The Last Lie: The must-read new thriller from the Sunday Times bestselling author
The Last Lie: The must-read new thriller from the Sunday Times bestselling author
Alex Lake
THE TWISTY NEW PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF AFTER ANNA, KILLING KATE AND COPYCATEveryone lies…but some lies are deadly.For Claire Daniels, life is good. She has everything she’s ever wanted – a career she loves, friends she can rely on and a husband who dotes on her. All she needs is to start a family of her own and things will be even better than good.They’ll be perfect.For Alfie, it couldn’t be more different. His life with Claire is built on a lie. A lot of lies. And she can never find out.Because Alfie has plans for her. Plans which must never come to light. But lies have a way of taking on a life of their own, and when his do, the consequences threaten to destroy everything.For him and Claire.
Copyright (#u42a39495-a7a3-5675-98f3-80f3ed7e8b86)
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2018
Copyright © Alex Lake 2018
Cover design by Ellie Game © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018
Cover photographs © Mark Owen/Plainpicture (https://www.plainpicture.com/en) (house, front cover), Shutterstock.com (http://Shutterstock.com) (figure in window, house on back cover)
Alex Lake asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008272371
Ebook Edition © December 2018 ISBN: 9780008272395
Version: 2018-10-24
Dedication (#u42a39495-a7a3-5675-98f3-80f3ed7e8b86)
To Paul Ponder
Contents
Cover (#uc5ffd0ac-c1a6-584c-be6e-717215e0e782)
Title Page (#u1e5d9d39-0d66-56e4-a578-84aa2d3e90d3)
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
Part One: Alfie and Claire
Claire (#u2b286e41-3120-5b2b-be73-875818b9b88c)
Alfie (#ueb7a0800-c9e0-56ca-bc94-34d6716387ef)
Claire (#u6bc95162-8e94-58cf-931d-6543c3ea0d9c)
Alfie (#u5efb6850-2c45-5ddb-8c1b-1de610fa5e50)
Claire (#u3cd4dd68-8ce2-5c55-b23d-c6e45a40331e)
Alfie (#u927ef27e-5328-5763-be53-2c06860dffc4)
Claire (#u24cfd107-4bb7-5a24-b2c1-d2c743682944)
Alfie (#u69f31041-d316-5b7d-a573-9eeb48074592)
Claire (#u69811be8-f4a1-5e3c-9bd4-8314dc10092a)
Alfie (#ue5489570-1cf9-59ad-b9d6-253155f32f3d)
Claire (#ub30dadaa-fd66-5dac-ad31-34bf030ea03c)
Alfie (#uecda842e-0d5f-5671-a1c5-8186c9e68f52)
Claire (#u996a2357-e119-520e-9486-91f7df787e5e)
Alfie (#ud824be8a-59b0-5a9d-89a2-848f175a267c)
Claire (#u9a960006-c193-5cc6-ad73-0cc1db20e60a)
Alfie (#litres_trial_promo)
Claire (#litres_trial_promo)
Alfie (#litres_trial_promo)
Claire (#litres_trial_promo)
Alfie (#litres_trial_promo)
Claire (#litres_trial_promo)
Alfie (#litres_trial_promo)
Claire (#litres_trial_promo)
Alfie (#litres_trial_promo)
Claire (#litres_trial_promo)
Alfie (#litres_trial_promo)
Claire (#litres_trial_promo)
Alfie (#litres_trial_promo)
Interval (#litres_trial_promo)
Part Two: Alfie
Friday: i (#litres_trial_promo)
ii (#litres_trial_promo)
iii (#litres_trial_promo)
iv (#litres_trial_promo)
v (#litres_trial_promo)
Saturday: i (#litres_trial_promo)
ii (#litres_trial_promo)
iii (#litres_trial_promo)
iv (#litres_trial_promo)
Sunday: i (#litres_trial_promo)
ii (#litres_trial_promo)
iii (#litres_trial_promo)
iv (#litres_trial_promo)
Monday: i (#litres_trial_promo)
ii (#litres_trial_promo)
iii (#litres_trial_promo)
Tuesday: i (#litres_trial_promo)
ii (#litres_trial_promo)
Early Wednesday Morning: i (#litres_trial_promo)
ii (#litres_trial_promo)
iii (#litres_trial_promo)
Wednesday: i (#litres_trial_promo)
ii (#litres_trial_promo)
iii (#litres_trial_promo)
Thursday: i (#litres_trial_promo)
ii (#litres_trial_promo)
iii (#litres_trial_promo)
Friday: i (#litres_trial_promo)
ii (#litres_trial_promo)
iii (#litres_trial_promo)
iv (#litres_trial_promo)
v (#litres_trial_promo)
Saturday: i (#litres_trial_promo)
Sunday: i (#litres_trial_promo)
ii (#litres_trial_promo)
Part Three: Alfie, Claire, and DI Wynne
Alfie (#litres_trial_promo)
Wynne (#litres_trial_promo)
Claire (#litres_trial_promo)
Wynne (#litres_trial_promo)
Alfie (#litres_trial_promo)
Wynne (#litres_trial_promo)
Claire (#litres_trial_promo)
Street (#litres_trial_promo)
Alfie (#litres_trial_promo)
Street (#litres_trial_promo)
Claire (#litres_trial_promo)
Alfie (#litres_trial_promo)
Claire (#litres_trial_promo)
Street (#litres_trial_promo)
Claire (#litres_trial_promo)
Wynne (#litres_trial_promo)
Claire (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)
Read on for a sneak preview of Alex Lake’s new novel (#litres_trial_promo)
Enjoyed The Last Lie? Try three more psychological thrillers by Alex Lake … (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
Also by Alex Lake (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue (#u42a39495-a7a3-5675-98f3-80f3ed7e8b86)
The woman driving the car knew better than to stop for hitchhikers. Maybe, decades ago, she would have considered it. Things were different then. People had good intentions. Kids were polite, and respectful to adults. They didn’t hang around the streets wearing hoodies and intimidating passers-by. A hitchhiker would, more than likely, be in search of nothing other than a lift to their destination. So yes, she might have picked one up years ago.
But only in the right circumstances. If she was with someone. And it was daylight. And the hitchhiker looked respectable.
Even back then she would never have picked someone up alone, at night, on a quiet road through deserted countryside, a road lined by half-bent trees and high hedges.
And she wasn’t about to start now.
It was still awkward, though. You didn’t want to acknowledge the person as you passed them because that meant acknowledging you were not generous enough to help them out. It was like passing a beggar on the street; you didn’t want to look at them, didn’t want to have the embarrassment of saying ‘no’ when they asked for money. So you marched on, eyes forward, as though they weren’t even there.
It was easy on a busy street with other people around, other things to look at, but on a country road at night? It was much harder. There was nothing to pretend you’d been distracted by. It was obvious you would have noticed the hitchhiker. You couldn’t not.
