The Women: A gripping psychological thriller

by S. E. Lynes

  ‘Might be easier to … Hang on, why would she say that? What did you say to make her say that, Aisha?’

  Aisha bites her lip. ‘I might have said you … you were convinced he’d changed. I might have said something like that.’

  ‘Christ, Aisha.’

  ‘Look, there was no guarantee we’d see anything. It was a bit of a long shot, frankly, and I thought if we did see him, at least you’d have a friend with you for support.’

  Samantha is reeling. ‘What …’ she begins but gets no further.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Aisha says.

  ‘You set this up? You and Professor Bailey?’

  Aisha looks wretched. ‘It was with the best of … Oh God, I’m so, so sorry.’

  ‘What I don’t understand,’ Samantha says, ‘is why anyone cares quite so much about my private arrangements.’ There. She has managed to vocalise it. ‘I mean, what the hell has it got to do with anyone?’

  Aisha’s face has fallen.

  Samantha hesitates. But the conversation is not over.

  ‘I just keep coming back to the fact that you and Jenny and Lottie all ended up in my class,’ she says. ‘And now I find out that fucking Sally Bailey knows my private business too, that she’s sticking her oar in, giving me a ticket so I’ll catch my partner in the act. I mean, I know you’ve explained why you and Jenny came to the class, but don’t you think it’s weird that Lottie was there too? It’s like some horrible hall of mirrors. I feel like I’m living on CCTV, everyone watching, knowing stuff about me. You’d tell me if you knew Lottie from before, wouldn’t you? I’m asking you, Aisha. I’m only going to ask you once, and if I find out you lied, we’re done – do you get that?’

  ‘Sam,’ Aisha says. ‘I’m so sorry. Our intentions were good, I promise. Jenny and I only approached you after we found out you were with Peter. We genuinely didn’t want to see another woman’s life ruined by that b— that excuse for a man. You can check it with the college. If you look at the records, you’ll see that we enrolled for the previous term but the class got cancelled. And I guarantee that Lottie will have enrolled after you put up the link on your Facebook. That’s how she knew you’d be the tutor. The college don’t give out that information. You know that, Sam. Come on! This is how abusers get us. They turn us into these secretive little animals, and when we try and come out, we don’t believe each other because believing is just too terrible. Peter is an abuser, Sam. He is a serial abuser of women.’

  ‘Don’t say that! You don’t get to call him that to me! He’s my partner and the father of my child. It’s me who decides what he is, me that gets to call him an abuser, all right?’

  Aisha throws up her hands. She is crying now, quite openly.

  ‘Look,’ Samantha says after a minute. ‘I didn’t mean to make you cry. I know you’re trying to help. But I don’t need some first wives’ club wading into my life, OK? I don’t need an action squad, no matter how well intentioned. Just let me handle this. If you genuinely want us to be friends then you’ll have to try not to interfere or pass comment or – or judge, OK? Because you won’t understand – I don’t think you’ll understand what happens going forward. And that’s fine. I don’t need you to understand. I just need you to be here on the other side, OK? I know it doesn’t make sense now, but it will. One day. All right?’

  Aisha looks confused, as well she might. And looking at her crushed expression, her eyes so wet and solemn, Samantha wants to kiss her on the forehead and say, It’s OK, I don’t quite know what I mean either, not yet.

  ‘But I do want us to be friends,’ is what she does say. ‘OK?’

  Aisha nods, glossy tears brimming on her lower lids. Samantha pulls her into her arms and mutters into her hair, ‘Just stop trying to help. You’re lovely but you’re making a real mess of it.’

  Aisha laughs. They pull apart. Aisha wipes her face with the back of her hand.

  Samantha digs in her bag.

  ‘Here,’ she says. ‘Mums always carry tissues.’

