Angel

by Kate Mitchell

  Angel

  A Psychological Suspense Thriller

  Kate Mitchell

  Now Published

  Angel

  Kate Mitchell

  First published by

  Now Published Ltd 2019

  Copyright © 2019

  nowpublishedbooks.com

  Digital Edition

  ISBN 978-1-912048-74-8

  Kate Mitchell has exercised the right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the copyright, Design and Patents act 1988

  All rights reserved, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a

  retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means,

  electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,

  without the prior permission of the publishers.

  Contents

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  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Brother’s Keeper

  Other Books by Kate Mitchell

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  Sometimes expecting an easy ride in life doesn’t pay off, but did it for John and his brother when they got involved with two younger women?

  Jenny and Laura, their lives bankrupt by disaster find themselves struggling in a world of fear. Can they beat the brothers’ lust and greed when their only weapons are charm and cunning?

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  1

  Inevitably we all awake from sleep, but sometimes the dream carries on. Although I understand in life some people don’t have the time to dream. And another thing people have told me is that life is only as good as you make it, whatever that’s supposed to mean, I don’t know. How extraordinarily smug these people are.

  I know I am not the happiest or most agreeable person in the world and probably not the easiest person to live with, yet who could have foretold how events were about to unfold for me.

  I had been married to John for twenty-one years. And I was proud to say at the time, I was the one who decided to terminate this drawn-out episode in our lives. There wasn’t any particular reason as to why, except I suppose I had become bored with him. If only I had opened my eyes wide enough to see beyond me, then I would have been able to analyze that he had gone out of his way to make himself boring to me.

  Let’s start with one; he would never argue with me. Two; he was always pleasant while his habits were always impeccably consistent. Three; he followed a precise routine, step-by-step until it drove me so mad that I was given to violent thoughts towards him. Anything, anything other than this terrible tedium. He wasn’t going to change. This would continue for the rest of our lives. There was no alternative but to have an affair. And I left evidence of the affair for him to stumble across and see. Love notes, appointments, I stole one of my lover’s shirts and put it in John’s wardrobe.

  It just didn’t work. John was blindly dependent on me. I was his Vivian, the same person when we first married, he didn’t see that I had changed. It was insulting.

  But I had changed in a big way. He had assumed I was as boring as him.

  It was with this belief that I decided on divorce proceedings. Boredom in marriage is a cardinal sin, and an unhappy contamination of the mind, which needed exterminating.

  When I told him on that Sunday evening, after he had made our hot cocoa, and was standing there in his pajamas, dressing gown, and slippers. He looked like he was seriously considering what I was proposing before opening the biscuit tin. We were to share four biscuits, two for him and two for me. Routine! Had he never noticed that I never ate those damn biscuits?

  ‘I want a divorce,’ I said as he sipped his cocoa. No response. ‘Did you hear? I want a divorce.’

  ‘Why?’ he asked politely, dipping his biscuit into his cocoa.

  ‘Because I’m bored ─ bored, bored, bored.’

  ‘But sweetheart, if you're bored, what about joining an evening class, sewing or something, I hear it can be very therapeutic.’ He held the saturated biscuit and dropped it into his mouth just before it disintegrated.

  ‘You idiot! You’re the one who's boring me. I had an affair just for the excitement which you didn’t even bother to notice.’

  ‘Sorry sweetheart,’ he replied in the same indifferent monotonous tone.

  ‘Hell! Aren’t you shocked? Don’t you want to know who with?’

  ‘Well, we have been married for a long time, and I understand that this sort of thing is not unusual. Drink your cocoa sweetheart, before it gets cold.’

  ‘Stuff the cocoa! And stuff you!’ I swiped my hand across the kitchen table knocking the cup, saucer, and contents to land with a conspicuous cackle on to the floor. But nothing had broken, except me. He obediently bent down to clear up the mess. ‘Don’t!’ I shouted. ‘Leave it.’

  ‘I think a good night’s sleep will do the trick,’ he smiled. ‘Like all good children, I too have to get up in the morning for work.’ He patted me lightly on top of the head like a child before returning to the floor to carefully mop up the spilled cocoa. With preoccupied tenderness, he retrieved the inanimate cup and saucer as though our marital union was salvageable.

  I stood watching him, his friendly old brown dressing gown, a testament to his convictions that we had now become those sad old people. While bending on his knees signified to me our lives; stale and sucked dry of excitement. And then I saw all the years ahead of us, an unremitting repetition of monotony. I knew then that I had to get out or else, I would have no other alternative other than to kill him, if only for the excitement.

