The Guilty Wife Read online

  Alex sat back in her seat, clearly still trying to come up with a reason why it was my husband.

  ‘You can’t just make it be him if it’s not him,’ I said bitingly. ‘What about Mark? He still doesn’t have an alibi.’

  ‘It’s not like I want it to be Jason, Bethany. Obviously I don’t. I just think it all fits, and yes, I know the note was there when you got home but there could be a logical explanation for that, too. The only thing pointing to Mark is that he doesn’t have an alibi. There’s much more evidence to suggest it’s Jason.’

  ‘Mark didn’t like Calum,’ I said. ‘That’s motive.’

  ‘I suppose. But you said it was just one passing comment, not a history of hatred. I’m not writing Mark off, but you can’t think it’s him with so little evidence, and not even look at Jason.’

  ‘Oh,’ I gasped, a memory surfacing.

  ‘What?’

  ‘He went back into the house. Jason. After I’d locked up and got in the car he said he forgot his phone charger and went back in for it. He could have left the note then.’

  We looked at each other, neither one of us wanting to say it. I knew Alex’s theory was solid. But still. It couldn’t be my own husband. Could it?

  ‘Well,’ I said slowly. ‘Let’s say – just hypothetically – that it was Jason. Now what?’

  ‘We can’t just go to the police without being sure,’ Alex said. ‘We need to watch him, study what he’s up to, work out if there’s any evidence that points to him.’

  ‘If I haven’t noticed anything by now …’

  ‘You didn’t know that you were supposed to be looking. Now you’ll be paying attention. But, Bethany, you need to act normal, OK? He can’t know that you suspect him.’

  I nodded, feeling sick. Could I really convince Jason that everything was normal, now that I thought it was possible he’d murdered Calum?

  If he knew about the affair, which I thought I’d done so well to keep from him, surely he’d see through me now, too. I felt betrayed, although I knew that made me a total hypocrite.

  ‘I’ll also catch up with my friend in the police force and see if he can give me anything at all on the Calum case,’ said Alex.

  My look wasn’t lost on her.

  ‘I did him a, uh, a favour once. He totally owes me.’

  I managed a smile, in spite of the circumstances. Her poor cop friend didn’t stand a chance. Whatever information he had would be given up in minutes. I called it the Alex effect.

  ‘Alex, what are we going to do about the knife?’

  It didn’t escape me that I’d just used the word we. I was making this her problem, but I couldn’t bear trying to cope alone, now that she knew the truth.

  She sat still, gnawing the inside of her mouth.

  ‘Honestly,’ she said eventually. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Well, as my lawyer, what’s your advice?’

  ‘Honey, I can’t be your lawyer.’

  ‘But you said—’

  ‘No, when you came in and asked me to be your lawyer I said I didn’t know if legal privilege would apply.’

  ‘I only told you because you can’t tell anyone!’

  ‘Bethany, who the hell am I going to tell? I’m not going to turn you in, obviously. My lips are sealed. But I’m a divorce lawyer. The only stuff I know about criminal cases is what I learned in university, and that was a bloody long time ago. Plus, as a lawyer I’m pretty sure I’d have to turn that knife in to the cops. So I don’t think you really want me representing you, do you?’

  ‘But Alex,’ I whispered. ‘The killer can’t think I’ve talked. The only reason I came to you was because, if he found out, he’d know my secrets were safe with you.’

  Alex’s cheeks flushed. I was the worst friend in the world, dragging her into danger like this. I tried to elicit the guilt that I knew I should be feeling. But it was such a relief to have told someone what was happening that it was hard to make room for emotions like remorse.

  ‘Fine, I’ll be your lawyer. Your divorce lawyer. God knows you’ll probably need one at the end of this.’

  She gave me a wry smile.

  ‘When I go into the office I’ll draw up the paperwork for you to be on my books as an official client. Although to be honest if it is Jason, I’m not sure he’d be thrilled about finding that out, either.’

  I filled my cheeks with air and let it out slowly. There was no good solution. This would have to do for now.

