by HC Warner
Still not convinced that she wasn’t there, he moved from room to room looking for her, before remembering that she had sounded like she was in the bathroom when she called. He climbed the stairs two at a time and raced into their en-suite bathroom. But, like every other room in the house, it was empty and in darkness. Ben stood with his hands on his hips, looking around him in confusion. None of it made any sense.
When he had searched every room a second time and was satisfied that she wasn’t in the house, Ben walked out into the back garden, straining his eyes and ears for any kind of movement. Suddenly, there was a sharp crack as something moved in the bushes and he jumped with fright.
Not wanting to, but knowing he had no choice, he made his way as noiselessly as he could in the direction of the sound. When he was just a couple of metres away from the bush, something sprang out at him and instinctively, he leaped backwards, losing his balance as he did so and falling in an ungainly heap onto the damp grass. A large fox darted past him, its eyes gleaming eerily in the moonlight and disappeared through the hedge into the garden beyond.
Panting with shock, Ben stood up shakily and brushed himself down, still trying to comprehend what was going on. Bella had definitely been at home when she called him and she had sounded genuinely distressed and in pain. So where the hell had she gone since? She must have taken herself to hospital, but if that was the case, why hadn’t she rung him and asked him to meet her there?
He walked back into the house and locked the back door, looking around him as he tried to figure out what to do next. A niggling doubt tugged at the back of his brain. He walked slowly back down the hallway trying to figure out what it was.
As he reached the still-open front door, the answer came to him. There were no lights on. It would have been dark by the time she called him earlier and, even if she had left the house to take herself to hospital, she wouldn’t have gone around switching off all the lights first, especially not if she was in a rush or in pain. She didn’t tend to turn lights off anyway, and would quite happily leave every light in the house on if they went out in the evening.
With a creeping, sickeningly vivid realization, it dawned on Ben that Bella must have been lying. That she hadn’t even been in the house when she called him. She just wanted to ruin his visit to see Jo and get him back home, where she could carry on making his life a misery and treating him like a slave that she could use and abuse whenever she liked.
He sank down onto the doorstep and put his head in his hands. All the way through the car journey from Suffolk, he had imagined the ways in which his life was going to change from now on. How this experience would have made Bella realize how much she needed him and he had actually visualized her greeting him with open arms and a tearful smile of gratitude.
He had felt bad in the past. Really bad. But nothing compared to the abject humiliation and hurt he was feeling right now. All the blows she had inflicted, all the times she had hurt and abused him were as nothing to the fatal blow she had just delivered. It was like a switch in his brain. He couldn’t even cry any more. He had crossed a threshold of pain and there was no coming back from it.
He looked at his phone, trying to work out what to do. He thought about calling her, but he couldn’t bear to hear her voice, lying to him as easily as breathing. She would come up with some ridiculous explanation for her behaviour but he wasn’t going to let her dupe him again. Not now. Not ever.
He scrolled through his contacts, coming to a halt at the number for Bella’s lover, Leo. He had copied it down the night he had fixed her phone, somehow knowing that he might need it one day. He had absolutely no doubt that that was where she would have been tonight. Where she had called him from, pleading with him to come home and look after her. He pressed on the number before he could change his mind.
‘Leo Fox,’ a deep voice drawled, as the phone was answered.
Ben closed his eyes and took a deep, steadying breath. ‘It’s Ben. Ben Gordon.’
There was a long pause. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t recognize that name … you must have the wrong number.’ Leo already sounded bored.
‘Bella’s husband.’ Ben waited for the words to land before continuing. ‘Is she there?’
There was a brief pause, before he answered. ‘No. She left a couple of hours ago.’
Although he had been fairly sure that Bella was with Leo, hearing it confirmed was like a blow to the stomach. He felt the bile rise in his throat. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words would come out.
‘Look, mate,’ said Leo. ‘I’m not interested in getting involved in your relationship. But she’s playing you for a fool. You need to toughen up a bit and have some respect for yourself.’
