The Couple: An unputdownable psychological thriller with a breathtaking twist

by Sarah Mitchell

  The Couple

  An unputdownable psychological thriller with a breathtaking twist

  Sarah Mitchell

  Books by Sarah Mitchell

  The Lost Letters

  The Couple

  Available in audio

  The Lost Letters (UK listeners | US listeners)

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  The Lost Letters

  Hear More From Sarah

  Books by Sarah Mitchell

  A Letter From Sarah

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  Now

  A voice.

  It floats over the shoulder of the woman in front of me, words never intended for my ears. My brother’s girlfriend is speaking to my mother, the milk-soft nape of her neck exposed by the overhead lights as she leans in close. Her tone may be low and confidential but I’m standing just behind them hearing it all, unwatched, unnoticed, until a maternal sixth sense makes my mother spin abruptly on her heel.

  ‘Claire!’ My mother’s expression encapsulates shock masked by a hasty screen of pretence. I see the momentary panic as she scrabbles around for something to say, the alien lipstick, put on for me, for this, my special celebration, bleeding into the tiny lines around her mouth. ‘Elsa was just saying… we were both telling each other… how wonderful you’re looking tonight.’

  This is not, as well she knows, an accurate summary of Elsa’s remarks, and as if to compensate my mother throws her left hand towards me, finds my fingers and squeezes hard. ‘What we really meant to say was how beautiful you’re looking tonight. Just beautiful.’ She smiles, eyes bright with sudden sincerity, although nobody else, not even, it occurs to me, my own, cellophane-packet new fiancé, has called me beautiful this evening. She presses my hand again, gazes first at me and then at Elsa, as if checking there is no trail of explosive between us that is about to ignite in her absence. ‘I’d better go and find your stepfather,’ she says, and is gone.

  Elsa won’t meet my eyes. She’s staring into her drink, as if she wishes it were a lake that would swallow us up in a gulp of champagne. Her neck and face are reddened by a mottled flush that has nothing to do with alcohol – neither she nor my mother have dared to touch a drop – from fear, I think, of letting down their guard so far away from home. Around us, the room is thrumming; almost two hours into the evening and the energy levels have notched upwards. Strands of conversation weave a steady tapestry of noise while the army of young waiting staff – shirts, ties and hair all beginning to unravel in the heat – persist with the final few canapés, the cocktail sticks and tiny pink serviettes.

  My own hands are empty. As soon as the party started I drank two large glasses of fizz, knocking back one straight after the other like shots, but stopped when Angus caught my eye and very slightly shook his head. Angus rarely touches alcohol. I think he wants to set me an example, as if anxious to quell any of my old student habits that might accentuate the modest age gap between us. I’ve told him more than once that I was the model student, too worried about my debt, which grew like ivy, wild and untrammelled, however much I lived on Co-op vouchers and charity shop clothes, to binge-drink in nightclubs or the student bar, but I’m not sure he believes me. Tonight, I like to think, is an exception; the bubbles are an effective and necessary fix for the knots that are cramping my stomach. After all, doesn’t everyone get a little nervy at their own engagement party?

  ‘Claire?’ Elsa’s voice is hesitant. ‘I’m sorry… I didn’t mean…’ The words fail on her tongue.

  ‘It’s OK,’ I say. ‘I’m fine about it. Honestly.’ And since neither of us can think of anything to say next we drop into a conversational hole.

  Out of this room of sixty people, Elsa only knows my family. She is not here for me, why would she be? I am a competitor for Rob’s attention, I hear her elfin presence in the disengagement of his voice and the abruptness of his answers whenever – rarely, now – I call him. No, Elsa is here for Rob, and for my mother and stepfather whom she adores for being loving and stable, unlike her own relatives who she left in Poland years ago. We’ve played down, of course, our family history of the errant, absent parent – as far as Elsa is concerned my actual father might never have existed. Now, the fabric of her blue satin dress hangs gracelessly from her slender frame, pulled out of shape by an oversized bow that reminds me of an election candidate’s party rosette. I imagine she bought the outfit especially for the occasion but it looks garish and out of place amongst the understated charcoals and greys of Angus’s friends.

  I suspect I look out of place too, though since my presence is central to the occasion nobody would be rude enough to say it, or possibly even to think it. Normally I can make myself attractive, even, to adopt my mother’s acclamation, beautiful. But my beauty is the kind that is painted in thick brushstrokes, the type that can be dialled up or down with the presence or absence of make-up and good clothes, that can let you slink unnoticed through a crowd one day and make an entrance, steal a scene the next. I am not someone who turns heads in an airport terminal at 5 a.m., yet give me red lipstick and a fitted shirt, let me shake loose my hair, undo an extra button and clasp my hands behind my back to inch my chest forwards, and I can wield the power as well as anyone.