  ‘So the knife …?’

  Alex looked at me, her expression intense.

  ‘Listen to me, Bethany,’ she said. ‘That knife is evidence that could lead to the arrest of whoever killed Calum.’

  She was enunciating every word. I screwed up my face at her.

  ‘So you should hand it over to the authorities and tell them what you know.’

  She raised her eyebrows, slowly and deliberately.

  ‘If you don’t – and they find it – there could be huge consequences.’

  ‘Right. So … if I was to get rid—’

  ‘As a professional,’ she interrupted, ‘if you don’t hand it over, then I would be obliged to tell the authorities … if I know what you’ve done with it.’

  I nodded, slowly and deliberately. So the knife was still my problem.

  ‘Right. Good. Glad that’s settled,’ said Alex. ‘Now you need to go have a shower and freshen up. I could do with another caffeine hit, and I’m going to go out and get us some breakfast. Is a pastry all right?’

  She must have noticed the confusion on my face because she pointed at her wall, where the clock read six thirty. It was morning already. I nodded my approval at her pastry suggestion.

  She got dressed, added a pair of the sky-high heels she always wore and bustled out of her flat, leaving me in silence. I stared at the knife on the table, going over what Alex had just said. I should hand it over, I knew that. But since the arrival of those letters, what I should do and what I actually did were two very different things.

  So taking it to the police was out of the question, especially when my prints were now probably all over it, and there was a photo – somewhere – of me holding the thing.

  I had no concept of how closely I was being watched. Was it just when I was in my home? Was my phone tapped? Or did the killer – I refused to think of him as Jason without solid proof – know where I was and what I was doing at all times? I looked around me nervously, my eyes hovering over the silver clock on the wall, the photo frames on the bookshelf, the chandelier that hung low over the coffee table. Could they be concealing cameras, microphones?

  I couldn’t put my best friend at even more risk. She was already a potential target. Hiding evidence at her house would make her an accessory, could jeopardise her career. It was out of the question.

  But then, why had she been acting so strangely when she explained that she wanted nothing to do with the knife? She could have just said as much, without all the facial contortions and overly pronounced words. Maybe she’d been telling me more than just to dispose of the evidence. She’d practically rushed out of the apartment as soon as she’d said it, which now struck me as something other than a craving for pastries. She’d created the perfect opportunity – I could hide the knife somewhere no one would think to look. Alex didn’t have to know about it, and therefore wasn’t doing anything to break her professional code of ethics. And if it ever was found, I would explain that I hid it without her knowledge, which she would of course confirm.

  I thanked my friend out loud and darted around the apartment trying to find a suitable hiding place. Behind the books on her bookshelf seemed too easy, under the bed was too exposed, a box labelled ‘filing’ inside her wardrobe felt too obvious. I eventually found a large Tupperware container at the back of her pantry cupboard labelled ‘flour’, which almost made me laugh. Alex could barely manage to cook a ready meal. She wasn’t going to be baking any time soon.

  I wrapped the knife, and the towel it was covered with,
in cling film and dropped it into the flour, shaking it around until it was completely buried. Replacing the container at the back of the cupboard, I was careful to make sure everything was left as I’d found it.

  By the time Alex returned with lattes and enough pastries to feed the building, I’d showered, dressed, and had texted Jason to let him know that I’d stayed at Alex’s. I blamed it on boy troubles – hers, of course. She needed moral support, so I came over to make sure she was all right. According to Jason, the crisis he’d rushed off to fix had been so bad he’d worked through the night and hadn’t been home.

  For the first time in our marriage, I had no idea what I was going to say to him when he walked through our front door that evening. I had all day to prepare, but I didn’t know if any amount of time would make me ready for an interaction with a man I now suspected of murder. The thought of being alone with him made me nervous, but I didn’t have any choice if I wanted to find the truth.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said to Alex as she got ready to leave for work. I knew that the right words didn’t exist to convey how grateful I was.