  The rain resumes, quickens. It’s still a good fifteen-minute walk, so Samantha orders an Uber. Peter is, if nothing else, generous with money. More than generous – flash, in Samantha’s eyes, growing up as she did in more modest circumstances, even before the bankruptcy. In the cab, she takes Aisha’s hand and holds it. Aisha is still a little fragile. Odd that she should be more upset than Samantha when it is the singed scraps of Samantha’s burning humiliation that float now in the air.

  But Samantha is filled not with embarrassment, not with shame or tears, but with a kind of preternatural cool, as if she is able to look down upon herself and direct her own speech and action as she used to control her dolls as a child. She wonders with this same detached calm exactly where and how Peter has seduced or will seduce this new woman. This girl – that fleeting expression of delight so like her own not so long ago, back when she herself was still a green fruit, caught in Peter’s dazzling light. He can’t bring whoever she is back to the house, not anymore. He can’t play out the firework display of all that he owns and does and is. He wouldn’t deign or risk her student accommodation – assuming she’s a student. The back seat of the Porsche, forget it.

  A hotel, then. How lovely.

  She settles back in her seat. Outside, drops of rain fall against the taxi window. Peter appears in her mind’s eye. He is walking towards her. He smiles and holds out his hands, but as he does so, he collapses into columns of numbers that stream down against a dark sky. It is code. A kind of computer code.

  A soft laugh escapes her.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ Aisha asks.

  ‘I just had a thought and I was like, oh my God, that is so original, but then I realised it was actually a scene from The Matrix. You know, when Keanu Reeves realises that the baddie is just a computer program?’

  ‘I haven’t seen it, sorry.’

  ‘Ah. Well, it’s an old film, I suppose, but anyway the baddie seems real, but he’s just a program. Or something like that. That’s not the point. The point is that even though everything is moving super-fast, Keanu Reeves suddenly sees exactly what this guy is, and from that moment he’s able not only to fight him but to anticipate what he’ll do next. So from that point on, he has the edge.’

  ‘What does that even mean?’

  ‘It means …’ Samantha looks out onto the rain-drenched streets. ‘It means it’s time to act.’

  Thirty-Four

  Peter arrives home after she does. She lies in bed, listening to his bathroom rituals. He doesn’t shower, but when he gets into bed, she smells fresh soap and almost smiles to herself. A lovely hotel shower before leaving the poor cow who currently thinks she is his special one and only. She levels her breathing. He lays a hand on her shoulder, apparently thinks twice, lies back. A few minutes later she hears the low nasal inhalations she has come to recognise as Peter’s peaceful slumber.

  She rolls over, pushes her fingers through his chest hair, wonders vaguely if he dyes this too and if so, how; whether he uses a toothbrush or cotton buds or what.

  ‘Peter,’ she whispers. ‘Peter, wake up.’

  He jolts, grunts. ‘What’s the matter?’

  She kisses his neck, reaches into his boxer shorts.

  ‘That question you’re always asking me.’ She tightens her grip, feels him harden. ‘I want you to ask me again. Ask me now.’

  ‘Huh?’ He is still groggy, confused.

  ‘Ask me.’ She bites his earlobe, moves over him, sits astride. Slowly she lowers herself onto him, pulls her nightshirt up over her head.

  He groans, lays his hands on her hips.

  ‘Ask me.’ She moves, feels her own excitement grow. This night is full of contradictions – coolness in the fire of humiliation, helpless laughter in the midst of despair, and now, let’s hope, a whopping orgasm brought about by pure, undiluted hate.

  ‘Sam.’ He grips her waist, sits up, clings to her. It is over in seconds, for both of them. She rolls off him, rests her head against h
is shoulder.

  ‘Ask me,’ she whispers.

  He props himself up on one elbow and draws his forefinger up her belly.

  ‘Samantha Frayn, excellent woman,’ he says in his low, calm voice. ‘Will you marry me?’

  ‘Peter Bridges, clever chap,’ she says. ‘Yes, I will.’

  They kiss. And it is this she finds hardest. But she steels herself and does it.