Who was, she saw as she approached, a young woman. At least she thought so, from a distance. Long hair, slight build. For a moment her resolve wavered – maybe she would pick her up, she shouldn’t be out here alone – but then she stiffened. She’d heard of this kind of trick: put an innocent, unthreatening woman out there and then, when the driver stopped, a thug – or gang of thugs – would jump out, steal the car and leave her there, alone.
Or worse. Raped. Dead.
She got ready to swerve in case the young woman jumped or stumbled into the road. That was another trick she’d heard about. Or maybe she was drunk. It wouldn’t be a surprise. Nowadays young women got drunk all the time, out in town centres that were no-go areas at night, vomit-streaked war zones populated by feral youths intent on fighting and drinking and having sex with each other.
The hitchhiker’s head turned towards the sound of the car. She raised her hand. It was a curiously weak movement. Hesitant. Tentative. Fearful, almost. The woman driving the car shook her head. She was definitely not stopping. The girl was probably on drugs, as well as drunk.
And then the beam of the headlights lit her up and the woman driving the car let out a sharp gasp.
The hitchhiker was a young woman, in her late twenties, or maybe early thirties.
She was also completely naked.
But that wasn’t the most shocking thing about her.
The most shocking thing was that the woman driving the car recognized her.
It took her a few moments to realize where from, and then she gasped again.
She wasn’t a hitchhiker – although there was no doubt she needed a lift – she was something completely different.
She braked, coming to a halt a few metres past the young woman, then opened her door.
The young woman stared at her, her eyes wide and unseeing. Her hair was matted, and she was streaked with dirt. She took a step towards the car, and the driver flinched, glancing around to see if there was anyone hiding in the shadows.
There was nothing. Just the hedges and the moon and the silence of the night.
She looked back at the young woman.
‘Are you—’ she said, then paused. ‘Are you her?’
PART ONE (#u42a39495-a7a3-5675-98f3-80f3ed7e8b86)
Claire (#ulink_5a2cc9fc-287c-5d8c-a69e-1205b21bfb82)
Claire Daniels stood on the tiled floor of the bathroom and stared into the mirror. She studied the face that looked back at her. She recognized every feature and freckle and contour. She had seen them a thousand times. More. Many thousands. The face belonged to her. It was utterly familiar.
And yet, in a few minutes, she might be a totally new person.
From time to time a person could change in an instant into someone new. It had happened to her twice: the day her mum died and the day she met Alfie. Once for bad, once for good. And today – this morning – it might be about to happen a third time.
That first time was awful. Beyond awful. She was fourteen and had just walked in from Lacrosse practice after school. Her best friend Jodie’s mum had brought her home and on the way back she had asked if they wanted to go to a Coldplay concert, on their own. Jodie’s mum said she would drop them off and pick them up but they could watch the concert without any adults present.
Thank you, Mrs Pierce, Claire said. That would be amazing.
Call me Angie, Jodie’s mum said. But you need to clear it with your parents.
Which was what Claire had been planning to do when she ran into the house. Her dad would be at work, but she could hear the television in the living room, which was where her mum would be.
She was there, all right, slumped on the cream leather sofa in the living room. At first Claire had thought she was sleeping, but then she noticed the trickle of blood coming from her nostril and the vomit on her jeans and the glassy-eyed stare into nowhere.
She was dead. Claire knew it as soon as she saw her, but that didn’t stop her slapping then hugging then slapping her to wake her up. What followed was a whirl she had never been able to put in order however many times she had thought about it. She’d called her dad and then it was sirens, medics, police officers. A doctor had given her something and she’d gone to bed, only to wake up the next day to the same horror.
Her mother never gave permission for Claire to go to the Coldplay concert. She never gave permission for anything else ever again.
Heroin, her dad told her a few days later. Her mum had overdosed, an addiction from her twenties that she’d managed to beat down had come roaring back in her forties and burned her out.
It snuffed out Claire, too. Left her hollow. When she looked at herself in the mirror she saw someone else. Someone lost, unsmiling, changed. There was a gap at the centre of her, a gap that was only filled when she met Alfie. She remembered getting home after their first date, a date that had begun as an afternoon coffee and grown into dinner and drinks and a night-time walk through central London. She’d glimpsed herself in the mirror. Something about her reflection had caught her eye and she’d paused, and looked again, and seen a new woman. Seen herself again.
And she knew she had changed in the space of that night, had started to emerge from the hole her mum’s death had left her in.
Started. Even after three years of marriage – three happy years – there was still something missing. And hopefully that final piece of the puzzle would be in place any minute. If it went as she hoped, she’d look in the mirror and see, once again, a new person.
A mother.
At least, a mother-to-be.
A mother who would not overdose on heroin and leave her daughter alone. A mother who would love and cherish her child, her children. A mother who would heal her own wounds by making sure she didn’t inflict them on her children.
And then she’d go and wake up her husband, the man who had made her feel warm and safe and whole from the moment they’d met and every moment since, and tell him that she was pregnant. After all these months trying, finally, they were going to be parents, going to have new titles, new roles.
Claire and Alfie, daughter and son, wife and husband.
Mum and dad.
She blinked, and opened the bathroom cabinet. She took out a pregnancy test. It was the first of a packet of two. She’d bought them nine months earlier in anticipation of needing them sooner, but her period had come, on time, month after month. She and Alfie did everything right: they had sex constantly when she was ovulating, and plenty besides, but it didn’t matter. Inevitably at the appointed time she started to feel bloated and lethargic and then her period arrived.
But not this month. This month she was two days late. Two whole days. She knew there could be many reasons why, but she didn’t care.
She was pregnant. She felt it.
And it was her birthday this weekend. She had drinks planned after work – it was a Friday – and then a party at her dad’s house on Saturday. It was the perfect present. It all hung together. It was too right not to be true.
She took the test from the cardboard and sat on the toilet. She positioned it between her legs and a few seconds later a stream of warm urine ran over the white plastic. She left it there until the stream stopped and then placed it by the sink. She didn’t look at it; the line she craved could take a minute or so to show up and she wanted to give it every opportunity.
She washed her hands, her heart racing and her stomach tight. She pictured herself walking into their bedroom and shaking Alfie awake. Telling him the news. Watching him smile. No – she stopped herself. She shouldn’t get carried away. Her dad called it the commentators’ curse: just when a commentator was saying how some football team was about to score or some player was playing well, something bad would happen.
But this was it; she was sure of it. There’d be a line and she’d be pregnant and even if it didn’t work out, if there was a problem of some sort, she’d know she could get pregnant, and even that would be enough, would be better than the doubt and worry and anguish of wondering if it would ever happen.
She picked up the pregnancy test. Turned it around. Let her eyes travel to the end where the little window contained—
Nothing.
No line. Not the faintest imprint of a line.
She shook it. She put it down next to the sink and waited a minute or two. Then she picked it up again.
No line.
She pressed the pedal at the base of the bin and flipped the lid open. She looked one last time – to be sure – and then threw the test, the negative test, into the trash. She’d ask Alfie to take it out later. She didn’t want to. She didn’t want any reminder of her failure.
