by Alice Feeney
Who knew things that I didn’t know and that you still don’t.
The private investigator is a man called Samuel Smith. He still thinks my father is alive – along with the rest of the world – but aside from that huge miss, he seems pretty good at his job. Thorough. He sent weekly reports about us to my father for years – unknown to me – and they were both fascinating and sad to read. He didn’t just follow us, he followed anyone we got close to. Including October O’Brien. And Amelia. He even sent my father pictures of our home, before and after I left it (I don’t like what you’ve done with the place). Samuel Smith the private investigator knew more about us than we knew about each other. I thought for a long time about whether or not to share this information with you. It brings me no happiness to cause you pain, but like I said in the beginning, I love you. Always have, always will. Always always, not almost always, like we used to say. That is why I have to tell you the truth. All of it.
It was no coincidence that Amelia started working at Battersea, befriended me, and was always asking questions about you. You were always part of her plan. Your paths had crossed almost thirty years earlier, but you couldn’t recognise her face. Samuel Smith found out more than he bargained for when you cheated on me. It’s a question nobody ever wants to ask, or answer, but how well do you really know your wife?
Amelia Jones – as she was called before you married – has been lying to you since the moment you met. She lied to me too. Amelia has a criminal record and has been in and out of jail since she was a teenager. She lived in a series of foster homes growing up and was almost always in trouble. At one point, she was living on the same council estate as you. She even attended the same school for a few months, when you were both thirteen. That’s when she progressed from shoplifting to joyriding. Amelia was suspected of stealing seven cars, before she was arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving. The police questioned her about a hit-and-run, but she was underage and her foster mother came forward as an alibi – something the woman later confessed was a lie – and the cops couldn’t make it stick.
The car they caught her in was the car that killed your mother.
The only witness – you – couldn’t pick her out in a police line-up, because you couldn’t recognise the face of who was driving. But she knew you.
Amelia Jones moved to a new foster home, far away. She turned a new leaf and started again. Maybe she felt genuine remorse for what she had done? Maybe she felt guilty for getting away with it? Maybe that’s why she followed you for years, and came up with a plan to get close to you, through me? Perhaps in some twisted way she was trying to make up for what she did. You’ll have to ask her.
I know I lied to you about my father, but at least my lies were to protect you, and us. Nothing you think you know about Amelia is true. Your wife was to blame for your mother’s death when you were a child, and I think it’s only right that you know that, before making a decision. Don’t believe me? Maybe try telling Amelia that you know the truth, but be careful, she is not the woman you think she is.
I know this will be hard to take in, let alone believe, but deep down, didn’t you always feel as though something wasn’t quite right about Amelia? The first time you met her, when she arrived uninvited at our home claiming to have had a bad date, you described her as an actress. It turns out your first impressions were right. I found the notebook by the bed where she writes down every detail of your nightmares. Did you ever wonder why she does that? I’m sure she said it was to try and help you remember the face of who killed your mother, but maybe it was to make sure you never did? It’s no wonder she needs pills to help her sleep at night, the guilt she must feel would keep anyone awake.
Knowing what you now know – and I have all the private investigator emails and documents to prove it – do you still love her? Can you ever really trust her again? What happens next is up to you. It’s a simple choice, like when we used to play rock paper scissors.
Option one – ROCK: You try to leave with the woman who killed your mother.
Option two – PAPER: You walk out of there alone and come find me and Bob in the cottage. We’re waiting for you, and I want nothing more than for us all to be together again. I will move back to London, we can publish Rock Paper Scissors as a novel using Henry’s name – nobody else ever needs to know – and then I promise you will finally get your own screenplay made. You won’t need to adapt anyone else’s work ever again and can spend the rest of your life writing your own stories.
Option three – SCISSORS: You don’t want to know option three.
The choice is yours. I know what I’m asking you to decide sounds difficult. But it really is as easy as rock paper scissors if you can remember how to play.
Your Robin
xx
Amelia
We’re standing in the bedroom that has been made to look just like the one we share at home, the one I redecorated when Robin moved out. Except that now, things are even stranger than they were before. This is not at all how I hoped this weekend would go. I’d already decided to end the marriage if this trip did not go well – I’d spoken with a solicitor and a financial advisor, who suggested a life insurance policy might help me get what I deserved in a divorce settlement. I wanted to give things one last shot, but I’m starting to wish I’d just left. I’ve already found a flat to move into – it’s nice, with a view of the Thames – but I hoped it wouldn’t come to that. I hoped this weekend might fix us. The estate agent is holding the flat for me until next week, says I can move in straight away if I want, so I always knew that only one of us might be going back to the house that was only ever their home.
My whole miserable life keeps playing on a loop inside my mind recently, and I can’t seem to find the off switch. I lie awake at night – despite the pills – longing to delete all the memories I wish I’d never made. All the mistakes. All the wrong turns. All the dead ends. I’m not making excuses, but I didn’t have an easy childhood. I know I’m not the only one, but those lonely years shaped who I am today. Tiny violins always sound loudest to those playing them. Being passed from one foster family to another, like unwanted goods, taught me never to get too comfortable, and never to trust anyone. Including myself. Every new home meant a new family, new school, new friends, so I’d try being a new version of me. But none of them were a perfect fit.
