The Adulterer's Handbook

by Sam Anthony

  Stopping at the water’s edge, we turn to face each other. Sophia looks up at me and smiles warmly.

  “I’m so happy.” I don’t know what to say to that. She continues. “I’m really looking forward to our life together, Lee. This is like a fresh start. Just you, me and the baby.”

  She rests her hand protectively on her stomach.

  “I can’t tell her, Soph.”

  “What do you mean?” she looks confused, her smile cooling.

  “I can’t bring myself to tell Tamsin about the awful thing I’ve done to her.”

  “Of course you can. I’m sure she’ll understand when you tell her how much we love each other.”

  “I don’t want her to understand. I don’t want her to know at all. I want her to be happy that she’s married to me. I want her to love me. I want her to be ignorant of my adultery.”

  “But that can’t be. How can we be together if you don’t tell her about us?”

  “You’re not hearing me. I don’t want us to be together. I want to be with Tamsin for the rest of my life.”

  Sophia’s face transforms from confused to annoyed.

  “Why are you doing this to me? We’re going to have a baby? You have to tell her.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Then I will.”

  “Please don’t, Soph. It would make her so upset.”

  “This isn’t about her. It’s about us.”

  “I don’t think she’ll believe you. If I deny everything, then you’ll just come across as some sort of crazy woman who’s developed an unrequited crush.”

  “Oh, she’ll believe me all right.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “I told you. I have proof.”

  “I really don’t think she’ll be convinced by your fake emails and text messages.”

  “They’re not fake. You know that.”

  “But I’ll deny sending them. I can lie quite convincingly when I have to. I’ve had a lot of practice in the last few months.”

  “What about this then?” Sophia takes her phone out of her pocket and after a few presses of the screen, she hands it to me.

  I hear it before I see it. It’s the sound of two people making love. There’s moaning, gasping, slurping, sighing, squelching. It could be me, but it’s impossible to tell just from the sound.

  Then I see it. It’s a good quality recording of me, standing naked in Sophia’s spare bedroom. Someone is clearly kneeling in front of me, their back to the camera, wearing only a pair of stockings and high-heeled shoes. They’re giving me a blow job.

  “What’s this?” I can’t take my eyes off the screen. My knees have gone weak.

  “Don’t you remember?”

  I stare at her blankly.

  “That’s the first time we ever had oral sex. Do you think my bum looks too big? I hope it’s just the weird camera angle.”

  I swallow.

  “You recorded it?”

  “Of course. I filmed us every time we made love. I’ve got dozens of clips like this. I like to watch them when we’re apart.”

  “But … you have to delete them. All of them.”

  “No way!” Sophia takes her phone off me and, after a few more presses and swipes, she hands it back again. “This is one of my favourites.”

  We’re in Sophia’s kitchen. She’s wearing a classy evening dress, high-heeled sandals and sparkly jewellery. She’s perched elegantly on the work surface with her legs demurely crossed. I appear on screen from the left and walk towards her. “According to my friends, you’re the best high-class escort in the city,” I hear myself say. I scroll forward fifteen minutes into the video clip. Sophia is now naked and pressed up against the glass kitchen door as I take her from behind.

  “Do you remember it? That session was so hot. You made me climax five times before you shot your load all over my breasts. I loved it. We must do that one again soon.”

  “I don’t understand,” I say, shaking my head. “Who filmed these?”

  “Me. I set up my old phone to start recording before you arrived at my house. I hid it in cupboards or behind plants; wherever I’d decided we’d have sex that day. I thought you’d spotted it once, but you never did.”

  “You filmed us every time?” I still can’t come to terms with this.

  “Yes.”

  “And the recordings are all on your phone?”

  “Yes. On this phone and on my old one. I’ve also backed them up onto my laptop and my work computer. I thought it would be sensible to keep lots of copies. I’d be devastated if I lost them.”

  An idea pops into my head.

  “Just a minute … The F in your diary? Did that mean you filmed us?”

  “Now you’re getting it.”

  “I can’t believe it.” I’m stunned.

  “We can watch them whenever we like. I find it a real turn-on. I think you will too. We make a very sexy couple on screen.”

  “So they’re just for your personal use?”

  “That was the idea, yes.”

  “And no one else will ever see them?”

  “Well, that rather depends on you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, if you tell Tamsin about us today, then nobody ever has to see them. They’ll be our secret. But if you refuse to tell her, then I’ll be forced to email a few choice clips to her, and you really don’t want that. To be honest, you look a bit foolish in some of them; the ones when I spanked you and when you were pretending to be my slave, for example.”

  “But … you don’t have Tamsin’s email address.” I’m grasping at straws.

  “I do. There’s one on her school’s website. You mustn’t get too hung up on Tamsin, though. Unless you come clean about our relationship, I’ll be sending clips to all our work colleagues as well. Pretty soon they’ll be all over the internet. You might even become a pornstar when people see your amazing technique.”

  “You’re can’t be serious. You’re in all these videos too.”