Alfie (#ulink_fdd16ff1-f313-5480-a078-0cb99c4edf87)
Alfie Daniels lay in bed listening to his wife move around in the bathroom. He knew what she was doing, despite the fact she’d said nothing. He knew when her period was due and he knew it hadn’t come because Claire had not walked into the living room with tears in her eyes or sent him a text message with sad emojis saying she had her period.
For nine months he had hugged her each time and promised her it would happen eventually, only to watch her hope build through the month and be dashed again.
And now she was late and he could tell she was convinced that this was it. For the last two days he had watched her move from a state of quiet introspection to nervous excitement. She thought she was pregnant.
If she’d told him, he would have suggested not getting her hopes up, but it was too late for that now. Her hopes were flying high and turning into dreams of the future and there was only one thing that would bring them down.
Which, from the sound of things, had just happened. There was no cry of excitement or rush of steps to come and tell him the good news. Only the thud of the bathroom door closing and a slow, heavy tread towards the bedroom.
The door opened and she came in. She stood by their bed, her face set and unsmiling.
‘Hey,’ he said. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘My period was late. I took a test.’
Alfie sat up on his elbows. ‘And?’
Tears formed in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. She shook her head.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and held out his arms. ‘Come here.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I want to be alone. I’m going to have a shower.’
‘I don’t think so. Not before a hug.’
‘I’m OK.’
‘It’s not for you. It’s for me. I’m disappointed too.’
It was clearly the wrong thing to say. Her lips quivered and tears welled in her eyes. She let out a loud, wracking sob then slumped on the edge of the bed and buried her face in his neck.
‘I tried not to hope,’ she said. ‘I told myself not to get my hopes up, but it’s impossible. I want this so much.’
‘Me too,’ he said. ‘And it’ll happen. It takes time for lots of people.’
I know,’ she replied. ‘But what if we’re the ones who it never happens for? What then?’
‘We’re a long way from that,’ Alfie said. ‘A long way.’
‘But what if?’ Claire said. ‘What if we can’t have kids?’
‘Don’t think like that.’
She nodded. ‘I won’t. I’m going to have a shower.’
When she came back her eyes were red.
‘You not feeling too good?’ Alfie said.
‘I was sure I was pregnant this time,’ she said. ‘I felt different, somehow. And I’ve been so regular. I don’t know why my period would suddenly be late.’
‘Stress can do that,’ Alfie said. ‘This is a difficult time for you. For us.’
She wiped a tear from her eyes. ‘I can’t stop crying. It’s the sense of loss. Even though I wasn’t pregnant – so there was nothing to lose – I’d let myself think I was, and I was already imagining a future with us as parents. And now it’s gone.’
‘Only for now,’ Alfie said. ‘We’ll get there in the end, I know it.’
He held her tight, then sat up.
‘I have to get ready for work,’ he said. ‘I’ve got an early meeting.’
In the bathroom, Alfie stripped off. He looked in the full-length mirror. He flexed his pectoral muscles, then turned sideways and admired his flat abdominals. His chest and back were waxed and smooth, unlike the thick, brown hair on his scalp. He kept himself in shape; the only thing he couldn’t do anything about were the pock-marks on his face, the scars left by the acne he’d suffered from as a teenager.
He turned on the shower and stepped in. He let the hot water run over him. He washed his hair, massaging the shampoo into his scalp. The shampoo he used cost over thirty pounds a bottle, but it was worth it. According to his hair stylist, he had the kind of hair that movie stars had. He could be a hair model, she said, and it was worth paying the extra for good shampoo. So he treated himself.
And besides, they could afford it. Claire’s dad was both rich and generous.
When he was finished, he wrapped a towel around his waist and grabbed his razor. As he started to shave the bathroom door opened.
‘Would you take out the bin?’ Claire said. ‘The test is in there. I don’t want to go near it.’
Alfie nodded. ‘OK.’
‘And thanks,’ she said. ‘For being so supportive. I’m lucky to have you. And we’ll be pregnant, one day.’
He smiled. ‘We will. I know we will.’
She closed the door and the smile fell from his face. He looked at himself in the mirror and shook his head.
Stupid bitch. She wanted him to take out the bin. Of course she did. She was too infantile to deal with a negative pregnancy test so she needed him to deal with it for her, like it was a fucking python or something. It was pathetic.
It was typical of her.
As was the way she used ‘we’ instead of ‘I’. ‘We’ll be pregnant, one day.’ He hated that ‘we’. Hated the cloying, saccharine refusal to accept the biological truth of the situation: it was her who would be pregnant, not him.
The irony – and he took great pleasure in it – was that, whatever words she used, she was wrong. They – she – wouldn’t be pregnant any time soon. Ever, in fact.
Because what she didn’t know was that her husband had no intention of having children. They were the last thing he wanted. There were many reasons why, but the main one was because the arrival of kids would render all his careful plans redundant.
They would tie him to the simpering bitch forever, and there was no way he was letting that happen.
But she couldn’t find out he didn’t want them. Not yet, at any rate. He still needed her for a while, which was why he had never mentioned – and did not plan to – the reason why she would not be getting pregnant any time soon.
Her husband had had a vasectomy.
He’d had it done a year after they married – almost exactly two years earlier, now – when she had started talking about having kids in earnest. He’d gone to see the doctor, told him what he wanted – the doctor was surprised given how young he was and had tried to talk him out of it, but he had referred him nonetheless – and then, one morning, Alfie had gone to the hospital and had the operation.
He’d been back at his desk the same afternoon. He was a bit sore, but it was OK.
And it would remain his little secret.
He glanced at the bin. The negative pregnancy test lay there, pointing at him, accusing him.
‘Fuck you,’ he said, then wiped the shaving cream from his face.
Claire (#ulink_9f912094-033f-5766-91a0-b6f078e1f2e3)
Claire picked up her phone from the bedside table and glanced at the time:
Ten a.m.
She lay back on her pillow, her head thick with a nasty hangover. Friday had been awful, but at least it was Friday. She’d gone out with her colleagues to a bar in the West End and drunk away the disappointment of the pregnancy test. She didn’t even mind the headache. It took her mind off it all.
She did mind the cramps. Her period had arrived and the cramps were worse than they had been for a while, each one reminding her of what had happened.
She turned on her front and buried her head underneath her pillow. She heard the muffled sound of the door opening. She smelled coffee. It made her feel sick.
‘Hey,’ Alfie said. ‘Did I hear you moving around? I brought you breakfast in bed.’
She peeked out at him. He was holding a tray with a bowl of something and a mug of coffee on it.’
‘You didn’t have to do that,’ she said.
‘Of course I did!’ Alfie said. ‘It’s your special day! Happy birthday, darling.’
Claire groaned. She’d forgotten it was her birthday.
She’d forgotten they had to go to the party at her dad’s house later.
Claire sat on the bed in her childhood bedroom. It was a single bed with a pink-and-purple duvet cover. On the wall next to it were faint stains of Blu-tack from the posters she’d had up there – David Beckham, Robbie Williams, the usual teenage girl crushes. It was an hour until the party. Her hangover was gone – two ibuprofen and a mid-afternoon nap had seen it off – and Alfie had texted to say he was on his way. He’d been playing golf that afternoon. It was his new hobby, and he’d been spending a lot of his weekend afternoons on the golf course. He’d tried to persuade her to join him, but she couldn’t think of any way she’d less like to spend an afternoon than hitting balls around an over-sized garden.