I’ve always been haunted by the death of my parents because it was my fault. If my mother wasn’t pregnant with me, she wouldn’t have been in the car and my father wouldn’t have been driving her to the hospital when a truck smashed into them. If Adam hadn’t met me his life would have turned out very differently too. We have so much in common, but we feel further apart than ever before. I watched Adam for years. His success – and the internet – made that easy. I’ve tried to be a good wife to him, but he still seems to see me as the bad penny and her as the lucky one. I’ve tried to make him happy. I’ve been trying to make amends for things that happened in the past for too long. I’ve become so many different versions of myself trying to please other people, that I no longer know who I am. I need to focus on the future now. Mine. Atonement is like that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow that nobody ever really finds.
‘Why would Robin write ROCK PAPER SCISSORS in red lipstick on the mirror?’ I ask, wondering if Adam’s ex has a history of mental health issues that I am unaware of. I watch as he starts pacing the room, looking a little deranged himself. ‘Why would she trick us into coming to Scotland? Why would she keep her father’s identity a secret for ten years and then not tell anyone when he died? And why would she steal our dog—’
Adam interrupts my questions. ‘Technically, Bob was her dog—’
‘Exactly: was her dog, but then she just left. Disappeared without a word. You never even heard from her again after the magnolia tree incident, except through the solicitor—’
‘Well, I imagine coming home early on our anniversary and finding her husband in bed with her best frien
d was probably quite upsetting.’
‘Your marriage was over long before I came along.’
‘I never wanted to hurt her—’
‘From the looks of things, I think that ship has sailed. You might want to hang around here reminiscing about your lovely first wife, but whoever Robin used to be, it seems pretty clear to me that she is now a full-time psycho. I think we can safely presume it was her face I saw looking in through the window last night. She must have been behind all the strange things that happened since we arrived, trying to scare us. She probably deliberately turned off the generator too, trying to freeze us to death—’
‘I switched the generator off,’ Adam says.
His words make no sense at first, like he is speaking in tongues.
‘What?’
He shrugs. ‘I just wanted to get back to London as soon as possible. I thought if the power went completely, you’d agree to go home.’
The revelation winds me a bit, but I remind myself that Robin is the enemy, not Adam. I won’t let her win. Whatever happens when we go back to London, it’s more important than ever that Adam and I stay on the same team. It’s us against her.
‘You realise that Robin is probably who you saw in the thatched cottage down the lane? I bet she’s still there now, and I think it’s time we went and had it out with her. You might be scared of your ex-wife, but I’m not.’
‘I am scared,’ he says, and this is the least attracted I have ever been to my husband. A small part of me thinks I should leave them to it – they deserve each another.
‘It’s Robin, remember? Your sweet little first wife who couldn’t kill a spider?’
‘But if she’s been living here all alone for the last couple of years… people can change.’
‘People. Never. Change.’
We both experience a freeze frame when we hear three booming bangs downstairs, so loud, it feels like the whole chapel, and us, trembles.
‘What was that?’ I whisper.
Before he can answer, it happens again; the sound of knocking so loud, it’s as though there must be a giant trying to get in those big gothic church doors. The look of fear on Adam’s face transforms mine into anger. I am not afraid of her.
I leave the bedroom, run down the stairs and through the library lounge, knocking some books over in my hurry. Adrenaline is pumping through me, and despite all the strange goings-on of the last twenty-four hours, when I remember who I am dealing with, I’m now sure there must be a rational explanation for all of it. No ghosts, no witches, just a crazy ex-wife. I’m going to make her regret doing this to us.
I reach the boot room, and see that the church bench is still blocking the door. I try to move it out of the way but it won’t budge. Adam appears behind me, looking less like the man I married and more like the man I planned to leave.
‘Help me,’ I say.
‘Are you sure this is a good idea?’
‘Do you have a better one?’
As we lift the heavy furniture out of the way, I remember how childlike my husband can be. The way he reverts to the boyhood version of himself whenever life gets too loud used to be endearing. It made me want to protect him. My fingerprints are all over his heartbreak, and I wanted to wipe it clean and start again. Now, I just wish he’d man up.
The chapel doors rattle as someone on the other side slowly knocks three times, again. The sound echoes all around us, and we both take a step back. The wall of tiny mirrors catches my eye, and I see multiple miniature versions of my husband’s face reflected in them. It almost looks as though he is… smiling. When I check the real version, standing right next to me, the smile has been replaced with a look of pure terror.
I’m losing my mind.
I hesitate before trying the door handle, and feel a small sense of relief when it is locked.
‘Where is the key?’ I ask, holding out my hand. I’m sure we both notice that it’s shaking.
