than I suspect Nina did. Sickening thoughts race, one after the other, twisting and reforming. Did I take an unnecessary risk? Have I tried to protect him when he didn’t need me to? Perhaps he would’ve taken action himself. Have I been played?

  Yet, he looks so calm, so innocent, so grateful, even. I can’t trust my own mind to figure it out.

  The rain beats down on the car roof. It’s oddly soothing. It’s nicely isolating being temporarily cut off from the outside world. Drops snake down the windows.

  ‘As for you and what you’ve done for this family . . . it’s amazing, Marie.’ He takes my hand. Both our hands are cold and mine are shivering. ‘There’s something I’ve never told you. Kevin is my stepfather. I found out during my teenage years that my real father had run off, left my mother as soon as he found out she was pregnant. It’s hard to explain, but I wanted my children to have a perfect-as-possible life, free from the negative actions of others. It’s very important to me.’

  ‘I see.’

  I’m not sure I do. I’m genuinely surprised and hurt that Suzanne never let it slip. I assumed we were close.

  ‘Everyone has secrets. I loved Nina. I had to do whatever it took to make things work for all our sakes. Listen carefully to me.’ He cups my face in his hands. ‘It’s too much of a burden for you to keep this to yourself. It ate Nina up. I’m not going to let that happen to you.’

  ‘It wasn’t me,’ I say, releasing his hands from my face as gently as I can. ‘I didn’t kill Greg.’

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘But you’re culpable. You and me, we’re a proper team now. Just like Nina and I were. You can rely on me, I promise. I won’t let you down.’

  Tears fall. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. The faint taste of salt dissolves on my lips.

  ‘Don’t be sad,’ he says.

  I need to get away from this place. ‘Drive us home, please. It was a horrible choice of place to bring me.’

  However, something becomes clear: if Stuart is my alibi, then I can’t be Camilla’s.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Greg’s camera has remained hidden and camouflaged among my own equipment. Until now.

  It needs a new home. I remove it from its hiding place.

  I hesitate outside Camilla’s front door – listening – before I slide in my key, even though Camilla’s car isn’t in the drive. She’s showing no signs of moving out.

  I befriended her ex-partner on social media. He accepted my friend request within days. It amazes me that people still do that – I could be anyone. He appears to have moved on, as he is expecting a child with a new partner. After lots of painstaking digging and reading of endless inane comments, as well as figuring out that he had disagreed with Camilla moving away with Louise, I discovered that he was married when he and Camilla met. Although, I’m hardly in a great position to judge. What I can judge, though, is Louise’s welfare.

  The police investigation is ongoing. The rumours don’t die down and every time an article or someone’s comment sails close to the truth, it strengthens my resolve that I will not pay for Camilla’s – or Nina’s – mistakes any longer. I hide the camera in the top of Camilla’s wardrobe, beneath some scarves I’ve never seen her wear.

  As I go downstairs, removing my new gloves (paid for in cash and which I will dispose of), I nearly trip down the last two stairs in shock when Louise’s bedroom door opens.

  ‘Louise! Why aren’t you at school?’

  ‘I thought you were my mum! I was going to say that our Personal Development Day at school finished early. Please don’t tell her.’

  She doesn’t ask what I am doing in her home. Full of tears, she is desperate to share how she hates her new school, is being bullied, how Camilla doesn’t want to hear it.

  ‘I want to live with my grandparents, but they say that they’re too old to have me living there full time.’

  I hug her and promise that I’m goi
ng to make everything all right. I’m going to fix this. I often hear Christian’s voice in my head: Control the things you can.

  I’m invited to rejoin the book group, and there’s no choice but to return because everything I do or say has to be about behaving normally. I walk into Tamsin’s living room and scan the faces. Miriam, Abigail, Sharon, Camilla, they are all there. I genuinely half expect to see Greg. It’s weird how quickly I’ve adapted and managed to convince myself that he’s alive and well.

  I think, not seeing him there, that’s when everything really hits me.

  Afterwards, Camilla and I walk home together. She has forgotten to bring a torch and her phone battery is low, so I light the way with mine. She collects Louise from ours and I walk them both back to the cottage. As she opens the door, I rummage inside my bag and hand her the photo album I’ve created especially her.

