Next, she emptied the business account he had set up in her name with the intention of confusing HMRC and put the forty grand into a personal account he knew nothing about. She was irritated there wasn’t more in there but, it didn’t really surprise her, as she suspected he had numerous accounts both in the UK and abroad and was always moving money around to make it more difficult to trace.
Lastly, just before they went away, she had arranged for the locks on their ‘dream house’ to be changed. She couldn’t wait for him to find out that the two cars from his prized collection that he had put in her name and stashed in her double garage, in a further attempt to bamboozle the taxman, were no longer there.
All in all, she was proud of what she had achieved, but the best was yet to come. She found the sense of power intoxicating and quite a turn on in fact. She was not sure yet just how far she would be able to go with this. Ironically, their sex life had been given a whole new lease of life since she found out about his infidelity and she thought with a tinge of sadness that she would miss their little games. She had embarked on a personal mission to pull out all the stops where sex was concerned and make sure he couldn’t get enough of her. She wanted him to have a vivid memory of all that he would never have again, to feel the same searing pain of betrayal she had felt. She also found it hugely satisfying to know that, as she was shagging him senseless, she was at the same time plotting to screw him over royally.
That night in the villa, after two bottles of wine and several rum and cokes, she decided to up the ante in the bedroom department.
‘Let’s try something a little different tonight,’ she said with a suggestive wink.
‘Hmm, I’m intrigued. What did you have in mind?’
She despised his lecherous grin as he grabbed her by the hips and ground unsubtly against her pelvis to show her he already had an erection, probably courtesy of the Viagra she knew he always took. No chance of any action without that since the accident.
‘I have a little present for you,’ she murmured, stepping back from his grip.
He raised his eyebrows as she presented him with a pair of black PVC pants with a built-in butt plug that she had acquired from a sex shop the previous week, knowing his fascination with anal sex.
He was predictably enthusiastic, even when she helped him to get the butt plug into position a little too roughly. She took the lead, straddling him and riding him like a rodeo bull, while at the same time amusing herself by imagining the look on his face if she suddenly pulled out a knife and plunged it into his neck. She made sure she pulled away just in time and finished things off by executing a textbook blow job, giving the performance of her life. When the ordeal was finally over and he had finished grunting and pumping his way to orgasm, he fell over onto his back and began snoring almost immediately. She shuddered in revulsion, almost gagging at what she had just endured. As she lay there beside him, staring at the ceiling, she vowed that he would never touch her again.
She had found out about his treachery quite by chance, but it was remarkable how easily the whole thing had unravelled, like an old woollen jumper, once she had started to do a little digging. It would have been so easy to shout and scream and hurl accusations at him, but where would that have left her? No. She was smarter than that. It was essential to maintain the element of surprise to carry out the plan to her best advantage. So she had taken her time and made sure she missed nothing. Planning and preparation were the keys to success and she knew exactly how she was going to play this.
Not long to wait now - she thought to herself.
Lighting the Fuse
Lorraine
Four days later, back home after the holiday in Portugal, Lorraine sat alone at her kitchen table, laptop open in front of her. She took her time to read, for the hundredth time, the message she had so laboriously composed.
She checked every detail.
She noticed the time. Just before 10 pm on a Saturday.
Taking a deep breath, she pressed send to all.
Then she sat back, smiling to herself and waited.
The Explosion
Enjoy what you have today, for you never know what tomorrow may bring, or what it may take away.
Grace
‘Do you realise next April we’ll have been married for twenty years?’
‘Jeez, people get less than that for committing murder!’ Daniel responded, as he winked at me and laughed.
‘Only joking. I think we make a pretty good team, don’t you? We’ve had our fair share of ups and downs, but look at us, still here enjoying life.’
He was right there. We had a great life on the whole and I appreciated it all the more after what we had been through in the last few years. Daniel’s recovery after the accident had amazed the doctors and he was now walking around without even needing a stick. He was able to sail again although, due to pressure of work, we only tended to do the small events with friends for crew. The business had suffered after the accident of course, but we finally seemed to be getting back on an even keel. I had done my bit to help by re-mortgaging my little house in Conway and putting eighty grand into the pot. It was only supposed to be a short term loan and the plan was that the business would pay me back with hefty interest, but things had been tougher than we expected. It seemed to cause an argument every time I mentioned it, but Daniel had promised faithfully to try to sort it all out by the end of the financial year, now that the company was doing better. At the end of the day, I told myself it didn’t really matter. We were husband and wife after all. What was mine was his. But I still couldn’t help worrying.
‘Come on, it’s a big milestone,’ I continued. ‘We should do something special to mark the occasion.’
A holiday in the sun was uppermost in my mind.
‘Maybe we could go back to the Seychelles again?’ I suggested.