She’d been hoping the party would be a celebration of a little more than her birthday. Not that she would have announced the pregnancy to everyone this early, but she’d wanted her and Alfie and her dad to know a baby was on the way and to spend the day giving each other secret smiles, the knowledge too momentous to ignore. She’d pictured herself holding a glass of wine (but not drinking it), so nobody would suspect she was pregnant but the baby would come to no harm.
It was not to be. It was a birthday party and no more.
She’d learned her lesson, though. Don’t get carried away with the hope. It only led to disappointment, which was a new and unwelcome shock to her. She had never really had to face not having something she wanted. Her parents had come from humble backgrounds in the North East, but had managed to build up a chain of estate agents together. They had both worked long hours to do it and, in her mum’s case, developed unhealthy ways of coping with the stress. After her mum died, her dad threw himself into the business even more, assuaging his guilt at his absence from the home with extravagant gifts.
And as the years had gone by the gifts had grown more and more extravagant, from the house in Fulham where she and Alfie lived, to the holiday they’d recently had in Cannes, to the Range Rover they drove. In truth, she found his generosity a bit uncomfortable. A few times she and Alfie had discussed telling him they didn’t need any help, but Alfie had persuaded her there was no harm in it. He also pointed out how happy it made her dad, so they kept accepting his gifts.
Apart from in her career. That was the one area Claire refused to let him help her. She was a partner in a design firm, a world her dad knew nothing about, and she had worked her way up from the ground floor.
But now, all pride aside, she would have accepted any help her dad could have given her, but there was nothing he could do. She had everything going for her: a loving dad, a wonderful husband, her career. She was smart, athletic, healthy.
And she would have given it all to be a mother.
But she couldn’t shake the feeling that being a mother was the one thing the universe was going to deny her. She felt almost as though she was in a fairy story, the lucky princess given everything, except the thing she wanted most.
She knew she was getting sick with worry – she’d been losing weight – and it made her want to hide away from the world, but she’d have to put on a brave face for the party, would have to smile and say Oh, no, we’re so busy we haven’t even thought about it yet when people asked her whether she and Alfie were planning to start a family.
She took off her jeans and sweater and opened a large cardboard box. It came from an internet company that sent new clothes; depending on what you kept and what you returned someone – although, according to Jodie, it was most likely not a person at all but an algorithm of some type, whatever the hell an algorithm was – figured out what you liked. Whoever or whatever was doing it, was uncannily accurate.
She pulled out a sleeveless navy-blue dress. It had a one-shoulder neckline, and an asymmetric hem. She pulled it on and looked over her shoulder at the back.
There was a knock on the bedroom door.
‘Hello,’ Alfie said, the door opening a crack. ‘Are you decent?’
‘Come in,’ Claire replied. ‘I’m trying on a dress.’
Alfie whistled softly. ‘Wow. You look amazing.’
‘You like it?’
He nodded, and moved behind her, running his hands from her hips to her buttocks, then around to her stomach. He pressed his lips to her neck.
‘Very much,’ he said. He reached down and pulled the dress up, stroking the backs of her thighs as he did so.
‘Alfie,’ she said, her voice low and breathless. ‘We can’t. I have my period.’
He turned her round and kissed her.
‘I don’t care,’ he said. ‘I want you too much.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I want to, but no. It’ll only be a few days.’
‘Ok,’ he said. ‘I can wait. Let’s get ready for the party. I have a surprise for you.’
‘Really?’ She was not in the mood for surprises. ‘What kind of surprise?’
‘You’ll see,’ he said. ‘You’ll see.’
Alfie (#ulink_e57b07cb-c4c7-5eb2-80e9-1e17fd147858)
Standing in front of the fireplace, Alfie tapped his glass – crystal, full of vintage champagne, he loved this stuff, he really did – with the handle of his fork – silver, antique – and watched as conversations died down and heads turned to face him. When the room was silent, he smiled and started to speak.
‘Thank you all,’ he said, ‘for coming to celebrate this very special day. My wife’ – he turned to Claire and smiled – ‘it’s still a thrill to call her that, even after three years, is celebrating her thirtieth birthday. I told her before the party that I had something special for her, and I do.’
He gestured to Jodie, who moved to the front of the guests and handed him a guitar. It was a Martin D50 which Claire had bought him, after some not-too-subtle hints, for his last birthday. It was an instrument he had dreamed of owning all through his childhood, but which, until he met Claire, had been woefully out of his reach. Woefully out of most people’s reach.
‘Alfie,’ Claire said, ‘what are you doing?’ She looked at Jodie, eyebrows raised.
Jodie held up her hands, palms facing Claire. ‘Merely doing what I was told,’ she said.
‘Thank you, Jodie,’ Alfie said, and then turned to Claire. ‘I wrote you a song,’ he said. He slipped the strap over his neck and held up his right hand. ‘I know, it’s soppy and over the top but I don’t care. I’m the luckiest man alive, and I want everyone to know it. So, here we go. It’s called “Since the Start”.’
He strummed an E chord and started to sing.
‘Since the start
Since the day I met you
Since the start
I have known I loved you.’
He sang the rest of the song. It was pretty good, in a way. Highly derivative, basic chords, minimal musicianship required, but writing and playing and singing it would be far beyond most people, which was what mattered. When he finished, he could tell that the guests’ reactions were mixed: the women were touched at his display of naked emotion, the men looked faintly embarrassed for him.
Which was good. That was exactly what he wanted them to feel. He wanted everyone to see how much in love with his wife and how different to all the other guys he was.
Claire, predictably, had tears in her eyes. As the applause died down she hugged him, kissing his cheek and ear and mouth.
‘Thank you,’ she whispered. ‘That was beautiful. I love you.’
‘I love you too,’ he said. ‘Happy birthday.’
After the song, Mick, Claire’s dad spoke. He gave a tearful tribute to her and talked about how proud Penny, his wife and Claire’s mum, would have been of her daughter. He didn’t mention Alfie – or his song – which was par for the course. When he had finished and the guests had returned to their increasingly drunk and loud conversation about politics or sport or something else they knew nothing about, Alfie slipped out to the kitchen.
He put on his jacket. He had a packet of Chesterfields and a book of matches and he was planning to sneak off and find a secluded spot – there was a bench in a corner of Mick’s vast back garden that would do – where he could light up and have a quiet smoke. He had a packet of mints, too; on one occasion before they got married he’d said he’d do anything for her and Claire had asked him to give up – for his sake, she said, because she loved him so much and couldn’t bear the thought of him poisoning himself, the soppy bitch – and he didn’t want her finding out he’d lied.
He walked through the kitchen and opened the back door to the terrace. There was a footstep behind him.
He turned around. It was Mick. He was holding a large tumbler of whisky, his face red with a combination of high blood pressure and too many drinks.
