The Second Woman

by Charlotte Philby

  No. Maria pulls herself out of the current. That was not her fault. Whatever happened – whether whatever Jorgos said or did pushed her to hang herself, or whether he helped her tie the knot – that was on Clive. He was the one who betrayed Artemis, and their child. Maria was a friend to David, and she loved his mother. David knows that, he trusts her – she is his confessor, and he has shared too much to doubt himself now.

  She thinks back to the days after that illicit first adult kiss, the evening she had found him at the kitchen table with the DNA results confirming the girls weren’t his. If Anna hadn’t interrupted when she did it was impossible to know what would have happened that night. As it was, Maria avoided him for the next few days, David heading out early for work and returning late. A few days later, she saw him again. Anna had been out all day and the girls had just gone down for a nap when she heard the front door close. She could tell from the way his footsteps paused in the hallway that it was David. Maria knew the family’s movements so well by then that she could picture him removing his suit jacket and hanging it over the newel-post.

  He said nothing as he stepped into the room, walking up behind her where she stood at the sink, swilling a plate. There was an inevitability to it, and she felt herself freeze, his breath against the back of her neck, his fingers moving gently under her T-shirt, and then sliding down beneath her knickers.

  He didn’t kiss her for at least a minute. She felt herself fall forward against the counter, giving in to his touch. It was such a relief to feel a man’s hands on her after so long that for a while she could convince herself it was good, what was happening, as he finally moved his fingers back up and undid her trousers, and then tugged them down sharply.

  Back in the car, forcing herself to meet Jorgos’ eye, Maria swallows as he speaks.

  ‘Hello, Maria.’

  Maria

  ‘Where’s David?’ Maria speaks in Greek, trying to establish a link between them, unable to stop her voice from shaking as the men guide her towards what she sees now is an old farmhouse.

  The moon has receded once again behind the cloud and it is impossible to make out what lies on either side of the track, other than the building beyond.

  If she runs, where will she end up? They might be surrounded by bog or open fields, offering the perfect view for her to be shot at, with the help of the flashlights the men are holding. Maria tries to map the route back to the main road in her mind, but they had driven for so long without signs of life before arriving here that she knows she will never outrun these men, even if she could get away.

  ‘He’s waiting for you,’ Jorgos replies evenly.

  They move inside the house, through a damp porch and into the kitchen, furnished with dark wooden furniture and old-fashioned light fittings.

  ‘Where is the bathroom’ Maria says, reverting to English. It is the only thing she can think of to buy herself time.

  ‘After.’ It is the first time the second man has spoken. He is heavyset with blond hair and slightly buck teeth, an accent she can’t quite place.

  After what?

  ‘Please, I have my period and I really need to change my tampon,’ she says, a little too desperately.

  It is a cheap trick but she sees Jorgos flinch. Buoyed by his reaction, she presses on. ‘I can do it in here if I have to …’

  The men exchange a brief glance before Jorgos moves towards her, gesturing for her to take off her coat. ‘The toilet is there. Give me your bag as well.’

  Maria flinches. ‘I need my tampons.’

  Jorgos inhales, as if she is pushing her luck.

  ‘They are in here?’ He takes the bag from her and opens it, holding her eye for a moment before looking inside and spotting a small purple carton. Despite the cold, Maria feels a film of sweat on the top of her lip as Jorgos opens the packet and inspects the rows of sealed tampons.

  He looks her up and down, her stomach tightening as his attention lingers over her breasts, and then he presses the box into her hand.

  ‘Hurry up.’

  Maria opens the door into the loo and closes it behind her, her heartbeat racing as if unleashed from its cage.

  Her fingers shaking, she draws one of the tampons out and unwraps it, leaning over slightly, pulling down her pants with her other hand. Hearing Jorgos clear his throat on the other side of the door, she looks to her left and sees a flash of his head through the crack of the door. Whispering a prayer to herself, she leans forward a little, folding herself out of sight, obscuring her front from potential view as she quickly reaches inside her bra, pulls out the phone she had been given years ago by Felicity, and pushes it with a single shove up between her legs, dropping the unused tampon into the toilet and flushing.

  Running her fingers for a moment under the tap, the water icy-cold, she feels her breath return to a more regular beat.

  ‘I said quick!’ Jorgos’ voice is so close that Maria jumps.

  ‘You didn’t say you were using the toilet,’ he adds as she opens the door and Maria’s eye flickers.

  ‘I had to get rid of the old one.’

  They look at each other for a moment and then the second man speaks from his position on the other side of the kitchen, his back against the counter.

  ‘Take off your clothes.’

  Maria shakes her head and Jorgos pulls himself up at her show of resistance, reminding her that she has no choice other than to do what the men say. She is throbbing inside where she inserted the phone and she doesn’t let her mind imagine what is coming next. Though if they planned to rape her, why would they let her change her tampon first?

  She just needs to comply, that’s all.

  Taking another step back into the kitchen, Maria removes her top layers and stands there, the men watching her shiver in her bra and knickers.

  The cold pricks her skin but she doesn’t move, apart from her eyes which briefly cast around the counter behind Jorgos’ sidekick, for anything she might use as a weapon if she can get close enough.

