The Missing Wife

by Sam Carrington

  ‘Yes,’ Louisa said, ‘you do seem to have been worried. But I’m not sure if it was for everyone else’s benefit. And really, you needed to build up an image, didn’t you? One where you were the concerned, loving husband. One where you were the innocent party in all this. You needed me, and Brian, to embellish the clever picture you were painting.’

  ‘That’s not true.’ He shook his head vehemently. ‘I came to you because my wife was missing, and I needed a friend. Being in Devon, away from everyone I knew, was awful. I was so lonely. You were the only person who would understand, the only one who knew me.’

  ‘I don’t know you at all, Oliver. And probably never did.’

  ‘Look, this is ridiculous. Why are you two here, now, doing this to me?’

  ‘I wanted to teach you a lesson,’ Melissa said. ‘Wanted you to hurt as much as you hurt me.’

  ‘I have never hurt you – don’t you dare lie like this.’ Oliver’s arms hung loosely at his sides, as though all his energy had been sucked from him and he didn’t have the strength to hold them up anymore.

  ‘I know you didn’t set out to. Not at first. But you orchestrated this trip to Devon; you got yourself an invite to Louisa’s party. It’s because you wanted her, needed her. That’s why I wanted to meet her – to find out why. And boy, I found out all right. You needed her to help cleanse your guilt, you sick—’

  ‘Please, don’t listen to her, Lou-Lou, she’s bloody lost it.’ Oliver lurched towards Melissa – she sidestepped and backed up behind Louisa. ‘This is what she does, Lou, you have to believe me. Why would I lie to you? She’s jealous of you, that’s all. That’s the only reason she wanted to meet you. This whole stupid disappearing act to try and pin it on me – it’s pathetic. You won’t win, Melissa.’

  ‘I already have, Oliver. Don’t you see? Your precious Lou-Lou knows everything. You can’t hide the truth from her any longer.’

  ‘You’re deluded.’

  ‘It’s great, isn’t it, how men pull that line when they know they’re trapped?’ Louisa suddenly felt more confident, furious at the game Oliver had played. Was still playing. ‘It’s mind games, manipulation. Make the woman out to be deranged, put the onus on her to prove she isn’t. It won’t work now, though. I’ve figured it all out and I think it’s safe to say you know that. You lied then, and you’re lying now. Nothing you say will make me waver. Melissa is telling the truth, I’m one hundred per cent certain of that.’

  ‘Oh, dear, dear Lou. How on earth can you be certain of anything? You couldn’t even remember feeding your own baby.’ Oliver’s facial expression changed from the concerned, worried look to a smug, menacing expression in an instant, the sudden flip making Louisa’s muscles tense.

  ‘Is that why you were happy to make me believe I was the one who’d committed murder? Because I was a soft touch and you were confident you could convince me it was all my fault?’

  Oliver closed his eyes and sucked in a large lungful of air. ‘I have no idea what you’re rattling on about. I’m getting a little fed up with this circus now.’

  ‘Are you? Ah, that’s a shame because we’re only just beginning the show.’ Melissa turned to Louisa and smiled widely before placing one arm around her shoulder.

  ‘Bloody women, sticking together like a pathetic women’s union – fucking feminism has such a lot to answer for.’

  ‘Tut-tut. Keep it calm, don’t want you losing your shit and attacking people again, do we? Look, I’m here to help you. You have the opportunity to purge yourself of your sins, Oliver,’ Melissa said.

  ‘And if I don’t want to?’

  ‘Oh, you will. You’ve been desperate to rid yourself of the guilt for years. Well, now you can. You owe it to us.’

  Oliver’s shoulders slumped, his usual height diminishing. He backed away from them and slid down the fence, crouching with his elbows on his bent knees. A defeated position.

  ‘What do you want me to say? That I’m sorry?’

  ‘That would be a start.’

  He shrugged. ‘Then, I’m sorry. Are we done now? I’m so tired.’

  For a moment his pained expression pulled at Louisa’s conscience. She almost pitied him. But then the anger flooded back in. This too, was clearly an act. He was trying to manipulate them again. ‘That’s it? All you’re going to say?’

  ‘You wanted an apology. You got one.’