‘Mick,’ Alfie said. ‘Thanks for hosting. It’s a great party.’
‘No problem. Anything for my little girl.’ Mick nodded at the terrace. ‘Going out?’
‘Could do with a bit of fresh air.’
‘Too warm in here?’ Mick glanced at the window. The moon was visible, still low in the sky. ‘It’s dark out.’
‘It’s fine in here.’ Alfie smiled. ‘I was just thinking of taking a walk. But I don’t have to.’
Mick held up a hand. ‘No. You do whatever you want. I was only asking. I did want to talk to you, though.’
‘Oh?’ Alfie said. Mick and he had never been close. They had probably had no more than two or three one-on-one conversations since he and Claire had met. Mick was not the kind of father who warmed to the men who were sleeping with his daughter. No doubt he had fantasies of taking Alfie shooting and accidentally unloading both barrels on him. Alfie didn’t mind. He’d had the same thoughts himself. He couldn’t stand the old bastard.
He liked his money, though.
And the money he’d given to Claire. There was at least a couple of million in various investments, moved into some kind of trust in her name to avoid inheritance tax. Claire didn’t like to talk about it, but Alfie knew it was there, because Mick had tried to make him sign a pre-nup.
Well, he’d tried to make Claire make Alfie sign one. When she mentioned that her dad thought it might be a good idea, Alfie had agreed.
If you think it’s necessary, darling. I wouldn’t want it to come between us. I trust you totally.
She was visibly uncomfortable. I trust you too. But Dad’s insisting.
Then you should do it. Your dad obviously doesn’t think we’re going to last, and maybe you share his opinion.
She didn’t do it. She told Alfie a few weeks later there wouldn’t be a pre-nup, and she never mentioned it again. It was at least two months before Mick spoke to him again, and when he did Alfie loved it. Mick didn’t like losing; Alfie liked winning.
Mick coughed. ‘I wanted to say that I was touched by your song. It’s not the kind of thing I would ever have done – or anyone I know, for that matter – and I have to say I found it a bit bloody much, but Claire liked it. And that’s all that counts.’
It was clear the words were hard for him to say. He would have preferred to have been congratulating Alfie for scoring a hat-trick of tries or his first test century or landing a particularly hard left hook, but a romantic – soppy – song would have to do.
‘Thank you, Mick,’ Alfie said. ‘That means a lot.’
‘You probably guessed this,’ Mick said. ‘But I didn’t think much of you when I first met you. I thought you were a bit of a chancer, if I’m honest. I thought you lacked drive, and ambition, which is why I wanted the pre-nup. And maybe I should have insisted, but you make Claire happy. I’ve realized it doesn’t matter whether you’re the kind of man that I think is right for her. All that matters is whether she thinks you are. I’m glad she’s found somebody she can have the life she wants with.’
He was, Alfie realized, quite drunk. Perhaps it was deliberate. After all, it was the only way he would ever be able to force the words he’d just said out of his mouth.
‘She makes me very happy too,’ Alfie said.
‘Good.’ Mick was clearly not interested in how Alfie felt. ‘And now you need to give her what she really wants.’ He grinned wolfishly. ‘I never thought I’d say this to any man about my little girl, but it’s time to get busy! She wants a baby, and there’s no point in wasting time.’
His little girl, Alfie thought, who liked, on occasion, to be handcuffed to their bed and blindfolded. She was an annoying bitch, but in the right mood, she was good in bed. He wondered what Mick would think if he knew. Perhaps some photos could find their way into his possession so he could see what his little girl got up to.
‘We’re working on it,’ Alfie said. ‘Hope to have news soon.’
Mick’s eyes narrowed. Alfie realized he had said too much. Claire, evidently, had not mentioned they were trying.
‘Is everything OK?’ Mick said. ‘Are you having problems?’
‘No,’ Alfie said. ‘No problems. It’s early. That’s all.’
‘OK. Good luck.’ He reached forward and patted Alfie on the shoulder. ‘And take care of my girl.’
‘I will,’ Alfie said. ‘You can count on it.’
Claire (#ulink_c8c0c6aa-2b8d-5585-a10b-670af11c9b97)
Claire finished her glass of champagne. She looked around the room for Alfie; after his song and her dad’s speech he’d disappeared. It had been a while – maybe twenty minutes – and she wondered where he’d gone.
She was glad he’d gone, as it happened. She’d kissed him and whispered a Thank you, that was beautiful in his ear when he had finished singing, but in truth she wasn’t exactly sure how she felt about it. She veered between thinking it was a beautiful and touching gesture, and thinking it was a bit – well, a bit embarrassing. She knew he was soft and romantic and she loved that about him, but the song had been a little too soft and romantic – not to mention too public – for her.
She sometimes wondered whether Alfie misunderstood her. She loved his kindness and generosity but she got the impression he thought she was fragile and needed to be handled with kid gloves. She wasn’t; she might have lived a life of material privilege, but she’d lost her mum as a teenager and no amount of holidays and clothes and cars could take away the hard edge that had left her with. It rarely came out in her private life, and almost never in her marriage, but Claire was known at work as a tough-minded and serious professional. Alfie never really talked to her about work. She got the impression he thought it was just something she did for fun, but it was far from it. She would explain it to him one day.
She walked towards one of the waiters for a refill. She’d already had three – or maybe four – glasses, but more champagne was the only way she would get through the party. As she reached him, she felt a tap on her shoulder.
She turned around. A guy called Hugh was smiling at her. He was wearing red trousers and a designer cardigan. His thinning hair was cut short and his eyes were glassy. She’d known him for as long as she could remember; his parents were friends with her mum and dad, and he had been invited to family events – birthday parties, weddings – over the years. He was a few years older and for a while their parents had harboured ideas that they might get together when the right time came, ideas that Hugh had clearly shared; on her fifteenth birthday he had tried to kiss her and, when she twisted away, had grabbed her breasts with both hands. She froze, and he took advantage of her shock by thrusting his hand up her skirt and into her underwear.
As soon as she realized what was happening, she ran downstairs, intent on telling her dad what Hugh had done, but when she got there he was standing with Bill, Hugh’s dad, laughing about something. She hadn’t seen him laugh much since her mum died, and she stopped, suddenly unwilling to do anything to upset him.
So she said nothing. And she’d said nothing ever since. But every time she saw Hugh she felt sick.
‘Hi,’ he said, his hand running down her arm to her elbow. ‘Nice party.’
She shrugged his hand away. ‘Thanks for coming.’ Her voice was cold.
‘Don’t be like that,’ he said. ‘We’ve not seen each other for ages. Since the wedding, I think?’
‘Could be,’ Claire said.
‘What have you been up to?’ Hugh asked.
‘This and that.’
‘Have I caught you in a bad mood? You can tell me. We go back forever.’
‘No,’ Claire said. ‘I’m looking for Alfie. He’s gone missing.’
‘Alfie,’ Hugh said. ‘The lovely Alfie. I must say, it was quite a song. Quite a … scene.’