‘Leave it with me and I’ll come up with some ideas. I need to look at the schedule for work. It’s pretty busy around that time with a couple of big jobs due to be finished over in the States.’
Daniel had always done a lot of business in America and had recently set up an office in Boston. He spent so much time over there these days it made sense to have a proper base. I had been with him on the odd business trip in the past, but he usually went when I was working and of course, I had Valentino to consider. I did worry that Daniel was pushing himself too hard though and I felt we could both do with a holiday, so I had no intention of giving in on this one.
‘Oh, come on. You’re already working away over Christmas. Surely you can take some time off in spring?’ I persisted.
‘You’re not going to start going on about Christmas again are you? You know I hate Christmas. I always have done. I’ve told you a hundred times I’d rather be working. I’ll be back for New Year, I promise, and we’ll have a great time in Italy with Charles and Samantha.’
‘I suppose so,’ I muttered, sulkily.
Of course, I was disappointed about Christmas, but I would spend it with my family as usual and look forward to the planned Italy trip. Charles and Samantha had rented a farmhouse in Tuscany for a month and we were going out to spend a week with them over New Year. Daniel couldn’t ski any more after his accident, but Samantha and I were hoping to get a few days in the mountains. I just needed to get a move on and sort the flights out, given that it was already November and we had agreed on dates. No harm in looking at deals to the Seychelles as well, I decided.
If I was honest, Christmas no longer held any real charm for me either. My Dad had fought bravely against cancer, but he had finally lost his fight almost a year ago. The funeral was the day after what would have been his eightieth birthday, a few days before Christmas. It hit Mum very hard, of course, and I did my best to support her as much as possible. Daniel was always understanding and said that, in his opinion, it would be better for me to spend quality one on one time with her, especially when he had to work away so much.
I was visiting Mum one weekend shortly afte
r the holiday conversation when Daniel rang from Ireland. He had been visiting a customer and had stayed on for a couple of days to try and fit in a sail on a friend’s boat.
‘Honey, you need to sit down,’ was his opening gambit. I was instantly nervous.
‘I’ve bought a Swan 40!’
It took a few moments for his words to sink in.
‘You’ve done what?’
My voice was shrill. I was literally gobsmacked.
‘When did you decide to do that?’ I asked, tersely, wondering why I hadn’t been party to the decision. ‘Can we afford it?’
I knew he was expecting me to be excited, but I couldn’t help feeling a niggling resentment at his extravagance. I suppose I would have liked him to have sorted out the money from the re-mortgage first, or at least consulted me about the purchase instead of just presenting it as a ‘fait accompli’ and making big decisions without me as usual.
Swan was the Rolls Royce of yachts and needless to say, they were not cheap. The company produced boats that were beautifully styled and elegant, with classic lines and timeless luxury below decks. Charles and Samantha had a Swan and so, of course, Daniel had always coveted one.
‘Why didn’t you tell me you were buying it?’ I continued.
His voice took on a sour tone.
‘Well, I’m telling you about it now. I wanted it to be a surprise, but you always have to put a damper on things,’ he said, accusingly.
‘Where have you got the money from all of a sudden?’
‘For fuck’s sake! Why do you never trust me? I told you, the business is picking up again and I got the deal of the century. It’s being sold by a guy who has terminal cancer, which is sad I know, but he basically just wants rid of the boat. I got it for an absolute song, £100,000 if you must know the details.’
‘Really? That sounds a bit cheap for a Swan 40 to me,’ I said, suspiciously.
‘Well I admit it needs a fair bit of work, but it was too good a chance to miss. I thought you’d be happy.’
‘Okay, okay. I’m sorry. It was just a shock, that’s all.’
Things that are too good to be true usually are.
My brain was working overtime as he continued.
‘So now I need you to start thinking about where you want to keep it and do some research into marinas. How do you fancy Spain for starters or maybe Portugal?’
I loved Spain and spoke fluent Spanish. Perhaps I needed to lighten up and trust him a bit more. This could be the start of a whole new chapter for us. Surprisingly, since the accident three years earlier, things had become easier. The doctors had told Daniel he could no longer father children, so the decision to start a family was taken out of our hands and the arguments became irrelevant. Besides, I was already very firmly in the camp of ‘geriatric mothers’ for whom pregnancy held far greater risks. It was time to let the whole baby thing go.
‘Spain. Maybe Valencia, or even Palma,’ I added, trying to sound more enthusiastic.
‘Well, I’ll leave that up to you. The thing is, I’m not going to be able to get away for our wedding anniversary, unfortunately, so I thought a new boat might make up for that. It’s in Ireland at the moment, so I’ll probably leave it there to get the work done on it and then we can move it to the Med early next summer.’
