The Ex-Wife

by Jess Ryder

  I’d promised myself I wouldn’t involve Mum in our getaway, but after what had just happened, all I wanted to do was take Emily home, where she’d be safe. Shocked and shaken, I could only drive at about twenty miles an hour. Emily fell asleep in the back seat, lying on her side, swathed in two seat belts and wedged in by my bag. Every time I had to stop at traffic lights, I panicked, thinking that people could see into the car. I was worried that the police would stop me and realise that I didn’t have a proper driving licence; that they would take Emily away.

  But eventually I made it. I pulled up outside Mum’s house and gently lifted Emily off the seat, carrying her inside and laying her on the sofa.

  ‘How did you find her?’ asked Mum.

  I started to tell her about the crash, but she’d already heard about it on the ten o’clock news. Nearly thirty vehicles were involved, she said. Two people had been killed and the police expected the number to rise. Dozens had been injured, some very seriously. As yet, the cause was unknown, but the accident investigators were at the scene and there was an appeal for witnesses to come forward.

  She poured me a brandy, praising my bravery and reprimanding me for my stupidity at the same time. Why hadn’t I told her I was going to get Emily? She would have driven me, she insisted. It was a wonder I hadn’t had an accident myself.

  By the morning, breakfast news was reporting that the police believed there had been three adult fatalities and a child aged two, but the deaths were unconfirmed and names would not be released until the next of kin had been contacted. So many times I’d watched news items about motorway pile-ups and welled up in sympathy for the victims, but my feelings now were off the scale.

  ‘A two-year-old, how awful,’ said Mum as she tried to get me to eat some breakfast. She paused, butter knife in hand. ‘You don’t suppose they mean Emily, do you?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Possibly. But only Nick and Jen knew she was in the car.’

  Mum made a considering noise with her tongue. ‘Which means at least one of them is alive.’

  ‘Yes …’ Silently I prayed it was Jen, and not Nick.

  ‘Well then,’ said Mum. ‘You’d better ring the police straight away and tell them she’s safe.’

  I didn’t reply. My brain was whirring with thoughts. As soon as Mum left for work, I tried calling Jen’s mobile, but it was switched off. I didn’t leave a message. I needed to think everything through before I acted. Before the police got in touch.

  A detective rang at just after nine, apologising for phoning. He’d called at my home address to speak to me in person, but nobody had answered the door and a neighbour told him the house had been empty for weeks.

  He had some very upsetting news and wanted to deliver it in person, but I insisted he tell me over the phone. The poor man’s voice shook as he told me that my husband had been involved in the M25 crash last night. He had sustained life-threatening injuries and was in a coma. His former wife, Jennifer Warrington, the driver of the vehicle, was in hospital undergoing surgery but was expected to make a full recovery. She had informed the police that my daughter, Emily, had also been in the car when it exploded.

  While he spoke, I looked up and pictured Emily in the room above – not reduced to black, steaming ash, but alive and sweetly asleep in my bed. I had a chance of freedom, of living without the threat of Nick coming to take her away. I had to take it.

  The policeman took my numb reaction and my silence for shock. Offered to send a liaison officer around until a friend or family member could come and look after me.

  ‘I’d rather be on my own,’ I said.

  * * *

  ‘You can’t do this, Tasha,’ said Mum when she arrived home and I told her that I hadn’t owned up to having Emily. ‘It’s illegal. And you won’t get away with it. The forensics people will know she wasn’t in the car when it blew up.’

  I’d spent the day thinking and plotting; I’d searched the internet for similar situations and calculated my chances. Mum was right, of course, it was virtually impossible not to find evidence of human remains after a fire. But if the heat was extremely intense and the blaze burned long enough, it could make it extremely difficult.

  ‘It was chaos,’ I said. ‘I don’t think anyone saw me take her out of the car. Jen told the police she was definitely there, and if that can be proved somehow, and she never turns up, then surely the coroner will have to accept that she most probably died in the explosion. Even if it’s only a presumed death, it’ll be enough.’

