She meant to begin in the kitchen, wanting to get it out the way first, but as she approached it a squirming sensation rippled through her and she backed away.
Spilling water
Head hitting granite
Blood-covered tiles
Lifeless body
As the unwanted vision flashed in her mind, her whole body began to shake. She needed to settle her nerves first, before entering the scene. Had the blood even been cleaned up? It wasn’t only where Tiff had died, but also where the majority of their time had been spent when Louisa had gone over for a chat and coffee. It was the hub of the house – where most of her memories had been made.
She cast her eyes into the lounge as she passed back through the hallway, but didn’t go in. Tiff barely used that space. She might check back there at a later date. It would take a while to sort the entire house, and Shirley said she had family who could help with that; she just wanted a friend of Tiff’s to do the personal stuff. Louisa wheeled Noah to the foot of the stairs. Although he was quiet, she couldn’t bear to leave him downstairs alone in his pram.
Why not? What am I afraid of?
She lifted him out and carried him upstairs. Each foot on the stair caused a creak – an eerie groan, as though they’d forgotten the weight of the many footsteps that had gone before, the imprints left now mere ghosts. A chill shot up her back. It wasn’t really that she didn’t want Noah to be left alone downstairs; it was because she didn’t want to be alone upstairs.
The stairway curved to the left before it reached the landing. Three rooms and a bathroom went off from there, each door closed. Louisa hesitated on the top stair as she caught sight of the boxes. Shirley had told her there’d be some there for her to use. One for personal things to keep, one for charity, one for the dump. Louisa screwed her eyes up tight. She should’ve asked someone else to come with her. Her plan to carry this out on her own, to ‘spend time’ with Tiff, had been ill-conceived. This was an awful task to do alone. Forcing herself to move forwards, Louisa padded to the far door on the right.
Tiff’s bedroom.
As she didn’t have anyone else living with her, it was obviously the biggest – the one with the luxurious en-suite where, on a number of occasions, she and Tiff had got ready for a night out. Louisa balanced Noah in one arm as she lowered the door handle and, inhaling deeply, gently pushed the door open. The room was in general disarray: clothes flung onto the bed, where she supposed Tiff had been deciding what to wear that day; make-up products littered the dressing table, a book lay open, face-down on her mirrored sidetable – Louisa raised her eyebrows at the title: Gone Girl. Her throat constricted, tears threatening again.
She had to do this. She had to start packing things up. Laying Noah in the centre of Tiff’s king-sized bed, she went to the landing to retrieve the boxes.
There was a certain melancholy to the scene – the culmination of Tiff’s life stacked in cardboard boxes. Louisa stood staring at them and a sadness engulfed her. It had been one of the things Tiff had mentioned once – the fact that she had no children meaning that her things wouldn’t be ‘passed on’ to another generation when she died. It had frightened her, Louisa realised. The knowledge she would completely cease to exist, and that there would be no evidence – not in a lineage kind of way – that she’d once walked this planet.
Louisa had laughed at the time, saying that of course there would be evidence, and even with no children, her family and friends would continue to talk about her, share their memories of her. She’d be alive in people’s minds.
Now, sitting among her possessions, Tiff’s response to that came back to her.
‘Yes, Lou. I have lovely friends, but eventually, their memories will fade, the reminiscing, the daily thoughts about how terrible it was to lose me, will diminish. I may be thought of on anniversaries – like my birthday, day of death – but soon enough life will move on. My friends will remember me less and less. I’ll be a random thought one day when something else sparks a memory. It’s not the same for you. Your kids will always remember you, will think of you often, not just once in a blue moon. And you will continue on in them, your bloodline. I won’t.’
‘I won’t forget you, though, Tiff. I’ll think of you every day, I promise,’ Louisa had said.
‘Oh, fab – so you’re assuming I’ll go before you then!’
And they’d both collapsed into fits of laughter. The dark, sombre moment broken.
‘I promise, Tiff,’ Louisa now said aloud in the silent bedroom, ‘I won’t stop thinking about you. And I will find out what the hell was going on before you died.’
Because Louisa had a terrible feeling she’d missed something important.
43
THE FIND
Having spent considerable time looking through Tiff’s possessions, trying to decide what she might’ve wanted Louisa to keep, what she’d have liked to go to charity, then placing them carefully into the designated boxes, Louisa felt drained. The thought of searching through the kitchen seemed an impossible task now. She was exhausted and would no doubt do a poor job. But, if she put it off, it would mean returning tomorrow, or Wednesday – and that thought was equally tiring.
Noah pushed his clenched fist into his mouth, then began to grumble. Finally, Louisa checked the time on her mobile and realised he should’ve had his bottle an hour ago. She could make it home in minutes; he could wait until then. Or, she could warm his bottle up here, feed him and then finish the job. The lounge definitely wouldn’t take long – there was only one unit in there and it was mostly filled with books. All of which Tiff would want to go to charity as that’s where she’d got the majority of them from in the first place.
The kitchen was a different story – some of the drawers in there were stuffed with letters, personal papers – Tiff’s habit of shoving everything in them meant anything could be in there. She’d find renewed energy once she saw the light at the end of the tunnel. Gathering Noah into her arms, Louisa made her way back downstairs. She popped her vocal baby in the pram and rummaged in the changing bag for his bottle.