Claire looked at him for a while before she answered. She realized she was no longer embarrassed by Alfie’s song. It represented everything that was good about him, everything that was genuine and decent and honest. Everything that made him different to Hugh.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It was. It was wonderful.’ She smiled. ‘Very few men could do something like that, Hugh, don’t you think?’ She didn’t wait for an answer. ‘I have to go. And hopefully it’ll be another three years before we meet again.’ She sipped her drink, then added, ‘Or maybe longer. A lot longer.’
She walked across the room, not sure where she was heading but simply glad to be away from Hugh. She saw her dad walking into the living room. He caught her eye and gestured to her to come over.
‘You got a second?’ he said.
‘Of course.’
‘I was just chatting to Alfie,’ he said. ‘Telling him I’m glad you two are happy …’
Claire raised an eyebrow. That kind of conversation was not the norm for him and his son-in-law.
‘I know, I know,’ he said. ‘I’m getting soft in my old age. Anyway, he mentioned something about trying for a baby.’ He looked at her, his eyes fixed on hers. ‘Is everything OK?’
Claire nodded, then, after a second, shook her head. ‘It’s been a while,’ she said.
Her dad pointed to a man standing by the fireplace. He was tall, with neat grey hair. ‘That’s Tony Scott. He’s a friend of mine, and a doctor. I asked him for the name of a good fertility specialist—’
‘Dad!’ Claire said. ‘I don’t want everyone to know.’
‘They won’t. He’s a doctor. He’ll keep it to himself. And he gave me a name. Dr Singh, in Harley Street. Call him and say that Tony Scott gave you his name. He’ll see you.’
Claire shook her head. ‘We’ll be OK. It’s not time for a doctor yet.’
‘Don’t be daft,’ her dad said. ‘See him, get checked out. If there’s nothing wrong, it’ll put your mind at ease.’ He put his hands on her shoulders. ‘OK? You going to do it?’ He smiled a sad smile. ‘Your mum would want me to do whatever I can to help. She loved you, Claire. I know she had her problems, but she was a good mum. All she wanted was for you to be happy. That’s all I want.’
‘I am happy, Dad,’ Claire said. ‘And I’ll do it. Thank you.’
Her dad nodded and headed off towards the waiter. Claire watched him go. He was as good and loving a father as anyone could wish for. Between him and Alfie, she had the best two men possible in her life.
Alfie (#ulink_3788bb36-7736-5638-b74b-cfea67e3b828)
Alfie sat on the stone bench and sucked on his cigarette. The house was at least fifty yards away and he was hidden from view by a pergola. He looked back at the house, watching for anyone coming towards him. He could easily put out his cigarette and vanish into the bushes, if he needed to.
It was ridiculous, hiding out to smoke a cigarette. He was a grown man. But it was typical of his wife: she had gone on and on at him about quitting since what felt like the day they’d married.
I know I’m nagging, Alfie, but it’s only because I love you. I can’t bear to see you harming yourself. And what about our kids? I don’t want them to be deprived of their father.
Over and over and over again, until in the end he’d given in and promised to stop, a promise he had no intention of keeping, so now he had to do it in secret.
It was the perfect symbol of how trapped he was by his stupid bitch of a wife.
They had met at a house like this, at the ostentatious wedding of some school friend of Claire’s. It was quite a party – magicians working the crowd, a mini-fairground, all the booze you could drink. The champagne fountain alone probably cost more than Alfie earned a month. Three months.
Not that he was drinking from it. Claire was there as a guest. Alfie was the help.
Specifically, he was in the band, playing bass. Alfie was a recent, part-time member. The band had been mildly successful – a few top twenty hits – in the early 2000s, but had been playing smaller and smaller venues as their popularity dwindled, until they ended up doing cover versions of bigger hits than theirs at expensive weddings. Over time the line-up had changed until only the singer and drummer remained. To fill the gaps they brought in jobbing musicians and Alfie was merely the latest.
He noticed Claire early on. At first he wasn’t sure why, but something set her apart. It wasn’t the way she looked – she didn’t particularly stand out from the other expensively dressed, tanned, yoga-bodied mid-twenties women. It was amazing what expensive clothes, professional make-up and a flattering haircut could do. All of them, whether naturally pretty or not, looked like models. The kind of models you’d see in a Land Rover advert at any rate.
Alfie found them both fascinating and repellent. He hated the way they took all this for granted, as though this kind of party, this kind of wealth, was simply how the world was. They had no idea how other people – people like him – lived, and they didn’t want to know. They kept to their own set, gave their kids names that marked them out as belonging, as being ‘one of us’.
Yet at the same time he couldn’t keep his eyes off them. He was jealous, and hated that too.
But more than anything he hated the fact these people would never accept him.
Strangely, though, it was that which drew him to Claire. She seemed vulnerable, a little apart from her friends. Watchful. Later he’d find out it was because her mum had died when she was young and she had lost the ability to trust – other people, her future, the world in general, or so her therapist had told her – but looking at her from the stage at that moment he didn’t care why it was.
He cared that she turned away from the braying City boys who grabbed at her hand in an attempt to get her to dance, and then watched them, almost wistfully, as they turned their attention to someone else. He could see she was glad they had left her alone, but also disappointed. All she needed was the right one, one who understood her insecurity, who knew how fragile she was.
He could see she needed someone who wasn’t threatening. Well, he could be that. He could be whatever she wanted, if it meant he got to come to these weddings as a guest.
Not to mention all the other benefits that went with life as someone like Claire’s boyfriend. Smart address, smarter holidays, no money worries ever again. So, yes, whatever she wanted, he would be.
Midway through their set, the band took a break. He declined their offer of a joint behind the stage, and walked to the bar, where Claire was getting a drink.
Water please, he said, then nodded at Claire. Hi.
Hi, she said. Are you in the band?
Yep. Hope you’re enjoying it.
Up close she was very pretty. Unlike most of the other guests she didn’t need the expensive grooming.
You guys are great! I loved your song. You know – the one – she blushed as she realized she didn’t remember the name of the band’s hit. Alfie smiled.
Don’t worry. I wasn’t in the band then. At the moment I’m helping them out.
Is that what you do? Help out bands?
I’m a musician, yes. If that’s what you’re asking. I do all kinds of stuff.
Wow, Claire said. I wish I could play an instrument.
You could, if you tried.
You’re very kind, but I don’t think so. I’m tone deaf. She laughed. You should hear me singing.
I’d like to. And anyone can learn.
Not me!
The barman handed Alfie his water.
Not drinking? Claire said. I thought you musicians were wild?
I have to drive home. I have work tomorrow.
Another wedding?
Alfie shook his head. Tutoring. It’s hard to make a living from royalties alone.
Royalties? Claire’s eyes lit up. Have you released records?
Quite a few. At least, I’ve been on quite a few.
Anything I’d have heard of?
I doubt it.
Her smiled faded. Are they alternative indie things that only the arty kids listen to?
They’re certainly things kids listen to, but I’m not sure about the alternative indie part.
Come on, then. Tell me one of them.