  Tonight however, my efforts have fallen short. Although my dress is outrageously expensive, it is also black and short and plain and it happens to bear a striking similarity to the uniform of the waiting staff, add a white apron and I could vanish into the background altogether. Not that I would object if I were asked to pick up a plate and hand around some canapés. I have to keep reminding myself that Angus is my fiancé, that this is our party, that these are our friends – because that’s not really the whole picture. It’s true, of course, that Angus is my fiancé; it’s true we sent out cards with gold embossed lettering inviting these people to celebrate our engagement; and it’s also true that some of the guests I, personally, chose to be here. Yet nevertheless, I can’t shake off the sense that something is amiss. I want someone to clap their hands and stop the show – a film director, perhaps, with a black-and-white clapperboard. He could rush through the door that leads to the hallway, and beyond to a West London street, and with a wave of his arms and a shake of his head insist the scene is cut and we must all start again.

  Back to Elsa. The colour is subsiding from her cheeks and eventually she stops contemplating her pale pond of un-sipped Moet. ‘Honestly, Claire, I’m so pleased for you and how it has all worked out. After everything you went through with Daniel. That’s all I was trying to say.’ To my astonishment she takes a step towards me and plants the lightest butterfly kiss on my right cheek. She turns away before I can react and all at once I want to pull her back and ask her, beg her, not to leave me on my own, but already she’s melting into the knots and clusters of bodies, in search, I imagine, of my brother.
As I watch her silky blue back recede, her voice, the words I overheard her say, are so loud in my head I’m surprised the whole room is not stopping to listen to them.

  ‘It’s such a relief, isn’t it,’ was what I heard her murmur to my mother, ‘to know that Claire is finally over Daniel? You must have been so worried about her, but now nobody would guess anything like that had ever happened.’

  * * *

  ‘Claire! There you are! We’ve only been engaged ten days and I thought you’d run out on me already!’ Angus takes my elbow.

  The noises in my head subside; the world gives itself a little shake and settles back into its groove. My husband-to-be is regarding me with his steady, grey-eyed gaze. ‘Come on, Claire. There’s a friend of mine I want to introduce you to.’

  As he leads me over, I realise how obvious it is that Angus’s friends are occupying one half of the room, and my friends, the rather less crowded, opposite half. It’s not surprising, I suppose, since this is the only opportunity they’ve had to meet. This is the first party we’ve thrown, the first time that most of the guests here have seen us together, which is the almost-inevitable result of the fact that Angus and I have known each other for less than four months.

  We met at a low-budget conference on the future direction of immigration policy. I was with a work colleague who recognised Angus as we arrived together at the registration point. Although it was clear they knew each other, a moment of awkward hesitation ensued before, as if by way of last resort, Angus and I were introduced. After the formalities were over we were each handed a clip-on plastic name badge and a white china cup of coffee that was so strong everyone later joked the caterers must have been tipped off about the quality of the speakers and wanted to ensure we all stayed awake. I suppose Angus made an instant impression because he was tall and attractive, but his good looks were tidy, almost formal – sharply cut, blondish hair, polished shoes and a tailored twill blazer – and the impression was only the fleeting, tangential kind. Then at the midday break, on the way to the side room where a plated cold lunch was being served, he appeared by my side, took hold of my elbow – much as he is doing now – and steered me towards an empty table. It didn’t feel so much like a sexual move, more a proprietary one, as if he was collecting a piece of his luggage he’d left temporarily in the hallway.

  ‘So Claire,’ he said, when we’d sat down, making a point of reading from my name badge. ‘What do you do?’

  I liked the way he spoke. A noticeable northern burr called to mind peat fires and whisky, though later I learned his parents had left Edinburgh when he was just a child. I poked at the rather tired lettuce that accompanied a piece of quiche before I replied, the intensity of his gaze reminding me that I was wearing a well-cut suit and my hair had been brushed into a smooth, thick waterfall over my right shoulder. ‘The Home Office,’ I said eventually. ‘I work for the Immigration Service.’ The description always appears grander than I want it to, or maybe it has been ruined for me by the tone my mother adopts whenever she describes my role to one of her friends – a breathy mix of deference and pride that sabotages her attempts to sound casual about the fact that her daughter, raised in a terraced house in Ipswich, now works at a Government address in SW1. I suppose the job conjures images of heavy wooden desks and leather chairs, of neat shelves of files, and civil servants beavering away within a library-like hush. The truth is rather different: modern, modular furniture whose plastic surfaces overflow with stack upon stack of beige folders stuffed with papers, all of which are months old and required attention yesterday. If things had worked out differently it wouldn’t have been my first choice of career, but at the time it seemed to be a way of being closer to Daniel.

  ‘Are you a lawyer?’ Angus asked. There was a subtle emphasis on the word lawyer. Distrust or respect? Disdain or interest? I couldn’t tell.

