He felt the weight of the world on his shoulders as he reached this critical fork in the road. On the one hand he feared what she might do, the tears streaming down her cheeks once more, but at the same time it would be in both of their best interests for her not to be outside his home for another minute.
‘And another thing,’ she spat bitterly, as she reached her car door, ‘when my boss showed me the images, my first thought wasn’t for my career, it was for you. I thought this mess was the last thing you needed with everything else you’ve got going on.’
He moved across and pulled her into him again. ‘I’m sorry, Noemi, my head’s all over the place. I don’t mean to sound cold, but I need to—’
He froze when he heard his name being called from behind them. He felt Noemi’s spine tense in the exact same moment.
‘Ray? Is that you?’
He didn’t need to turn around to know who was now standing outside their front door watching them.
‘Oh shit, oh God, oh no,’ he mumbled painfully under his breath.
This couldn’t be happening. In all the scenarios he’d imagined Alex stumbling across the affair, this had never been one of them. It was too late to leap into the car and hurry away, as her footsteps were already clip-clopping down the driveway.
‘Ray?’ Alex called out again, much closer this time. ‘What are you doing out here, and …’ Her words broke off as she saw who he was standing with. ‘Noemi? What on earth are you doing here? Ray, what’s going …?’
Again she didn’t finish the sentence.
Ray felt the photos being ripped from his hands, and as he turned to try and snatch them back before it was too late, he saw the anguish in Alex’s eyes, and knew there was no way to brazen it out.
47
It was like looking at somebody else’s life unfolding before her eyes, as if she wasn’t in control of her own movements. As image after image of her husband and friend emerged from the pile, she desperately wanted to stop herself from looking. It was like a motorway car wreck that she couldn’t help but gawp at.
Ray had made no movement towards her, instead remaining where he was with Noemi, guilty looks plastered over their faces. Sophie had described Noemi as ‘a flake’, someone who frequently pulled out of get-togethers with feeble excuses. Only now it seemed obvious why she had cancelled so many times. In fact, Alex would bet the house that, on most of those occasions, Ray had also not been home.
She felt sick to her stomach. Despite her suspicions that Ray had been seeing someone behind her back, a small part of her had hoped – beyond reason – that she was mistaken. And in the days since Carol-Anne had gone missing, she’d desperately clawed to that faint trail of optimism.
‘Let me explain,’ Ray began to say, until Alex cut him off with a raised hand. For once he didn’t argue.
‘How long?’ Alex asked, unable to look at him, fighting to keep the building tears from bursting through the dam. She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of seeing how hurt she was.
‘Please, Alex, let’s go inside so we can talk about this calmly.’
Alex suddenly became aware that they were still standing in the middle of the road, and although she hadn’t seen any of the neighbours checking to see what was going on, it wouldn’t be long.
‘How long?’ she repeated, firmer this time.
Neither replied, and neither did either of them deny it. Was that a kindness? Or were they simply not imaginative to come up with a better ruse for why she’d caught them talking secretively outside with a handful of – frankly pornographic – photographs?
It felt like someone had punctured the boat that was her life, and she’d been desperately trying to plug the hole, but now her hands were being torn away from it. Her boat was going down and the only remaining question was whether she would go down with it.
The first spits of rain, offering a cooling sensation on her forehead, was her cue for going inside. Turning, she marched back towards the driveway, past Isla’s small red car and into the open doorway, not daring to turn back and see if Ray would make any effort to salvage what remained of their relationship.
‘Alex, wait,’ Ray shouted, as he chased her in through the door. ‘Please, let me explain.’
Alex wasn’t listening. She needed space to process the revelation, but given her most recent episode at the playground this morning, she wasn’t sure she trusted herself to be alone. Where else could she turn, though? Who could she trust enough to share the burden?
Isla immediately appeared in the kitchen doorway, a look of confusion on her face. ‘What’s going …?’ she began.
The appointed Family Liaison Officer was the last person she wanted marital advice from, and, swerving away from the kitchen, Alex took the stairs two at a time, closing the bedroom door, frustrated that they’d never fitted a lock. Scraping a chair across the carpet, she barricaded the door instead. He could get in if he was desperate to, but he would think twice about it.
She heard him tapping against the doorframe a few moments later, his voice barely more than a whisper. ‘Alex? I’m so sorry. You have to believe I never meant for it to happen. I know you hate me, and you’ve got every right to. I don’t think you ought to be on your own. Please let me in so we can talk.’
Sorry. Five letters, and one of the most overused adjectives in the English language, and rarely truly meant. As a word it was often used to paper over mistakes and misdemeanours; it would take more than that now. She wanted to tell him to just go away and leave her alone, but she didn’t have the energy.
He was tapping again, his words reverberating off the door’s wooden panels. ‘Alex, please? I’m sorry you had to find out that way; I should have told you. I should have come clean. I didn’t know how. The last thing I wanted was to hurt you. God knows I didn’t want it to happen like this. Despite everything, I still love you, Alex, and it’s my responsibility to make sure you’re okay.’
