‘What happened?’
‘I don’t know. We got on well enough, she even came back here for a drink and a bite to eat while you were working one evening, and now . . .’ He shrugs. ‘Nothing. I think the fact that I was living with a woman got to her. She asked a lot about you, but no matter how many times I explained that we were just friends, the conversation came back to you again and again.’
A chill grips me.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say, trying to keep my tone neutral. ‘Show me her dating profile. I’ll see if I can decipher anything amiss.’
‘She doesn’t have one. I met her in real life. She got her car serviced at my garage.’
‘What’s her name? What kind of things did she ask?’
‘Samantha. She asked if we had ever slept together, if you had a boyfriend. I told her you were getting divorced. Maybe I shouldn’t have done.’
‘What did she look like?’
‘Pretty. Blonde. Does it matter?’
‘Guess not. She doesn’t deserve you.’
True. Lewis doesn’t deserve to be dragged into my sorry mess. He is one of the nicest, kindest men I have ever known. He wants a happy ever after with the woman of his dreams, lots of children, a trampoline in the garden and nice cars.
‘Never mind. It obviously wasn’t meant to be. What are you up to this evening?’ asks Lewis.
As well as feeling guilty, I also feel rage at the person who has done this to him.
‘Not much. Making plans.’ I pause. ‘I’m thinking of moving out,’ I say. ‘It’s time. I love living with you, but it was never meant to be long-term.’
I expect him to protest, to say that I can stay as long as I like, but all I see is barely disguised relief.
‘Any news on Sam?’
‘No,’ I say.
I can’t tell him about the threats, not without admitting that they are based on truth, so I make something up about feeling bad for imposing for so long. I add that the weird newspaper cutting showing the photo of my wedding day was the final straw, plus the police visit. Blood money. Justice. I don’t want Lewis to be caught in the crossfire.
We clink our beer glasses to our friendship. My phone rings. I ignore it.
‘Aren’t you going to answer it?’
‘No.’
‘It might be something to do with Sam.’
‘I doubt it.’
There is a voicemail. I listen to the message. Thomas. He asks me to call him back this evening to discuss things further.
I tell Lewis.
‘Ring him back.’
‘There’s no point if I’m moving on.’
‘I didn’t realise you were planning to move out this minute. Anyway, I assumed you would stay local? What’s the point in throwing away your business and all that hard work for nothing?’
Curiosity takes hold. I phone Thomas back. He has thought things over and decided that I am the best candidate for the role.
‘Congratulations!’ he says. ‘I look forward to us working together.’
His assumption that I will accept on the spot makes me dig my heels in.
‘Wonderful, thank you. Please can you send over all the details, including the name of your employer,’ I say. ‘I need much more information if I’m to consider it.’
‘Naturally. I will mail all the requirements and paperwork over to you now. There is a lot of admin, but I’m sure you’ll be familiar with most of it.’
I push it.
‘My fees will be slightly higher than I originally quoted,’ I say, ‘as I’ll have to put my other work on hold if I accept. I’ll let you know when I’ve read everything through.’
Sam believed that people valued things more if they were more expensive and harder to attain. Thomas is silent. I almost regret my attempt but after a few seconds he agrees.
‘One thing I do need are some more recent testimonials,’ he says. ‘Do you have any clients who would be prepared to give me a few moments of their time?’
‘I’ll get on to that,’ I say. ‘I’ll send you the details when I’ve checked with them.’
Easy enough. I have many satisfied customers; Flora Miles, the host from the Windsor racecourse party, being one.
We end the call. I feel conflicted. I need air. I go outside to stand beneath the Narnia lamp, lighting a cigarette with Betty’s lighter. I feel a combination of pleasure and self-loathing at breaking my self-imposed smoking ban. I inhale, exhale. Sam. In one of his last messages, he said he had a plan. What if he has somehow arranged this to get us both out of the way from the person threatening us? Away from someone like Alexandra. Can I still trust Sam? No. But we have too much unfinished business and I’m not the infatuated, compliant person he remembers. I am stronger and filled with rage. I take a deep, welcoming drag, then exhale, watching the smoke dissipate. The lamp’s welcoming glow is temporarily soothing even though I keep an eye out, half-expecting someone to jump out of the shadows. It’s hard to believe that such a short time ago I sometimes tempted danger by walking home alone. It’s easy to be flippant about danger and death until it feels horribly imminent.