  ‘Keep going,’ Jorgos says and she looks at him.

  ‘What are you going to do to me?’ she asks, and he cocks his eyebrow.

  ‘Why are you afraid, Maria? We are doing our job. Just as you have been.’

  There is contempt in his voice and Maria’s jaw tightens. ‘David is not going to like this,’ she says more firmly, convincing herself that David is still on her side.

  ‘David understands,’ Jorgos says. ‘Take off the rest.’

  Hans moves behind her. Closing her eyes briefly, Maria unclips her bra, letting it fall to the ground, and then her knickers, not looking down at the pale mauve cotton that lies crumpled at her feet.

  She stands there for a moment, her humiliation complete, or so she thinks.

  ‘Turn around,’ Jorgos says.

  Turning slowly, Maria feels the men’s eyes on her body. Her instinct is to lift her arms to hide her nipples hardening against the cold, but she keeps them by her side, waiting for one of the men to move forward.

  They are silent for what feels like a minute and then the second man speaks.

  ‘Open your legs.’

  Maria feels a rush of silent horror, picturing the foreign object stuffed inside her, willing away tears which suddenly ambush her as she slowly complies, shifting her feet into the second position the twins learnt at the ballet classes she sometimes took them to at her local church in Hampstead.

  ‘Bend over,’ Jorgos says and Maria hesitates, long enough for Hans to stand a little straighter. She breathes in, knowing that it is all over, understanding instinctively what comes next, once the device is inevitably discovered.

  ‘Jorgos.’

  The voice makes her cry out in shock, the handle of the door turning a split second before, and a third man steps in, dressed in uniform. ‘We have to go now, or the Captain says we’ll miss our flight path.’

  Maria stays there a moment, frozen, and then Jorgos calls out, as if for the benefit of someone not in the room. ‘She’s
clean. Right, let’s go. Now.’

  Maria hears the roar of the engines outside as soon as they start to move towards the back door of the farmhouse, the jet screaming to life as she lets herself be led towards the steps to the plane.

  She is in shock, reminding herself that she is safe now, that the men didn’t touch her, that they had turned their backs in some ludicrous show of respect as she hurriedly dressed herself again, moments after their thwarted search.

  There is no one else on the plane as they step inside, met by pristine leather armchairs and classical music playing over the speakers.

  ‘Where is David?’ Maria asks again, more quietly this time, casting around the otherwise empty aircraft.

  Jorgos indicates for her to sit by the window and settles himself beside her, his mate sitting opposite.

  ‘He went ahead,’ Jorgos replies without looking at her and Maria feels the plane start to lurch down the private runway, and across the point of no return.

  Maria

  Maria doesn’t know how or when she falls asleep but when she awakes, she feels the plane descending towards its final destination, the familiar expanse of turquoise water dotted with sparkling atolls.

  ‘Do you need something to drink?’ the man opposite asks, noticing her come to.

  ‘Water, please,’ she says.

  He stands and heads towards a bar on the other side of the jet.

  Maria is acutely aware of Jorgos’ presence beside her.

  ‘Is this Malé?’ she asks, not expecting an answer, but he shakes his head.

  Maria feels her chest tighten. ‘But this is the Maldives?’

  ‘Yes.’ There is an amused look in Jorgos’ eye, as if he is enjoying her lack of power, feeding off the control it gives him. For a second, she pictures him approaching Artemis’ house the night she died and Maria feels a burst of barely containable rage. She wants to grab him by the throat, to gouge out his eyes. But instead she sits in her seat, her fingers entwined.

  ‘Is David here?’

  ‘He’s at the house,’ Jorgos replies and Maria’s mind holds onto this snippet of information.

  ‘The house?’

  When David said they were going to the Maldives she had assumed he had meant the same resort she had been to with the family that Christmas.

  Jorgos looks back at her, refusing to elaborate, and Maria looks away.

  Something about this alternative plan troubles her. She had pictured it all so differently, and yet what had she expected, that they would be hanging out with honeymooners, eating from the buffet at a public hotel? Had she really pictured it at all? If she had, she wonders if she would be here now.

  ‘Thank you,’ she says, taking the bottle of water from the tall blond man. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Hans,’ he replies, resuming his seat and looking out of the window as the plane approaches a tiny island. Maria watches as they descend towards a purpose-built runway that juts out of the island, which is occupied by a series of three villas, all white with terracotta slates on the roofs, flanked by palm trees.

  From above, she can see that on the other side of the island there is a jetty and a tiny boat tethered to the boardwalk; aside from the buildings and an area of garden leading towards the shore, she can see nothing but sea and sky.

  Interrupting her thoughts, Jorgos turns to her and smiles for the first time.

  ‘Here we are. Home sweet home.’

  Maria

  The Maldives, the day Anna dies

  There is something about David that she can’t place as she walks down the stairs towards the glistening tarmac. Then she sees it, the likeness to his father as he steps forward in his pressed trousers and short-sleeved shirt, slipping so easily into Clive’s shoes.

