The Couple: An unputdownable psychological thriller with a breathtaking twist

by Sarah Mitchell

  ‘You and me now, Claire. All alone. Just how we’ve always liked it.’ The casual menace alters his voice like a change of key. Major to minor, smooth to rough, phoney to real.

  I retreat towards the opposite side of the room, the wall with the television and the shelving units. The place is beginning to stink, my nostrils are filled with the salty, sulphurous stench of an abattoir and my stomach is pitching as if I am at sea. I badly want to throw up, but I make myself swallow, force the vomit down into my throat.

  ‘I suppose,’ I say, conversationally, ‘you were hoping to find the Glock. Did you check the wooden chest to see if it was still there?’

  Although Mark doesn’t answer, his glance at the box tells me I’m right. I picture him opening the lid and finding nothing but a Tesco carrier bag containing a black thong. ‘I told you I threw the gun in the river. Didn’t you believe me?’

  Mark’s grip on the knife tightens, as though he is psyching himself up for what must happen next. ‘This is your fault, Claire. I told you to stay away. It was only supposed to be Angus, but you had to come and get involved.’ His eyes flash with frustration; I realise he is genuinely annoyed his plans have been thwarted.

  He moves forward and I back further into the corner that houses the television. Both my routes of escape, the front door and the kitchen, are less than ten metres away but if I were to try to make a run for either of them I would have no chance at all.

  ‘What do you want from me?’ I say, although the answer to that question is pretty obvious. I am merely buying myself some time.

  ‘Nothing. I’ve already got what I wanted. You’ve served your purpose. The trouble is that now you know far too much. You’re too clever for your own good.’ Mark’s face and shirt are caked with blood and his nose is slanting at an ugly, unnatural angle, yet he is only one throw of the dice away from the person who captivated me the first time we met. The person who made me believe I could have Daniel after all.

  ‘You mean the list of names?’ My back is flush against the painted woodwork, there is nowhere else to go, but I can’t resist the chance to shatter his vile illusions.

  He raises his eyebrows in a doh sort of way. ‘Selling fake documents to those losers will probably make me ten grand which will be enough to keep the bank happy. The real money will start after that.’

  ‘If you can find them,’ I say quietly.

  He pushes his temple closer to mine; all the colours of his skin – the grey, the ashen and the red-stained pores – exposed. ‘What do you mean, if I can find them? You gave me their addresses, some will have moved on, but most will be traceable.’

  ‘I gave you addresses. I might not have checked as carefully as I should they were the right addresses, or even actual addresses at all.’ I’m looking straight into his eyes and so I get the satisfaction of seeing the flash of fury cross his face, but I don’t spot his left hand, the one without the knife, fly up and smack into the side of my head. A white, scalding stripe of pain bursts inside my skull as I crash into the shelves. The floor tilts. I grab hold of a shelf to stop myself from falling. I have to stay upright. I have to reach the third shelf. That’s the whole reason I lead him to this part of the room.

  Mark grabs a fistful of my hair and yanks, the way he did with Angus. ‘You imbecile, you’ve ruined everything.’ He hauls me upright so that I am hanging in his grip like a rag doll. ‘Look at me! Look at me! I want to see you. And I want you to see the knife!’

  Slowly, I lift my face. I can feel my sight fading, the bruised and swollen skin is closing my right eye. A dribble of something warm runs down my cheek.

  For a moment Mark’s expression freezes. ‘I liked you, Claire, I really did. You can look fucking amazing at times.’ He pauses, tilting his head to one side. ‘I warned you not to come here, remember. Really, you’ve only yourself to blame.’

  While he’s talking I extend my right arm behind me, stretch up one shelf, two shelves, and then to the ledge where I made sure the Portuguese bowl was sitting less than an hour earlier. My shoulder is twisting in its socket, the sinews straining to snapping point as my fingers crawl upwards.

  Mark’s right hand twitches and draws back slightly, the slick blade is gleaming red. He is considering the knife a little sadly. ‘I hope you realise that I don’t have any choice about this?’

  I find the edge of the dish, tip the bowl onto its side.

  His mouth twists in anticipation as my fingers grope the interior and enclose around the smooth black barrel of the Glock 17.

  My first shot misses. I fire too quickly, too wildly, over Mark’s shoulder and hit the Spanish mirror instead. A storm of glass erupts in a deafening crack; jagged fragments explode across the room, a rain of lethal darts fired from the bow of the wooden frame. My flesh stings as if I have been bitten and I watch the crimson tributary curl around my forearm as it holds the firearm steady, pointing it at Mark’s chest.

  Mark’s hand is pressed to his left cheek, blood is seeping between the gaps. His eyes are blown wide with shock. ‘You told me you got rid of the gun.’

  ‘I lied.’

  Mark opens his mouth but no words come out, at least none I can hear above the roaring in my own head. Like I say, if somebody is lying about one element of their story the chances are the rest is made-up too. Like the visibility of a lone cyclist when the winter sun is low on the horizon. Like how much time is needed to stop a car.