  ‘Of course, Bethany. You don’t need to thank me. No, really – you’d do the same for me and we both know it. Now, you need to watch Jason like a hawk. Don’t try to bait him, it’ll be too obvious. Take note of when he leaves and when he comes home – take actual notes – and pretend to be asleep at night to see what he does. Just watch him, and let me know if anything happens. I know I could be wrong, and of course I hope I am. But if I’m not, well … just be careful, OK?’

  Spying on my own husband. How had it come to this? I agreed, knowing I didn’t have any other options.

  ‘That’s my girl,’ said Alex, probably trying to be encouraging but sounding totally patronising.

  I rolled my eyes and Alex cracked a grin. We were in over our heads, and we both knew it. But she had my back, and that made me feel the closest thing to happy that I’d been since Calum had died. And she was right – about one thing, at least – if things were the other way around I’d be doing whatever I could to make sure Alex was safe, and I’d never let her go down for a crime she didn’t commit. Not without a hell of a fight, anyway.

  ‘Well, I need to go to work,’ Alex said. ‘But you stay here as long as you need. Get some sleep. You look like hell.’

  Chapter Thirty-two

  I was obsessed.

  I had to know what Jason was up to. Had to know if it was really him, as Alex believed, or if he was totally innocent and I could be absolved for even considering him as a suspect.

  I opened the small notebook I had hidden in a pocket of my handbag and added a line to the meagre list I’d written so far. Now, the entire memo read:

  Wednesday, 8:04pm. Jason arrives home from work.

  11:17pm. Jason asleep.

  Thursday, 7:13am. Jason gone.

  9:33am. Compared handwriting of notes to Jason’s. Not a match.

  10:19am. Tried to get into his iPad. Can’t crack password.

  10:59am. Searched everywhere, from his underwear drawer to the boiler cupboard. Uncovered nothing suspicious.

  11:03am. Going to Jason’s workplace to see what he does in his lunch break.

  I cringed as I read the lines back to myself. I couldn’t even get into my own husband’s iPad. It was ridiculous of me to think I could solve this thing. And yet here I was, searching his belongings and documenting every detail of his day in the desperate hope of finding a clue.

  I’d ignored three calls from Constable Clayton, her number now saved in my phone to avoid any surprises, but I sensed that it was just a matter of time before she had enough evidence to prove I was more involved in her investigation than I’d claimed. I wouldn’t be able to avoid her then.

  Spurred on by no more than knowing that the alternative was sitting around all day wondering if the police were going to show up at my door, I got ready, threw my camera in my bag and walked to the station.

  As I walked, I went through the settings on my phone, disabling location data, then powering down just to be sure. I couldn’t get rid of my phone altogether, but I had to be as cautious as I could, and since Alex had suggested that my phone was being tapped, I couldn’t shake the creepy thought that she was right. I had no idea how I was being watched, but someone knew what I was up to, and I wasn’t going to make it easy.

  I turned it back on when I emerged from the Tube at the other end to find two messages from Alex, both short and sweet:

  Got hold of my police friend. Will let you know as soon as I’ve met him. x

  Stay safe. Keep me posted at your end. x

  I switched my phone into airplane mode, then strolled towards clusters of workers in near-identical suits as they ventured outside for a pre-lunch coffee. I stopped in front of Jason’s office. The tall, glass building had no character whatsoever, just sharp edges and clinically clean lines. I didn’t know how anyone could bear working in the only part of London that had no soul, but Jason insisted that he liked it.

  I followed the smell of baked goods to a small café that wasn’t completely packed, and perched on a stool facing the window. Cradling an extra-hot latte with one hand, I fished my phone from my pocket, connected to the wifi and messaged Alex to let her know that I was following Jason. She helpfully instructed me to Be careful. x, and then I was left with nothing to do but wait.

  Fingers hovering over my screen, I hesitated for a second before opening a new incognito search window. The guilt I was feeling for following my own husband was gnawing away at me, like the coffee in my empty stomach. I wasn’t willing to accept Jason as my only suspect. Not without finding definitive proof that he was involved, or at least being certain it couldn’t be someone else.