  ‘You made it,’ he says, kissing her in a way that feels unnatural in front of Jorgos and Hans, after everything that has just happened. ‘Did you manage to sleep?’

  ‘Yes,’ Maria says, forcing a smile. She has no phone to check the time but she knows the flight is around thirteen hours so she imagines it must be mid-morning. The sleep on the plane had been deep, considering everything that she had been through, and she wonders if her body had let her pass out in an act of self-preservation.

  ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t travel with you. It was deemed safer this way. Just in case.’

  In case his father’s men had discovered she was a mole, and had to kill her? Except, with Clive so ill and David due to take over the helm, these are no longer Clive’s men. They are David’s.

  Maria looks down. ‘I understand.’

  David takes her hand, speaking brightly though his palms are damp in a way that suggests he is nervous. ‘Come and have a look around. This place is all ours, for as long as we need it. We’re safe together here.’

  * * *

  ‘So this is our villa,’ David says, guiding her towards the main residence, with false jollity.

  ‘Who do the other two belong to?’ she asks as he opens the door into an airy kitchen with veneered pine cupboards, leading through to a dining room at one end and a large double bedroom at the other.

  ‘Jorgos and Hans are in one of them. The third is for the staff who run the place, and security.’

  Maria’s mind moves to the cameras she noted pointing in, and out, at various points, as they landed.

  ‘Where’s the bathroom?’ she asks and David leads her towards the plainly furnished master bedroom, pointing at the en suite beyond an open door.

  ‘I might have a shower if that’s OK, freshen up after the flight.’

  ‘As you wish,’ David says and she smiles, stepping inside and locking the door.

  She unzips her bag and takes out her washbag, scanning around for cameras before reminding herself this is David’s domain. They won’t be watching her in here. They aren’t watching her at all. The thing with the phone and the search was a necessary final test – a test she had anticipated and prepared for, transferring everything she needed from her original phone to the second hidden device, which she had always planned to transfer back to her handbag after it had been checked. She hadn’t anticipated the second part, though, and the memory of the strip-search chips at her, even if she understands why they had to do it. She had anticipated them thinking that her phone might have been bugged by someone else. Somehow she hadn’t anticipated that they would suspect she herself was a conscious security risk. Except after Anna, she would be naive to assume they would trust her.

  Maria’s mind moves to Harry. It is too risky to try to contact him straight away. Instead, she undresses and steps inside the shower, turning on the water and then stepping out again. Bracing herself, she bends over and moves her fingers inside herself, fiddling around for the phone. It had been much easier putting it in than it is attempting to take it out, and Maria feels panic set in, imagining this foreign object moving further inside her. If she can’t get it out, she will die. There will be no choice but to tell David that she needs to go to hospital. Perhaps she can feign appendicitis or an extreme urinary infection. But there is no way that will work. She has to do this on her own. Pressing her eyes tight against the pain, refusing to cry out with David just on the other side of the door, she reminds herself that women give birth to babies many times the size of the object that she needs to prise from her body.

  She squeezes her pelvic floor, catching a corner of the plastic with her forefinger and thumb, tugging until she manages to get a grip around the handset and giving it a final pull. She stays there for a moment, bent over, before moving to the see-through washbag containing soap and a flannel, and mini shampoos and conditioner, which she had chosen believing they would be flying from Heathrow together, with only hand luggage.

  She quickly wraps the phone inside the flannel, and tucks it into the washbag before ducking into the shower, collapsing with relief against the white tiles.

  ‘Better?’ David asks, when she emerges back into the bedroom fifteen minutes later, having lathered herself with soothing
lavender-scented body lotion, and wrapping her wet hair in a towel.

  She smiles at him. ‘Much.’

  ‘Good,’ he says, stepping towards her and pulling off the towel wrapped around her body.

  Later that evening, Maria is lying on the sofa in the living area of the villa, resting her eyes, when Jorgos enters the room unannounced. Gasping, she sits up.

  ‘You frightened me.’

  Jorgos barely seems to register her presence. ‘David?’ he calls out and David enters from the bedroom, apparently unbothered to see Jorgos here without invitation.

  ‘It’s done.’ Jorgos doesn’t say another word but Maria knows instantly from David’s reaction, the way he leans against the doorframe for support, exactly what he is referring to.

  When Maria thinks of David now, she sees him as two separate people: on one side there is her childhood friend, the boy she loved like a brother. It is as though the image is a jigsaw which has been smashed apart and put back together, with all the pieces in the wrong places so that here he is, the other David – a man she barely recognises, a man capable of killing his wife.

  Maria

  Maria can’t sleep. She doesn’t cry, either. It’s not her loss to bear. But the girls … As her mind moves to Rose and Stella there is a wrenching in her chest, like the cracking open of bone.

  Anna is dead. David’s words move on repeat in her mind between cold sheets, her gaze fixed to the ceiling of the bedroom as she lies awake, following the circling of the blades of the fan above her head.

  It is too late. The only thought she can cling onto now is the girls who have lost both the man they believed was their father, and now, just months later, their mother, too.

  David doesn’t come to bed, and she is glad not to have to pretend to comfort him right now, scared of what her touch will say.