Once Nick had gone, I bumbled around the house getting ready. Even with things the way they were, it lifted my heart slightly to have an errand, a reason to go out. I washed my hair, even put on a little make-up. The thought was tickling the edges of my mind – what if you were there? I was going to the place you worked, if you’d told me the truth about Dr Andrew Holt. I stared at myself in the mirror, my pale winter face, the dark circles round my eyes that didn’t shift no matter how late I slept. The mousy roots were showing through the red of my hair, but I wasn’t allowed to get it touched up, since dye was bad for the baby, like so many things. Not to mention the pregnant belly stretching out all my clothes. Did I even want you to see me like this?
When I went downstairs, I encountered a new problem with the alarm. I couldn’t get out the door. When I turned the handle, it didn’t budge. Had Nick set the alarm wrong, put it on the ‘out’ setting instead of ‘stay’, the one for when we were home? But no, it would have gone off by now if so, I’d have triggered the motion sensors. I frowned at the control panel, a bewildering mass of buttons and lights. Was it the same code as the one outside? Oh God, my brain was like cotton wool. Tentatively, I keyed it in, and a small benign bing sounded, and the door opened. That was a close one. For a moment, I had almost been a prisoner in my own home, instead of merely feeling like one.
The change at Waterloo was a brief glimpse of another world, a past life full of people walking fast, staring at phones, smoking in the cold breeze. The taxi driver to the hospital was chatty, to my irritation. Back in London, I’d prided myself on having good conversations with cab or Uber drivers, usually a bottle of wine in on my way home. I’d even boast about it: Had such a great chat with my cabby, all about his family in Morocco. So much virtue-signalling, as you’d once called it.
‘Off to antenatal, is it? My missus, she had all three of ours there.’
I rubbed the bump, growing more solid by the day. He’d reminded me that life was going on, despite the quagmire I was stuck in at home. I had scans booked, midwife appointments. The baby was growing, no matter how much I tried to hold back time. ‘I just want to check it out. I hear they have a good birth centre.’
‘You don’t want to be bothering with those paddling pools, love. Nice epidural, that’ll sort you out. My missus . . .’ And on he went for the whole drive, giving me the low-down not just on his missus’s labours, but also on those of his two daughters and his daughter-in-law. I was trying to remember if you’d ever told me where you worked. I’d assumed Tunbridge Wells, where I thought you lived, and which I knew had a big hospital. Why would you work in Surrey if you lived in Kent? It shamed me, how little I knew about you, the man I claimed to love. I paid the driver, now one of my most intimate acquaintances, and waddled inside to the reception desk.
‘Antenatal?’ The woman behind the desk wore a long grey cardigan and that same look of all NHS receptionists, which I imagined was similar to that of a wartime general staring out at an invading horde. None shall pass. ‘Third floor.’
‘No, it’s not that. Sorry. I’m looking for a doctor called Andrew Holt.’
‘What’s it in relation to?’ She was already reaching for the desk phone and a thrill of shock ran through me. Was it going to be as easy as that?
‘But . . .’ I panicked suddenly, imagining that you might be there, working alongside this doctor. Or, if what I suspected was true, that he might be you. That maybe you’d lied to me.
‘What?’
I said nothing. I didn’t know how to explain you might not want to see me. She spoke into the receiver. ‘Dr Holt’s office? I have someone here wanting to speak to him. Private patient, I think. Name?’ She turned to me, and I couldn’t decide what to say.
‘Er . . . Nora Halscombe.’ The lie just popped out, and immediately I was frightened I’d be found out. But what harm could it do?
She slammed the phone down. ‘You can go up. Floor two.’
‘And – what’s the department again?’ I asked timidly.
A frown crossed her face. ‘Gynaecology, of course.’
Endocrinology: the study of hormones and their effect on the body. Dopamine is a hormone, the chemical that makes us addicted, drives us to tap endlessly at our phones or scroll for ever through dating apps. Oxytocin is a hormone, the feeling of love that floods our brains when we’re close to someone. The conference I met you at had been on hormones, and I knew that infertility was often caused by imbalances in progesterone, testosterone. It made sense.