‘Stay there, darling – Mummy won’t be long.’ The thought of wheeling him into the kitchen didn’t feel right. Her tummy rolled as she entered the brilliant-white room. The light streamed in from the side window and Velux, making the room feel less scary than she thought it would. Ridiculous to find a kitchen scary just because someone had died in it. Nonetheless, that’s how she felt. Without looking at her surroundings too much, she opened the microwave and placed the bottle in it. She knew she shouldn’t microwave the milk because of hotspots but she really couldn’t face boiling the kettle, watching the blue light and water bubbling as she’d done just last week. How different things had become in such a short space of time.
As Louisa watched the seconds flash by on the microwave LCD her mind wandered to Friday – to what had taken place in this very kitchen. What could Melissa have possibly wanted with Tiff? A sudden thought crashed its way into her brain. She hadn’t come across Tiff’s mobile phone while she’d been packing things up. She cast her eyes over the worktop surfaces. They were spotless, uncluttered. No phone. The microwave dinged and absentmindedly, Louisa shook the bottle with one hand as she went around the kitchen opening drawers and cupboards with her free hand. Unless it’d been buried beneath the other items, which was very unlikely, then it wasn’t here.
She put the bottle on the island, ignoring Noah’s cries, then used both hands to sort through the final drawer. She flicked through the paperwork and miscellaneous crap that Tiff had obviously decided to sort at a later date. No phone. That was concerning. Had the police not found it odd her phone was missing? Or maybe they’d taken it – perhaps it was standard practice.
Louisa pushed the drawer back in, but it jammed. She opened it again, bending to look inside. There was something caught at the back of the drawer preventing it closing properly. Louisa ran her hand along the inside, using her thumb and finger to catch hold of what w
as blocking it. When she withdrew her hand, she was holding a photo.
Louisa studied it – it seemed old. There was a yellow tinge to it, the quality not great. It was good enough to tell who the people depicted in the scene were though. It had been taken on a beach, of a group of people all in swimwear – tanned, young. All smiling, bar one.
Tiff.
Louisa’s mouth dried.
This changed everything.
Standing next to Tiff, with her arm around her, was a younger woman. One with curly auburn hair.
‘What the hell is Melissa doing in this photo?’ Her words echoed around the kitchen. Louisa looked up, half expecting to see Tiff at the opposite side of the island. She had wanted her to answer the question.
But she was only met with icy silence.
Had she been focusing on the wrong questions, the incorrect theory? Louisa had assumed Melissa had merely paid Tiff a visit, leaving her alive and well. But what if she hadn’t left Tiff alive? The police may have been happy with their findings, that it was a tragic accident with no evidence of foul play, but then they didn’t have the drone footage. Melissa, a missing woman, forcing her way into Tiff’s house moments before Tiff landed up dead did throw a different light on the situation.
Now she really thought about it, the fact that Tiff had never mentioned having met Melissa seemed odd, suspicious even. Louisa had assumed up until this point that Tiff had never set eyes on Melissa Dunmore. She certainly didn’t appear to know her and didn’t let on to Louisa that she’d known her from years ago.
But, although that was strange, it didn’t go far in answering the question of why Melissa would want Tiff dead. Why had Melissa visited Tiff that day?
44
THE DARKNESS
‘Can you take Noah, please? I need to shower.’ Louisa pushed Noah into Emily’s arms.
‘Well, yeah – I guess. And yes, Mum, I’ve had a good day, school was great, thanks for asking,’ she muttered under her breath as Louisa turned and ran up the stairs. Louisa called back to her, saying she’d chat afterwards. It was a bit harsh to immediately hand over Noah as soon as Emily came in from school, but Louisa had to wash away the remnants of the stale smell of Tiff’s house. More than that, she needed headspace; time to process and arrange her thoughts more coherently than they were currently.
She had no one to talk to about this latest development. No one she could trust, anyway.
She allowed the hot water to pound her body, her skin prickling as though a hundred tiny needles were perforating it – it was painful at first, until the numbness came.
Now both her mind and body were numb.
She cupped the water in her hands, then swished it over her face.
Blood, pooling.
Grass, cool and tickly beneath her feet.
‘Can I blag one of them off you?’
Icy cold.
Fear.
A face at the window.
SHE KNOWS.
The last two words screamed inside her head. Had they been her words, ones she had spoken? She was sure it was her knowledge, her fear she felt when the images came to her from that night, the night of her party.
Shit.
Tiff had said she’d seen her from the window, talking to someone in the beer garden. Now Louisa had a flash of memory of seeing her at the window, followed by the words: she knows.
Louisa stepped out of the shower and, grabbing a towel, gave herself a brusque drying and then sat on the bed, shoulders slumped. Her mind had been allowing these brief visions; memories, whatever they were, yet they weren’t enough – it was like trying to do a dot-to-dot in the dark with half the dots missing. Impossible. She understood that her brain had been keeping things in another compartment, protecting her from the atrocities of her decisions, her actions. But why couldn’t she remember everything in its entirety now, when she needed to – wanted to?
