The Wife Before Me: A twisty, gripping psychological thriller

by Laura Elliot

  Jay did not know the true reason why Amelia had chosen to embark on such a dangerous subterfuge. The scars on her arms had healed but the internal ones would never fade. She had struggled to overcome the blur of amnesia that followed that lost night when Nicholas cut into her flesh and branded her as his own. That other night– those passionate hours she had spent in Jay’s arms–she could remember every blissful moment of their time together. Dawn had been rising over Woodbine when he parted reluctantly from her and returned to his life in California. He had been unaware of the legacy he could have left behind him and this still remained the case. If he suspected the truth, and the possibility that he could become a father – or even if he had not fathered her child – he would try to persuade her to leave with him. Her husband had the instincts of a tracker, the cruelty of a hunter. If she chose the life Jay would offer her, she would always imagine his shadow following her. If she refused to leave Mag’s Head, Jay would insist on staying here with her. What future could she offer him on this barren headland? No, he must leave as soon as he and Mark completed work on the chamber that Leanne had insisted was necessary for Amelia’s protection. How was she to face her uncertain future without him? With courage – it was the only way. She had claimed possession of this gift that Leanne had offered her and must find the strength to step into her best friend’s skin.

  Four days, that was the length of time it took Jay and Mark to create the chamber and install a phone alarm system within it. It would be effective should help be needed from the police in Rannavale Garda Station, but Amelia was aware of the length of time it would take for a squad car to arrive. Living on Mag’s Head would be a see-saw of survival and she must struggle to find a perfect balance.

  When the chamber was complete, she stood with Jay on the summit of Mag’s Head and told him he must leave. She had never loved him, she said, even when they ran hand in hand through the trees in Kilfarran Woods, stopping under their shade to kiss until their lips were bruised. Nor had she loved him on that tumultuous night when he lay above her, and under her, beside her and inside her, so deep she wondered if they could ever be separated. She ordered him to go to back to California and forget her. She was assuming a new identity and cutting off all links to her past life. He had gone down on his knees and begged her to move with him to California or let him stay with her in the misty climes of Mag’s Head. How hard it had been to turn away from him, but true love, she had discovered, was conjoined with sacrifice. Leanne would lay down her life so that Amelia could create a new existence. Amelia was willing to lay down her own happiness so that Jay, unhindered, could move on with his life. She lied to him and her deception broke him. He believed her and his acceptance broke her.

  In those early weeks, she found it impossible to visualise Leanne in her reflection and was startled every time she glimpsed herself in the mirror. In art college, they had studied stained-glass design during their first year. Leanne had continued her studies until she dropped out and left for New York but Amelia had preferred a softer, more tactile material. In Leanne’s studio, she was a fish out of water. Her hands shook too much to handle a soldering iron or a glass-cutter. Seeing how distressed it made her, Mark persuaded her to stop trying to take over the business. He helped her to set up an online company and provide a specialist finder service. Her database was exhaustive and she was soon sourcing the elusive furnishings and textiles her clients sought.

  Her hair’s natural wave returned after years of being straightened into the helmet style she loved. She dyed it and let it grow long. Did anyone notice her features, the shape of her nose, her eyes, so like Leanne’s but a deeper green? The difference in their height – slight, admittedly, but Leanne had always been the taller. No. People saw what they expected to see. It was easy not to look beyond the obvious, unless, like Nicholas, total possession was the endgame.

  Mark was with her when Kayla was born. The midwife masked her surprise as she glanced from him to Kayla and realised he could not be the baby’s biological father. He behaved like one, though. Holding Kayla with wonder, besotted by her perfect fingers and Cupid mouth, her mother’s green eyes, her father’s dark, velvety skin.

  Amelia, weeping with relief that she had given birth to a love-child, was consumed by a new dread. Kayla must always remain her secret. Fear for Jay’s safety if Nicholas discovered the truth overrode all other considerations. Kayla Ross would be written on the birth certificate. Father Unknown. Her daughter must be her only love and yet… and yet… sometimes the isolation of her surroundings was almost too much to bear. As time passed, she merged into the quiet life of Mag’s Head and, eventually, found it possible not to jerk with grief when she answered to the name of Annie.