It was impossible not to get caught up in his enthusiasm, but at the same time, I felt that, if he could afford to buy a Swan and the business was doing so well, he could afford to pay back the money for the re-mortgage on our Conway house. I intended to make sure he dealt with it when he got back home the following week, no arguments. In my opinion, we needed to reduce all our debt as a priority.
I thought about Dad, as I so often did. If only he were still here. I desperately wanted to tell him about the Swan and knew how much he would have loved to be involved. He would almost certainly have done the delivery from Ireland to Spain with me. Just like the old days. Tears sprang to my eyes, as all the memories of sailing with him flooded into my mind. I swallowed hard. He would not want me to be sad and I did not want to cry in front of Mum and upset her.
Later that night, as I was going to bed, I enveloped Mum in a big hug. I looked at Dad’s photo on her chest of drawers and blinked back the tears.
‘I miss him every day too you know.’
I kissed her goodnight and looked casually at my phone as it pinged to signal an incoming message.
A new email from a name I didn’t recognise.
A woman’s name. Lorraine Huntley.
The subject of the email was:
The wife, the mothers, the other women and the bits on the side.
PART II
Consequences
So·ci·o·path
/ˈsōsēōˌpaTH/
A person with a psychopathic personality whose behaviour is antisocial, often criminal, and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience.[2]
Sociopath is a term used to describe someone who has Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD). People with ASPD can’t understand others’ feelings. They’ll often break rules or make impulsive decisions without feeling guilty for the harm they cause.[3]
The Email
Lies do not erase the truth, they simply delay its discovery.
Grace
It was the following day before I could finally summon up the courage to read the email in full. Until I did that, I could convince myself it did not really exist or it was all some terrible mistake. I concocted all manner of explanations. Someone must have hacked his computer and sent this malicious nonsense out of spite. You heard about that sort of thing all the time. I kept on telling myself that over and over again in the interest of self-preservation, but I knew it couldn’t go on forever. Sooner or later I would have to face up to it. I had read the first line the previous night:
I have been in a relationship with a Daniel Matthew John Callaghan for the last 16 years.
Then I had immediately turned off my phone, unable to face reading any further.
I looked at my gorgeous, black Labrador, Lola, and remembered how Daniel had comforted me when I had to make the heart-breaking decision to let Hero go. No dog could ever replace him, but when Daniel came home a couple of weeks later and thrust the chubby little fur ball now known as Lola into my arms, I had fallen in love with her instantly.
Daniel loved me. I knew he did. He was my rock. That email had to be some kind of cruel hoax, it just had to be.
I still couldn’t bring myself to say anything to Mum, so I took Lola out for a long walk as if everything was normal, stuffing my phone into my Barbour jacket pocket as I went out. I walked a couple of miles to the park in a weird kind of daze and finally settled myself down on a bench by the river. Staring at the water with Lola lying patiently at my feet chewing a stick, I gathered all my strength to read the poisonous message lurking in my pocket. My hands were shaking and I felt sick to my core as I forced myself with trembling fingers to unlock my phone, open the email and read:
Subject: The wife, the mothers, the other women and the bits on the side.
I have been in a relationship with a Daniel Matthew John Callaghan for the last 16 years, photo attached as I believe he uses an alias. Since finding this out several weeks ago I have been doing some digging and this is what I came up with.
Married to first wife Julia Summers for nine years, until she committed suicide.
Married to second wife Grace King a year later, due to celebrate 20 years together in March. Lives with her in Fellside, Derbyshire.
Partner to Jane Sutcliffe for around 15 years, son Aaron, aged Lives with her in Willowmede, near Birmingham.
Partner to me for 16 years. Lives with me in a village near Oxford. We moved into our dream house a week after Aaron’s Christening.
Ex-Partner Niamh Ryan, together around 28 years ago for a number of years, lives in Ireland. Very friendly emails sent back in July, but unable to meet up when he was in Dublin recently, apparently. Very friendly one-off email exch
anges with a number of other women.
The rest is some knowledge with some guesswork. John told me previously that he had lived with someone in America who had a child. Not sure when he fitted this in, given his marriages, but there are friendly emails from an Anita Barnes and a Tara Callaghan-Barnes in July and September this year which coincide with his recent visits to the States. I have an email address for Tara but not Anita. They live in Jamestown, Rhode Island and I believe Tara is his daughter, based on her surname. She is approximately 15 years old.
If you were aware of the above, then you truly deserve each other. If you weren’t, then I would suggest you read on.
It was the morning after a very heavy night before and he had gone into town, leaving me in bed with his iPad beeping away. Using his pin 0007 it was easy to hack into his emails and find some very revealing photo albums. The rest is history.
Twenty Years a Stranger (The Stranger Series Book 1) Page 11