The Adulterer's Wife: a breathtaking psychological thriller

by Leigh Russell

  ‘I was referring to the wine,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t go out for a bottle of cheap plonk, however attractive the person issuing the invitation was.’

  ‘I didn’t issue an invitation.’ It was like a tongue twister. ‘To anyone. Not to you.’

  ‘Julie, before you pass out, can you just tell me why you rang. Was there a reason for your call?’

  ‘I just told you. I’m broke. No money. Nothing. But I’ve got a bank book. It’s an old account so I think we might be able to get the money out. Only I haven’t got my passport or driving licence. They took them away and I haven’t got them back.’

  ‘How much is in there?’ he asked, somehow managing to grasp my meaning even though I was virtually incoherent. ‘Wait,’ he added, ‘we might need to act quickly. I’m coming over, so listen out for the bell. Julie, can you understand what I’m saying? You mustn’t go to sleep before I get there. I don’t want a wasted journey. Make yourself a strong cup of coffee and be careful not to scald yourself. Have you got that?’

  ‘You don’t have to treat me like an idiot,’ I replied. ‘I may be pissed but I’m not a moron.’

  ‘Just make sure you stay awake,’ he said.

  He hung up, so I went downstairs to make my coffee. Despite what Ackerman thought, I knew how to keep my wits about me. Still, regardless of my efforts to stay awake, I dozed off in front of the television. Something woke me. Apart from the flickering light from the television screen, I was sitting in darkness. For a moment I was too confused to recollect exactly where I was. Only as I came to, did I remember that I was no longer in prison, but back in my own home, a wealthy but penniless widow. It came again, a sharp tapping at the window. Although I was befuddled with alcohol, fear made me instantly alert. Someone was outside. Slowly I slid off the settee and crawled across the carpet towards the phone. Reaching the table, I thought better of my initial impulse. The last people I wanted to contact right now were the police. If they discovered I had been drinking, they might take steps to prevent Dan from coming home. As I hesitated, undecided, I heard someone calling my name. With a shuddering breath of relief, I realised that Ackerman was outside, tapping on the window for me to let him in.

  ‘Why didn’t you answer when I rang the bell?’ he demanded as he came inside.

  ‘I didn’t hear it with the TV on. I wasn’t asleep,’ I added.

  He grunted, one eyebrow raised sceptically. ‘Come on, then, let’s take a look at this savings account.’

  He went into the living room and sat down while I went upstairs to fetch the book. Studying it, he nodded and looked at me with a grin.

  ‘Nice,’ he said, pocketing the book. ‘I’ll get these funds out first thing tomorrow.’

  ‘Are you sure you can do that?’

  He tapped the side of his nose. ‘I know a man who can.’

  ‘And then you’ll bring me the money?’

  He gazed at me, eyes narrowed as though he was calculating. ‘What say you we go halves this time?’

  ‘Halves?’

  ‘Jesus woman, are you a parrot? Yes, halves. Half for you, and half for me. To recompense me for my trouble and for taking the risk of extracting the funds. If I’m caught, I could be locked up. At any rate, the police wouldn’t be best pleased with me if they ever learned I’d helped you outmanoeuvre them. And that could make my life very difficult. Still, it’s not like we’re talking about a vast fortune, is it? Just enough to keep us both afloat for another month, if we’re careful.’

  ‘A month?’ I repeated, momentarily forgetting his jibe about me repeating everything he said. ‘How much longer is all this going to carry on?’ I raised my trouser leg to reveal the ugly grey tag around my ankle.

  Ackerman shrugged. ‘One step at a time. Now, is there any of that wine left over or have you downed the lot?’

  26

  Late the following afternoon a brown envelope was posted through my door. It had been secured with wide sticky parcel tape which made it difficult to tear open. Ripping the end of the envelope carefully I drew out five twenty-pound notes. I counted them several times and tore open the envelope. He had sent me only a hundred pounds. Besides that, I still had my mother’s pearls and earrings, and my father’s watch. My memories of the previous evening were hazy, but as far as I could remember I hadn’t mentioned the additional jewellery to Ackerman. Every time I moved, my head pounded, and I felt sick. I was on bail, and hungover, and I was virtually broke.

