The Wife Before Me: A twisty, gripping psychological thriller

by Laura Elliot

  ‘Bluey.’

  ‘You stand beside Bluey and I’ll snap the two of you.’ She swipes her mobile and hits the camera. ‘Lovely.’ She checks the photograph and shows it to Kayla. ‘Now, let me take one of you and your mummy together.’

  ‘I want my lamb in the photograph as well.’ Unselfconscious in front of the camera, Kayla calls Bluey back to her side and crouches beside him.

  ‘Annie, will you stand over here?’ Moira gestures to her. ‘I’d like to get the ocean in the background.’

  ‘I’d rather you didn’t take photographs.’ She can no longer ignore the uneasiness that besets her when unexpected people call to the cottage.

  Moira lowers her mobile immediately and clasps it between her hands. ‘I’m invading your privacy. How rude of me. I don’t think before I act, that’s always been my problem. I’ll leave you in peace. Thank you so much for your hospitality.’ Her eyes alight on the studio. ‘Oh, my goodness, Annie. Is that your studio?’

  ‘I told you, it’s no longer in use.’

  ‘But have you anything I can buy?’

  ‘You have dolphins, don’t you, Mammy, and lots and lots of butterflies like the ones in my room.’

  ‘Stained-glass butterflies? Oh, please, Annie. Let me buy one from you.’

  Reluctantly, she opens the door to the studio. Moira gasps with delight when she sees the display case. ‘You’re so talented. Why on earth would you give up such a wonderful skill?’

  ‘I lost interest.’ She removes a small frame containing a butterfly, its wings in flight, from the display cabinet and puts it into a carrier bag. ‘Please accept this as a gift, Moira. Now, I’m afraid I really must get back to work. It’ll take no time at all to reach the fork in the road and you’ll be at the summit shortly afterwards.’ She holds the studio door open until Moira, gushing her thanks, moves away from the display case.

  ‘This view of the ocean is amazing.’ Once again, Moira is taking photographs. She swings around, her camera still raised. ‘It must be inspirational to live here.’ She slips the phone into her backpack, along with the carrier bag. ‘This beautiful butterfly will always remind me of your kindness.’

  Forty-Nine

  The Past

  On the morning of her departure, Amelia walked through every room in Woodbine. She breathed in the smell of the old house and breathed it out again. She called to see Billy, who insisted, as he always did, that she have tea and Kimberley biscuits with him.

  ‘Goodbye, Billy.’ She hugged him so hard he gave a small gasp of surprise.

  ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’ he asked. ‘I hope that man of yours is treating you right?’

  Coming to say goodbye to him was a mistake. Better a clean break – but he was her last link with her father. John always seemed a little closer when she was drinking tea in Billy’s kitchen.

  ‘No, I’m fine,’ she said. ‘Just running a bit late, so I’d better be off. Take care of yourself.’ A few kisses flung from her fingers and she was gone.

  Nicholas had wanted to come to Galway with her and extend her overnight business trip into a short holiday. They would eat oysters in Clarinbridge and trek through Connemara, as they had done on their first weekend away together. Did she remember how happy they were then? Amelia remembered that happiness, the lightness of their footsteps, the music of their laughter. Nothing, she had believed, could ever come between them.

  She should have spotted the cracks. There must have been signs she’d overlooked, swept up, as she was, in a delirium. A few days of relaxation would put the bloom back on her cheeks, he said. As he planned what they would do, where they would stay, she hid her panic, knowing that this would only increase his determination to come with her. She needed to unwind and become again the woman with whom he had fallen in love, he said. Not this nervous shadow who flinched at sudden movements and lay like a statue with her back to him at night. Being in love meant being patient. Very patient. He had taken to emphasising certain words and turning them into threats. He was willing to work through this difficult stage in their marriage as long as she showed signs of appreciating his efforts.