  “I’ve never been more serious in my life. Don’t worry about me. I can easily edit them so my face doesn’t ever appear.”

  I imagine Tamsin, Charlie, John, my friends, my family, my colleagues all laughing hysterically at videos in which I humiliate myself with my mistress.

  All of a sudden a red mist descends.

  I lose it.

  I raise my hands to Sophia’s shoulders and give her a hard shove, dropping her phone in the process.

  She stumbles away from me until her heel catches on a tree root and she falls backwards, arms windmilling, towards the setting sun.

  “Lee …” Sophia shouts before there’s a spectacular splash, and she disappears beneath the green, frothing water.

  My first thought is, she won’t be happy about me ruining her new dress.

  My second is, I hope she doesn’t swallow any of that slimy, foul-smelling canal water.

  In a moment of panic, one thought comes to the fore: she can’t swim!

  Am I going to have to jump in and rescue her? I don’t mind my jeans getting wet, but I’m wearing my favourite shirt. Have I got time to strip off?

  Then, to my great relief, she comes coughing and spluttering to the surface. I expect to receive an earful of fully justified abuse, but, to my surprise, after some ineffectual splashing, she disappears beneath the surface again.

  The water quickly stills above her.

  She genuinely can’t swim.

  I’m about to jump into the canal and pull her to safety when I stop at the edge of the towpath.

  What if I do nothing?

  Sophia will die. She won’t be able to tell Tamsin anything. She won’t be able to show anyone embarrassing videos of me.

  I need to think fast.

  It’s not my fault she tripped over a tree root. It’s not my fault she can’t swim.

  But I brought her here, and I pushed her.

  I see bubbles making their way to the surface and gently popping as they release
the last of Sophia’s precious air. It surprises me that each one doesn’t contain a tiny scream.

  This is ridiculous! She’s drowning and I could save her, but I can’t move. I’m paralysed. Surely doing nothing at this point is outside my moral limits.

  I’ve got to jump in, but how long has she been down there now? One minute? Two? That’s too long already, surely. She must be dead by now.

  There are no more bubbles.

  Three minutes?

  She’s not coming back up.

  There’s no sign she was ever here.

  A few die-hard birds are still singing in the deepening gloom. The surface of the water has become as still and calm as it was before we arrived.

  “Evening!” I nearly jump out of my skin.

  An elderly man is walking his dog along the towpath.

  “Looks like you’ve dropped something.” Without breaking stride he nods in the direction of Sophia’s phone, which is still lying on the grass where I dropped it.

  “Cheers, mate.” I pick up the phone as the man walks on, without a backward glance, acknowledging my thanks with a wave of his hand. The dog snuffles in the long grass and I continue to observe them until they move out of sight.

  My brain is in overdrive. That was way too close for comfort. Three minutes earlier and that man would have seen me push Sophia into the canal and then stand by watching as she drowned. As it is, he’s a witness to my presence at what may well become a murder scene.

  Should I chase after him and murder him too?

  No!

  Am I sure?

  No.

  I’ve never been in a situation anything like this before. I don’t know what to do. Ordinarily, when I want to know the steps required to perform a task, I look them up on the internet.

  “What should I do if I’ve just pushed someone into a canal and not made any effort to save them and somebody witnessed the whole thing?”

  I suspect a question like that might set a few alarm bells ringing. The internet is not an option. I’m on my own here.

  As I see it, initially I have three options to choose between: turn myself in to the police and tell the truth about what happened; turn myself in and lie about what happened; or keep quiet about it and try to cover up my involvement.

  I can’t turn myself in. I’d have too much explaining to do.

  I choose option three.

  How do I go about covering it up?

  Should I jump into the canal and fish out Sophia’s lifeless body, then bury it far away in a deep grave where it will never be found?

  Should I just leave her at the bottom of the canal and hope that her corpse is never discovered?

  I haven’t seen a dead body before. I really don’t want to see this one. It’s staying there.

  I press a few buttons on Sophia’s phone, but it’s password protected. I try my birthday and it unlocks straight away. A wave of sadness washes over me. Sophia genuinely did love me and yet here I am, thinking of her in the past tense already.

  It’s quite dark now, too dark for anyone else to be out walking their dog. I use the torch on Sophia’s phone to scan the surrounding ground. The compacted soil is hard and dry so neither of us has left any footprints. Some grass is downtrodden, but it will spring back up in a short while. I can see no evidence that anything nefarious took place on this spot only a few minutes ago.

  I search through Sophia’s phone, looking for anything that might link her to me. The location function is switched off. That’s good. I can’t find anything suspicious in her search history either. There are records of a few phone calls between us which I quickly delete. I discover a few candid photos she’s taken of me and I delete these too. Finally, I locate the videos. Sophia wasn’t exaggerating; there are dozens of them. We’ve definitely had a lot of sex and she’s recorded it all. I have a look at a few clips and they bring back poignant memories. She was right, we do make a very sexy couple on screen.