She’d have to delve into the darkness, to the depths of her consciousness to find the memories, rearrange them. Make sense of them. But that was easier said than done. How was she going to achieve that, when for so many years she’d tried and failed? She hadn’t tried hypnosis before. It was a thought – although it would have to be some kind of self-hypnosis. She couldn’t very well go to a professional, allow someone else to unlock her past, from back then, or more recently. It’d have to be done alone. Louisa made a mental note to search the internet later on, to find guidance on how to perform self-hypnosis. At this point, nothing was off the table.
The burning question for the moment was why Tiff had a photo of Melissa and how they’d ever managed to know each other without Louisa’s awareness.
‘Mum! Mum!’
Louisa jumped off the bed and ran to the bedroom door. ‘What’s the matter?’ she called down the stairs. She didn’t need an answer. Standing just inside the hallway was Oliver.
‘I wanted to check how you were doing,’ he said, the smile faltering as he took in her towel.
For fuck’s sake, leave me alone! Louisa pulled the towel tighter around her, backing away from the top of the stairs. ‘I’ve just got out the shower – can we do this another time? I’m fine, though, so no need to worry.’
‘I won’t stay long, but I really need to touch base with you.’
‘Why? Has something happened? Has there been news on Melissa?’
There most definitely was news on Melissa, Louisa thought, which was why seeing Oliver right now was not a good idea. She didn’t know how much he knew about Melissa’s past, whether he knew that she and Tiff had been friends, or at least known each other. It could be he knew all of that, which was why he’d been visiting her too, because he thought she might know where Melissa was. Why hadn’t Tiff mentioned any of this to her? It seemed crazy, given the circumstances, not to say anything. And she’d even said, ‘you never told me about Oliver’, insinuating Louisa had kept that quiet from her. And all along it was Tiff keeping things from her.
‘The police came to see me, yes.’
Louisa clenched her fists, her knuckles turning as white as the towel she was gripping. ‘Hang on, then.’ She ducked back into the bedroom. Her hands shook as she tried to pull her jeans up over her still-damp thighs. The anticipation of what Oliver was about to tell her pressed its weight down in her stomach, the resulting dragging sensation causing nausea. Was there a possibility that something had happened to Melissa since Friday? Just because she was alive then, didn’t mean that Oliver hadn’t found out where she was and done the unthinkable to her in the meantime.
She shook her head. She had to stop jumping to conclusions about Oliver – yes, he’d been capable of covering up a terrible act when he was younger, but he was an adult now. Had learned from that experience. And he’d felt as though he was protecting her by doing it. Louisa knew the lengths Oliver would go to in order to protect the ones he loved. He’d done it for her, as his girlfriend. So why would he have any reason to harm Melissa – his wife?
Oliver was sitting at the kitchen table, his head bowed, when she walked in.
‘You smell nice,’ he said as she sat beside him.
‘Clean.’ Was all she could muster. ‘Go on. Tell me.’
His deep-brown eyes, shiny with tears, settled on hers. She could feel her heart galloping, was sure it must be literally jumping from her chest.
‘They’ve scaled down the investigation. Right down, so they say. And I knew that already, really. But it still kills me to think they’ve given up.’
Louisa blew out a breath. It was the relief rushing out of her, but she hoped it would come across more as a shocked expulsion of air. ‘Scaled down, Oliver, not given up. They’ll still be looking—’
‘For a dead body, yes. No evidence has been found that suggests she’s alive – no proof of life. So that’s it. She’s another statistic. A missing person who’ll never be found.’
Louisa stared him straight in the eye. ‘Do you think this is karma?’
‘Yes.’ He nodded. ‘I think it
is.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. Sorry for you, sorry for what we did. Sorry that I know Melissa is alive. That she was at Tiff’s just a matter of days ago. Sorry to not be telling you.
But you might already know it all.
You might be telling me a pack of lies.
I can’t trust you.
‘What should we do?’ Louisa asked.
‘About what? Melissa?’
‘Melissa, Tiff, the woman in the lane. All of it, Oliver. Where do we go from here?’
‘Nowhere.’ He shrugged. ‘I’ve exhausted all possibilities with Melissa – either she doesn’t want to be found, or she’s dead in a ditch somewhere. And Tiff is dead – there’s nothing to do there, sadly. Apart from give her a good send-off – a party she’d have been proud to have organised herself. And the other thing – well, that stays buried. It has to. If that comes out now, Lou-Lou – I’ll be done for. If I was capable of burying a body when I was nineteen, then they’ll assume I did the same to Melissa. They don’t need bodies to charge you with murder you know.’
No, no they didn’t. She felt a pang of guilt knowing he hadn’t harmed Melissa, but that the police, loads of the general public – even her family – would think he had. She had also questioned it, before she’d seen the drone footage – even questioned it again just moments ago. If after a certain number of years they still hadn’t found proof of life, Melissa would be presumed dead and could be legally declared as such. As must’ve happened with the woman in the lane. But Louisa knew the woman in the lane was dead. Melissa, on the other hand, was very much alive. And surely she couldn’t stay hidden, undetected forever.
The Missing Wife Page 21