  * * *

  Loneliness is her companion now. To break loose and risk everything to be with the man she loves is an intolerable burden. She was able to carry it until Elena Langdon came knocking on her door with her bruises and harrowing facts but now this loneliness is combined with uneasiness, a nervous tension that has heightened since Moira Ward stood inside her cottage and radiated hypocrisy.

  Fifty-Two

  The Present

  Amelia watches the car from the back of the cottage, where she has a view of the twisting road. The BMW is out of place on Mag’s Head, where four-by-fours, jeeps and quad bikes are a more normal means of transport.

  The driver brakes outside the cottage. She has imagined this moment so often. Imagined her heart thudding to a shuddering halt or her brain imploding. Now that he is here, though, she is alert and resolute. Kayla is at school. The front and back doors are securely locked but her jeep will indicate that she is at home. Moving quickly, she enters the chamber and huddles down. When it had been completed, she had left two packed suitcases of clothes and toiletries inside it, along with passports for Kayla and Annie Ross.

  He knocks four times. The sound reverberates through the cottage. Each bang on the door feels like an electric charge on her skin. She draws her knees towards her and breathes silently into them. She doesn’t move from this position, even when the silence suggests he has given up and left. An hour later, she emerges from hiding. His car is missing, but she is not deceived by this obvious sign of his departure. She rings Lily to ask if she has noticed a BMW coming and going from the headland. This is a rhetorical question. Nothing escapes Lily’s eagle eye.

  ‘I saw him heading up the head and coming down again,’ Lily says.

  ‘Has he left the village?’

  ‘I reckon he has. He called in here to ask about you on his way out. Said he’d been knocking on your door for ages but got no answer. I told him you were in New York and wouldn’t be back for a few months. I hope I did the right thing.’

  ‘Yes, you did, Lily. Did you talk to him about Kayla?’

  ‘Don’t worry. I never said a word about the child.’

  ‘Is there any chance Bart could pick her up from school today?’ Despite Lily’s assurances that Nicholas has gone from the village, she is still too frightened to leave the cottage. ‘I’m busy tracing some textiles that I need for a client, who is expecting an answer from me in the next hour.’

  ‘Bart!’ Lily shrieks at her husband, who makes deliveries of coal and turf to the small community at the foot of Mag’s Head when he is not helping out behind the counter. ‘Will you collect Annie’s kid from school and drop her home?’ She pauses, then reverts to her normal voice. ‘He says he’ll pick her up in the van.’

  ‘Tell him not to talk to anyone.’

  ‘You mean your man in the BMW?’

  ‘I do. Make sure to tell him.’

  ‘Don’t worry about Bart. I’ll be sure to tell him to keep his big trap shut.’

  ‘Thanks, Lily. I don’t know what I’d do without you.’

  ‘Ah sure, isn’t that what neighbours are for? When he first came into the shop and asked about you, I thought all your dreams had come true. Such a handsome hunk and a charmer, to boot. He even admired my painting. There’s not ma
ny around here do that so I figured then and there that he was a right chancer.’

  * * *

  Kayla is sleeping. Her mother is staring at the stars. The sky is clear tonight and the constellations dazzling. She talks to Leanne, as she always does last thing before she goes to bed. Do you believe in ghosts, Elena had asked the first time she came to Clearwater.

  Amelia’s reply had been emphatic. No ghosts haunted this craggy peninsula but sometimes a play of light, a darting bird, the swirl of a butterfly brought Leanne to mind with such vividness that she was forced to a standstill, her heart filled to bursting.