  ‘Not technically. But I have to know about immigration law and keep up to date with policy changes because I represent the Home Office when their decisions are appealed.’

  His fork hung in mid-air, as if struck with awe by my not-so-lofty position, or awaiting further explanation.

  ‘Think of all the claims that get refused,’ I volunteered. ‘I have to defend the Home Office if an appeal is brought.’

  ‘Even if you think the decision was wrong?’ His eyebrows lifted as the fork moved towards his mouth.

  ‘Yeah… well,’ I sighed. Shrugged. Gave the standard answer I’ve learned to give whenever anyone asks that question, which is all the time and always as if they’re the first person ever to think of it. ‘It’s how the system works, but sometimes it’s pretty obvious the decision was wrong and there’s not much I can say.’

  ‘Well, it sounds like interesting work.’

  I wasn’t sure whether he was asking a question, but after a moment he began to eat again. I thought of the waiting rooms full of desperation: fear of being sent home, fear of death, of hunger, fear of being found out; lies in every kind of language and terrible, unspeakable truths from the bleakest corners of the world. And the task of sorting one from the other in the space of a two-hour hearing. Interesting hardly covered it. I decided to assume there was no question.

  I studied his serious features, the squarish jut of his chin and I found I wanted to hear the earthy tones of his voice again. Putting my elbow on the table I cupped my chin prettily in my hand and turned up the dial, ‘What do you do?’

  ‘I run a chain of hotels.’

  ‘Really?’

  His mouth broke into a slow smile, as if smiling was an activity only to be undertaken with forethought and deliberation. There was something very attractive about it, that level of self-awareness; it seemed to be a sign of someone truly adult, although as I studied his face I realised he was not as old as I had first assumed. There was probably no more than five years between us.

  ‘The properties aren’t enormous but we are gradually acquiring a foothold in most of the major towns across the UK.’ Angus told me about the business of hotel management. How his firm identified suitable small buildings in up-and-coming locations with good transport links and developed them into places where someone travelling on business or leisure could spend a night or two without breaking the bank.

  ‘Boutique hotels?’ I suggested. He nodded, pleased, and gave me his card with the name of the company, MPC, printed in black inter-locking letters. No unnecessary frills, but comfortable places to stay at far less cost than the exorbitant prices charged by other city chains.

  He kept eating while he talked, pausing every so often to check I was following. When I asked what he was doing here, learning about the potential effects of Brexit on the immigration rules in a third-rate west London conference centre, he blinked at the dumbness of my question and told me the impact of Brexit on immigration was crucial to the economy, something anyone who was serious about business had to understand to be able to assess the sectors of the market likely to suffer most. Besides, a lot of his employees were from mainland Europe. Then he reached into the top left-hand pocket of his jacket and pulled out an old-fashioned black leather diary.

  ‘When can I see you again, Claire?’

  As I hesitated, he smiled once more in that careful, slow-burn way, and I found myself saying that I was free on Friday; this Friday evening, as it happened.

  Was ours a whirlwind romance? That’s the term, they give, don’t they, to a love affair that moves so quickly? But that’s not the phrase I’d use to describe our relationship. Whirlwind suggests gusts and eddies, overnight storms of passion, followed by mornings of sweet, spent calm. If wind strength is the analogy here, I’d say that Angus was an unrelenting force six, a steady press of energy that propelled me ever forward to this, the occasion of our engagement party.

  Stepping around several of our guests Angus steers me purposefully towards a man who is standing with his back to us. I have time to clock the lack of jacket and paisley shirt before the sound of a teaspoon on glass slices through the cha
tter. We look up to see my stepfather standing beside the drinks table, the crowd pulling back to a respectful distance. Somebody must have given him something to stand on because his face is visible over the crowd and it wears a stunned, quite horrified expression as the trickle of murmuring fades and then stills completely. This must be my mother’s doing, I have never in my life heard my stepfather speak in public and I wonder how she can possibly believe it is a good idea for him to start now.

  He gulps and after a moment unfolds a piece of paper that he proceeds to hold in front of his eyes as if to block out our presence. For too long there’s a ghastly hush as he teeters like a high-board diver staring down at a postage stamp of water. I count to three… four… five. The tension in the room gathers and dilates, and then, just when I think my grip will snap, any second, the stem of my wine glass, he begins, and everyone in the room breathes out at the same time.

  At first it’s fine. He says the usual stuff that people always say at these occasions: the thank yous – to me and Angus for holding the party, to everyone for coming, to the caterers. After that he describes how happy everyone is for us – him and my mother, all our guests, and how happy he knows we are too – and finishes with a weak joke about his impending wedding speech. I’m sure that was supposed to be the end because his hand holding the script drops, he catches my gaze and smiles. I smile back. It was that small moment, I think, that must have given him a gust of confidence, the sudden inspiration to go off-piste.