  ‘You’ve got more to offload though, haven’t you? The weight of the lies must be crushing you. If you tell us the truth, here and now, the whole story of what you did and why, then we’ll be done. Then we’ll let you go,’ Melissa said.

  ‘Let me go?’ He laughed – a snort so loud it made Louisa jump. ‘That implies that if I don’t tell you what you want to hear, that you won’t let me go. I know there are two of you, but surely you don’t think you could prevent me from leaving?’ He shifted, getting to his feet again, and Louisa knew it was because he was suddenly concerned about his subservient position on the ground – the two of them above him taking a far more powerful stance. They’d rattled him after all.

  Melissa moved away from Louisa’s side and walked over to the fence, looking over it. ‘There’s a perfectly good quarry there – a few good pushes from us, and you’d go over.’

  Laughter filled the space between them. ‘Ah, that’s very humorous, Melissa.’

  ‘I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t be laughing as you fell.’

  Louisa shifted her feet. They were getting numb from the lack of movement; the discomfort at the turn the conversation had taken now making her jumpy.

  ‘Well, we’ll never know, will we? You haven’t got the strength. Or the guts,’ he spat.

  Louisa’s breathing shallowed as she scanned the fence – there were no gaps; it was too high to push Oliver over. She tried to relax. It was just scare tactics, that was all. Melissa couldn’t really carry out her threat. Oliver knew that too, and that’s why he was relishing the fact, and now taunting his wife. Louisa hoped Melissa wouldn’t snap; she didn’t want to witness, or get involved in, any kind of scuffle – she was already regretting being talked into doing this.

  ‘Say it, Oliver. Tell us the truth. Let Louisa off the hook.’

  ‘And what? You’ve got your phones recording and will go to the police with your “evidence”?’ Oliver shook his head. ‘I’m not fucking stupid.’

  ‘I haven’t used my mobile, obviously. I’ve been missing – remember?’

  Oliver turned to Louisa – the light from her mobile’s flashlight app still illuminating the quarry fencing. ‘And yours?’

  She held it out towards him. No apps were running. No voice recording activated.

  ‘Hmmm.’ Oliver crossed one arm and put his other to his chin, stroking it, mockingly. ‘You want me to believe you’d be that naive?’

  ‘I don’t care if you think we’re naive, Oliver – it’s about hearing the truth, not about catching you out, or grassing you up.’

  Even Louisa didn’t believe what Melissa was saying now. The uncomfortable feeling she’d had was growing – the purpose for which Melissa had got her and Oliver there was becoming more ominous by the second. Yes, she wanted the truth too, and if she was honest, she also wanted Oliver to suffer for everything he’d done. She’d have preferred to have gone through the proper channels, though – police. Justice in the way it was meant to be carried out. While she understood Melissa’s reasoning and knew she was right, that there was no evidence to convict Oliver of any wrongdoing – here and now, she wanted to back out. Retreat. Go home to her family. Forget everything about the last few weeks.

  But Melissa wasn’t done. She couldn’t forget – Louisa got that. Oliver had murdered her sister and disposed of the body. Then he’d actively sought Melissa out, manipulated a meeting, and shoehorned himself into her life, the same as he’d recently done with Louisa’s. Had he pretended to love Melissa for all that time? Is that what she was thinking now, that for the entire time she’d been seeing Oliver it had all been
fake, his feelings for her fabricated? Or, Louisa wondered, had he been so torn about his actions that being with Melissa and marrying her was his only way of redeeming himself.

  A niggling feeling deep in her gut also offered the possibility that finding the dead girl’s sister, infiltrating her family, was his warped way of seeing first-hand the damage he’d created – like when murderers revisited the scene of their crime – only he’d taken that one step further. Whatever his twisted reasoning, the betrayal was obviously way too much for Melissa to endure and when Louisa had drunkenly given her details about her and Oliver’s relationship, the accident that had caused him to leave her, she’d given Melissa the missing jigsaw pieces that she was now acting upon so ruthlessly.

  This whole situation was her doing.

  How will it end?

  Louisa had been lost in thought, the words being spoken now bounced around her, unheard.

  ‘Did you hear him, Louisa?’ Melissa shouted inches from her ear. ‘Say it again, Oliver. Tell her.’