I managed to get myself into the lift and find the right ward among the bewildering colour-coded maps on the walls. My heart was gasping in my chest, and I could feel the baby squirm, uneasy, no doubt drowned in a flood of adrenaline. Another hormone, the one that lets us run faster than we knew we could, lift cars off children. I waited on a bank of chairs, absorbing the peculiar calm of hospitals, the rustle of sterile paper and squeak of nursing shoes. Then an administrator in a lanyard came out and called me into a small office, and the name on its door was Dr Andrew Holt.
I got to my feet, wobbly. I was maybe going to see you. In just a few seconds. Just across a few feet of hospital flooring. Maybe your face would darken, and you’d push me out. Maybe I’d cry. I brushed at the ajar door and saw . . .
It wasn’t you. The man in the room was nothing like you. He was short, around five foot seven or so, and stockily built, with a wide, smiling face, sandy hair receding on top. He wore a jumper over a shirt and tie, the sleeves pushed up. ‘Mrs Halscombe. Or Ms? Please, sit, sit. I gather you wanted to speak to me, but I’m afraid we can’t find your patient records. Was it a polycystic case? If so, I can see the outcome was good!’
‘Um . . . no, there won’t be any records.’
‘Oh?’
‘Um, this is going to sound very weird, but a while ago, earlier this year, I met someone who said he was Dr Andrew Holt. But – you’re not him.’ That wasn’t exactly what had happened, but I couldn’t think how to explain.
He frowned, but not in a nasty way. Like he was really trying to understand. ‘Where was this?’
‘At a conference. Endo – Endrocon, something like that?’
‘Oh God, that shindig? I always try to duck out if I can, it’s just a jolly really, and all in some awful airport hotel with mediocre food.’ He looked as if he cared about food, the kind of man who’d get excited when he found a new type of dried mushroom.
‘So you weren’t at this year’s?’
‘Nope, I haven’t been since, ooh, must be at least five years. Someone said they were me, you say?’
‘Not exactly. He had your badge on.’
‘Hmm.’ He thought for a moment, drumming his hands against the desk. I noticed they were very nice, square and capable, the nails filed down. ‘You know what, I think the hospital could well have signed me up. The drug companies fund it so it’s no skin off their nose. There’d have been a badge for me, maybe.’
‘And they don’t check ID or anything, when you pick them up?’
‘Lord no, why would anyone want to blag their way into that snooze-fest? Though maybe someone did, by the sounds of it.’ He sat back, pleased at having solved the mystery. ‘So what did he do, this identity thief? Give you some bad medical advice?’
‘Oh no, nothing like that. He just – mentioned the birth centre here was very good, that’s all. I wanted to look him up for some advice.’ I hadn’t been pregnant then, obviously, but I hoped it would go unquestioned.
‘You’re in medicine too? Or a rep?’
‘No, I’m . . . I was at something else in the same hotel. We just got chatting.’ I had to stop this conversation, before I got found out, before I laid a trail that Nick could follow all the way back. But I couldn’t leave. I had to keep picking at the mystery, like a rat in a maze, scrabbling for its dopamine fix. ‘Dr Holt – this might be a weird question too, but is there anyone in your department called Sean Sullivan?’ Perhaps the story had been true. Dr Holt was a colleague of yo
urs, and it really was a simple mix-up. I’m sorry I doubted you.
He was frowning again. ‘Sean? None of the doctors, that I know of. And I don’t think nursing staff. Maybe in management. I can find out, if you like? Wait a sec.’ And before I could stop him he’d bounded to his feet and was opening the door to the corridor. ‘Jim? Do we have a Sean Sullivan in the admin team, do you know?’
I stood. The door was half open, but I could see through the gap that he was talking to an older doctor, whose white coat was rumpled and eyes red-rimmed. Not someone I’d want treating me, I decided in a glance. When he spoke he coughed first, a smoker’s rasp. And then he said, ‘You mean Patrick Sullivan? The finance clerk?’
Dr Holt looked at me. You’d told me Sean. You’d also told me you were a doctor and that you lived in Kent. I managed to say, ‘I don’t know. Dark hair, glasses, very blue eyes?’ Even the memory of them could send me sagging to the floor, all strength gone.