  It was too late to go out to the shops that day and be home for six, but I decided against spending any of my meagre funds on a takeaway, instead settling for another supper of beans on toast. Hopefully money would no longer be a problem very soon, but it was as well to be thrifty with my cash, just in case it took time for me to get my hands on the small fortune Paul had left me. The legal system could proceed painfully slowly, and there was nothing I could do to expedite matters, however frustrating it was.

  By about eight o’clock, I couldn’t restrain my irritation any longer and called Ackerman, but he didn’t answer, nor did he call me back. I had spent the day alone, more isolated than a prisoner behind bars. My husband had cheated on me, and now Ackerman had conned me out of my few thousand pounds and I couldn’t even report the theft to the police. Tired and dispirited, I had an early night, resolving to go out in the morning, even if just for a walk. And on my way home, I would pop into Marks and Spencer's for a chicken and a bag of potatoes that would keep me in dinners for a few days. But this time, I would skip the wine.

  I went to bed early but couldn't sleep. Everything that had happened to me lately kept going round and round inside my head, until I was crying with anger and exhaustion. It had all started with Paul being unable to keep his dick in his trousers. I could have forgiven his infidelity. If we hadn’t been able to resolve our differences, we could have split up, even divorced. It was hardly unusual for a marriage to fail. What I couldn't stomach was knowing he had persistently lied to me, deliberately and resolutely, for two years.

  The next day it rained steadily, but I went out anyway, after calling Ackerman without managing to get hold of him. I was going stir crazy sitting at home on my own. Much as I hated prison, at least there were other people around in there to help pass the time. Apart from my frightening encounter with Layla, my fellow prisoners had given me no trouble, and they had been company of a sort. Now I was on my own, my only visitor a private investigator who was supposed to be working to prove my innocence. He hadn’t done too well so far. As I walked I could feel the tag around my ankle. It wasn’t uncomfortable, not tight or anything, but I was aware of it. Maybe that was the intention of its clunky design. I glanced at my phone. It was ten o’clock in the morning. In eight hours’ time, I would be stuck at home with my tag sending regular messages to an unknown monitoring centre where anonymous operators would be checking up on me.

  The interim was mine.

  I did my shopping, taking my time and choosing food I would really enjoy. After two nights of beans on toast, I deserved something scrumptious. After that I bought a pair of cheap jeans in Sainsbury's.

  Taking my shopping home, I luxuriated in the shower. It was a waste of the time I could have spent out and about, considering I would be imprisoned at home all evening and would have plenty of time to shower then, and nothing much else to do, but I had missed the privacy of my own shower while I was in prison. I couldn’t resist it.

  By the time I had finished shopping and washing my hair, it was nearly midday. Only six hours to go. Time, which had passed so slowly in prison, was now racing by.

  With my hair washed and dry, and wearing new jeans, I went into Harrow for a sandwich and a coffee. The company of strangers was preferable to spending yet more time on my own. The shopping centre in Harrow is arranged in two covered malls: St Anne's and St George’s which was added on after the first site was established. Connecting the two shopping areas is an outdoor walkway lined with shops, with a large pub on the corner. I walked along between t
he two, enjoying the fresh breeze, and entered St George’s.

  Sitting in Starbucks, I was anonymous. No one could see my tag. For a few hours I could pretend my life was back to normal. Paul wasn’t dead, and Dan would be home from school soon. With a toasted sandwich and a coffee, I sat facing the large picture window that looked out on the shoppers walking past. It was striking how few bright colours people wore. Most were dressed in sombre grey or black, peppered with dark blues and only an occasional flash of a bright red jacket or orange shirt. At liberty to wear whatever colour they wanted, hardly anyone seemed to take advantage of their freedom. Most people probably weren’t even aware of it.

  While I was sitting there, watching the shoppers go by, my phone rang, and Nina’s number came up on the screen display.

  ‘Hi, how are you?’