  She showed him her work schedule for the coming week. Meetings with architects, tilers and painters, an office outfitter, the managing director of a company considering a revamp. Bored by her busyness, he eventually lost interest.

  ‘Another time,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll look forward to it,’ she replied. ‘I’m only going to be away for a night. I’ll be back before you know I’ve left.’

  * * *

  She reached Galway in the early afternoon and presented her proposal to the management of a pharmaceutical company. They were moving to new premises and at this, her third interview, she was awarded the commission. It would be one of her most prestigious projects. After lunching with Betsy Poole, the human resources manager, they drove to the industrial estate where the new premises were nearing completion.

  By the time they parted, the peak hour traffic was moving sluggishly through Galway City. Stalled at the entrance to a roundabout, she chewed her knuckles and allowed the fear that she had controlled throughout the day to take over. Madness… she had to turn back… there had to be another way. She would take the next exit on the Dublin route and drive home. It was the only sane decision she could make.

  Nicholas rang. She saw his name on the screen and allowed his call to go to message. His words slid like oil over her and away again. She exited the roundabout after the Dublin turn and headed for Mason’s Pier.

  * * *

  Twenty-five years since she had been there, yet her surroundings were heartbreakingly recognisable. She drove to the holiday home her parents had rented for that fateful week. The cottage was still thatched and the jutting window in the loft bedroom where she used to sleep was exactly as she remembered. One night she had woken to a roar of thunder. She had stood on a chair to watch as flashes of lightning skimmed across the waves. Five years old, her fearlessness taken for granted until it was destroyed. She drove on into the seaside village. Like the cottage, Mason’s Hook was unchanged, the wending main street with its colourful shops, the cars parked any which way outside them. Past the village, a quietness fell. No houses broke up the stark descent along the cliff road to the pier.

  Memories churning, she fought back nausea as she approached the slipway. In those moments before her car reached the water, she entered a dreamlike trance. A child running along the pier. Her mother struggling with a beach umbrella. A ball bobbing on the white-fingered waves.

  Amelia shuddered and gripped the steering wheel, her palms slick with sweat. The fury of his fists. The kicks that left her gasping for air as she lay doubled over on the floor. The mark on her left breast where he, a non-smoker, had branded her with a cigarette. The nights he had held her and wept, promised to change; and, for a time, how possible that had seemed.

  The tyres still had traction on the slimy slipway. It was not too late to change her mind. The life she was leaving behind and the future she faced clashed in an instant of doubt. Then she was composed again―or was it numbness that steadied her resolve? She was unable any longer to understand the signals her brain was sending to her. She felt a change in tempo, an almost imperceptible movement as the wheels began to lose their grip on the downward slope. The ocean had turned red. Tongues of fire, kindled by the setting sun.

  She was aware that she was sinking, but not fast as she had expected; or maybe time had slowed so that she could enjoy a few seconds more of this rapturous sunset. She wondered if her car could straddle the ocean like a flat-bottomed boat. Could it carry her beyond the horizon where she had always imagined her mother lived in a dazzling, parallel universe? This fantasy was fleeting and water began to lap against the windows. Soon, she would be unable to see anything except cascading bubbles evaporating into the fathomless depths.

  * * *

  For months, she had prepared herself for these final moments. Alone on Kilfarran Strand, furrows of wet sand squi
ggling under her toes. Gannets and guillemots beating their wings against the sky. Terror slicing through her as the sand shifted in its rush to meet the incoming tide. A scampering wave sliding away before it reached her bare feet. Bracing herself as the next wave splashed over her toes. Telling herself, three steps… three steps will be enough for today. Enduring the shock each time she was buffeted by a fresh wave even though the sea, running dizzily past her, was still no higher than her ankles.

  Back at Woodbine, showering. A residue of sand left on the floor of the cubicle. Frantically spraying it away. Down on her knees to check if she had missed a grain. He was at a business meeting but he might have been looking over her shoulder, demanding to know why she had been standing up to her ankles in the petrifying sea. Sitting back on her hunkers, thinking it would be easier to fling her body against the walls of a padded cell than to continue living this existence.