  Mum went for her cigarettes. ‘I can’t believe we’re having this conversation. You can’t do this, you’ll be caught. Someone will find out she’s still alive.’

  But I’d been thinking it through, making plans. ‘Not if I hide her,’ I answered. ‘Not if we go away somewhere, change our names, start a new life. I’ll do anything to stop Nick getting to her.’

  ‘He’s probably going to die anyway,’ she huffed.

  ‘But what if he doesn’t? What if he recovers? He saw me, Mum. He saw me take her out. He’ll track me down, use all his force, all his money to take her away from me. I’m not going to let that happen. Not ever again. I know what I’m doing is illegal, but I don’t care. It’s worth the risk.’

  Mum put her arms around me and pulled me into her chest. There was a long pause, and I could almost hear the cogs turning in her brain. ‘You’ll never manage it on your own,’ she said eventually. ‘But if we work together … if I take Emily away somewhere till things calm down … Bournemouth, maybe, I don’t know …’

  I lifted my head and gazed into her eyes. ‘Really, Mum? You’d do that for us? What about your job, this house?’

  She smiled. ‘You know, I’ve always wanted to live by the sea.’

  44

  Now

  Nicholas

  * * *

  Hayley’s manicured nails glitter like tiny pink fish in the light of the anglepoise lamp. She smoothes my forehead and sits back in the maroon plastic armchair, saying, ‘That’s better.’ I haven’t a clue what was wrong with my face. A stray hair? A bead of sweat? Perhaps it looked in need of a scratch.

  She takes a magazine out of her bag and starts flicking through it, glancing up at me every now and then to flash me a sympathetic smile. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful to her for visiting. The hospital’s a long way from Bristol and she’s very busy with the kids and young Ethan to look after. My parents come once a fortnight. They sit at the side of the bed and talk about me as if I’m still in the coma and can’t hear them. They say I’m looking peaky, that I need some fresh air. They wonder if I’m in pain, despite all the medication.

  My dreams are way better than this nightmare life. In my dreams, I can get out of bed and run down the corridors in my pyjamas. I can feed myself and brush my hair, wash my own arse. I read the paper and discuss politics with the nurses. Emily dances into the room and we sing ‘The Wheels on the Bus’ and ‘Incy Wincy Spider’, miming all the actions. We play Snap and Find the Pair; we go for walks in the hospital gardens and play hide-and-seek among the trees. Are there trees in the gardens? I wouldn’t know. I never leave the room.

  Where is she now? I wonder. My sweet Emily. What games does she play with Natasha? Her name is rarely mentioned, and only ever in hushed whispers in the corner of the room, where they think my ears can’t reach. Hayley’s face droops and my mother starts crying. They refer to her in the past tense, as if she’s dead. At first, I was confused, but now it’s clear. God knows, I’ve spent enough time lying here like a living corpse to work it out.

  It’s a huge mental jigsaw puzzle, made up of thousands of pieces. We used to do massive family jigsaws at Christmas. My mother would spread all the pieces out on a card table and everyone would do a bit when they passed by. I liked to start with the corners and build into the centre. Hayley went for the middle first and worked outwards. The pictures were often reproductions of Old Masters – Van Gogh’s Sunflowers or Cézanne’s Basket of Apples. We never
cared much about the image itself; it was the process we enjoyed. Hayley and I used to fight over who would click in the final piece.

  The jigsaw in my head is very different to the ones we made at Christmas. It’s not a still life; it moves, like a film, like a documentary made up of billions of misshapen pixels. And there’s dialogue, too. I only heard odd sounds at first, then random words, then phrases, but now I can play entire scenes.