  Louisa’s eyes settled on Oliver’s, her focus now back on the moment.

  ‘I’m sorry, Lou-Lou. I don’t know why I lied, back then. I guess I couldn’t bear to lose you, even though that’s what ended up happening. But if I’d told you, if I’d come clean about what I did, what would you have done? You were already beside yourself, verging on hysteria – you looked to me to solve everything. To save you. It was easier to keep the details of how I’d managed that to myself – it was better for the both of us. Surely you can see that?’

  Louisa couldn’t find her voice, couldn’t respond with anything other than a strangled noise emanating from her paralysed voice box. Oliver took her silence as indication he should continue – the voice inside Louisa’s head was silently screaming for him to shut up.

  ‘All I’ve thought about since then was why? Why did you drag me into it? If you hadn’t called me that night in such a state, I’d never have done what I did. I did it for you; that’s God’s honest truth. I thought if she survived, she’d be able to identify the car, and you. I panicked, and she was shouting at me to call an ambulance, but I froze, couldn’t think where the nearest phone box was – the lanes weren’t the ones I drove. I didn’t really know where I was.’ He stopped speaking, breathless.

  ‘Go on. Tell me what you did. Tell Louisa how you ended my sister’s life.’

  Oliver took a juddering breath in, releasing it in a slow hiss. ‘I knew she was hurt badly; she couldn’t move her legs, blood was oozing from her broken body. I knew it wouldn’t take much. I’ve snapped a rabbit’s neck before – I didn’t think it would be so different.’

  ‘Oh, Jesus, no!’ Louisa covered her mouth with her hand.

  ‘It was different, though. Tough. Much harder to do on a human. Bigger throat, tighter muscles, more resistance.’

  ‘Stop. Oliver, please stop,’ Louisa said.

  ‘You can’t have it both ways! You wanted the truth, so now you have to listen. Don’t we all follow the path of least resistance? I did what was easiest for us in the long run, Lou.’ His eyes glared, as though a film had appeared over the retinas. Dark, as though his pupils had swallowed his irises. Louisa’s stomach churned with acid. She looked to Melissa, afraid of her reaction. But she was standing still, no emotion showing on her face.

  ‘Where did you take her?’ Melissa’s voice a whisper in the silence of the night.

  ‘Oh, come on. You expect me to tell you that? I’m not going to prison for your stupid runaway of a sister, Melissa.’

  The shriek seemed unnaturally loud. There was a waft of air as Melissa rushed past Louisa, causing her to step back in shock.

  The hoarse grunt that followed confused her for a second.

  Then, with a surge of panic, she knew.

  She hadn’t noticed Melissa reaching into the bag she’d held under her arm.

  Hadn’t noticed the blade.

  And Oliver hadn’t noticed it quickly enough to move out of its way.

  Now, Louisa looked on in horror as a dark patch appeared on Oliver’s shirt, and spread outwards like deep-red ink on blotting paper. Her eyes focused on the handle protruding from just below Oliver’s ribcage and her legs gave way. She fell to her knees on the stony ground, watching on helplessly as Oliver slumped back down to the sitting position he’d been in moments before, gasps of air the only sound she could hear.

  ‘Melissa … what the fuck have you done?’

  Melissa was standing over Oliver, staring, saying nothing. Then she crouched down, and with one hand she reached for the knife.

  Louisa closed her eyes, waiting for Oliver’s scream as Melissa removed it. She couldn’t bear to watch.

  ‘I guessed you would never tell me, so there was no point holding this off. The only way I’m ever going to feel better about what you did to Helen, to me, to Louisa, is to punish you myself.’

  Louisa opened her eyes, and swallowing the acid liquid that had erupted into her mouth, she directed her gaze towards Oliver.

  ‘Oh, God.’ She couldn’t keep her stomach contents in any longer. Retching to the side of where she was kneeling, Louisa brought it all up, coughing and spluttering like Noah did when he gulped his milk too quickly and choked. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and tried to stand. She had to get away from the scene, as far away from the common as she could. She couldn’t have anything to do with this.

  ‘Lou-Lou … come … here—’ The voice sounded alien to her, the words bubbling, as though they were being spoken under water. He was drowning in his own blood.

  Oliver was going to die.