Ben gasped, hurt and anger still rendering him speechless. Bella having an affair with this guy was one thing, but discussing Ben’s failings with him was a whole other level of humiliation. Finally, he found his voice: ‘You don’t know anything about me, so don’t you dare tell me what I should and shouldn’t do!’ A deeply buried, boiling rage was bubbling up inside him and he was glad that Leo wasn’t standing within reach, or he would have been in serious danger.
‘Actually,’ Leo said, with a malicious-sounding roll of his tongue. ‘I think you’ll find that I know everything about you, mate. Even more than you know yourself.’
‘Bullshit!’ Ben fired back, overwhelmed with hatred for this pompous-sounding creep.
‘Oh yeah? Bullshit, is it? Well, how about if I tell you that I knew your father, for starters?’
‘So what?’ Ben thought about hanging up, not wanting to let anything Leo said get to him. It had been a mistake calling him in the first place.
‘But obviously I didn’t know him as well as Bella knew him …’
Something about his tone of voice made Ben’s blood run cold but he refused to acknowledge it. ‘Of course she knew him! He was her father-in-law.’
Leo chuckled and Ben could hear him lighting a cigarette. Somewhere in the back of his brain he registered that Bella had sometimes come home smelling of smoke. ‘He was a bit more than that,’ Leo said, exhaling slowly and deliberately.
Ben’s mouth dropped open in shock.
‘Oh, come on!’ Leo continued, when Ben didn’t reply. ‘Seriously, mate, don’t tell me you never suspected?’
Ben closed his eyes, as if by doing so, he could somehow make the words go away. Make them unheard. ‘No,’ he heard himself whisper hoarsely. ‘You’re lying.’
‘You know I’m not. She only ever got with you to get back at him for dumping her.’
There was a sudden tightness in Ben’s chest and he knew he needed to stop Leo talking, before he could inflict any more damage. ‘I’m hanging up,’ he hissed, dizzy with the sheer horror of it.
With shaking hands, he reached for the ‘end call’ button, but before he could get to it, he heard Leo’s voice, as he shouted his final onslaught: ‘And to make him pay for his kid! It’s not even your kid, mate. It’s your father’s!’
The line went dead and Ben stared at the handset in shock, unable to absorb what he had just heard.
He was struggling for breath and gulped down lungfuls of air to try to steady himself but he felt as though his brain was frying. He couldn’t seem to form any kind of coherent thought.
It couldn’t be right, he told himself. Elodie was his child. Of course she was. Even without the incredible emotional bond between them, he just knew that she was his child. He could feel it.
Without really thinking about it, he was dialling Charlotte’s number. She answered immediately. ‘Ben, is that you? Are you OK?’
‘No, Charlie, I’m not OK.’ He could hardly get his breath to speak. He felt winded and sick.
‘What’s wrong? What’s happened? Are you still at your mum’s?’
Ben tried to speak, but he couldn’t manage to get any words out.
‘It’s OK, Ben,’ Charlotte coaxed him. ‘Take a couple of deep breaths and try to tell me what’s happened.’
‘Oh no, Ben … And you did?’
Ben nodded, sick with humiliation. ‘She was so convincing. I thought maybe it would be a turning point for us, if I came to her aid when she needed me most. I’m such an idiot … I should have known.’
‘So … she wasn’t having a miscarriage?’ Charlotte’s tone was now one of disbelief.
‘No. She wasn’t even here. She was in London.’
Charlotte gasped. ‘Jesus, what a vile thing to do. Of all the things to lie about … I’m not surprised you’re so upset.’
‘That’s not why I’m upset. It’s so much worse than that.’
‘What? How could it be worse?’
Ben swallowed back the tears that were thick in his throat. He didn’t know if he would be able to say the words. ‘When I got back and she wasn’t here, I knew where she’d be … So I called the guy.’
There was silence on the end of the line and Ben could tell that Charlotte was holding her breath.
‘He was so horrible. He said that Dad … Peter …’ He corrected himself, somehow feeling that the word ‘dad’ no longer fitted. ‘He said Peter is Elodie’s real father.’ Ben’s face crumpled as he spoke and he couldn’t hold back the tears any longer.