  Daniel is dead because I killed him, because I ran him over with the light in my eyes and my face full of tears. Split-second decisions are the most interesting ones, they come from somewhere deep within; the part we do our best to hide, even from ourselves.

  I become aware of an urgent, screaming noise. The wail of a siren rents the air and blue light pulses beyond the window. Someone – the neighbours, I imagine – must have called the police, which means I have, at a conservative guess, about five seconds to make up my mind before the matter is out of my hands. Almost immediately a car door slams, footsteps slap on the tarmac.

  ‘Don’t do this, Claire! There’s no need now. You’re a nice girl.’ Mark’s voice is wheedling, pleading.

  How fucking satisfying is that?

  I could tell him that people are never what you think – Mark wasn’t Daniel and he never could be – but I don’t waste my breath.

  Very gently, I squeeze the trigger.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Once the police finish their questions I go and stay with my parents. Within twenty-four hours of being treated like a patient on the critical list I am practically climbing the walls, nevertheless it takes another excruciating ten days to convince everyone to let me return to London.

  My first engagement is a back-to-work meeting with Maggie in her office – the department’s answer to Kew Gardens. A tray containing biscuits, a tall dark flask and two white china cups are positioned between her computer and a potted aspidistra. Maggie seems uncharacteristically nervous, a worried frown folding the flesh between her eyebrows into an exclamation mark.

  ‘Do sit down, Claire,’ she says, gesturing at a chair and settling herself on the opposite side of the desk. The moment I am seated she bends forwards, leaning on the bridge of her interlaced fingers, ‘I just want to say,’ – she pauses – ‘I just want to say that none of us can imagine what you’ve been through and we all think you’ve been incredibly brave. If you find you need any more time away from the office, for stress or… um… anything else, I want you to tell me straight away.’

  There is something slightly hollow, rather forced, about her little speech. I can imagine her standing in front of the mirror practising, to get the sincere yet non-melodramatic inflection right. I wonder if she suspects I might take advantage of her offer to catch up on my Christmas shopping.

  ‘Right then, let’s talk about the High Court case,’ is her response to my murmured thank you. Although she sounds relieved to be switching to a more normal topic of conversation, her features don’t relax. Instead she pick
s up a pen and pulls a pad of A4 towards herself in an overly obvious down-to-business sort of way. ‘I don’t know if you remember me mentioning the case to you before,’ she clears her throat with a little hiccup, ‘before you went away?’

  I nod encouragingly.

  ‘Well, there’s been a development. Of course, you’re still part of the team but I’ve assigned someone else to assist you. I needed to start the ball rolling in your absence, and I wasn’t sure what the police… if you…’ Her voice trails waywardly before regathering momentum. ‘Anyway, his name is Jamie and I’m sure you’ll get on very well together.’ Then she adds, ‘He went to Cambridge as well. Trinity like you, I believe.’ She glances at me and then immediately down at her blank sheet of paper and I know for a fact she has found out that I never set foot in Trinity College, she may even have discovered that I never completed my degree. Her problem is that now she can’t say anything to undermine my status as the tragic heroine in case the stress is too much for my fragile health and she has to sign me off sick for six weeks.

  ‘That’s fine,’ I say smoothly. ‘I don’t mind working with Jamie.’

  ‘Good.’ She takes off the lid of the pen as if to start writing but then puts it down. I wonder if she is about to offer me some coffee, however she seems to have forgotten all about the presence of the thermos and the custard creams. ‘Claire, I hope you don’t mind me asking,’ another hesitation, ‘I was wondering whereabouts you’re staying? I mean, I imagine you’re not still living at—’

  ‘Agatha,’ I say, to spare her agony. ‘I’m sleeping on Agatha’s sofa.’ Actually, my sitting room already has a new carpet and the walls have been repainted, just to make sure there are no pesky bloodstains to put off any prospective buyers. As a precaution the estate agent has suggested keeping the house off the market for a couple of months, until the story dies down, however they don’t expect its current notoriety to dent the price in the long-term. Apparently, a couple of gory deaths might even generate a bit of extra interest, an additional premium. People can be strange, but I can’t pretend I don’t like the idea of the extra money.

  ‘And the… er… police. Have they finished asking you questions?’ Although Maggie’s tone is light there is a filament of wire running through the centre of it. This, I think, this is the heart of the matter, the reason why Maggie has been acting like a cat traversing a bed of hot coals.

  ‘Yes,’ I say, looking her straight in the eyes. ‘I only fired the gun in self-defence. The police know that.’

  To be honest it wasn’t very difficult to convince them. Although Mark had a knife and I had a gun, and in the Top Trumps game of deadly weapons there could only ever be one winner, there was no getting around the fact that my fiancé was lying slaughtered on the floor. I was bound to be feeling rather nervous, a little trigger-happy, and from Mark’s point of view it was simply a matter of bad timing that the police arrived just seconds too late. As I explained when I was questioned, my one piece of luck was the Glock 17, which Mark had left in the wooden box. Angus had found the key to the chest – taped under the mirror, would you believe – and he told me about the gun before Mark appeared on the stairs. I was able to open the box while Mark and Angus were fighting – though sadly it was too late to save Angus. He was a hero, really. Mark killed him because he threatened to go to the police.