  She changed beaches regularly. Each one threw up a new challenge. Each one buoyed her confidence. She had never been able to imagine herself swimming yet her father had told her many times that she had been like an eel in the water before the accident.

  Leanne had kept in touch, letters flying back and forth, insistent that Amelia did not change her mind. The die was cast, she wrote, if you’ll excuse the pun. Her sense of humour was dark and, sometimes, all Amelia could do was laugh at the absurdness of it all. It was never going to happen, yet she had kept swimming, knowing that if she could conquer this fear, anything else was possible.

  Thinking about Leanne always brought tears. They had fused with the waves and were washed away by the sea.

  * * *

  A beach ball hurtling. A woman’s screams. Her mother’s arms reaching for her. To be enfolded in her embrace again. This time she would reach Amelia and they would be together at last. A joyous reunion, a glorious new beginning in a sphere where the sun never set and happiness was their eternal reward. This vision was dangerously close and enticing, as her car lurched and continued its downward plunge.

  Amelia grabbed the red boot she had left on the passenger seat and smashed the window. Water surged around her, assaulted her eyes and nostrils, lifted her from the driver’s seat. Her body flailed, free-falling, an astronaut in space. She clung to the steering wheel and willed herself to remain focused as the return of a familiar panic stabbed her.

  The car door was jerked open. A figure was beside her, round-helmeted and sleek as a seal. Was he a figment of her imagination or a knight in shining armour? She released her death grip on the wheel and was lifted upwards, her lungs straining against the pressure to breathe. Then, with what seemed like an explosion of splintering glass, Amelia surfaced into the light.

  She was swept forward by the incoming tide towards a curvature of rocks. A sliver of sand was visible under the overhanging cliff. The diver, swimming stroke by stroke with her, encouraged her when she slowed or showed signs of panic. The waves were rushing to claim full possession of the cove when they staggered ashore. He supported her up steps cut into the cliff face. Down below them, the waves rolled over the sand and obliterated their footsteps.

  The interior of the van was warm, the heating full on, yet Amelia shook convulsively as Leanne helped her to change from her sodden clothes into thermal underwear and a fleece. Wrapped in a thermal blanket, she lay down on an airbed in the back of the van. Jay unzipped his wetsuit and pulled on the clothes Leanne handed him. Mark started the engine. Gradually, her trembling stopped and Amelia, drifting in and out of sleep, was barely aware of time passing. Whenever she awoke, Leanne was beside her to whisper reassurances that all was going as planned.

  * * *

  Her first impression of this wild place that was to become her home was an audible one. Leanne assured her she would become so used to the wailing wind that she would sleep soundly through the mightiest gales. In the bathroom, Amelia showered. Her skin felt abrasive, brine in her pores. A plan that had seemed beyond crazy had worked – but for how long?

  Nicholas was bound to become suspicious sooner rather than later. She had promised to ring him as soon as she arrived in Galway. He would be angry that she had not obeyed his instructions and even angrier when he was unable to contact her later in the evening. Not enough to alert his suspicions, though; he would see this as just a small gesture of defiance. One that he would quash easily once she returned. Her legs weakened. She gripped the edge of the handbasin to steady herself. He would ring the hotel where he believed she was staying overnight and discover she had cancelled her booking? He would ring the pharmaceutical company and discover that she had told Betsy Poole she was unable to accept their commission?

  At first, he would believe she had run away. He would check her laptop, looking for clues. Failing to find any, he would search her possessions, hurling her clothes from the wardrobe, upending the drawers in the dressing table that he had filled with the lingerie of his choice, searching, searching for the tiniest clue that could explain her disappearance. Then, tomorrow, the knock on the door. Two grave-faced gardai who would enquire whether her car had been stolen. When he shook his head, they would ask if his wife had been wearing red boots? They would tell him that a car had been discovered at the foot of Mason’s Pier at low tide, and that a red boot had been recovered from the silt, a second boot wedged between the driver and passenger seat. She envisaged the search that would follow, the divers, the boats and helicopters. How long would it last? Was she now a criminal? Wasting valuable resources? Her survival instincts were stronger than the shame this caused her. She touched her stomach. Another few weeks and Nicholas would have noticed the swelling, slight as it was.