I check my phone. Thomas’s email has appeared in my inbox as promised.
His employer’s name is Josephine Fox-Smith. She is holding the engagement party for her friend, Gina Williams. Both Josephine’s parents will be attending, Alicia and Charles, and Gina’s mother, Norma. There will also be a celebration for Alicia’s birthday while on board, and several other old schoolfriends of theirs will be joining in (names to be confirmed). I wonder if one of the guests is the Mr H. Jacobs I saw on the letter I took from the postman. I stub out my cigarette on the pavement and get googling.
Thomas doesn’t have much of a social media presence either, which I note after his comment about my own lack of one. Neither does Josephine. But her friend Gina used to be a reality TV star. There is loads of information on her. Tumultuous relationships, good and bad decisions. I get drawn into her world instantly. She has put her past behind her now and lives a quiet life. Like me, then.
I follow her on social media under one of my old, fake accounts, posing as an adventurous traveller.
Nothing out of the ordinary leaps out, no obvious links to Sam, or anyone he knows, but then there wouldn’t be, would there? I mull it over. They haven’t found a body. There’s no reason for me to believe Sam is dead. I’ve been checking every day on news updates. Naturally, I’ve also searched People swept out to sea/missing at sea/how long does it take for a body to be found/faking your own death. There are endless stories of faking death to get sucked into, but something that became very clear to me was that with enough determination, desperation, and in Sam’s case, contacts, it’s not impossible to disappear.
I allow myself a slight sense of hope and optimism – I’ve been itching for a reason to return to Barbados. The scene of the crime, so to speak. I go back inside to tell Lewis the good news. It will be good to get away and I could even apply for a permanent superyacht job while I’m out there. The police don’t consider me a suspect. I am free to go and I’d better leave soon in case they change their minds. If they dig into our past, they will find a lot more reasons why I should hate Sam.
‘A change is as good as a rest,’ Lewis says. ‘Let’s open a bottle of champagne to celebrate.’
We high five.
The more I drink, the more I realise that there are many ways to turn over a new leaf. I don’t necessarily have to suffer while doing so.
I email Thomas back, accepting the work. He sends a response by return, with a confidentiality contract and a note to say that travel details will follow in due course. He agrees to my fees with some provisos, which I quickly scan – nothing that raises any red flags.
Lewis is happy for me. He and I are on the same team. That’s where Sam went so horribly wrong. He didn’t appreciate that one, very simple thing. He stopped consulting me; did as he saw fit. And look where that got him.
ELEVEN
Then
UK and the Caribbean
Lewis and Sam did not hit it off.
On landing in London, we cleared immigration and customs with no issues, then we hired a convertible. Lewis had offered to put us up, but Sam didn’t like staying with strangers, so I’d booked us an Airbnb overlooking the castle.
The three of us had a meal in Lewis’s and my favourite restaurant. I kept my left hand hidden because I wanted to tell Lewis all about the proposal. I also wanted Lewis and Sam to love each other as much as I loved them. I had it all pictured in my mind – a happy meal with lots of laughter and natural banter.
Instead, after a stilted start, Sam went to the restroom, and Lewis leant over the table to take my hands.
‘He’s charming, for sure,’ he said. ‘A fling, perhaps. But not for life.’
When Sam came back and raised the subject of our early wedding ideas – barefoot on a Caribbean island, no guests, minimal fuss, maximum champagne – the moment was ruined.
Lewis did an excellent job of saying all the right things. Congratulations. I hope you’ll both be very happy. But the damage had been done.