Well, Alfie said, the most recent one was a ballad. It tells the story of a worm who lives at the bottom of a garden, and whose name is Wiggly-Woo. The one before you might remember from your infant school – I played piano on ‘The Dingle-Dangle Scarecrow’.
Claire burst into laughter. You sing children’s songs?
I do. What’s so funny? Music is an important part of childhood development.
I know, but – it’s just – well, I had an idea of sex and drugs and rock’n’roll and that’s a bit more—
Nappies and wet wipes and singalongs? I know. Not exactly living the life. He shrugged. But I enjoy it. And it pays the bills. And I do think it’s important for kids to have access to quality music from an early age. It might only be ‘Twinkle Twinkle’ but it doesn’t have to be bad.
I agree, she said. And I admire you. It’s very impressive.
He glanced at the stage. The rest of the band was re-emerging. He grabbed a napkin and took a pen from his pocket.
Here, he said, and wrote his number down. Give me a call sometime. I’ll play you some of my back catalogue.
He handed it to her and headed back to the stage. She’ll call, he thought. She’ll call because she feels superior to me. Stronger. Because I’m a kids’ entertainer and anyone who does that is safe. Weak. Not going to leave her. And that’s what she wants.
So that’s what he’d be. He made a mental note to buy some kids’ music CDs the next day. He’d never played on a kids’ CD in his life, but he’d tell her he was on them. She wouldn’t know any different.
Back on stage, he picked up his bass as the band played the opening bars of ‘Wild Thing’. He glanced at her. She was talking to a friend who had her back to the band, but as he watched she looked up at him. He gave a little wave. She waved back at him.
He knew then this was a done deal.
And it was. They went on dates, ate meals Alfie couldn’t afford in places he’d never known existed. He met her friends and their husbands, listened to how they spoke and matched his accent to theirs, modelled his behaviour – confident, charming – on the way they acted. She fell in love with him, head over heels. He fell in love with the life she offered him.
It was a life he could get no other way. He worked, on and off, but he didn’t get very far. It wasn’t his fault; he was as able as anyone else but he had the wrong background. He’d managed to get into a marketing firm at one point but had got sick of seeing graduates with RP voices and degrees in art history from Warwick and Durham and Oxford show up and take all the promotions. He hated them, hated taking orders from a fucking idiot who just happened to have been to the right school and the right university and whose dad had the right connections and whose mum had the right clothes and gave head to the right fucking people.
And there was nothing he could do about it. He had nothing and he was going nowhere.
But Claire fixed both his problems. She had money, and she had connections, and at first he had quite liked her, which was, for Alfie, as good as it got. He didn’t really care about anybody – he certainly didn’t love anyone in the way other people claimed to; in fact, it seemed absurd to him that anyone could ever be so dependent on someone else – so why not Claire? And what wasn’t to like? She was pretty, quiet, and, if he was ever getting too bored with talking to her there was always sex. Like most new couples, they did that a lot.
But it had all changed now. Now he hated her.
He finished his cigarette and put his lighter and cigarettes back in his jacket pocket. As he did, his fingers brushed the phone he kept with the illicit tobacco. It wasn’t his iPhone; that was in the back pocket of his trousers.
It was his other phone, a pay-as-you-go Android device he’d bought in a backstreet electronics shop.
He took it out and glanced at the screen. There were four missed calls and three messages. He swiped and read them.
The first was from that morning.
Hey! I’m missing you! Give me a call. It’s been a week! Pippa x
Then, a few hours later:
Are you ignoring me? Only kidding. But call! Pips.
Then a new arrival only a few minutes old:
Henry! What’s going on? Get in touch. Please?
It was the ‘please?’ that did it. He’d sensed she was getting too attached and this was confirmation. Besides, he was getting bored with Pippa Davies-Hunt anyway. Most of the thrill with her had been in the chase. She knew how to play hard to get, understood that once she let him screw her the mystery would be gone, the novelty would have worn off.
And she was right. All the thrill was in the chase. She was well educated and rich and lean and pretty but she was a disappointment in bed. She was stiff and unresponsive; compliant, yes – in order to try and keep himself interested he’d suggested some light bondage the third time they’d slept together and she’d gone along with it, not complaining when he choked her hard enough to leave her gasping – but it was the dumb compliance of a farmyard animal. She seemed to take no pleasure in it, seemed to think it was a grim necessity, the price paid for a boyfriend, the thing boyfriends and girlfriends did. It was like she was acting, and Alfie – Henry – was bored of her.
Yes, Henry was bored of her. Henry Bryant – handsome and elusive doctor, frequenter of the websites where people like Pippa went to meet men, owner of the Android phone in Alfie’s pocket – was no longer interested in her.
And there was only one way to deal with it. He had to rip the plaster off. Put an end to it, immediately and irrevocably. It might as well be now. She didn’t know it, but this had been coming from the start. As far as she was concerned, he was Henry Bryant, a doctor, single, and devoted to his work, which was why he would often be out of touch for a few days. She had no idea he was married and called Alfie Daniels and about to shatter her dreams.
Sorry, he typed. Been busy. I’ve been thinking too. I’m not sure this is working out. I think it’s better if we call it a day. Sorry to do this by text, but I’m a bit of a coward.
Nice touch of humility at the end there, he thought. Bit of humour too. Should soften the blow.
The reply was immediate.
Are you fucking SERIOUS??! We need to talk, Henry. You can’t end it like this.
He chuckled. There was no point being gentle with her. This was the last he’d have to do with her and so he might as well leave her thinking he was an arsehole. It’d help her get over him.
I can, and I just did. Sorry. It’s over. Please don’t contact me again.
He hit send and took a mint from his pocket. He slipped it into his mouth. Time to go back in.
The screen lit up with a message. Pippa, again. Fucking hell. She needed to get the message and fuck off.
You bastard. You absolute bastard. You can’t do this to me! I won’t let you. I love you, Henry! I need to see you one last time so we can talk about this. I’ll come to your hospital at a time that suits you. OK?
Shit. She wasn’t going to give up easily. It didn’t matter, though. She had no idea who he really was, and if she did show up at the hospital he’d told her he worked at, they’d inform her there was no Dr Henry Bryant on the staff. He smiled at the thought of it. She really would be shocked then. Anyway, it made no difference to him. He was done with Pippa Davies-Hunt. He deleted her message and headed for the house.
Claire (#ulink_f2abe2cd-137e-511b-b994-f978e055f293)
Jodie, Claire’s oldest friend, was walking towards her across the living room. She was with a man Claire vaguely recognized – perhaps a university acquaintance – and as she reached Claire she gestured at her companion.
‘You remember Trevor?’ Jodie said. ‘I think you may have met at Bunny’s wedding last year?’
Trevor shook her hand. ‘Sorry to crash your birthday party. But I was out with Jo this afternoon. Happy Birthday, by the way.’
Claire smiled, and glanced at Jodie. No one called her Jo. Jodie rolled her eyes slightly, in a look that said I can’t get rid of him.
‘No problem,’ Claire said. ‘Nice to see you.’
‘Where’s Alfie?’ Jodie asked.