  ‘Fine. I’ve been calling you every day to see if you’d got your phone back yet. What’s happening?’

  I told her I had been released. ‘I’m in Starbucks, in Harrow.’

  ‘Oh my God, I don’t believe it! Why didn’t you call and let me know? I’m on my way. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.

  Only a short while earlier I had been feeling sorry for myself because I was at home by myself. Now I was out in a café, and a friend wanted to see me. Smiling, I put my phone back in my bag. When Nina called me again, I hoped she wasn’t going to say she couldn’t join me after all.

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Listen,’ she said breathlessly.

  ‘Are you okay? Are you running?’

  ‘No, well, yes, I was. The thing is, Katie called me. She’s broken up from school and she suggested we get together, so I had to tell her I couldn’t because I’d arranged to meet you, and she said that was fine and she would join us. I couldn’t very well say no. I mean, she caught me on the hop. So I said that would be great. But I thought I ought to call you and check that’s okay with you. I mean, is it okay with you?’

  I assured her it was fine. As I hung up I realised that I was quite excited about seeing Katie again. If she wanted to see me, that must mean she no longer believed I was guilty. Although I knew my friends would easily find me, I kept glancing up at the door every few minutes, impatient to see them again, glad I had washed my hair and put on new clothes. Until then I hadn’t realised quite how desperately lonely I had been.

  Nina came in first. Looking around the room, she caught sight of me waving at her and came over. Soon after we had greeted one another, Katie joined us.

  ‘I’ve been wanting to apologise to you,’ she said straight away. ‘What I said to you was unforgivable.’

  ‘It was understandable,’ I told her.

  ‘I thought... we all thought... ’ She sat down.

  ‘I didn’t kill him,’ I said quietly.

  The whole café didn’t need to know that I had been suspected of murdering my husband.

  ‘No. I realise that now. They wouldn't have let you go if they still thought you were guilty.’

  Involuntarily I glanced down at my ankle to check my tag wasn’t visible. If necessary, I would launch into an explanation of my current circumstances, but for now, I just wanted to relax with my friends. It was quite busy in Starbucks, so Nina and Katie went up to the counter while I kept the table. When we were all finally settled with our coffees, Katie asked me how I was.

  ‘I mean, really, how are you? It must have been so hard for you. I can’t imagine. Still, you’re better off without him. I mean, I hate to speak ill of the dead and all that, but you are my friend and honestly, he brought it on himself. Not that I’m saying I’m pleased about what happened to him, no one deserves that, but I’m just saying you're better off without him. If I ever found out Tony was cheating on me, he’d be out of my house faster than you can say Jack Rabbit.’

  ‘Jack Rabbit?’ Nina laughed. ‘Who the hell is that?’

  ‘It's just an expression. But the point is, Paul was playing away from home. You can’t say he didn’t deserve what he got.’

  ‘I don't know about that,’ I said, slightly taken aback by her vehemence. It wasn't her husband who had been unfaithful.

  ‘You told us he was having an affair,’ she said.

  ‘Of course. I know all about his mistress. I met her.’

  Katie’s eyebrows shot up. ’You met her? What was she like?’

  ‘Nothing special. She was about ten years younger than us. Blonde. She was quite nice. If it hadn't been for the situation, I would probably have quite liked her.’

  ‘You thought she was nice?’ Nina repeated, looking amazed. ‘Julie, how can you say that? She was screwing your husband!’

  ‘Blonde?’ Katie seemed surprised. ‘Oh well, I guess Tony got it wrong, as usual. He told me he saw Paul getting into a car with a dark-haired woman. He said that’s how he knew she wasn't you, Julie. He was sure there was something going on between them, but it looks like he got the wrong end of the stick.’ She gave an embarrassed laugh. ‘That’s so typical of Tony. Men are the worst gossips.’ ‘Oh for goodness sake, Katie,’ Nina replied. ‘Just drop it, will you? Whatever he did or didn't do, Paul’s dead, and he was Julie’s husband. She doesn't want to listen to speculation about what he may or may not have been getting up to.’

