Authors: Catherine Hunt
It had been a performance that far outshone any acting ability her lover might have had. Oscar winning. She had played the abused wife to a tee.
Up close, Ms Maxwell was nothing special, nothing special at all. Superficially attractive, maybe, but oh so dull. From the word go, she had lectured Anna about the modern approach to divorce – no blame, no points scoring, let’s be reasonable, let’s all sit round a table and sort it out with a civilized little chat. Screw that. She was having nothing to do with that. She was going to hang Harry out to dry. Condescending cow.
Poor Joe, she thought, how dreary the sex must be. It was a dangerous thought, a thought that rocked her and brought bile to her mouth; it spoiled the pleasure she had been getting from thinking that she was sleeping with the lawyer’s husband.
It had been hard, very hard indeed, to suppress her feelings. But she had done so and she was pleased with herself; she had passed this crucial test, she had mastered her emotions. But there was one final twist of the knife to come. The first interview was over. She stood up to go, the rictus grin still firmly plastered on her face.
Laura came with her to the door, handed her a business card. Anna forced herself to take it, forced herself to beat back the wave of nausea that filled her throat. She hardly saw the card; all she could focus on was the wedding ring, cool and solid on the other woman’s hand.
The memory was like poison. And now, all this time later, Joe was still living with Laura Maxwell, the ring was still on her finger. To make it worse, he had told her he was ‘concerned’ about his wife. Laura had fallen off her horse, Laura was upset, Laura was highly stressed, Laura needed help. Anna wanted to put her fingers in her ears and scream. She wanted to yell at him, to ask him why the hell he cared one little jot; he’d made it quite clear he wanted to be rid of her.
She lay beside him in bed, watching his chest rise and fall. There was a patch of scarring beneath the black, curly hair. Soon after their affair began, she had asked him about it and he had recounted how, aged three, he had reached up for the handle of a teapot and it had fallen, spilling its boiling contents on his chest. He had needed a skin graft.
As he told the story, she had smiled secretly to herself because she already knew all about the scar and what had caused it. She had known for twenty years, ever since the days when she raided the dustbins outside his home, gathering information. The teapot accident had been referred to in a discarded letter from his aunt. She had the letter still; it was part of the collection.
How useful that information had been and still was – because of it, she could show interest in the things he liked before he ever told her that he liked them, she could give opinions she knew he would share, make remarks to make him love her. Occasionally she wondered if she had gone too far, had shown an almost incredible ability to hit the right spot, but why should he be surprised, wasn’t compatibility an important part of love? She had been right when she’d told him they were soulmates.
It was that dangerous time just after sex when lovers talk about risky subjects, things like commitment and love and the future. Anna wanted to talk about all of them though she was smart enough to avoid using the actual words.
‘You must be under a lot of strain, honey, what with having to worry about Laura,’ she began.
‘It’s weird. I’ve never known her like this before. She’s always been able to handle stuff herself.’
‘I don’t mean to sound hard, Joe, but the thing is not to get distracted by her problems,’ She smiled and eased her breasts against him.
‘No chance of that sweetheart. You’re the only one who distracts me,’ he kissed her neck.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ she said, ‘maybe it’s time. Maybe we should just get on with it. Why don’t you leave her?’
He made no reply, kissed the top of her breasts.
‘Let’s not wait any longer, Joe, just leave. Now.’
She regretted the words as soon as she said them. They were too pushy, just a whisper away from clinginess and desperation. She knew that with any couple there was always an imbalance, separating the one who loves from the one who is loved. She worried that the imbalance was all against her, that she was the one who loved too much.
He leaned on one elbow looking into her green eyes and stroking her hair.
‘Don’t you think I want to, Anna. There’s nothing I’d like more. But it would be stupid to do it now.’
She was relieved that he didn’t seem put off by her eagerness, perhaps he hadn’t noticed. But, almost at once, relief was replaced by frustration. He wasn’t leaving Laura Maxwell. Not yet, anyway.