  The next morning, he is drinking coffee and reading the news on his phone. She is used to the coldness, can anticipate it. Numbers, she thinks, streaming down in a dark, dark sky. Next, he will run upstairs, clean his teeth. He will return, plant a perfunctory kiss on her cheek and leave. It is possible he won’t even mention what passed between them last night. Except he won’t do any of these things, not this morning, not if she can help it.

  ‘Good morning,’ she says, flicking on the kettle, ‘future husband.’

  He raises his eyebrows, smiles. Hallelujah, a crack in the stone.

  ‘Mrs Bridges.’ He puts down his cup and his phone – a miracle – and crosses the room. Takes her in his arms and kisses her deeply on the mouth. He smells of shampoo, tastes of coffee. ‘I thought I was dreaming, but if you remember it too …’

  She giggles. ‘I do.’

  ‘I do,’ he jokes. What a witty pair they are.

  ‘How was your morning coffee, dear?’

  ‘It was almost as good as what followed.’ He grins. Oh for fuck’s sake, he even winks. ‘What are you up to today, future Mrs Bridges?’

  ‘Actually,’ she says, ‘I was thinking of coming into town. I thought maybe I could pay you a visit. One of the mums said she’d have Emily any time. We could grab lunch or something.’

  He frowns. ‘I’m lecturing until three. Today is tricky.’

  She smiles, meets his eye. ‘Another day then? I have an idea you might like.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  She trails her fingertips up his arm. ‘I’ve always had this fantasy that I was one of your students.’

  ‘Is that right?’

  ‘Mm-hm. Maybe a PhD student, you know? So I was thinking, if you give me the keys to your office, I could wait for you there and you could maybe give me a little private tutorial before lunch. On your desk, perhaps?’

  His eyebrows shoot up; he coughs into his hand. ‘It’s not a key, it’s a … it’s a pass card.’

  ‘Key, pass card, whatever. I didn’t mean it literally, it was more about the idea …’

  ‘Yes. Yes, of course.’ He appears flustered. ‘Of course. I have a spare.’

  ‘Great,’ she says lightly. ‘Shall we put a date in the diary?’

  ‘How about next week? And I keep meaning to book our Easter holiday, but with Emily getting taken and the poems and everything I’ve been too preoccupied.’

  ‘You’re spinning too many plates, hon,’ she says, almost licking her lips at the dramatic irony of the line she’s just given herself. ‘Leave it all to me.’

  The first thing she does is book the wedding ceremony. Emily tucked under her arm, she fills in the forms, cursing at the thirty-day notice period. She thought that was something from back in the twentieth century, earlier even, and only for churches – wedding banns and all that jazz. Holy crap, that means she will have to keep this charade up for a whole month.

  Both parties have to give notice – not an issue. The password for the home computer is the same as the one for his Gmail account, unless he’s changed it again since Emily went missing. Today is Thursday 22 March – she sends notice from her own and Peter’s account and books a slot for a simple ceremony, two witnesses, in York House on the morning of Thursday 19 April. That will work well with Peter’s Easter holidays – she’s pretty sure he goes back the following Tuesday, so they can have a long weekend honeymoon – with Emily. Tempting as it is to ask Aisha and Jenny to be witnesses, if only to see the look on Peter’s face, she decides to ask Marcia and Jacob. Marcia can be told only what she needs to know. Samantha will tell her the rest afterwards, once the dust – and there will be a lot of dust – settles.

  Is it too much to buy matching rings? No, she must do everything in the most convincing way possible. She must sweep him off his feet.

  In Peter’s bedside cabinet, in the little wooden box with the marquetry top, she finds the signet ring he sometimes wears when they go out. This she slides onto one of the candles they keep in the cupboard under the kitchen sink. Everything in its place and a place for everything. She draws a line around the candle with a sharp knife, there, where the ring has stopped. She will buy a cheap gold band. If all goes to plan, there will be no risk of it tarnishing.

  There will be no time.