  Fifty

  How mightily the strong fall when illness strikes. I was a healthy child, who became a healthy adult. My constitution could go fifteen rounds with an infection and win. Contagion looked me in the eye and fled. If I could claim unrequited love as an illness, it would be the only one that made my eyes water and my breathing short.

  When I was afflicted by a strange tiredness and sensations of pins and needles in my legs began to trouble me, I refused to recognise this as an illness. It was easy to find reasons for my symptoms. I was working too hard, taking on too many commissions, sitting for too long at the cutting table in my New York studio and ignoring my posture. Denial became harder when I was cutting glass one day and my right arm began to shake uncontrollably. The attack passed but I knew I must consult a doctor. I found myself undergoing tests in the unfamiliar environs of a hospital. It took time for the medics to reach a diagnosis. When the disease was named, a rare and fatal syndrome with a name I wanted to instantly forget, I discharged myself back to my apartment. Ignoring something, I believed, could force my mind to conquer matter. For a while that seemed possible. But when I was no longer able to ignore the gradual weakening of my limbs, I returned to Ireland and moved to Mag’s Head.

  My creative vision had always embraced large spaces but there, beside that restless ocean, I set up my studio and worked small. In those early months I wondered if the medics had been wrong. My energy was good, my productivity boundless. Looking back, I see this brief remission as a final handout from the puppet-master of fate.

  I persuaded myself to endure the pain, the increasing sense of weakness, of losing possession of my own body. I thought I could tough it out, as others have done, using their guts and grit, but I was never born to endure the unendurable.

  My mind was made up, my plan set when I came to Woodbine and hung the butterflies from the apple tree. When the time was right, I would go quietly into the darkness, or, if there was a bonus to be gained, I would pass into the brightness.

  Amelia had been devastated when she heard what I intended to do. We’d argued fiercely. She said it was a crazy solution to both our problems; outrageous, bizarre, and without any possibility of succeeding. Fate, however, had decreed otherwise.

  My hair had always been my flag of identity, so striking that people seldom noticed much else about me. I used to cry in the mor
nings when my father combed it, dragging the comb through the tangles until my scalp ached. He’d become impatient and, eventually, give up and fling the comb at the wall. A bad hangover kills parenting skills flat-out. I managed it myself from the age of eight. At one stage I could sit on it. After I became friends with Amelia, she brushed it every day until she’d removed the tangles of years. I was just as patient when I searched online for the wig she would use when she came here.

  I became a tactician, slotting all the pieces together and plotting carefully, knowing that one slip of the cutting knife would shatter the glass. Our friendship, forged in love, would give my death meaning. What had seemed unmanageable when the thought first came to me took on a semblance of possibility, then normality. Nicholas believed I had returned to New York. Amelia had told him so, and, as he did not know about my illness, he’d believed her. I had no children who would mourn me, no partner who would care if I slipped away for ever. Jay and Mark would grieve, this I knew, and Amelia, this woman I was born to lose, would be freed from the burden of my love.

  Fifty-One

  When she realised she was pregnant, and that she had no idea if this new life had been conceived in love or violence, Amelia was conscious of only one emotion. To protect her child was all that mattered to her. To do so, she must create a secure space where both of them could be safe from Nicholas. If she ran away from him, she knew with absolute certainty that he would not rest until he found her again. She must disappear, leave no trail of breadcrumbs for him to follow, but, if she had to vanish without trace, she must first overcome her fear of the ocean. Only then could she lay claim to the new future that Leanne had offered her.