Adam takes the antique-looking iron key from his pocket and gives it to me, too scared to open the door himself. I try to slot it in the lock, but it won’t go in. Something is blocking it from the other side. I try again but it won’t budge, and I bang my fist on the wooden door in frustration. None of the stained-glass windows in the property open, and this is the only way in or out.
Then I see a shadow move beneath the door.
‘She’s out there. That crazy bitch has bloody locked us in.’
I pound on the door when she doesn’t reply, then properly lose my temper and call her all the names she deserves to be called.
Robin doesn’t say a word, but I know she’s still there. Her shadow doesn’t move.
Then an envelope with Adam’s name on it slides beneath the door.
Adam
I pick up the envelope, and Amelia tries to snatch it from my hands.
‘It’s addressed to me,’ I say holding it out of reach. Then I walk into the kitchen, slide into one of the old church pews beside the wooden table, and open the letter. There are several pages all penned by Robin. I might not be able to recognise faces, but I’d know her handwriting anywhere. Amelia sits down opposite. I try to keep my face neutral as I read, but the words don’t make that easy.
How well do you really know your wife?
I lift the letter higher, so that she can’t see it.
It was no coincidence that Amelia started working at Battersea…
When I reach the second page, my fingers start to tremble.
Your paths had crossed almost thirty years earlier, but you couldn’t recognise her face.
‘What does it say?’ Amelia asks, reaching for my hand across the table.
I pull back. Don’t answer.
The police questioned her about a hit-and-run…
I feel sick.
The car they caught her in was the car that killed your mother.
It’s hard not to react when you read something like that about the woman you are married to. Amelia seems to sense that something is very wrong.
‘What is it? What has she written?’ she asks, leaning closer.
‘Some of it is difficult to read,’ I reply. It isn’t a lie.
When I get to the end, I fold the letter and put it in my pocket. Then I get up and walk over to one of the stained-glass windows. I can’t look at Amelia’s face now. I’m scared of what I might see.
I knew this affair was a mistake from the start, but sometimes small mistakes lead to bigger ones. Robin wasn’t just my wife, she was the love of my life and my best friend. I didn’t just break her heart when I cheated on her, I broke my own. The errors of judgement lined up like dominoes after that, each knocking the next one down. When people talk about falling in love, I think they are right, it is like falling, and sometimes when we fall we can get very badly hurt. It was never really love with Amelia. It was a simple case of lust in love’s clothing. Until I made matters even worse than they already were, by marrying a woman I had nothing in common with.
Maybe it was a mid-life crisis? I remember feeling so down about my work. My career had stalled, I couldn’t write and I felt… empty. My wife seemed just as disappointed with me as I was with myself. But this beautiful new stranger acted like the sun shone out of my middle-aged arse, and I fell for it. She came on to me, and I was too flattered and pathetic to say no. My ego had an affair and my mind was too muddled to know it should never have been anything more than that. It should never have happened at all.
It was Amelia who wanted to move in as soon as Robin moved out.
She found the engagement ring that Robin had left behind, and dropped endless hints about how much she wanted to wear it, even though it was never a perfect fit for her finger. Always too tight. She bullied me into signing the divorce papers as soon as they arrived, and she booked the register office – the same one where Robin and I got married of all places – for a quickie wedding without even telling me first. The woman delivered emotional blackmail like a conscientious postman. A second marriage was the ra
nsom I should never have paid.
Something felt wrong, right from the start, but I thought I was doing what was best for everyone involved: cutting off the old loose threads that can cause a new relationship to unravel. I was too stupid or vain to pay attention to the alarm bells sounding inside my head. The ones we all hear when we’re about to make a mistake, but sometimes pretend not to.
I never stopped loving Robin and I’ve never stopped missing her. I’d actually already spoken to my solicitor about my options if I wanted to leave Amelia. But this letter. The idea that she was in the car that killed my mother, then spent all these years spying on us, trying to get close to me… that can’t be real. Surely Amelia isn’t capable of that?
‘Have you ever been in trouble with the police?’ I ask, still staring out the window.
‘What was in that letter, Adam?’
‘Did you used to live on the same council estate as me as a teenager? Go to the same school?’
She doesn’t answer and I feel sick.
The memory of that night comes back to haunt me, as it has so many times before. I remember the rain, almost as if it were a character in the story. As if it played a part, which I suppose it did. The sound of watery bullets hitting the tarmac is ingrained in my mind as a result. The road my mother was walking along was like a snaking black river, reflecting the night sky and the eerie glow of streetlights, like urban man-made stars. It all happened too fast and was over so soon. The horrifying screech of tyres, my mother’s scream, the awful thud of her body hitting the windscreen, and the sound of the car driving over the dog. The noise of the crash was the loudest thing I’d ever heard. It only lasted a few seconds, but seemed to play on repeat. Then there was only a terrible silence. It was as though the horror I had seen turned the volume of my life down to zero.
I still can’t look at Amelia. My mind is too busy filling in the blanks her words won’t.
‘Did you used to steal cars?’ I ask her, in a voice that doesn’t sound like my own.