  One by one I delete the video files until they’re all gone.

  Satisfied there’s no longer anything that incriminates me on Sophia’s phone, I’m about to wipe my fingerprints off and throw it into the canal when an idea occurs to me. If Sophia’s body is discovered, the police will be less likely to investigate her private life if it appears she’s thrown herself into the canal with the intention of ending her own life.

  I open her email app and start to compose a suicide note.

  “My darling Joe

  If you’re reading this, it’s because I’m at peace now. I’m so sorry to do this to you, but I’ve been really unhappy for a long time and I simply don’t want to go on living in this world anymore.

  Please forgive me.

  Sophia”

  It’s not good, but it’s the best I can come up with in my current state. Presumably, the best approach is to keep it short and vague.

  Should I send it straight away or leave it in Sophia’s drafts folder?

  If I send it now, to Joe, it will alert him straight away to the fact that something is amiss. He’ll immediately start searching for Sophia and almost certainly inform the police. However, if I leave it in Sophia’s drafts folder, unaddressed and unsent, it won’t be discovered until someone logs-on to Sophia’s email account.

  I don’t send it.

  I give the phone a thorough clean with my handkerchief and then throw it towards the spot where Sophia went under for the final time. It’s too dark to see much anymore, but I hear it splash as it enters the water, then the silence resumes.

  I’m reluctant to leave this spot. I feel like I ought to say some final words to the woman who loved me so much that she was prepared to leave her husband and embark on a new life with me. It’s also possible that she was carrying my child. God, I hope not!

  I can’t come up with anything to say that doesn’t sound trite, so I simply nod in her direction, as a last farewell, and head back to the lay-by.

  Chapter Twenty

  The Aftermath

  My mind is racing as I walk back to my car.

  What next?

  As I approach the lay-by, my first problem comes into view. It’s Sophia’s car, parked directly behind mine. Presumably, the keys are in her pocket at the bottom of the canal. The only other vehicle present is the burger van, containing one occupant, who’s still open for business, but has no customers at present.

  What should I do about Sophia’s car?

  As I see it, the following things are likely to happen over the coming hours and days, in roughly this order:

  Sophia will be reported missing to the police by Joe.

  The police won’t be too worried initially because people disappear for short periods all the time.

  When she fails to turn up or get in touch in a timely manner, there will be a search for Sophia, her car and possibly her phone too.

  Sophia’s car will be discovered in the lay-by. (I’ve never been in her car, so I don’t need to worry about fingerprints or DNA evidence from that source.)

  A detailed search will be carried out in the area around her car.

  Divers will search the canal.

  Sophia’s body will be found.

  The police will contemplate the possibility of foul play.

  Joe will be the initial prime suspect because it’s usually the husband who did it.

  Sophia’s ‘suicide note’ will be discovered.

  A cursory investigation will find nothing suspicious.

  The police won’t find any evidence incriminating Joe or anyone else.

  In the absence of evidence to the contrary, Sophia’s death will be recorded as an open verdict – a suspicious death, but probably suicide.

  That would suit me just fine.

  Would there be any benefit if I was to drive Sophia’s car somewhere else, assuming I could somehow retrieve her keys?

  It would probably trigger a fruitless search away from the actual crime scene, but presumably Sophia’s cell phone service provider would inform the police wher
e her phone was last used, so there would still be a search near the canal, with a high likelihood of her body being located.

  ◆◆◆

  I leave Sophia’s car parked where it is and walk towards mine, keeping my face averted so the man in the burger van can only see the back of my head in the darkness. There’s no way he’d be able to identify me. I’m also confident that there are no security cameras around here, away from any major buildings, which is a small comfort.

  Lowering myself into the driver’s seat, I start my engine and drive away cautiously.

  Should I try to establish some sort of alibi?

  If the police come to the conclusion that Sophia was murdered, and they can establish the time of death with any accuracy, it will be useful if I can supply witnesses who saw me, or thought they saw me, elsewhere at that time. Her cell phone service provider should be able provide a fairly accurate record of Sophia’s final movements and the time when her phone ceased working. I need to generate evidence that I was at some other location when it, and she, gave up the ghost.

  I decide to go to the pub nearest to my home. God knows, I could use a drink. I drive there by the most direct route that avoids potential CCTV cameras, enter and look around for any familiar faces. Fortunately, this pub is busy on Friday nights and there are several people I recognise by sight, acquaintances rather than friends.

  My plan is two-fold. I want to be remembered and I want to generate the impression that I’ve been here far longer than I have in reality. To this end, I approach several clusters of people that I recognise, force my way into their conversations, mention something I said to someone else in the pub earlier in the evening, claim that I’ve come straight from work to the pub and spent the whole night here, and then repeat the process. Hopefully, if asked, someone will think they saw me long before I actually arrived.

  “Hi, Tom, fancy seeing you here. I’ve not been in this pub for ages, especially not so early. Can you believe I’ve been here since six-thirty …?”