  Fifty-Three

  In the dead of night, shadows tell no secrets. I’m insubstantial but I’m not a shadow, of that I’m certain. Billy Tobin dead. One blow from a weapon that has yet to be found. Nicholas recognised Rosemary Williams’s orange Citroën that afternoon. Guessing it was being driven by Elena, he knocked on Billy’s door that night, demanding to know what she had been doing there. When the fear of death has been conquered, we become unconquerable. And, so, Billy didn’t bend. He had solved a mystery that had tormented him for years and he made the accusation to Nicholas, loudly, defiantly. How easy it was to crack his skull. The gardai were convinced it was a cricket bat or, perhaps, a mallet. It wasn’t either. The knob on Billy’s walking stick was the weapon of choice. He died from the third blow. It lay beside him, washed clean of blood and unfamiliar fingerprints. A less deadly weapon to the one that killed John Pierce, but just as effective.

  Initially, Nicholas had no reason to query the financial transactions that were taking place in his offshore accounts. The dark web had too many layers to infiltrate, he believed, and, with the confidence of a true narcissist, he was convinced he would never be found out.

  Nicholas is unaware of the extent of the discovery, yet his instincts tell him something is wrong. His habitual charm has disappeared. He no longer flashes his white teeth at the female staff at KHM and tells them how stunning they look. He is wary, verging on panicky, working late at his computer to try to combat information that threatens his future. It has taken time to trace the changes to his online account. The payouts that he never authorised yet which have his imprimatur. His accounts were being hacked but he was unable to figure out how it was happening or who was responsible – until he saw the photographs he had obtained from a private detective.

  Moira Ward is a chameleon who blends into her surroundings. An inconspicuous woman of uncertain age and grey hair dyed a mousy beige. Nicholas recognised Neary’s, where old-fashioned lamps and wooden panels add an authentic charm to the old pub. How intense Elena looked as Mark explained how he would destroy the man who had destroyed her.

  Other photographs puzzled him. An untamed landscape overlooking the ocean. Rocks slanting towards the sun. Stained-glass designs that were familiar to him. A child, dark skin glistening with water, green eyes staring trustfully into the camera and, by her side, a slim figure, white-blonde tangles hiding her features as she raised a hand to block off the invasive lens.

  * * *

  Mark does not hear the footsteps gaining on him, nor feel the air stir with menace. Ducks are sleeping in a row, the ones at the end keeping one wary eye out for perilous encounters. He crosses a humpback bridge and stops on the crest to admire a lone swan, gliding on the water like a ghostly ballerina. He phones Graham and apologises for his lateness. He’ll be home in thirty minutes.

  ‘Hurry,’ Graham says and the longing in that one word sums up the tenderness of their marriage. It is the last word Mark will hear before he is struck down by a one-punch blow to his head.

  That night when Elena was helpless in a basement and fighting for her life, my fury struck a spark in this nameless heartland. It shattered glass, wrenched steel. Tonight, I feel it again. The swan rises on the crest of my rage. Wings outstretched, a clumsy take-off that turns to grace when she is airborne. She flies so low that Nicholas is startled by her appearance and the blow he delivers is weakened.

  Why am I forced to witness these visions? I am helpless, invisible chains and walls separating me from those I love. Pinned like a butterfly in a shadowbox, my wings stilled as Mark collapses, his face smacking against the pavement, his brain stunned. A couple, attracted by the swan, appear from behind the Pepper Canister church and approach, cautiously. The swan flies in a circle above the spot where Mark lies. Nicholas slips away, his footsteps making no sound on the pavement as he blends into the darkness, and the swan returns to her nest among the reeds.

  Fifty-Four

  ‘No change,’ Graham tells Elena when she arrives at the hospital. He holds on tightly to her hands, his cheeks knuckled with shock, and asks her how anyone could do this to Mark.

  Photographs of the couple who found him unconscious on the pavement and called an ambulance have appeared on the front pages of the newspapers. They have been interviewed on the morning news bulletins. Last night, walking in the opposite direction to Mark, they noticed a swan rising from the canal and doing what they described as ‘acrobatics’ in the air. They returned to watch her glide back to the water and discovered Mark. No one else was on the scene.