  ‘That's okay,’ I said. ‘You're right. I’m better off without him. This is nice, isn't it?’ I added, looking at them both and forcing a smile.

  I was grateful for Nina's intervention. She was right. Although I had implied I was fine with Katie’s comment, it had upset me more than I cared to admit, but I was determined to hide my feelings. At one time meeting two girl friends for coffee would have been a missable event. In the context of my life for the past month, it felt like an exciting social gathering. I didn't want to spoil it.

  ‘It’s like old times,’ Nina said, picking up on my attitude.

  To all outward appearances, she was right. But my husband’s body was lying frozen in the mortuary, my son was living four hundred miles away from home, and I was hiding a hideous plastic bracelet on my ankle. I struggled to understand how my well-ordered life had so rapidly deteriorated into chaos. Thinking about the bottle of wine cooling in my fridge, I felt an unexpected affinity with Layla, who had relied on mind-altering chemicals to shield her from life. We weren't so very different. I had more in common with a violent drug addict than with my old friends who were blithely sipping lattes, blinkered by their fragile veneer of respectability.

  27

  By half past five I was back home, in time for the start of my curfew, and shortly after six I called my mother-in-law to find out how Dan was getting on. She was pleased to hear that I had been released on bail again.

  ‘That is good news, well done,’ she said, as though it was a personal achievement to be let out of prison.

  ‘But I won’t be able to come up to see you just yet,’ I added.

  It might have been possible for me to get to Edinburgh and back without breaking my curfew. I could try to find out. But it would be cutting it very fine to cram about eleven hours of travelling from my house and back again, within my twelve-hour allocation. It would make more sense for Dan to come to see me. I didn’t want to risk being held up by any delay on the trains. I suggested to Stella that Dan come to London. Although she agreed, in principle, she was evasive about fixing a date.

  ‘We’ve got a lot planned for the next couple of weeks,’ she explained. ‘Lots of outings. And Mark has promised to take him fishing, of all things. But after that, of course he must come and stay with you.’

  She made it sound as though he would be paying me a visit, not coming home, but I let that go. We would sort out the arrangements for his return once the police confirmed that I was home for good. In the meantime he was enjoying his stay in Edinburgh.

  When Dan came on the line he was excited about the excursions his grandparents had been taking him on since I last saw him. He also told me he had joined a youth club that met every week in the local church hall. I wasn’t sure it was a g
ood idea for him to start making friends of his own age in Edinburgh, since he would be coming home soon, but I didn’t mention my reservations to him. I would take that up with Stella at the appropriate time. For now, my position was weak.

  ‘A youth club?’ I said. ‘What do you get up to there?’

  ‘Table tennis mostly,’ he told me. ‘And they show us films. It’s a bit churchy, you know, but I like it there.’

  I wondered if it was an evangelical church community trying to welcome him into the fold and determined to bring him back home as soon as I could.

  ‘And Nana and Granddad took me to St Mary’s Close,’ he babbled eagerly.

  ‘What’s St Mary’s Close?’ I wondered if that was another kind of church community.

  ‘It’s this place underground. It’s a very old street where people used to live that’s been preserved because it was built on top of. At least, I think that’s what happened. I think it was discovered when they were excavating, or digging foundations, or something. But it might always have just been there. Anyway, a lot of people lived there in medieval times, when they had the plague in Edinburgh. Almost everyone died of the plague in those days, even children and babies. They only got rid of it in the end because they burned rats to get rid of them. They didn’t know it was the rats that were spreading the plague in the first place. Well, it wasn’t the rats exactly, but the fleas that lived on the rats that bit the people and infected them with the plague which the rats carried. It was horrible,’ he added cheerfully. ‘They lived squashed together in tiny cellars, without any light at all, well, maybe one candle, and every day they emptied their buckets of sewage into the street and if anyone was outside, they were covered in poo! Really, Mum, you should go there. It’s awesome. Only a few people were immune to the plague and recovered from it, but I don’t think anyone knows why they survived. Life wasn’t easy in those days.’