She silently scoffed. If he still loved her, he never would have allowed his head to be turned. Plenty of marriages hit bumpy roads, but not all of them ended in one spouse jumping into bed with another person. Hadn’t their marriage been made of stronger stuff? Both of them had come from happy homes, with marriages that had lasted until death. Both sets of parents had set good examples of what marriage should be, so how had she and Ray allowed theirs to turn to shit?
‘What’s going on? Has something happened?’ Alex heard Isla say from the top of the stairs. ‘Alex?’ she called out, louder this time. ‘Can you tell me what’s going on? Is everything okay?’
My twat of a husband has been banging a woman I thought was a friend, she wanted to fire back, but resisted, as a new thought entered her mind. A thought so terrifying it took forced effort to breathe in again.
Tearing the chair out of the way, Alex ripped the door open. Pushing through Ray and Isla, she hurried down the stairs and out into the heavier rain, searching left and right for any sign of Noemi. The car was still parked across the street; however, she didn’t appear to be in it. She turned to Sophie’s house and saw the back-stabber, sheltering beneath the porch.
Noemi’s eyes widened as they met Alex’s frosty stare. ‘Wait, Alex, wait.’
Alex had waited too long already. Racing across the driveway, not caring that her top and cardigan were getting soaked, she went nose to nose with Noemi. ‘Where’s my daughter? It was you, wasn’t it? You took her. Where is she?’
Noemi was cowering, her lips moving, no sound escaping.
‘Where is she?’ Alex screamed, leaning closer as Noemi continued to shrink within herself.
‘I-I-I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Noemi pleaded.
‘Not happy with stealing my husband, now you’ve stolen my daughter too.’
Ray ran over from their own house and restrained Alex, pulling her back out into the rain. ‘Alex, stop this, please.’
Something Isla had said before rattled through her mind: in those successful cases, we identified t
he perpetrator as a relative or family friend.
She looked up at him. ‘Are you part of this too? Did you conspire with her to take our daughter away?’
The rain splashed off his shaved head, forming tiny rivers down the side of his face. ‘How could you …?’ He didn’t finish the sentence, dragging her back towards their house, beckoning for Noemi to stay where she was.
Isla’s curiosity had her standing at the door, a questioning look on her face as she tried to make sense of what was unfolding. She stepped aside as Ray manhandled Alex through the door and towards the living room.
‘Please sit down and let’s talk about this,’ he said, moving across to the drinks cabinet, then thinking better of it. ‘I know this has come as a shock, and I understand how confused you must be, but you can’t go around shouting accusations like that. You must know I could never do anything to put our daughter’s life in danger.’
Alex studied his face, looking for any hint of further deceit, any twinge that would confirm he was a part of what had happened, yet she saw only pained empathy.
She sighed in defeat. ‘Don’t you see? It all fits. She works for an IT company, doesn’t she? She probably knows how to hide the origins of an email. And she knows Carol-Anne, and what’s more, she would be a face that Carol-Anne wouldn’t be afraid to go with. Isla said more often than not it’s a relative or family friend responsible for the abduction of a child. Have you even stopped to consider whether she could have taken Carol-Anne?’
He took a deep breath. ‘Of course I have! I had to give Trent a list of friends and acquaintances just as you did. I didn’t go so far as to admit why I named her, but they did their routine background checks. She was at work at the time Carol-Anne was taken. It isn’t Noemi.’
‘Have the police checked her house? What if she’s been stashing our daughter there this whole time?’
‘Carol-Anne isn’t in Noemi’s flat.’
‘Did they search it?’
‘No …’ he closed his eyes and lowered his head. ‘I know because I was at her flat this morning. It isn’t big enough to hide a two-year-old. I would have heard her or seen some evidence of her.’
Alex wasn’t sure what hurt the most: the fact that he was defending his lover, or that he’d still been sleeping with Noemi even though Carol-Anne’s life was in the balance.
For the second time that week, her heart felt like it was splintering into a thousand tiny pieces, impossible to reconstruct. She wasn’t sure she wanted the answer to her next question. ‘Do you love her?’
His eyes remained closed, his breathing steady, without offering a response.
‘Well?’ Alex repeated, as he remained silent. ‘Do you love her?’
He either didn’t know the answer, or couldn’t find the words to reply.
‘Does she love you?’ Alex tried again, the words almost catching in her throat.
‘I don’t know,’ he whispered. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to say.’
‘How long have you been screwing her? Months? Years?’
‘What does it matter?’ he replied, dejected.
In truth, it didn’t matter. The damage had been done the first time he’d even considered sleeping with her. ‘I need to know how long you’ve been lying to me, Ray. I deserve that much. Before Christmas, or just this year?’
Ray ground his teeth. ‘Before Christmas. Bonfire night.’
Alex’s eyes widened further as the memory of that night fired behind her eyes. ‘I took Carol-Anne to the display at the local comprehensive. You said you had to work late.’
‘I did … I mean I was … I got called to an incident in town; a woman had been attacked in the street and uniform needed support. I tagged along, and was shocked to find Noemi was the victim. I offered to drive her home, and … I don’t even know who made the first move.