  Mark remains in intensive care and on life support to help his breathing. She sits with Graham in the hospital corridor and tries to console him. They strain forward each time they glimpse a nurse or doctor in scrubs hurrying past but the medics keep their eyes averted. They are used to the desperation of loved ones waiting to hear the latest update.

  Graham has seen the tabloid headlines. Gay-bashing. Where did they get that information? The term has an ugly resonance that belongs to the past. He refuses to believe it was the reason for the attack. Mark has no enemies, he knows; and there are no secrets between them… He screws up his forehead at the latter thought. And yet, and yet…

  ‘He was working late so often lately,’ he tells Elena. ‘We both have to do that occasionally. It’s never been an issue before now but this time there was more to it than late hours.

  He brought it home with him, not the work itself but the energy of it. He wasn’t sleeping well. I’d awaken some nights and he’d be downstairs on his laptop. He wouldn’t tell me what he was doing and that’s unusual. We talk about everything, including our work.’ He continues searching for reasons. Maybe the tabloids have it right. Maybe his attacker mistook him for someone else. Maybe some crazy coke-head turned vicious and Mark was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The conversation goes round in circles. Elena lets him talk. There is only one possibility. Nicholas knows. Somehow, he has gained knowledge of the fact that his computer was being hacked and identified Mark as the hacker.

  * * *

  She arrives at the community centre early. As usual, Sophie meets Yvonne at the entrance and brings the children into the room to meet their mother. For the next hour they will play on the slides and bricks, and Elena will read to them, Are You My Mother? by P.D. Eastman, as she does on every visit.

  Ghosts don’t exist. She knows this now. She never experienced Amelia’s cool breath on her skin or moved to the bidding of her unseen presence. There was a logical reason for the shattered office window, the rattling shutter. Sooner or later she would understand it. Imagination, overstretched and stressed, had played tricks on her. What did exist, she discovered on her second visit to Mag’s Head, was enduring friendship and selfless love.

  In the hidden chamber, she read the letters Amelia had written. She saw her bruises in the photographs scattered before her and, in the muddled and sometimes indecipherable writing, her words had revealed an awful truth. Desperate to protect her unborn child, she had jettisoned her own identity to emerge from the chrysalis of violence. How must that feel? To live in a dead woman’s shoes? Elena understands this overwhelming protectiveness. If she could snatch Grace and Joel and bring them to a place of safety, she would do so without hesitation.

  Today, Yvonne has a hair appointment and Henry will collect his grandchildren. Sophie’s professional mask is dropping; Elena has notice
d a softening in her voice when they speak together.

  As the hour draws to a close, Elena asks her to watch the children while she uses the bathroom.

  ‘No problem.’ Sophie kneels down beside Joel, who pushes a toy helicopter across the floor.

  As soon as she is outside the room, Elena hurries towards the entrance. Henry, punctual as always, stops abruptly when he sees her.

  ‘I have to talk to you.’ Elena steps in front of him. ‘It’s important.’

  ‘Then speak to me in front of Sophie. You’re well aware that any contact between us is strictly forbidden if she’s not present.’

  ‘I just want a moment of your time.’

  ‘You could be in serious trouble for accosting me.’ His tone has become hard, inflexible. ‘Stand aside and allow me to collect my grandchildren.’

  ‘Henry, please listen to me. I’m worried about Nicholas.’

  ‘Worried? You have a strange way of showing it.’

  ‘His violence is―’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Elena. No more pathetic lies about my son.’

  ‘I didn’t fall on the steps outside Rosemary’s office. Something interrupted him while he was attacking me. Otherwise, he could have killed me.’

  ‘I presume you can name this “something” that prevented my son from killing you?’ His mockery is overdone, his eyes darting past her, seeking an escape. Unlike Nicholas, he’s incapable of hiding his feelings and she can see how nervous he is.

  ‘It doesn’t matter what interrupted him,’ she says. ‘A man is on life support in hospital. I’m convinced Nicholas attacked him―’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Elena. Is there no end to your vindictiveness? Yvonne is right when she says you’re unhinged.’