Charlotte gasped. ‘What? But that’s ridiculous! It’s not possible!’
Ben wished more than anything that she was right. But not only was it possible, it made sense. It explained so many things.
‘He’s making it up, Ben! Don’t fall for it!’ Charlotte sounded anguished and outraged on his behalf.
Ben’s heart leaped momentarily. Could she be right? Could he have been making it up? But almost immediately, the doubt started to crawl back into his brain.
‘No. There was just something about the way he said it, Charlie. He was enjoying it too much. And he sounded so sure of himself.’
‘He’s probably a great liar, Ben. How do you even know this guy? Who is he?’
Ben hesitated. ‘He’s Bella’s lover.’
There was a sharp intake of breath from Charlotte, before she spoke. ‘Oh, Ben. I’m so sorry.’
Ben bit his lip and closed his eyes, trying to stop the tears. It was the kindness in her voice that did it. That, and the pity. ‘I don’t even care about that. It’s been going on for ages, anyway. But it’s what he said that’s killing me. He couldn’t possibly make up something like that, Charlie. It’s not like it’s an obvious scenario that he could invent.’
As his thinking became clearer, memories began to float to the front of his mind: how uncharacteristically flustered Peter had seemed on the day he’d first brought Bella home; how they had both disappeared for a suspiciously long time while he was supposedly showing her to the bathroom; how he had been so insistent about buying them a house. And, most of all, the darkness his death had unleashed in her.
‘It’s true,’ Ben said, his voice muffled by the tears that were streaming down his face. ‘I know it’s true, Charlie. It all makes sense now.’
There was a long pause as Charlotte absorbed what he had said. ‘Right, I’m going to come and get you. Are you at home?’ She was instantly practical, but her voice was kind and tender, making Ben cry even harder.
‘I’m at home,’ Ben sobbed. ‘I need you to take Elodie for me.’
There was a pause. ‘Take her where, Ben?’ Charlotte sounded scared.
A plan was forming in Ben’s head, but he still wasn’t entirely sure what it was. He just knew that he needed to get Elodie as far away from Bella as possible. ‘I’ll explain when you get here. Just come, Charlie. I really need you to come.’
‘OK, OK, I’m coming. Give me ten minutes. Oh, and Ben?’
Ben wiped his face with the back of his hand, wanting to get off the phone as quickly as possible. ‘Yes?’
‘Please don’t do anything until I get there.’
Chapter Thirty-Seven
I drove like a maniac from the station towards home, breaking every speed limit and cursing the ignorant limo driver, who I was convinced had deliberately taken a longer route than necessary. The palms of my hands were sweating and slid on the steering wheel, as I careered at breakneck speed around a sharp bend, almost colliding head-on with a car coming in the opposite direction. As the furious beeping of the oncoming driver’s horn receded into the distance, I took a deep, shaky breath and pressed my foot on the brake to slow down.
Ben was already home, so there was no point in rushing now, I told myself sternly. I just needed to concentrate on coming up with a plausible explanation as to where I’d been. Although I had always insisted that Ben was on Find Friends, so that I could follow his movements at all times, I was grateful now that I had made sure he wasn’t able to track me in the same way, so he wouldn’t have known that I was at Leo’s flat when I called him earlier.
At that moment, I passed a petrol station and an idea flashed into my mind. I turned the car around and parked on the forecourt, before heading into the shop. I could pretend that I went out to buy Ben something to thank him for coming home to look after me. Scanning the shelves, I picked up a packet of sweets for Elodie and a bottle of champagne for Ben. He didn’t really like champagne but there was nothing else suitable, so it would have to do.
Feeling more confident, I drove the final five minutes of the journey towards home, rehearsing what I was going to say when I arrived. By the time I pulled into the driveway, I was calm and prepared.
I parked beside Ben’s car and got out, reaching back into the passenger seat for the champagne and sweets. The house seemed to be in darkness as I approached the front door and I frowned, as a prickle of unease caused me to stop in my tracks. Why would he have turned all the lights out?