‘I felt so guilty afterwards, and even though we both knew it was wrong … I’m not going to make excuses. What we did was horrible, and you will never know how truly sorry I am – we both are – and you should know that none of this is your fault—’
It was like waving a red rag at a bull.
‘My fault?’ she shouted, lunging towards him, just resisting the urge to slap him. ‘You’re damned right this isn’t my fault! I’m not the one who deliberately sought out someone else to shag. I’m not the one who betrayed our wedding vows.’
The panic in his eyes told her he regretted his choice of words. ‘I know that. That’s what I meant. This is all on me. And I’m sorry.’
‘Are you a hundred per cent sure she doesn’t have our daughter?’
Ray stood aghast. ‘No. I told you, Noemi has nothing to do with what happened on Tuesday.’
She hadn’t blinked in ages and her eyes were starting to water as a result. ‘It would make sense; the two of you plotting behind my back to make me look stupid. I go crazy with worry and the three of you stride off into the sunset, leaving me in some loony asylum.’
‘Alex, no! The two things have absolutely nothing to do with one another. How can you even think such a thing?’
‘What do you expect me to think? You’ve been lying to me for months about your affair, so what else could you have been lying about?’
‘Nothing, I swear.’
‘And last week, were you really on a training course, or were the two of you away somewhere together?’
He fixed her with a stare, as if trying to burrow the words into her head telepathically. ‘I was on a training course. You can check with Trent if you don’t believe me. Besides, you met up with Noemi and Sophie last week, didn’t you? I thought you had a girly night in watching Dirty Dancing and eating popcorn.’
A moment of doubt flashed through Alex’s mind, swiftly followed by a feeling of nausea. Noemi had been here last Wednesday, acting as if everything was normal; lying to Alex’s face. What she would give now for someone like Patrick Swayze’s character to stand up for her and sweep her off her feet.
‘On the subject of lies,’ Ray interjected, ‘you haven’t been so honest with me either, have you?’
The question caught her off guard. ‘What is that supposed to mean?’
He reached down and rested his hands on her arms, looking into her eyes again. ‘What were you doing in Fleet on Tuesday morning, Alex?’
48
It wasn’t the best time to flip the tables on her, but for the first time in months it felt like they were actually talking, being honest with one another. And as she now knew his darkest secret, Ray felt it only fair to try and understand what it was that she’d been keeping from him. Despite the threatening emails from Simon, Trent hadn’t called off the search at the Fleet Nature Reserve. And although in the deepest recesses of his heart he refused to believe that Alex could have hurt Carol-Anne, she’d given him sufficient reason to consider the possibility.
A look of shock and surprise gripped her face. ‘What? How do you …?’
Twisting her arms so he could see the scars on her wrists, he pressed on. ‘We know you were in Fleet on Tuesday morning. Trent has sent a team to the nature reserve to examine the grounds. What were you doing there, Alex?’
She blinked several times, looking at him like he had said the most ridiculous thing. ‘I wasn’t there.’
‘We have you on a traffic camera driving to Fleet. I’ve seen the footage myself. We don’t know anyone who lives in Fleet, and you didn’t write an appointment on the calendar, so what were you doing there?’
She pulled away from him. ‘That’s none of your business. That has nothing to do with what we’re discussing here.’
‘No? Are you sure? Or am I not the only one who’s been seeing someone else on the side?’
She spun back and this time did slap him across the face, before he had time to flinch. ‘How dare you! I haven’t and would never betray you like that.’
He rubbed his cheek gingerly. ‘No? Then what were you doing there, Alex? Why is Trent so focused on the nature reserve?’
‘Was Carol-Anne with you?’
‘Yes.’
‘And did she return with you?’
Her jaw dropped. ‘What’s that supposed to mean? Of course she did.’
He pointed at her wrists. ‘How long have you been off your medication, Alex? When was the last time you saw your psychiatrist?’
She looked like she’d been kicked to the ground, and each challenge and question he fired was like another kick while she failed to crawl back to her feet. Now that he was on a roll, he knew he couldn’t stop. After what had happened, she was sure to kick him out of the house, and he might not get another opportunity to find out the truth.
‘I-I-I,’ she stuttered.
He took a step closer to her, softening his tone. ‘I want to help, Alex. I really do. And I don’t want to think that you may have done something to put Carol-Anne’s life in danger, but there are too many question marks about your recent behaviour. After what happened in Manchester when you last came off your medication …’ He paused. ‘Please just tell me why you were in Fleet. Put my mind at ease.’
‘I didn’t do … Carol-Anne was with me, and we came home together. You know she was in the car park when she was taken.’
It wasn’t the convincing explanation he’d been hoping for. ‘Do I? We have your car arriving at the car park on Tuesday afternoon, and there’s no sign of Carol-Anne being taken. Trent has reservations about your version of events.’
Alex’s hand shot up to her mouth. ‘No! I wouldn’t …’
Ray had seen the flicker of doubt in her eyes.
‘How do you know, Alex? How long has it been since you last took one of your antidepressants? I had to call in so many favours to stop you incurring a criminal record in Manchester. Now I’m terrified it was a warning sign that I failed to act upon.’
Little Girl Gone Page 23