  Next, she returns to the computer and looks into flights. There is only one possible place. Peter promised he would take her there. It was when he took her there through his words that she fell in love with him. She knew even then that this was what had happened; she felt it, had felt it even before, from that first precipitous sensation when he removed the drink from her hands and suggested they leave. His lecture was the penultimate piece of a seduction she thought was all about her, when in fact it was all about him.

  But she’s not going over this, not again.

  There’s a Virgin flight from Heathrow to Rome at 21.00 on Thursday 19 April. That will give them plenty of time to get married and make their way to the airport. They will even have time to go for a celebratory lunch, which will make the whole thing more authentic. Sidetracked, she googles the location of the register office and sees that it is over the bridge, towards Twickenham. They could go to The Crown on the roundabout near Marble Hill Park, but, no, Peter won’t like that idea. Ah. Luigi’s, his favourite Italian, is on that side of the bridge. Perfect. She can book a cab to take them straight there.

  She calls the restaurant, speaks to Luigi and explains that they’ll be coming directly from their wedding, that it’s a private ceremony; would it be possible to book a romantic lunch for two? Luigi is charmed to be asked. Mr Peter is a special customer, he tells her. Leave it with him, don’t worry. He will do something special.

  ‘Thank you so much,’ she says. ‘That’s so kind of you. See you then!’

  She puts the phone down, realises that her excitement is not, in fact, fake. She really is keyed up, actually. Purpose, maybe that’s what it is. She is full to the brim with purpose.

  Back to the flights.

  She needs their passports. That’s a point. She knows Peter organised one for Emily when she was born but she’s never seen his. She’s not seen her own since she moved in, come to that. There’s been much talk of travel, but actually they’ve barely left Richmond in their short time together. She was pregnant so quickly and Emily is still so little, they haven’t yet thought about going anywhere on a plane.

  Peter’s passport is not in his desk. It is not on any of his shelves either, not even in the box file with the other official documents. She drums her fingertips against her lips.

  Think.

  There is a safe in the house. Peter has mentioned it. Everything in its place. The passports are bound to be in there. She knows the layout of every room – God knows, she’s spent enough time here on her own – but she’s never seen a safe. Although there is one room she never goes into. The cellar.

  Emily on her hip, she walks out of the study and down the hall. She is about to open the door under the stairs when she stops. Small steps, yes, but be careful.

  She runs upstairs and pops Emily in her cot, passes her a new set of toys and pulls the cord for her musical mobile. The one Peter cannot bear to hear when he’s in the house. An insult to music, he says.

  She takes a pair of latex gloves from the box under the loose floorboard. On reflection, she takes a few more pairs and stashes them in her bag before putting one pair on and heading back to the cellar.

  There is a pull cord for the light. It is still flickering as she heads slowly down the stone steps. The basement is cold, sparse and clean. To the right is
a wine rack from which around a dozen dusty bottles protrude. She shivers. An idyllic past looked upon through the lens of betrayal is perhaps the most distorted sight there is. All that was beautiful is ugly; all that was meaningful is filled with a kind of empty horror. She looks closer, torturing herself now. Amarone, she reads. Amarone. Amarone. Amarone. She gasps.

  I’ve been waiting to open this one for a long time, he said that night.

  All the bottles are the same.

  All that was meaningful …

  ‘Well,’ she mutters to no one at all. ‘It’s not meaningful anymore, is it?’

  The urge to pull these bottles one by one from the rack is almost overwhelming. To pull them one by one and throw them hard onto the concrete floor.

  But no. Careful, Samantha. Be careful. She straightens up and looks around her. The safe is on top of a beautiful old sideboard that on closer inspection turns out to be riddled with woodworm. One of the feet is missing, and inside the central cabinet, the heart-shaped glass window is cracked, the mint-green velvet lining blackened with mould. It looks like something from Dickens, she thinks. Straight from Miss Havisham’s sitting room. The safe on the other hand is a modern matt-grey strongbox with a brushed chrome door, combination lock. She was expecting a lock, of course she was, but even so her heart sinks.