After that, I changed my mind about introducing Sam to my sister. I wanted to get away – far away. Earlier than planned, Sam and I went to Cardiff, Sam’s home city, taking turns driving. As we crossed the Severn Bridge, the sun gleamed, bright and golden, and it dawned on me how much more I preferred being a visitor, rather than living in the UK full time. I had resisted, up until then, some of Sam’s more outlandish suggestions of how I could make more money on the side. But the trip and my experience with Lewis was a reminder that I had changed. My tastes had changed. It was time for me not just to test the water, but to dive right in and embrace opportunity.
I no longer wanted to settle for cabin bunk beds and desperately long hours, only catching the merest glimpses of a paradise meant for cruise passengers and hotel guests. I now understood why Sam strived for more. I wanted some of the power and confidence that he had.
The moment I met Sam’s father, so many things about Sam clicked into place. His laissez-faire attitude, his disdain for ‘non go-getters’. George was proud of the fact that although he’d left school young, he’d worked hard to give him and Sam a good life. ‘Only had three days off sick in my life.’ He was welcoming and gave a good show of being genuinely interested in me.
After lunch (which Sam ordered in from a local Italian restaurant), George announced that he needed help with something in the back garden and asked Sam to go outside with him.
I sat alone in the living room, surrounded by old copies of the Racing Post. The few photos of Sam were of when he was a much younger child, say five or six. I studied them, his cheeky grin, trying to marry him up with the man I knew now. Sam and George were gone fifteen, maybe even twenty minutes. When they returned, they both smelled of bonfire smoke.
‘What was all that about?’ I whispered to Sam.
‘Just some old paperwork he needed help getting rid of,’ he said, before announcing to George that we had to leave early because we had a four-hour drive ahead of us. News to me.
‘I think he was disappointed we left early,’ I said to Sam as we pulled away from the street.
I twisted around and looked out the back window. George stood there waving until we could no longer see him.
‘I know, and I feel bad, but I don’t like staying there for too long,’ said Sam. ‘I start to feel restless. It was right what he said: he did his best and we had a good life, but I wanted more, you know?’
I did know, only too well. It’s not ingratitude, it’s a desire to fit in, to have the same kind of holidays abroad or birthday parties as the other children at school, or to be able to return their invitations.
‘I get it,’ I said, leaning over and putting my hand on his thigh.
He squeezed my hand. ‘Besides, I’m excited about the surprise we’ve got ahead.’
Excitement built within me too as we passed Bristol, then Exeter. By late afternoon, after navigating precariously narrow lanes with hedgerows towering over the car, we found ourselves turning up a gravel driveway, past a wooden For Sale sign, leading to a mansion. It had a large veranda that reminded me of a house I had seen in Australia on one of my first ever trips as a travel consultant. This place had a huge garden, with at least seven palm trees and just as many rose bushes.
I opened the car door and stepped out, stretching. We were close to the cliffs, with the most breathtaking view of the sea as far as I could look. I felt a sudden yearning to be on a boat.
‘What is this place?’ I asked.
‘It could be ours,’ Sam said with a grin. ‘Our base. Our first ever home of many. Our safe house.’
‘Can we go in?’
Another missed opportunity I chose to ignore in my excitement. Why didn’t I question why he used the words safe house to describe what was supposed to become our dream home? Sam knew by then that I was never going to say no to anything. My belief in Sam’s vision for us was all-encompassing.
A car pulled up behind ours and a man in a suit stepped out, clutching sheaves of paper and an iPad. An estate agent. He let us in and showed us around. It was way too big for two. Five bedrooms, an indoor and outdoor pool, Jacuzzi, BBQ area, a study, a large, light kitchen. We could throw parties, invite friends to stay. Sam and I could be ourselves here, without fear of slipping out of character. I hardly dared believe it was a possibility though. But I desperately wanted to. Already, no other house I could imagine would measure up to this one.
The house was furnished, but the estate agent assured Sam that the current owners could move everything out at fairly short notice.