He always said he was terrified of divorce. Laura would take him to the cleaners, of course she would; she did it at work, she was bound to do it at home. He was now a partner in the Greene hotel business and he had a lot to lose. Things would be bad enough without Laura knowing that he had found someone else and that the someone else was Anna Pelham.
So they had agreed to wait. They would wait until Anna’s divorce was through, until Laura Maxwell had secured for her as much of Harry Pelham’s wealth as she possibly could.
For Anna, it had been the most delicious payback. Every time she brought Laura more details of her husband’s hidden assets, playing the victim and begging Laura to investigate them thoroughly and claw them back, she got a tremendous thrill. It was wicked, really it was. To have your lover’s wife working her socks off to make you rich, well, that was hard to beat, wasn’t it? On two occasions, she had bought Laura a present just, as she told her, to say a small ‘thank you’.
But there had been a downside. When she told Joe his wife was handling her divorce, he had been horrified. She’d had to struggle hard to get him to accept it, explaining to him that it had happened by accident; friends had told her Morrison Kemp was the best firm to use and she had not realized his wife worked there, nor had she known his wife’s maiden name, which she used for work. By the time she’d found out, it was too late to change. At least, Anna persuaded, she would know if Laura’s attitude to her ever changed and if she suspected anything.
Joe had lived with it but it made him ultra-cautious about their affair. He had absolutely insisted, despite Anna’s best efforts to convince him otherwise, that her divorce must be finished before he could leave Laura. To begin with Anna had agreed, grateful he had been placated, but now she didn’t want to wait, she couldn’t wait, anymore. The longer the delay, she believed, the less chance she had of getting him. There was a crucial window and it was passing.
She tried again. ‘You know it’s just that I love you so much, Joe,’ she moved on top of him, her legs straddling him. ‘I dream of the day when we can be together all the time.’
‘Me too, honey. It won’t be long now, I promise.’
‘You know one of the things I love best about you? One of the million things. You always make me feel like there’s going to be a happy ending.’
He pulled her to him and kissed her forehead.
‘Of course there’s a happy ending. The thing to hang on to is that when this is over we’ll have the rest of our lives together. We just have to be patient a bit longer. Trust me.’
It was not what she wanted to hear.
It was as she hung there above him, his lips on her breast, that she saw it: his mobile, sitting on the bedside table.
It was not what she wanted to see.
Panic engulfed her. He never used to bring his mobile when they were together, but he’d had it with him recently and now here it was again, up close and personal, right next to the bed. There could be only one reason it was there, so he could keep in touch with his wife.
When he’d gone to the bathroom, she reached for the phone to read his texts, but it was gone. With a sinking heart she realized he had taken it with him and she felt sure she knew why. She leapt from the bed, ran to the bathroom door, and listened. Nothing. Of course not. He would not be so crass as to actually call Laura from his lover’s house. He would be messaging her, that was it; messages of love and concern.
When Joe had gone she gave herself up to the black mix of rage and frustration that filled her. She felt the weight of it beginning to crush her from the inside out. She must not let it unhinge her, she could not afford any mistakes, she must keep her mind clear, perfectly focused, sharp with hate.
Anna Pelham stared out of the bedroom window at the long narrow garden and the wooded hill beyond. A black cat was scratching in a patch of soft earth behind the old compost heap, roughly at the spot where the briefcase containing Joe’s collection was buried. She couldn’t recall if a black cat was a sign of good or bad luck and she didn’t care. She would make her own destiny; she did not need luck to help her.
She went into the garden, dug up the case, and unlocked it. There were two collections inside, and with a pulse of loathing, she took hold of the second one. The Laura Maxwell collection. So much smaller than Joe’s but oh so toxic. Just a few things she had gathered in a hurry after she’d found out about Joe and Laura, twenty years ago, before she’d been taken into the psychiatric hospital. Lately it had grown with notes she’d made about Laura’s habits while stalking her, with pages of information printed off the Internet, with a scarf stolen when she visited Laura’s office in case it might come in handy sometime.