  ‘Shall I make you another cocoa?’ now standing he asked. His stupid kiss-curl falling forward making him look a fool. Someone who I used to love but had now come to hate. And that was it. My love like my respect had broken. I stormed out of the kitchen and went straight to our bedroom and began packing my bags to leave.

  I thought I had been theatrically dramatic. I even thought he might think I had been over the top. Then again, I thought he would ask me to stay, in fact, I was expecting him to ask me to stay. But I had gone past that stage of the negotiations where he would promise to change, and that he would do this and that, and our lives would be better. Just give him a chance but none of that happened.

  While I was packing, he entered, I thought perhaps shyly even cautiously. From the side of my eye, I watched. A few tender words at this moment would have helped. But no, none of that came. And it was with a fury that I saw him carefully set his alarm clock for the morning, take off his dressing gown and hang it up with predictable carefulness. He had begun his routine just as if nothing had happened. Opening his side of the bed, he sat down and took off his slippers. These he carefully placed exactly in the same place he had done for every night since I can remember. A few inches away from the bed. He looked complacent. He looked daft, he didn't look anything like the husband I wanted to be tied to for the rest of my life.

  ‘I’m leaving,’ I was determined.

  ‘Night, night, sweetheart,’ he said turning over to his side having patted his pillow exactly
three times. Not once deviating from his routine. ‘Everything will look different in the morning. What you need, what we both need is a good night sleep.’

  I had had a long time to think about the events leading up to the divorce. If only I had not lost my temper. If only I had been cleverer and not allowed my passions to take over. If only I had credited him with more intelligence and been able to work out, that he had fooled me. Being dropped into this game I fell like a knight toppled by a queen. But then all I did, was not think, I only allowed myself to feel.

  In the beginning, John had said that I lived my life passionately. Of course, I had disagreed with him at the time. I was a levelheaded young woman in control of my tempers. But he was right then as he was right now. Dear John, knew me too well.

  Running away at the time meant I would regain my freedom to be that person I knew I was. I was still young and attractive, but more importantly, intelligent. I knew what it was that I wanted to live my life the way I desired. It was exciting. I felt liberated, defiant, a newly independent woman. At the time it felt marvelous. I had become the heroine in my own life.

  At work, every girl congratulated me for leaving the husband who was holding me back. I can see now that my life was interesting to them, I was entertainment. I was doing what they daren’t do, put an end to a marriage that had failed. It wasn’t difficult. John and I never had any children which meant there were no problems with that issue.

  We had both worked all our lives. I was proud of myself and my career. For John to me you understand, had become a disappointment. While I soared up the ladder of success, he firmly remained glued to the first rung of his station. Never achieving the projected promotions, (so he told me), which he should have had if only out of loyalty to the company. He had become static and yet, he remained. When he told me that old so-and-so, who had only joined the company five minutes ago, had passed him by on the promotional ladder, I went berserk. Why were you overlooked? Why didn't they pick you and didn't you let them know you were interested in bettering yourself?

  I was furious. I couldn’t understand what had happened to him. The decline in his prospects begun six years before our definitive divorce.

  ‘Sweetheart,’ he said that first time while softly pinching my cheek after my fury found a wedding gift vase and settled it fast to the floor, ‘It’s not his fault.’

  ‘But aren’t you going to do something about it?’ I almost screamed, stamping my foot and frankly enjoying my temper as if that was the only thing I had going for me.

  ‘Well, I’m certainly not going to give myself a heart attack over it,’ he smiled as if I was being ridiculous. ‘My turn will come when it comes.’ But it never did, from what I understood, from what he told me, from what he allowed me to believe.

  From that time onwards in our married life, I believed it was me who brought home the biggest wage packet. I had become the biggest success. It was how I saw things, and how I interpreted things or rather, how he helped me to see this convincible reality. The girls at work whom I found able and easy to confide in had pitied me, even pitied him. They remarked how awkward it must be for both of us and how strong our relationship must be to withstand such a change of circumstances.

  I had not pitied him. At first, I must admit, I felt some compassion for his dilemma, but then when I realized he had lost all fighting spirit, or so I thought. I had a fit of anger, which eventually turned to contempt.

  And so, you see when I walked out on him, I was not afraid. I agree that I had seen myself as the dutiful wife, well, in the beginning, at least until the last couple of years of our marriage. But as our situation changed, and I gained a greater income than him, I became more confident, while my respect for him diminished. Especially when I saw my money mounting up into a very healthy bank balance. And as I never spent anything on luxuries like expensive holidays for us both, holidays which he refused to take with me. His excuse is that he would rather stay at home. I thought he was being a male chauvinist or perhaps even feeling extra sensitive to the power of my financial clout. And so, I went on holiday with my friends and without him.