  To begin with, I assembled the background to my jigsaw. Sky and general scenery, banks of trees and bushes, grey-green with pollution. All those pieces looked very similar, unfortunately. They were tedious to sort out, but if you can’t get those big expanses done, you can’t move on to the detail. And the devil is in the detail, as my media lawyer used to say. I was always more of a broad-brushstrokes man myself, relying on others with less talent to fill in the forms, but I’m on my own now. And after months of lying here, silently making my jigsaw documentary (could I have invented a new genre?), I’ve signed off the final edit. It’s a fascinating personal insight into what caused one of the worst crashes in motorway history, BAFTA-winning material no less. But most importantly, it’s a dramatisation of a real-life abduction. Let me pitch it to you.

  * * *

  There’s this guy, right? Early forties, looks mid-thirties, good-looking, trim, still got all his hair. He’s on the motorway with his ex-wife and his daughter from his second marriage. Only she’s not his ex, not any more, because they’re back together. Think Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor – can’t live with each other, can’t live without. You get the gist. It’s a love story for the twenty-first century. A tale of people and their complicated lives.

  Like I said, they’re on the motorway, the M25, heading towards Heathrow. A new life awaits them in Canada. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking – Canada’s not the sexiest of locations; we can change that, if you like. Make it Los Angeles, or New York, I don’t care. Make it fucking Beijing if the Chinese want to finance it. Make it Moscow. The location isn’t important; what matters is the feeling of anticipation, of emotional excitement. We’re talking new beginnings, the realisation of long-held dreams, a plan finally coming together, a couple in love and a beautiful little girl heading for the promised land. Get the picture?

  Our guy’s feeling good, despite the terrible injuries inflicted on him by his second wife. She’s bad news, by the way, violent, out of control. He’s desperate to get his daughter away from this psycho before she does any more damage, and he’s worried she might have got an emergency court order to stop him taking Emily (that’s the kid) out of the country. It’s only a small worry – he reckons she probably doesn’t have the guts – but he won’t feel totally safe until they’re through passport control and the plane has taken off.

  The ex-wife, now lover, is at the wheel. Let’s call her Jen for now; all the names can change if you don’t like them. She’s driving like she’s late for something, which he doesn’t get because they’re not on a deadline and the flight isn’t until the next day. He clocks the way she’s gripping the wheel like she’s on a white-knuckle ride but doesn’t think anything of it. His mind is focused on Canada (or wherever). He’s looking forward to arriving at the hotel, taking a shower, ordering a cold beer. It’s been a long drive down from the Lakes and the pain-relief pills have worn off.

  So, imagine them in their silver Mazda, weaving in and out of the outside lanes, zooming up to other cars’ bumpers and flashing their lights until they move across. It’s hard to go over the speed limit on the M25, but Jen’s giving it a bloody good go. Then they get stuck behind a lorry in the middle lane and she has to slow down.

  Our guy glances casually across to the traffic in the nearside lane, feeling a bit superior, as you do when you’ve got a smarter, faster vehicle. And he thinks, fuck me, the woman in that beaten-up old Fiesta looks a bit like my bitch of a wife. He burns a scowl through the side window, just for the hell of it.

  She stares back at him. Their eyes meet across the lanes, and she recoils as if she’s just been thumped in the chest. That’s the turning point. When he realises it actually is his bitch of a wife. You could freeze on that, or something, or crash-zoom in; I don’t know, I’m not a director, but you can see where I’m going. It’s a big moment.

  The car’s gone past by now, but his mind is still racing. What the hell was she doing, driving some strange car, on her own, down the very same stretch of motorway at the very same time? What were the chances? No way could that be a coincidence.

  ‘What is it?’ says Jen. She sounds nervous. Her voice is hanging by a thread; one tug and it’ll snap.

  ‘Natasha,’ he shouts, gesticulating behind him. ‘That was Natasha!’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ She accelerates, not daring to look at him, fixing her eyes on the road ahead. She’s trying to hide her panic, but you can see the fear in the whites of her eyes; you can smell it.

  ‘Natasha! In that car, she was driving!’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. She can’t drive.’

  ‘She nicked my fucking Range Rover,’ he spits. (Forgot to say, she’s violent and a thief. And drives without a licence.)