  ‘A gift,’ I say.

  ‘What for?’

  I say goodbye to Louise and wait until she is well inside the cottage before I reply.

  ‘A little reminder,’ I say. ‘Pay particular attention to the first photo. It’s the last one ever taken of Charlie. Physical proof, along with the confession you made to me which I recorded, that you lied about leaving him at the party.’ (It’s a very bad quality recording, but I don’t need to mention that.) ‘All the little things add up.’

  She is silent.

  ‘I’ve always had this little theory that the purest photos, the truth, if you like, are taken near the end of any event,’ I say.

  ‘This is all very unnecessary,’ she eventually says.

  ‘Maybe,’ I say. ‘But you can’t blame me for having an insurance policy. I must think of my family. I know if it ever comes up, you’ll try to pin all the blame on Nina because she’s not here to defend herself. I also know that you’ll try to pin Greg on me, too, if it ever comes to it. Yet it seems you’re the one with a history of violence, not me. It wouldn’t look good for any potential future defence of yours if you were also being investigated for an earlier murder. You would be the common factor, the link between the two. Not Nina. Not me.’

  I leave her with that thought as I walk slowly back to the main house.

  Stuart has truly embraced our marriage. He has chosen to see what I did to Greg as evidence of my loyalty. Suddenly, despite everything I’ve worked for, it feels like living with a python, the life squeezed out of me in a torturous, slow fashion. When I read to the children from The Jungle Book, I am morbidly fascinated by the picture of the grinning snake coiled around the main character.

  But I can’t leave Stuart, for so many reasons. He might say he wouldn’t drop me in it for the kids’ sake, but who is to say that he won’t? There are no guarantees that there wouldn’t be any drunken pillow talk with a future person or that the urge to come clean won’t strengthen over time. People change. I learned that from Christian.

  Stuart insists that he wanted to protect Nina, but it’s undeniably creepy how almost gleeful he was to be able to do the same for me. As if he knew it would trap me, make me stay. Because I can never risk being separated from my son. Greg’s observation that Stuart was Nina’s penance makes more sense to me now. And now it seems he is mine. While no one has been arrested for Greg’s murder – yet – I suddenly almost feel as though I’m serving a sentence of my own; if I stay with Stuart until Jack is eighteen, that’s roughly six thousand, five hundred and seventy days.

  Kevin and Suzanne are due to fly over to spend Christmas with us. Even my brother with the eternal itchy feet is apparently going to return before the new year. Life goes on.

  Meanwhile, we’ll all carry on pretending. If we get up each day, get dressed, eat breakfast, check our diaries and go through the motions, we’ll all get through this. In a few more years, the children’s memory of Nina will have diminished further, and it will be me who they turn to for advice. I’ll try not to overprotect them, however hard it may be. I want their upbringing to be different from mine even though I now realize that every parent does their best. I will teach them to be strong, to not rely on other people for their own self-worth, to make friends or keep friends who want to be with them because they genuinely like them. Also, to choose a partner wisely.

  I frequently dream of the knife that killed Greg: the sharpness of the blade, the serrations, the easy-grip handle enabling Camilla to hold it so tightly as she plunged it into his neck.

  I start to believe that nothing will ever happen, Greg-wise. But I promised Louise that I’d help her. Sometimes, things need a push.

  I invite her over to stay one evening and we watch movies, talk about her problems, make pancakes (sweet and savoury), which are a big hit with everyone. I pretend not to notice when she feeds Goldie a small piece of one.

  We laugh. There is a genuine, happy family atmosphere, full of camaraderie and love. Perhaps I’m not so bad after all.

  Camilla is arrested at dawn.

  An anonymous tip-off. Apparently.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  So much makes sense now. Nina tried desperately to cling to the respectability of normality, hide behind society’s cruelly deceptive structures. Foundations can be ripped away. Marriage, mortgages, children. No matter how much she clung to the rules, she couldn’t shake off her guilt.

  Strangely (or not?), Stuart and I get along well at times. When he’s a caring dad, when he and I have to make joint decisions for the benefit of our family, I can mentally push away the downsides. We ebb and flow, a perpetual work-in-progress involving endless compromises. Just like a real marriage, I guess.