  Anyhow, fiscally, I was not afraid to leave him. I worked out that I could quite easily buy myself a small very neat one bedroom flat, which didn’t need much in the way of domestic maintenance. With only a minimal amount of mortgage to pay back, I was on the way to my independence. What I was doing sounded extremely viable, and sane. The next sensible step to take my life forward was to leave, slamming the door behind me.

  2

  John was unable to make the meeting with his lawyer to ease out the awkward corners. This was so like John to avoid to all life’s unpleasantness I thought at the time. I sat there with my lawyer feeling so confident and smug. I still believed that I was the winner even though John's lawyer had annoyed me as he also looked smug for some reason.

  How ridiculous this would have looked to my friends in the magazine world if I had told them what had happened. How interested they would be and how they would giggle. I would tell them how. conventional and ludicrous it was, that John hadn’t even bothered to turn up for the meeting. They would roll their eyes like me because they knew John as well as I did. I had been sharing my life with my friends on every stage of the game.

  As far as I could see I held all the cards. John was going down in the world while I was going up. And in this state of mind, it influenced the following proceedings. For I was free and the thought of John and these two men deciding once more the fate of my life was beyond suffocating. Do what you want with the money I told them. What do I care? And I didn’t care, for as far as I knew, John didn’t have any. Not a sou.

  From my newfound freedom, I had settled into my very small flat, I had a few friends around for a meal. It was very sophisticated and intellectual, we gossiped about the others which I had not invited to dine with us.

  But being free of John had a strange effect on me. Cocky and sure of myself and terrified that John was trying to get me back, I was doing all I could to push him away and everything to do with him. I was going places, and he wasn’t coming with me.

  Determined never to grow old, I was going to have some minor surgery done once I had the money saved. An insane need materialized to run away from anything which was too secure, too reliable, and of course, anything too sensible.

  Probably, it was in this state of mind that I brought about my downfall which reflected in my attitude concerning assets and things. Did I want the house? No! Absolutely not. My lawyer went ashen face, he, lifting his arm as if he was asking permission to speak asked if I wanted to reconsider. While I wanted him to be quiet and forget about what was being offered on the table. In my mind I saw John sitting at the table with that sad smile; twenty years I had given him. There would be no more.

  ‘Thank you for looking out for my interests, but I’ve thought about it,’ I interrupted again to tell them how well I had done for myself since leaving John. ‘I’ve made a new life I can’t go back to live in our old house again, it would be like stepping backward,’ I felt defiant, absolute, I was sure that I was making the right decision.

  ‘But it’s paid for,’ begun my lawyer, ‘You could sell it.’

  I laughed. Yet, all the time, John’s lawyer was quietly watching me.

  ‘If Mrs. Boreman does not want the house,’ started John’s lawyer.

  ‘For goodness sake,’ I interrupted. ‘Who cares? John can have the house. He can keep it – keep everything, I don’t care.’ For I knew, or rather, I believed that John could not afford the upkeep of the house, because, until I left, I had been paying for all the household bills. And here I was, sitting in the room with these two men while amusing myself with ideas of John opening all the bills and worrying himself silly about how to pay them. Now that he didn’t have my income to depend on, he might realize how valuable I was to him, and how he had taken me for granted.

  ‘Very well,’ said John’s lawyer, the house is settled on behalf of my client. If you would lik
e to sign here.’

  ‘I think you are behaving very unwisely,’ said my lawyer watching me take the document, which was stamped, legal and final. Then I signed.

  ‘Don’t worry yourself.’ I returned sarcastically. I think it was at this point my lawyer gave up on me. He shrugged with an attitude which suggested that he had been speaking wise words, but they had gone nowhere. And why was that, because he was talking to a woman. But at that point, I did not care about anything.

  ‘My client also,’ recommenced John’s lawyer, ‘asked me to ascertain whether his wife would require allowance each month?’

  ‘Want John’s money? I earn more than he does. No, let him keep it. He’ll certainly need it for the upkeep of the house.’ I jeered for I was confident, I had gained power, and now I was gaining control of the most important thing to me, my life.

  ‘Mrs. Boreman, if you are so determined to behave capriciously without taking any regard to my advice, then I must warn you that I cannot accept any repercussions…’

  And so, the meeting terminated though not to the liking of my lawyer. If he was still getting paid by me, what was his problem?