‘Hello, Bella,’ said a voice behind me, making me yelp in shock and drop the champagne. The bottle smashed and the fizzy liquid pooled out over the block paving. I swung around to find Ben staring at me with a strange, slightly crazed look in his eye.
‘Ben!’ I cried, clutching my hand to my chest. ‘You scared the shit out of me!’
Ben didn’t answer. He was standing very still and his face was rigid.
‘Thank you so much for coming home, darling,’ I gushed, recovering my composure and approaching him with a grateful smile. ‘I felt so ill but I took some paracetamol and had a sleep and felt a bit better, so I went to the petrol station to get you something.’ I motioned to the remains of the champagne bottle strewn across the drive behind me. ‘Sorry I dropped it …’
‘Shut up!’ he hissed, his eyes narrowing. I could see a faint sheen of sweat on his upper lip.
I stopped and frowned. ‘Ben! Come on! Don’t be like this. You’re being ridiculous.’ I moved a bit closer to him, starting to feel more irritated than alarmed. He was acting like some kind of big-time gangster, instead of the pathetic wimp I knew he was.
‘Don’t. Come. Any. Closer.’ Ben had one hand hidden behind his back and I somehow knew what he was going to do before he did it. With a fluid movement, he pulled his arm forward and the blade of the kitchen knife he was holding glinted as the moonlight caught it.
I stopped dead, my eyes fixed on the knife. Gradually, I began to step backwards with my hands up in a gesture of surrender. ‘OK, Ben, calm down. Don’t do anything stupid …’ I knew damn well that he didn’t have the guts to use it and was just trying to freak me out, but I thought I would play along to keep him calm.
Ben looked at me incredulously. ‘Don’t do anything stupid? I’ve already done the stupidest thing I could ever have done, which is let you into my life.’
He paused and took a step towards me, his expression setting hard again and his knuckles white, as he tightened his grip on the shaft of the knife.
‘You’ve destroyed me. You’ve destroyed my family … you even killed my dad!’ His voice cracked in
pain as he spoke and his face crumpled as tears began to roll down his cheeks.
My stomach lurched slightly at his words and I swallowed hard and forced myself to meet his eye. ‘Listen, Ben,’ I said as calmly as I could. ‘You’re not thinking straight. I know you’re upset but you’re wrong. I didn’t kill Peter! He had a heart attack …’
‘He had a heart attack because of what you did to him!’ Ben’s words were hissed through gritted teeth and he seemed to be working himself up into a frenzy.
Again, I felt a ripple of unease. There was something about the way he said it that made me think he had been speaking to someone. But who? No one knew the truth except Leo, and I was fairly sure he wouldn’t have been speaking to him. He would have no way of contacting him. I took another step backwards, and felt the crunch of glass under my shoe, as I stepped onto one of the shards from the broken champagne bottle.
‘You’ve taken everything away from me,’ Ben continued, now weeping openly. ‘I left my mum in pieces tonight to come racing back here for you because I stupidly thought it might make you appreciate me for once. Even after everything you’ve done … all the lies, the cheating, the violence …’ He shook his head in disbelief. ‘Even after everything you’ve done to me, I was still hoping we might be able to salvage our relationship. For Elodie’s sake.’
‘We can, Ben, of course we can …’ I started to say, but he put his other hand up to silence me.
‘No! We can’t. I should have known it was just another of your sick little games. God, I’ve been such an idiot letting you wreck my life!’ He swiped away the tears from his face. ‘Letting you wreck my family’s lives … Well, I’ve had enough. I’ve taken Elodie and I’m leaving you.’
My heart thudded in my chest and I looked around me in panic. It was only now that it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen her. ‘Where is she? Where’s Elodie?’ My throat had dried and I struggled to speak. What if he’d harmed her to get back at me? The sensible part of my brain told me that he would never hurt her but I had never seen Ben like this before. He was unstable enough to have got a knife from the kitchen, which was unimaginable in itself. What if he’d used it on Elodie? My legs felt weak and I let out a whimper of pure fear. ‘What have you done to her?’ I whispered, shaking my head, as I willed him to tell me she was OK.