  Louisa went to him, warily stepping around Melissa. Despite wanting him punished, she didn’t want this. This was going to have serious repercussions. I’m going to be next. Was Melissa going to make sure she shared the same fate as Oliver, given they shared the same crime? Where was the knife? Louisa cast her phone light around as she approached Oliver, but couldn’t see it. She stooped so she was closer to Oliver, but made sure Melissa was still in her line of sight. She didn’t trust her now. She shouldn’t have trusted her in the first place.

  Too late now.

  ‘What do you want to say, Oliver?’

  His hand reached up and grabbed the collar of her coat and with what must have been his last ounce of strength, pulled her towards him, causing her to drop her phone. The light went from Oliver’s face, but now she was so close, she could see it clearly. See the fear in his eyes.

  ‘I did it because I loved you,’ he said, the sounds of the words light, quiet, like tiny puffs of air. ‘Forgive me.’

  Louisa opened her mouth to speak, but Melissa pitched towards them.

  ‘Don’t you dare, Louisa. This is his punishment. He dies without forgiveness.’

  ‘But, Melissa, he shouldn’t die at all,’ Louisa said, brushing away Oliver’s hand from her coat and straightening. ‘His punishment should be life behind bars, not the release of death!’

  ‘I’ve told you. Don’t you listen? He won’t go to prison.’

  ‘But we will. If we let him die, we will.’ Louisa could hear her own begging tone. ‘Do you want that? To let him win? He’ll have taken your sister’s life and yours and mine. Why should we suffer for him?’

  ‘We won’t. Because no one will know what we’ve done.’

  Louisa wanted to argue the what ‘we’ve’ done part, but the sudden cessation of gurgling brought her attention back to Oliver. Melissa’s gaze followed hers as they both stared over at him.

  ‘Oh well, I think it’s already settled,’ Melissa said as she bent to pick up the fallen phone and pointed the light directly at Oliver.

  The light shone onto his face – his open eyes.

  He didn’t blink; his pupils didn’t dilate.

  ‘Fuck’s sake, Melissa, he’s dead. Now what are we going to do?’

  51

  THE PLAN

  The two women faced one another other, their postures mirrored: legs apart, hands on hips, each mind
silently and rapidly attempting to process the scene, work out their next move.

  ‘Between us we can lift him over the fence, roll him to the edge of the quarry and just let him fall. It’s a fair drop, isn’t it?’

  Melissa’s carefree, upbeat tone shocked Louisa. She’d killed a man, and here she was calmly stating how she was going to dispose of him in the disused quarry.

  ‘Yes, it’s a four-hundred-metre drop if I remember rightly. But, no, that’s not an option. He would be found easily, and it’s clearly murder as he has a stab wound!’

  ‘I thought you said it was disused? And it’s fenced off, so no one—’

  ‘People climb it. From the other side – there’s another way to get to it from the bottom; he’d be found within a week, easily.’

  ‘So, what do you suggest?’ Melissa swung the phone light around, right into Louisa’s face.

  ‘Jesus, lower that, will you?’ Louisa shielded her eyes from the glaring white light. ‘I don’t know, Melissa. It’s not like I knew you were going to kill him, is it? I didn’t come with a plan.’

  ‘Sorry. I didn’t come here with the sole intention of killing him, you know.’

  ‘Oh right. So that’s why you brought a kitchen knife with you?’

  ‘That was for protection. He tried to kill me before, remember? I wasn’t going to come here unarmed. I didn’t want him to hurt me or you. He’s caused enough pain.’

  ‘I wish there’d been another way.’ Louisa sunk down to the ground again, her head hanging down. ‘My brain won’t work. I can’t think what to do.’ Her eyes prickled with tears. She rocked back and forth, her head in her hands. ‘I can’t believe this has happened. I can’t believe any of it has. I want to go back to before I was forty. Before Tiff hacked into my Facebook, before Oliver turned up and turned my life upside down, before Tiff went and bloody died. Shit. It’s her funeral tomorrow and here I am the night before trying to figure out what to do with a dead body.’

  ‘I’m really sorry about Tiff. I was wrong about her; I don’t think she did know anything about Helen’s disappearance. It was just a massive coincidence that she was your friend and you were the one who hit my sister. You can see how that looks, right?’