‘That’s him.’ The other doctor fixed me with a strange look. His tone was sympathetic, but it didn’t show on his face. ‘Oh dear. Obviously you haven’t heard what happened?’
I lurched to the door. I needed to hold on to something – the wall, anything. I knew, somehow, that whatever I was about to hear was going to knock me right off my feet.
Nora
I had just ripped out a long, satisfying frond of Japanese knotweed when I heard the taxi pull up. I’d been watching from the window as Suzi left in one earlier that day, I didn’t know where to. No doubt when we spoke she would pretend she’d just needed something in the shops. Lying came so easily to her – I wondered if she even realised how rare that was. Or maybe she’d been forced into it, like an animal backed into a corner. She had been so upset the day before, finding the dead rabbit in her planter. Across the road, I had heard her scream. In the still cold air, it echoed like a gunshot.
‘Suzi! What is it?’ I’d hurried across the lane, this time forgetting to look for cars myself.
Suzi was shaking, pointing into the planter, a silly thing made to look like half a barrel. ‘Is it him? Oh God, Nora!’
I didn’t understand what she meant. In it was something dead, shining red viscera and fur and bone. Unpleasant, but nothing a country person wouldn’t be used to.
Suzi was crying. ‘How could he get in there? Oh God. It’s my fault.’
I realised she thought it was the dog. Sternly, I said, ‘Suzi, this is far too small to be Poppet. Look, it’s a rabbit or something, that’s all.’
‘Oh.’ She opened her eyes and looked properly. ‘But how did it get in there?’
‘Foxes, I suppose. They can do terrible damage.’ I imagined Suzi was one of those sentimental types who fed predators, instead of wiping them out as was needed. ‘Come on, it’s not Poppet. Is there still no sign of him?’
She wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her cardigan. ‘No. I’m not sure what else we can do. Nick’s already put out posters with a reward.’ A thousand pounds, he had offered. An insane amount for what was, after all, just an animal. I could imagine what my mother would have said about that. She’d had my favourite King Charles spaniel put down when his vet bills went over a hundred pounds.
‘He’s fine,’ I’d reassured her. ‘I know he’s just fine.’ But I didn’t think she believed me.
Now, as I watched, she paid the taxi driver, fumbling the notes, and from my garden I could see she was shaking, breathing hard. Something had happened. Perhaps it was time.
I stood for a moment, trying to compose myself. Giving her a little space to control things, pack away the spilled-out emotions like clothes into a travel bag. Something I wished people had done for me, at the times I needed it. The etiquette around giving bad news should really be: deliver it, then go away and leave the person in a darkened room, alone. Place food outside their door, though they won’t be able to eat it. Clean and tidy and step back into the shadows. But it seemed Suzi was not the kind of person who reacted that way.
She came running into my front garden, almost slipping on the damp, weed-choked flagstones. Upset again – I wondered what it was this time. ‘Nora! Nora!’ She was panting, and could hardly get the words out. ‘Please! Help me!’
I went to her. She grabbed on to the jacket I was wearing, an old Barbour thing that had belonged to my husband. ‘What’s the matter?’ I tried to make my voice caring, not cold, but the training was so ingrained. Don’t make a scene. Go indoors, you silly girl. Not that there was anyone to hear us.
‘He’s dead! Nora, he’s been killed! A car crash!’
‘Who are you talking about? Suzi, what’s happened?’
She choked it out: ‘The man I’m in love with. The man I – had an affair with. He’s dead.’ And she began to clutch at her hair, almost pulling it out, so extreme was her pain.
PART TWO
Alison
FEBRUARY – THREE MONTHS LATER
DC Alison Hegarty paused to kick snow from her sodden leather boots, reflecting that she should have taken her dad’s advice after all and bought the walking ones in the Blacks winter sale. These flimsy high-street things were no match for the snow and ice piled up around the cottages. This was proper deep country; she’d not even had phone reception since being out here.
The first cottage was entirely dilapidated, choked with ivy and no doubt many spiders. She’d given it a wide berth as they tramped down the lane. The second at least had lights on, fighting against the gloom of a winter afternoon. The third was in darkness, shuttered up as if no one had been there in weeks.
Tom Khan looked cast down. ‘I could murder a sausage roll. How far do you think it is to the nearest Greggs?’
