The Wife Before Me: A twisty, gripping psychological thriller

by Laura Elliot

  Below them, the heron opens its wings with a languid flap and flies away. The dog, rising, scratches his belly with a back foot before ambling on.

  * * *

  Elena’s stomach lurches when the bus driver turns another corner. She is the only person left on the bus. The surging rim of the Atlantic weaves in and out of view along the corkscrew road before finally disappearing behind a soaring headland.

  A few shabby buildings crouch at the foot of Mag’s Head. A small pub with boarded-up windows and a padlock on the front door suggests that the locals once gathered there. Two rusting petrol pumps stand in the shell of a one-time forecourt. This is the village that time forgot. Elena almost expects to see a bale of tumbleweed wheeling towards her. The only shop, Lily Howe’s Grocery Provisions, although open and lit by a fluorescent tube, is empty of both customers and staff. She coughs loudly to attract attention. The shop is too small to be called a supermarket, yet its cramped interior contains everything from waders, hardware and groceries, with sacks of turf and coal stacked outside.

  An elderly woman in dungarees and a grey topknot puts her head round a wooden partition. ‘Looking for directions, are you?’ she asks in the resigned tone of someone who has had to give out the same information too many times.

  ‘Yes.’ Elena moves closer to the counter. ‘I’m looking for a woman called Annie Ross. I believe she lives around here.’

  ‘She does and she doesn’t.’ The woman has a high, rolling timbre to her voice, as if she is only a note away from breaking into song. ‘I haven’t seen her for a while so she could be abroad. She does that, sometimes.’

  ‘Is her house easy to find?’

  ‘It is, if you’re an eagle.’ She juts her thumb towards the headland, which is visible from the window. ‘For us mere mortals, it’s a different matter. Are you on foot?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then I hope you’ve got your walking clogs on.’ She nods approvingly when she sees Elena’s mountain boots. ‘She lives near the summit. You’ll see a windbreak of trees and her gate is just beyond.’ She waves her hand around the counter, where a display of sweets and buns are on display. ‘Can I get anything for you?’

  The buns look surprisingly fresh considering the fusty atmosphere in the shop, and the smell of baking wafting from behind the partition suggests that home baking is another service the place provides.

  Elena’s mouth waters. She had not eaten since breakfast and it is now after one o’clock. She buys two buns and orders coffee. The coffee maker with its shining pipes looks incongruous among the shelves of fly spray and rat poison. ‘Are there many people living around here?’ she asks.

  ‘You’d be surprised,’ the woman replies. ‘There’s a few locals close to the village and the headland will always attract them hippie types. They come here to paint the scenery or write a poem about the bright, blue ocean but hightail it out of here after one winter. Not her, though. She’s sat out a few winters up there with her kid. If you see her, tell her I have the coffee she likes. Ordered it in especially for her.’

  The climb up Mag’s Head is easy at first. Slight inclines give way to plateaus where the gable walls of abandoned cottages rise like pyramids through the overgrowth of decades. She imagines families living here once. Sons and daughters marrying and building a new home beside their parents. They would have toiled in the shade of the massive boulders that protrude from the landscape and remind Elena of standing stones. They look as though they could be toppled over by a finger push but they are welded to this rugged headland, as are the sheep clinging to its hazardous clefts. As she climbs higher, the wind, sweeping in from the Atlantic, forces her to stop to catch her breath. Down below, the ocean lurches towards the steep side of Mag’s Head. The rising spray reminds her of Australia. The thrill of riding those waves. The tumbling freedom she took for granted and, now, seems as ephemeral as a dream.

  She notices a black, serrated line in the distance. Drawing nearer, the colour changes to the green sheen of conifers. The density of the trees shelters a grey-stone cottage with high, double gates. The name Clearwater is etched on the gatepost. Spiky red hot pokers add a blaze of colour to the garden, as does the red-belled fuchsia bushes.

  Elena enters. No car in the driveway. It would be impossible to survive here without one. Elena swallows and bends forward to ease a stitch in her side. The garden is carefully maintained. No weeds grow among the plants and the soil under one of the conifers has been turned recently.