  The almost-truth can be very plausible indeed.

  No, I didn’t see the cyclist. Yes, I have to admit that I had been following Daniel. I just wanted to look at him, you see, catch a glimpse – I suppose it’s true that I hadn’t come to terms with the break-up. He was cycling far too fast, all the witnesses say so, and at the junction I couldn’t see a thing. The sun was very low, shining straight into my face, and of course the frost didn’t help. The field beyond the road was dancing with a million tiny diamonds. It was mesmerising, the last thing I noticed before the impact.

  The trick – I’ll tell this for nothing – is not to cry. Much better to be struggling for control, searching for composure. Gaze out of the window and rummage up your sleeve for a tissue. Then look back, just for a moment. A small, brave smile. Say, ‘I don’t think I’ll ever get over what happened.’

  The trick is to believe the story yourself.

  Maggie is watching me. Her pad of paper is still untouched. ‘Right, Claire. I don’t think there’s anything else.’ She stands up, and so I do as well. The biscuits must catch her eye because she glances at them and colours slightly. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t—’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, I had coffee before I came in.’

  ‘Right. So – welcome back!’ For an instant Maggie’s right arm extends as if to shake my hand, but she thinks better of it and retracts her elbow almost before the movement becomes visible.

  * * *

  By the time I get to my floor everyone else is already working – at least the ones who aren’t presenting in the tribunal today. I don’t know what I’m expecting: a cake, a barrage of questions, a round of applause? However, to my surprise nobody says much when I arrive, they all appear engrossed in their files and hardly seem to notice me at all. As I slip into my seat, Agatha catches my eye over the top of our desktops and smiles. It’s pretty obvious she has spoken to my colleagues while I was with Maggie. ‘Claire won’t want anyone to make fuss,’ I can hear her saying. ‘She’d much prefer to carry on as normal.’ I suspect the word ‘anticlimax’ doesn’t feature terribly strongly in Agatha’s vocabulary.

  I turn to the papers piled on my in-tray and open the first case. The appellant is an asylum seeker from Crimea who claims he was forced to deliver anti-Russian leaflets to pay for his mother’s cancer treatment – some people get a really shitty deal. I manage to read about twenty pages of statements and interview notes before I decide to fetch the coffee that Maggie forgot to give me. Agatha must have done a pretty thorough job at discouraging any outward displays of curiosity because even when I go to the kitchen and hang around for a few minutes nobody bothers to join me.

  I am on my way back to my desk when the sight of a coat slung over the back of Nigel’s chair temporarily stops me in my tracks. I hurry over to Agatha. ‘Nigel,’ I say, pointing, ‘when did he come back?’ Agatha’s expression lights up like a Christmas tree before deflating an instant later.

  ‘No, Claire. That’s not Nigel. I don’t suppose he’s ever coming back. A new guy sits there now, his name is Jamie. In fact,’ she pokes my side unnecessarily, ‘there he is now!’

  As I turn around a man appears on the other side of the room, walking from the direction of the lifts. Mid-height with short dark hair, he must notice us staring in his direction because he stops and lifts his hand by way of greeting. Immediately, Agatha waves back enthusiastically.

  My arm, however, remains pinned to my side. I can’t move a muscle and my voice has vacated my throat. Really, it’s as much as I can do to remember to breathe. I can hardly believe my luck. The man smiling at me across the wasteland of the office floor, the man who is about to become my colleague, my working partner no less, looks exactly like a professional, more sophisticated version of Daniel.

  If you loved the secrets and lies in The Couple, make sure you don’t miss The Lost Letters – out now!

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  Get it here!

  The Lost Letters

  Get it here!

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  A gripping book club novel about forbidden love, friendship and family secrets in World War Two. Perfect for fans of The Letter by Kathryn Hughes, The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.

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  ‘I adored this book, devouring it in a couple of days!… A beautiful and moving story that will stay with me for quite a while. Five shiny stars!!’ Goodreads Reviewer, 5 stars

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  What if keeping your loved ones safe meant never seeing them again?

  * * *

  Norfolk, 1940: Sylvia’s husband Howard has gone off to war, and she is strugg
ling to raise her two children alone. Her only solace is her beach hut in Wells-Next-The-Sea, and her friendship with Connie, a woman she meets on the beach. The two women form a bond that will last a lifetime, and Sylvia tells Connie something that no-one else knows: about a secret lover… and a child.

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  Canada, present day: When Martha’s beloved father dies, he leaves her two things: a mysterious stash of letters to an English woman called ‘Catkins’ and directions to a beach hut in the English seaside town of Wells. Martha is at a painful crossroads in her own life, and seizes this chance for a trip to England – to discover more about her family’s past, and the identity of her father’s secret correspondent.

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  The tragedy of war brought heartbreaking choices for Sylvia. And a promise made between her and Connie has echoed down the years. For Martha, if she uncovers the truth, it could change everything…

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  Get it here!

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