She looked at Laura’s collection with a heart full of hate, and the pain of all those years ago was back with her, as sharp as ever.
When she had first instructed Laura to act in her divorce, Anna had wondered if she might remember her name from school. She’d had to hand over her marriage certificate showing her maiden name: Annabel Roberts. There had been no sign of recognition. Why should there be? They had been in different years, had never spoken – the adult Anna Pelham could not have been more unlike the shy, fat, ugly schoolgirl.
But one thing had not changed; one thing in common remained. They both wanted Laura dead. Annabel Roberts had prayed for it, Anna Pelham would make it happen.
She tried to remember what Joe had said about his wife. At the time, listening to it had driven her insane and she had tried to blot it out. But she needed to know it now, because the information could be useful, as it had been before. Like the time he’d told her about Laura’s problem with Sarah Cole and Mary Hakimi.
Afterwards, she had googled Clive Walters and found out from his LinkedIn profile that he was a personal trainer at a Brighton gym. She had called him and told him she was a friend of Sarah Cole, the lawyer who worked – correction, had worked – for Morrison Kemp solicitors. Sarah had confided in her, she said, told her the whole sorry story. Sarah had been very upset about what had happened to his sister. It hadn’t been her fault, she wanted him to know that, but still she had been fired for it. She also wanted him to know that there never had been any letter from the solicitors telling his sister that she needed to remind them to renew the court order. Laura Maxwell had wanted to forge one, but Sarah had refused to take any part in it. That was why she’d lost her job.
Clive Walters had lapped it all up. He’d never asked her name, probably assumed it was really Sarah herself who was calling him. Later that day he’d rung back, leaving a message saying he wanted ‘to check a few details’ with her, and telling her he was putting in an official complaint, on behalf of his sister. The whole thing was a disgrace and he wasn’t going to let it go. Anna heard the greed in his voice; he was onto a good thing and he was going to make the most of it.
She hadn’t called him back. He was making a complaint, there would be an investigation; she had no further need of Clive Walters. It would cause Laura Maxwell a lot of grief and that was the object of the exercise. She put the mobile in her bag, took a walk on the cliff path, and threw it into the sea.
This time, Joe had told her that Laura was highly suspicious, thought that someone was trying to kill her. Joe said he thought that was ridiculous; she was overstressed; there was no evidence. That was good. Laura had gone to the police with her fears. That was bad. What was their attitude? It was important that the police, too, were sceptical, that Laura was undermined on all sides. Anna concentrated, but couldn’t recall Joe saying anything about the reaction of the police.
She thought it was unlikely they’d make much of an effort. There was nothing concrete to prove that Laura had been deliberately targeted, nothing that couldn’t have been accidental. Investigating would involve considerable work that might well turn out to be wasted time. She felt confident until she remembered that Laura was a lawyer and would know how to deal with the police; she might be able to pull strings to make sure they took an interest.
A beautiful idea occurred to her and she laughed out loud. She thought it over, looking for flaws but she couldn’t find any; without a doubt she could get away with it. She could see no way it could backfire and be traced to her, and if it worked, it would damage, maybe destroy, Laura’s credibility with the police. Better still, it would damage Laura, would seriously frighten her.
She went to a drawer full of underwear and fished out another pay-as-you-go phone stashed at the back, a spare one, in case of emergencies. She lay down on the bed, and for a few happy moments, smelled Joe’s scent on the bedclothes. She buried her head in them, breathing in greedily.
Very soon now, she and Joe would truly be together, all the impediments to their love would be cleared away. The end of twenty years of wasted life. Twenty years that were like dust and ashes to her. A wasteland.
She entered Laura’s mobile number into the phone. She didn’t even need to think about the message; it seemed to have been screaming in her head forever.
Next time I’ll get you, you fucking bitch.
Pressed send. Felt pleasure. Hot and thrilling.
The texts came thick and fast, her fingers itching to tap out the words, words that would sow terror and dismay. Keep cool, she told herself. Think about it. Think what’s going to scare the shit out of her.