  She studies the home of Annie Ross and realises it was originally two cottages that have been joined together. That explains its breadth; it is much wider than the ruins she passed on her way up. She sits down on a bench by the front window and steadies her breathing. Her phone rings. Rosemary – she recognises her number and, unwilling to lie to her, cancels the call. The ocean has a perpetual rhythm as it beats off the cliff and prevents her hearing a Land Rover until it has almost reached the cottage. The engine stops and a little girl with black braids runs to unlatch the gate. She stops, surprised to see it open, and notices Elena. The child – Elena reckons she must be about five years old – walks slowly towards her.

  ‘Are you a visitor?’ she asks.

  Elena stands, suddenly uncertain as the words she had rehearsed so carefully desert her. ‘I guess I am,’ she replies. ‘I came to talk to your mother.’

  ‘She’s in the jeep.’ The child turns as the woman at the wheel enters and brakes a short distance away. When she steps down from the jeep, the wind instantly flails her long hair around her face. She, as well as the child, is wearing jodhpurs. They have obviously come from a riding stable.

  She walks slowly towards Elena. Sunglasses cover her eyes and reflect Elena’s terse face back at her. Is that how she appears to this woman? Wild and flushed, her features starkly outlined. Impossible to tell by her expression – but Elena has recognised her from the photograph she found in the ice house. There’s no mistaking that cascade of unruly white-blonde tresses.

  ‘Can I help you?’ she asks. Unlike Lily Howe with her rich Kerry accent, she speaks with a slight drawl that suggests she has lived for some time in the States.

  ‘Are you Annie Ross?’

  The woman nods and waits for Elena to continue.

  ‘Are you also called Leanne Rossiter? I’m searching for someone by that name and am hoping I’ve come to the right house.’

  ‘I’m afraid you’ve made a mistake. I don’t know anyone by that name.’ Her tone is definite, a hard snap of denial that causes Elena to step backwards.

  ‘I’m so hungry, Mammy.’ The little girl, anxious to go inside, pulls at her mother’s hand. ‘You said we could have toasties.’

  ‘So we shall, Kayla. Now, go and change into your jeans and trainers. I’ll be in to you in a moment.’ She unlocks the front door and her daughter runs inside, the coloured beads on her braids clattering. Annie Ross returns her attention to Elena. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I need to feed my daughter.’

  She is lying. Behind her glasses her eyes must be glittering with deceit.

  ‘Please, I desperately need your help.’ If Elena has to plead on her knees, she will do so. ‘Did you know Amelia Madison?’

  The woman raises her hand to settle her unruly hair, then lets it fall to her side. ‘Amelia who?’

  ‘Madison. She was from Wicklow.’

  ‘I’ve never heard of her. What makes you think I should know either of those women?’

  ‘It was a hunch. I thought your name might be short for Leanne.’

  ‘And Ross short for Rossiter, I suppose?’ She sounds amused but remains unsmiling. ‘Don’t you think that’s a massive assumption to make?’

  ‘I came a long way to find Leanne. It was worth taking a chance.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry your chance didn’t work out. You’ve had a wasted journey, I’m afraid.’

  Elena wants to rip the sunglasses from her eyes and scream, ‘Liar – liar!,’ into her face. ‘Amelia Madison received a
letter in this envelope and I desperately need to find her. Please look at the handwriting.’

  ‘I told you already, I’m―’

  ‘Please.’ She holds the envelope towards the woman, who barely glances at it before shaking her head.

  ‘Why are you lying to me?’ Elena cries. ‘I know you were friends with her. I found photographs of the two of you in the ice house.’

  ‘I’ve no idea why you think you know me or what you are talking about.’ She whips off her sunglasses and stares unflinchingly at Elena. Her eyes glitter, anger intensifying their dark-green hue. ‘You’ve made a mistake and I won’t stand for being harassed on my own property. If you don’t leave immediately, I’m calling the police.’

  ‘Mammy, can I have my toastie? I’m starving.’ The child’s plaintive wail comes from inside the cottage.

  ‘Coming, sweetheart.’ She pulls a mobile phone from her jacket pocket and swipes the screen. ‘Just because I live in isolation doesn’t mean I’m beyond help. A squad car will be here shortly, so I’d advise you to start walking now.’ Her mouth has stretched into a hard, defiant line.