  Tapping my screen again, it took just a fraction of a second for all of the Mark Dunbar suspicious results to appear. The top ones were news articles that happened to mention the word suspicious, along with the name of Calum’s assistant, in the same piece. But not in the same sentence. I kept scrolling, and eventually found what I was looking for. A thread called Who killed Calum Bradley? in a true crime subreddit. The posts seemed to be more about internal bickering, and belittling other users, but there were a few posts that seemed to hold some weight.

  I’ll be the first to admit there are some holes in this theory, wrote someone named daily_doily93. But I believe that Mark Dunbar is suspicious and needs to be looked at more closely. First of all, I need to clarify that this is just a theory, and there’s no evidence to back it up. But what if Calum caught Mark skimming money from Bradley Enterprises? Think about it: he has access to all of the information and systems he needs, he’s trusted by everyone in the company, he could probably do it pretty easily. But then Calum finds out, wants to meet him outside of work to confront him (because he actually likes the guy, he doesn’t want to make the meeting official). They argue. Mark panics that he’s going to go to prison for fraud, so he kills Calum and then he calls one of his friends on security and gets them to disable the cameras. I’ve worked with security teams like the Bradley Enterprises one, and they have access to all sorts of systems that your average guard wouldn’t. Traffic cams, CCTV, direct intel from MI5 … so it could be done remotely, which is why their alibis all check out. My theory is that the woman in the hat was an innocent pedestrian who just happened to walk past the wrong camera at the wrong time. To get to the truth, all the cops would have to do is investigate Mark’s finances. I’m pretty sure I know what they’d find …

  I grimaced. It was an incredibly flawed theory, in large part because I knew that Calum wasn’t meeting Mark that night, and the shadowy woman wasn’t just a random passer-by. But as I turned the accusations over in my mind, I wondered if there was any truth to what daily_doily93 had come up with. Could Mark have been skimming money from the Bradley Enterprises accounts? It was certainly possible. He did have more access to Calum’s affairs than anyone else in the company. He knew his boss’s passwords, his vulnerabilities. And he was friends with the
guys on the security team. I wondered if Vincent would be able to tell me if it really was possible for those cameras to be disabled remotely. Perhaps I could press him for more information on Mark’s relationship with Calum. If he did hate his boss – I knew there was no proof, but it was possible – and if he had been caught stealing, then it wasn’t such a stretch to believe that Mark could have killed Calum. What didn’t make sense was the notes, the stalking. Maybe he’d been gathering information on Calum so he could blackmail him into staying quiet if he ever got caught. But then he realised that Calum knew, and couldn’t be silenced. Perhaps he thought that Calum had confided in me about the theft, and that’s why he was trying to keep me quiet now.

  The more I thought about it, the more plausible it seemed. I wished I could somehow access his financial records, but I had no idea where to begin. I couldn’t risk breaking into his home again – if he’d noticed anything out of place, he could have increased his security. Plus, I doubted he’d keep evidence of defrauding one of the richest men in the country just lying around his house.

  I tapped out an email to Vincent to apologise for rushing out of the restaurant the last time I saw him. I asked if he wanted to meet for a drink to catch up properly, and then I crossed my fingers and waited.

  By lunchtime, my hands were shaking from three coffees. I hated being left with nothing but my own thoughts for company. They changed by the second, flitting from despising my husband, convinced he was the killer, to being absolutely certain of his innocence and knowing it must have been Mark instead.

  I was staring into the distance when I suddenly spotted Jason’s navy blue suit among a storm of navy, black and charcoal. It surprised me that I could still pick him out of a crowd like that, even when I wasn’t paying attention. It was his walk. The giveaway was his slight right-hand side lean, a remnant from an old football injury. That, and the way he held his head so assuredly.

  I vacated my stool, wiggling my legs in the hope that they’d regain their sensation, and then stepped into the sea of lunching bankers and insurers to follow my husband. I was glad I’d remembered to dress sombrely or I would have been far too conspicuous. In my white shirt, black jeans and court shoes I almost fitted right in.