  Despite my own deliberate yet subtle targeting of Stuart, and his of me, I really can’t see how it could’ve worked out any other way. Did Nina deliberately plant the idea in his head? Mine, too? We’ll never know, and I’m surprisingly all right with that. Perhaps it was her way of protecting her children. On some level, I can now understand. I do honestly believe that Nina would approve of most of my actions.

  I may have taken over Nina’s life, but in doing so, I’ve fulfilled my main promise to her: to protect her family. Because there was one thing that Nina knew she could rely on: my loyalty, however misplaced. Yet she was right to trust me at the time.

  Nina wanted Stuart to concentrate solely on the children for as long as possible.

  Stuart means well, but if he makes noises about selling, Marie, move in! Make a mess to put off any potential buyers, get the kids on board, they’ll love it!

  I smile at the memory.

  I’ve had to make up my own version of what really happened on that fateful boat trip. I like and choose to believe that Camilla probably made a bitchy comment about me and it awoke some kind of buried loyalty in Charlie, which is then what motivated him to turn on her while they were on the boat. Nina knew how guilty I felt about Charlie and how I held my drunken jealousy (however provoked) partly responsible for the path that ultimately led to his death. I’d told him that he wasn’t good enough for me or whatever I could think of in my rage that would hurt him as much as possible. Nina heard every vicious word, knew how shameful my last words to him had made me feel, yet she never gave even the slightest hint that I was blameless. In her blind confidence in me in the end, Nina overlooked the fact that everyone has a breaking point.

  Yet, still my feelings towards her ebb and flow. Affection, resentment, love, hate. But right now, strangely, I miss her more than ever.

  Four months later . . .

  I retrace Nina’s footsteps for one of the last ever times. Winter cold clings to my coat as I walk round the garden with my camera, the strap slung around my neck. Goldie is sniffing and exploring. Jack is asleep in his buggy. I take photos of him, of Goldie, of the grounds. I snap the final pictures, memories for the children.

  ‘Say goodbye to this place,’ I say out loud. ‘We’re moving to a much better home.’

  We are. It’s a cottage with a thatched roof and a smaller, more manageable garden filled with rhododendrons. It’s not so far away, Deborah can
still visit. We’ll be away from the bad memories, as well as Tamsin and her constant comments:

  Did you really not suspect a thing, Marie? I’ve never known a murderer before. I wouldn’t admit this to just anyone, but it’s really quite morbidly exciting! Not for Greg, obviously, that’s just awful. She pulled a sad face. Do you know I’ve had offers to sell my story? I’ve said no, of course, but when you think about it, she just used to sit there, in our book group as if butter wouldn’t melt!

  If only she knew . . .

  We are still awaiting Camilla’s trial.

  Stuart stuck to his word. So far, he has been utterly convincing as my alibi. I’ll give him that.

  I’ve promised Camilla that I will look after Louise to the utmost of my ability, despite her threats to drag me down, too, until I reminded her of our conversation, that she is the one with a violent history, not me.

  It’s a shame I don’t know where she hid the knife. She’ll never tell me now.

  ‘I’ll love Louise as my own,’ I said. ‘She’ll want for nothing. I’ll treat her as if she was the daughter Charlie and I would’ve had.’

  She gave me a strange look when I said that. I think it was then that the penny really dropped, that she knew or suspected what I’d done, but visiting hours came to an end. She had to return to her cell.

  Really, what did she expect me to do? I’ll have to watch my back if and when she’s released. I can’t erase the look on her face during the moments she stabbed Greg or forget what she did to Charlie when he rejected her. Her ex in Canada had a lucky escape, it seems to me.

  I walk around to the front of the house and lift Jack out of his buggy. Goldie barges ahead, pushing the front door open. I survey the empty rooms, full of cardboard boxes. Stuart took a lot of persuading to put the house on the market but eventually agreed to the ever-hopeful fresh start we all crave and need to believe exists.

  All the boxes are, of course, labelled. Inside one marked ‘Louise’s Bedroom’ is a gift, a framed picture. It is of me, Charlie and Camilla. I now have the power to reveal his true identity. I won’t be cruel, I won’t completely destroy the tale Camilla spun about her father: a whirlwind holiday romance. However, I can take charge of the narrative now.