  She waits, her arms folded, as Elena turns towards the gates, then slams the front door closed.

  The journey down the headland is more difficult than the ascent. She had hope then, a sliver, admittedly, but it had kept her going. Halfway down and flagging, she sits on the crumbling brick wall of a derelict cottage to catch her breath. Why has Leanne Rossiter chosen to rear her child is such an isolated setting? Elena longs to go back and shake her by her shoulders, shake and shake her until she forces the truth from her lying lips.

  The sun disappears behind a grey bank of cloud. The air is misty and damp. The sheep on the gradients bleat mournfully and fluttering tufts of wool, caught on barbed wire, warn Elena that she has stepped too close to the edge of the road. In this bleak terrain, there are no smooth pavements to mark her passage, no trees with leafy crowns to guide her to safety. All the grows here are straggly, windswept bushes that rear from the deepening mist like hunched famine victims. Her feet sink in swampy grass and she slips, her ankle twisting under her.

  She is limping now, unable to put weight on her injured foot. Is she still on the main road or has she branched off onto a side trail that could lead her over the edge? Confused, she stops and tries to get her bearings. A stretch of barbed wire is her only protection against the ocean crashing below her.

  She sees a shape in the mist. Chilled fingers brush against her cheek. There is someone beside her, a willowy sylph in palest gossamer. Amelia… She understands, logically, that the mist is shifting. A will ’o the wisp is playing mind games with her but the feeling that Amelia’s ethereal presence is nearby causes her to cry out.

  ‘Amelia, help me to find my way. Don’t let him destroy me as he destroyed you.’

  Thirty-Nine

  Yellow fog lights penetrate the mist. Elena makes out the shape of the Land Rover.

  ‘Get in.’ Annie Ross brakes beside her and leans across to open the passenger door.

  In the back, round-eyed, the child watches as Elena clambers into the warm interior.

  ‘Thank you.’ Her ankle throbs and swells in her tight mountain boot. ‘The mist fell so suddenly. I’d no idea where I was.’

  ‘It comes down fast here,’ Annie says as she turns the car smoothly on the narrow pass. She is obviously used to this terrain, but the back wheels are so close to the edge of the cliff that Elena grits her teeth.

  ‘I figured you’d find it difficult to make your way back down.’ Annie has changed into sandals, jeans and a blue jumper with a crew neck. Her hair, still tangled, shields her face as she drives upwards towards her cottage.

  ‘You can shelter here until the mist lifts,’ she says curtly when she brakes in the driveway. ‘I wouldn’t like to have it on my conscience if something happened to you on the headland.’

  A picture window in the kitchen looks out over the Atlantic. The view, obscured by the mist, must be stunning when the sun is shining.

  ‘Sit down.’ Annie gestures towards a chair. ‘I’ll make some tea. Or would you prefer coffee?’

  ‘Tea is perfect. I’m sorry about earlier. I thought… Never mind.’ Elena sits down and unties her lace. Her ankle is ballooning and she is unable to pull off her boot.

  The child hovers by the chair, inquisitive yet too shy to speak. She has also changed, from jodhpurs into a pair of leggings and a Charlie and Lola T-shirt.

  ‘That’s nasty.’ Annie kneels and gently eases the boot from Elena’s foot. ‘You need ice to take down that swelling. Lots of ice.’

  She wraps a tea towel round Elena’s ankle, adds two ice packs from the freezer and secures them with a scarf.

  ‘I’m sorry if I was rude earlier.’ She hands Elena a mug of tea. ‘We’re not used to visitors and I’m very protective of Kayla.’

  Elena’s hand is shaking. The hot liquid slops over her fingers and onto her jeans.

  ‘Missy messy moo.’ Kayla covers her mouth and giggles.

  ‘Come on, Kayla, let’s see if Charlie and Lola are on the telly.’ Annie lifts the child and carries her into the room next door.

  A television is turned on and the sound of animated voices comes faintly through the wall.

  ‘I shouldn’t have intruded,’ Elena says when Annie returns to the kitchen. ‘But I was anxious to find someone who knew Amelia Madison.’