  His limbs are stiffening with anger, his fists clenching into hard round balls. Jen glances anxiously in the rear-view mirror and he knows at that very moment that the two women have been plotting against him. He works it out in a split second. Knows everything.

  ‘Pull over,’ he says.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Pull over. Now. I’m taking the wheel.’

  ‘But Nicky – you’re banned.’

  ‘Fucking pull over!’

  ‘No! Don’t be stupid. Calm down!’

  He grabs the wheel and the car swerves to the left. Maybe somebody hoots as she yanks them back into the middle lane.

  ‘Stop it! Get off!’ She elbows him sharply, but he won’t let go.

  ‘I know what you’re up to – you’re in this together, aren’t you?’

  ‘Let go! You’ll kill us!’

  ‘Where were you going to hand Emily over? At the hotel? At the airport?’

  There’s a loud grinding noise as they hit the first truck. The car bounces off it, then shoots back across the lanes like a toy skittering across a polished floor. It’s mayhem. Everyone’s trying to brake and get out of the way, but they keep knocking into each other like dodgems. You can hear bangs and thuds and squeals. A car somersaults in slow motion, a human-size rag doll twists in the air.

  You can imagine the scene. We’re talking multiple pile-up, blazing inferno, massive explosions. I know it sounds like a budget-breaker, but a lot of it can be done with visual effects and animation.

  Afterwards, when everything has come to a stop, there’s this moment of silence. Of stillness. Our guy’s face is buried in softness. He flicks open his eyes and it’s like he’s landed in a cloud. He can smell petrol; it’s sweeping up his nostrils and into his head. The car’s filling up with smoke.

  We go close on him as he turns his head slowly to the left. Then we cut to the reverse angle, his point of view. He’s looking at Natasha. She’s standing there staring at him, her eyes cold and full of hatred. Back to Nick. He’s confused, losing consciousness. Is she real, or is she some kind of nightmare vision? No, she’s real. She’s here and she’s come to steal his daughter. He tries to grab her, but he can’t lift his arm. His brain is dissolving into mush. The last thing he’s aware of before everything goes dark is Natasha climbing into the back seat, fiddling with the buckles on Emily’s seat belt.

  The next thing we know, he’s lying in hospital with locked-in syndrome. Bell jars and butterflies, you know what I mean.

  * * *

  Sometimes I dream that we’re back in the old house. I’m crawling around the sitting room with Emily on my back, neighing and snorting like a horse. Or it’s bedtime and I’m giving her a piggyback to the bathroom. I fill the bath with bubbles and lift Emily in. Often, Natasha’s there, leaning against the door frame, watching us play,
laughing as Emily covers my face in foam. I hate it when she creeps into my dreams uninvited, looking so happy and so at home in my house. She spoils everything.

  I’m desperate to show Hayley my jigsaw movie. Or at least tell her the story. But I can’t make the words travel from brain to mouth. I’ve heard the doctors talking to my parents. Everything’s being rewired, apparently, like an old building; it’s a complicated job, it could take a very long time to finish. It might never happen. But one day, hopefully, fingers crossed, the switch will miraculously turn itself on, and hey presto, I’ll open my mouth and speak. There will be wonderful words. Long, flowing sentences. Beautifully constructed paragraphs, pages overflowing with truth.

  Once Hayley knows, she’ll put things right, I’ve no doubt about that. She’s my kid sister; she’ll want justice and revenge as much as I do, maybe even more. Hayley will hunt Jen and Natasha down and destroy them both. She’ll find Emily and bring her back to me.

  All I have to do is say the word.

  If you loved the twists and turns in THE EX-WIFE, you’ll love THE GOOD SISTER, a dark and compulsive psychological thriller that will keep you up all night.

  * * *

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  The Good Sister

  A twisty, dark psychological thriller that will have you gripped

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  * * *

  There are two sides to every secret.

  * * *

  She is staring back at me with exactly my expression – a mixture of wonder, bewilderment and horror. It’s like looking in a dark, cracked mirror.