‘It’s a divorce situation,’ he said, pulling a sad face. ‘They both want out and to divide the money as soon as possible.’
After the viewing, once the estate agent’s car had pulled away from the driveway, Sam didn’t put our car into reverse. Instead, he got out and lifted our bags from the boot. I walked behind him as we made our way to the back door. It was open.
‘You did not . . .?’ I said, laughing, as he switched off the burglar alarm too.
‘I did. I memorised the code and unlocked the back door. There was a spare key in the kitchen drawer. It seems a shame to spend money on a hotel when this place is going to be ours anyway.’
We stood in the living room with the magnificent view of the sea in the distance, admiring the house once again.
‘What if he comes back? Has more viewings?’
‘I overheard him on the phone saying that we were his last viewing of the day. Now, what should we do first now that we have this place all to ourselves?’ he said with that smile of his I loved. ‘Which room should we start in?’
‘Right here,’ I said, as I undid the zip on his jeans.
I had never desired Sam more than in that moment. I do wonder about that, sometimes. Was it Sam I fell in love with, or was it what he offered me? I think it was both.
We walked to the village shop, along a path at the edge of the cliff. Below, waves crashed against the rocks. Sam and I walked arm in arm. I felt safe and happy, like I had made all the right decisions. We ate dinner at a seafood restaurant to get a feel for the place, then bought wine and beer to take back to the house, which we drank by candlelight.
‘No point in pushing it by switching on lights,’ Sam said. ‘Let’s not draw attention to ourselves.’
The house did already feel like ours. I wanted it. I wanted it badly. Sam asked me about any savings I had (not much), but we agreed to pool our resources (ninety/ten). I was not in his league but we reckoned we could afford to buy the place outright.
‘It’s better than having the money sitting in the bank.’
The fact that he casually had over a million pounds just sitting in his bank account was eye-opening.
‘We’ll have to rent it out to start off with,’ said Sam. ‘It’s all about knowing what to spend and what to save.’
I already didn’t like the thought of stra
ngers in our home, polluting it with their taste, their friends and family, swimming in our pool, having sex in our bedroom.
‘Not for long though,’ I said.
Sitting in the dark that night, drunk, mesmerised by flickering candles and filled with hope and possibility, sparked the idea for Story Number Two.
Sam’s best friend since school days struggled with drug addiction. A typical story about the wrong crowd and shady figures who would hang out at the local basketball and tennis courts, tempting teenagers away from sport. Sam’s friend – we named him Gus – spiralled into the darkness of addiction. He progressed into crime, burglary, petty theft and ended up in prison. It was the wake-up call he needed and Sam thought he had turned over a new leaf, but the drugs were stronger than him. We would encourage people to share their own sad experiences with drugs to show that we were united by a shared experience. We would then reveal that Gus had sadly passed away before his twenty-fifth birthday.
‘I tried many times to save him,’ Sam would need to say here, sorrowfully, ‘but I couldn’t.’
This would then link up nicely to allow us to drop in details of the charity Sam had set up to help people like his friend.
Once back at work on our third ship together, it was surprising – or maybe not – how many people just didn’t check that ours was a registered charity before handing their money over. Some of them would even share their bank details so that Sam could help them navigate the deliberately complicated site.
Sam told me about a friend of his who believed that people were greedy and that was the way to get money out of them. ‘Offer them a “get rich even faster” scheme and they’ll be hooked,’ he’d suggested to Sam. But Sam believed that it was better to offer people a way to be good.
After I started learning from Sam, it was like magic. Passengers would tip me generously, tapping the side of their nose for me to ‘keep it quiet’. I always did. If money wasn’t forthcoming, there were other ways. I still worked long hours in the gift shop but offered to go above and beyond for some guests to make their holiday even better. Sam was right. People wanted to do good – to atone for past selfishness and mistakes. That’s where we stepped into the picture. We offered spiritual guidance, of a fashion. We gave people something they had been subconsciously seeking – self-forgiveness.
The Ex-Husband Page 9