‘You should have brought lunch.’
‘Yeah yeah, some of us have actual lives. I got in at four, I’m not about to get up and start spreading Flora, am I? Unless her name’s Flora! Ha ha.’
Alison rolled her eyes. ‘Well, aren’t you the party animal. What was it this time, Tinder?’
He winked. ‘It’s almost too easy. Like ordering up a Domino’s. Except it’s her that gets the meat feast.’
Alison made a noise of disgust. ‘Jesus, Tom, this is a crime scene. Someone’s dead.’
‘I’ll be dead too if I don’t get some lunch. Share with me, Hegarty? You’ll hardly eat all your vegan hummus with cucumber anyway.’
‘You must be joking. Come on, let’s try this posh one first.’
They crunched up the paved path to what had once been an ordinary labourer’s cottage, now mushroomed out with an extension out the back and a heavy sealed door, tinted windows. Kind of a cross between a rustic bolthole and a bank vault. Alison noted that the path had not been swept of snow in some time, and she concentrated on not falling over. Tom needed no more ammunition to take the piss out of her.
‘Don’t think they’re in,’ he observed needlessly. The house was in darkness, and peering through the letter box showed a heap of envelopes on the mat. What looked like Christmas cards, even – they’d been gone for a while.
‘Top marks, Sherlock.’ Alison pulled out her phone and checked the info they had on the occupants. A Nicholas and Suzanne Thomas. ‘That’s weird.’
‘Huh?’ Tom held up his hands, trying to peer through the windows; he was leaving smears on the glass.
‘We’ve been out to this address twice in the last few months.’
‘Which teams?’
‘Traffic – there was an accident over on the slip road round September time – and then . . . Surrey Major Crimes.’
‘What were they doing here?’ Tom scowled; territorialism was fierce between the forces.
‘You remember there was that gas fire thing over in Guildford, a death? Just an accident if you ask me, but someone was a keen bean, looked into it.’
‘Lucky them to have the time. What did this lot have to do with it?’ He jerked his head towards the house. You could see it had been expensive. It was a shame to gut an old place like that, but on the other hand it did loo
k cosy inside, with red LEDs glowing from various devices and panels, and the snow had now reached Alison’s socks.
‘Dunno. I’ll have to check.’
Tom was stamping his feet. ‘How about we do the other place, then sod off back to the station? I’m freezing my balls off here.’
Alison did not want to think about Tom’s balls. ‘Alright then.’ Likely the couple were off on some Christmas break, the Caribbean maybe, lucky bastards.
Since December though?
Maybe.
‘Bit of a dump,’ observed Tom, as they stepped carefully down the icy path of the other cottage. ‘The one across the road is well nicer.’
‘They’ve got the cash, I suppose.’ This one was called Ivy Cottage. Slightly better than the derelict one next door, but not much. She rang the bell.
Loudly, Tom commented, ‘Bloody hell, my bits feel like frozen Quorn sausage.’
‘Shut up,’ she hissed. ‘Game face.’ In response to their ring, the inhabitant of the first cottage was approaching, a dim shadow through the stained-glass surround of the door. They both put on their death-knock faces – sombre, serious. Sympathy allayed with a hint of suspicion, because nine times out of ten the murder victim had been done in by someone they knew. Awareness of this fact made dating hard for Alison, even without Tom’s disgusting window into the male mind.
‘Hello. I’m DC Hegarty, this is DC Khan. Can we come in? I’m afraid we have some bad news.’
Elle
‘I’m so sorry for your loss.’ She must have heard those same words fifty times in the weeks since it happened. The funeral director, the police, the life insurance company, explaining that no, her husband did not in fact have a policy with them, it had been cancelled the year before for some inexplicable reason. The neighbours. The morgue staff, who’d sympathetically blocked her requests to have his body back sooner. An autopsy had been necessary. Perhaps an inquest later on. Now, at least, she had been able to bury him. He was dead. It seemed – almost funny. It was stupid, because it was always him who was alive and her who was dead. She’d been dead most of her life before she met him. She breathed, she smiled, she sat in concert halls and played the piano, but she was dead all the same.
The Other Wife Page 8