  ‘As I already told you, I don’t know anyone by that name.’

  ‘She’s dead.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ The comment is meaningless and Elena doesn’t bother acknowledging it.

  ‘You look like her friend. At least, that’s what I thought when I came here.’ Up close, Elena can no longer see the compelling resemblance to the woman in the photograph; and even her memory of that is suspect.

  ‘What led you here?’ Annie asks.

  ‘The Rannavale postmark on that envelope I showed you.’

  The evening is darkening and the mist is still dense. There is someone outside. A face at the window, staring through. White-blonde hair, green eyes glowing. They remind Elena of a cat’s eyes caught in light. The figure lifts her hand as if to wave goodbye. Elena is about to cry out when she realises it’s Annie, tossing an unruly hank of hair from her forehead and reflecting back at Elena in the glass. This is crazy. Hallucinating and chasing illusions. She drags her gaze away from the window.

  ‘Do you believe in coincidence?’ she asks.

  ‘That depends.’ Annie sounds cautious.

  ‘Ghosts?’

  ‘No.’ An emphatic shake of her head.

  ‘Neither did I until recently,’ says Elena.

  ‘What changed your mind?’

  ‘Amelia Madison is haunting me. I saw her in the mist earlier.’ The words coming from her mouth defy logic. She unable to meet the surprised stare of the woman sitting opposite her.

  ‘You were lost on the headland. Anything seems possible when the mist falls so suddenly. You could have died. People have, you know. Walkers who didn’t pay attention to the weather forecast. Some locals, too.’ The tea Annie had poured for herself is cooling on the table. ‘You were in shock when I found you. I’m not surprised your imagination was playing tricks on you.’

  Elena winces. The ice is burning her ankle. ‘I know it sounds crazy but I’ve had this feeling for so long. As if she’s trying to reach me. It’s muddled… so confusing. You’re right to think I’m crazy.’

  ‘Troubled, not crazy.’ For the first time since they came face to face, she notices Annie’s expression softening.

  ‘Do you know who I am?’ Elena asks.

  ‘Should I?’

  ‘If you read the tabloids, you must.’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘The tabloids call me the Ice Pick Stabber but my name is Elena Langdon. I stabbed my partner with an ice pick.’ It shouldn’t sound like a boast but that’s how it comes out. In the room next door, Kayla laughs and shouts, ‘Mammy, Lola
is so funny today.’

  Annie’s eyelids flicker but, otherwise, she remains composed. What an effort that must take. She walks towards the counter of an upright, old-fashioned kitchen dresser where a set of knives jut from a wooden block.

  ‘Was it an accident?’ She removes one knife and lays it on the table.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you have a reason?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Elena replies. ‘I certainly did. I thought you could help me to bring him down. I was wrong. But don’t worry. I’m not going to harm you or your daughter.’

  ‘Whatever reason led you here, it was a wrong call.’ Annie speaks slowly, each word emphasised. ‘I’m not the person you’re looking for.’

  The mist is beginning to lift. Elena stands and tentatively puts her weight on her damaged ankle. The pain is sharp, intense. ‘I have to get back to Dublin tonight.’ She forces her boot on and hobbles across the kitchen. ‘I’ve to attend a group therapy session tomorrow or I’ll be in serious trouble. If you can just give me a lift back to the grocery shop, I’ll catch the bus from there.’

  ‘There’s no bus at this time of the evening. This isn’t Dublin―’

  ‘I know that. But I’m causing you trouble and it’s obvious you don’t want me here. I can hitch a lift ―’

  ‘Mag’s Head is the end of the road. There won’t be many cars passing. I’ll drive you to the medical centre in Rannavale. They have X-ray facilities there and you’ll be able to catch the last bus back to Dublin.’

  She returns to the next room to persuade Kayla away from the television. The little girl can be heard protesting loudly as the animated characters are silenced, then she emerges from the cottage with a rag doll in her arms. Elena limps beside her and climbs into the Land Rover. Kayla, strapped into the back seat, starts to sing to the doll, her annoyance forgotten as soon as her mother starts the jeep.