‘I’m not sure. Maybe getting a drink? He’s around.’
‘That was quite the … performance earlier,’ she said.
‘It was sweet of him,’ Claire said. She felt defensive, especially after Hugh’s comments. ‘You know Alfie. That’s how he is.’
‘God, I totally agree,’ Jodie said. ‘I didn’t mean anything negative, but not every guy sings songs at his wife’s birthday, you know? I actually thought it was amazing.’
‘He has a really good voice,’ Trevor said. ‘It was … impressive.’
‘He was in a band,’ Claire said, looking at Trevor. ‘That was how we met.’
‘He picked you out in the crowd?’ Trevor said.
‘Not exactly. They were playing at a wedding and he was on his break. I know – it sounds like a cliché, but he wasn’t the band guy looking for groupies at all. He was so nice. So relaxed. He told me about his career singing children’s songs. He wasn’t embarrassed, like some guys would be.’
‘He sings children’s songs?’ Trevor said.
‘He used to,’ Claire said. She was aware there was a hard edge in her voice, but she was getting sick of people thinking Alfie was some kind of beta male because he didn’t run about thumping his chest and downing pints of lager. ‘But sadly not any more.’
‘Well,’ Trevor said, finding it hard to know where to look. ‘It’ll – er – it’ll be a useful skill when you have kids.’
Jodie caught Claire’s eye. She knew they had been trying – unsuccessfully – and she changed the subject.
‘Great party,’ she said. ‘I saw Derek Pritchard. He’s back from Australia. Isn’t he the—’ Jodie was interrupted by her phone ringing. She looked at the screen. ‘God,’ she said. ‘I have to take this. It’s a friend. She’s been having a tough time.’ She lifted the phone to her ear.
‘Pippa?’ she said. ‘Are you OK?’
Claire watched as her friend’s eyes widened.
‘The bastard,’ she said. ‘That is so awful.’ She looked at Claire and Trevor and shook her head. ‘Pips,’ she said. ‘It’s noisy in here. I’m going to call you back, OK? Give me five seconds.’
‘Everything OK?’ Claire asked.
‘Not exactly,’ Jodie replied. ‘Her boyfriend dumped her by text. I think you met her once – Pippa Davies-Hunt?’
‘Yes,’ Claire said. She had a vague memory of a tall woman with very long hair. ‘Maybe at someone’s Christmas do?’
‘Dave Chapel,’ Jodie said. ‘She was dating him for a while. Anyway, she was convinced this new guy was the one, but I had my doubts. He came and went, you know? Blamed it on his job. He’s a doctor.’
‘Did you meet him?’ Claire said.
‘No. But I got a bad impression from the way she talked about him. Anyway, now he’s dumped her, and she’s distraught. The thing is, Pippa is a little bit’ – she pointed her finger at her temple and twirled it – ‘and she doesn’t take this kind of thing well. She wants me to come over. I ought to.’
‘No problem,’ Claire said. ‘You need to leave now?’
‘Maybe in half an hour,’ Jodie said.
‘Great.’ Trevor grinned. ‘I’ll grab some more drinks. Champagne?’
They watched him walk away. ‘Is he—’ Claire began. ‘Are you?’
Jodie shook her head. ‘He called out of the blue and asked if I wanted to meet for coffee. I remembered him from Bunny’s party and I figured it couldn’t do any harm, but now I can’t get rid of him. I told him I was coming to your birthday party and he invited himself along.’
‘At least you’ll be able to tell him you need to be alone with Pippa.’
‘Right,’ Jodie said. ‘Not that that’s going to be great fun. She’s really upset.’
‘I’m not surprised. Dumping someone by text is pretty harsh.’
‘Not something you’d have to worry about,’ Jodie replied. ‘Alfie’s not going anywhere.’
‘No,’ Claire said. ‘I doubt he is. It’s such a relief to be with someone who makes you feel secure. In every other relationship I was always wondering whether whoever it was really loved me, and if they did, why, what it was about me that they loved. It was a constant search for proof so I could relax. But with Alfie – I know he loves me. We connect on some deep level. It’s like we were made for each other. And it’s such a lovely feeling.’
‘You really are lucky,’ Jodie said. ‘I hope I end up in the same boat.’
‘But not with Trevor.’
‘No, not with Trevor. And I know it’s not going all that well right now, but you’ll be pregnant soon, and you two will be the perfect parents. Your kids will be the luckiest kids around.’
Claire didn’t want to say so, but she agreed. It was part of what attracted her to Alfie. She knew their kids would grow up with a dad who showed them how to be affectionate and loving, taught them it was OK to cry and show emotion, hugged and kissed and cuddled them long after they were babies. She had an image of her and Alfie and two children camping in the Lake District or riding bikes in a forest or eating popcorn on a family movie night. It was all she wanted – all he wanted, too – and the thought that it might not happen was unbearable.
‘I hope so,’ Claire said. ‘I’m not sure what I’d do if it didn’t work out. And Alfie would take it hard. I think he’s more desperate than me for kids.’
Jodie gestured to Trevor. He was walking towards them with a bottle of champagne. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘There is one saving grace about not being pregnant. You can have another drink.’
Alfie (#ulink_18aa0f33-f141-5306-ac18-e782aa39c19b)
Alfie headed back to the house. There was a group of people smoking on the terrace. Perfect. He could stop for a chat and then if Claire detected any lingering smell of smoke on him he could blame it on them.
‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Nice evening.’
There were five of them, four men he didn’t know and a woman he vaguely recognized. Her face was flushed and she was a little glassy-eyed. No wedding ring and probably no boyfriend, which was why she was out here smoking with a bunch of men who were no doubt hoping she’d leave them so they could talk about football or rugby or the other women at the party. He looked at her for a few seconds longer than was polite. She was starting to put on weight she would never get rid of and was on the cusp of losing the youthfulness that gave her what little appeal she had. She knew it, too; there was something desperate about the way she smiled at the men and laughed too loudly at their jokes.
He felt a twinge of lust. He found that kind of vulnerability irresistible. He’d have to behave himself, though. He could hardly go chasing women at his wife’s birthday party.
‘You want a ciggy?’ one of the men said. He was tall and had thick red hair and a thin, irritating voice.
‘No thanks,’ Alfie said.
He walked across the terrace to the house. Through the window he saw Claire. She was clinking champagne glasses with Jodie and some tall guy. Did Jodie have a boyfriend? He’d be jealous if she did. He looked at her for a moment. He would have loved to fuck her. Two summers ago they’d gone for a weekend in St Tropez with her. She had a white bikini and he’d spent the entire time staring at her from behind his sunglasses, and then thinking about her while he was having sex with Claire.
Claire. It was getting worse. As soon as he was in there she’d ask where he’d been, and he’d say nowhere, just a walk, when what he wanted to say was none of your fucking business. He hated the feeling he was being watched the whole time. It made him feel trapped, like a wild animal that had wandered into a house and was now being kept as a pet. He couldn’t look at her without feeling a deep and mounting anger.
Because there was no escape. Worse, by acting so in love with her from the start he had set a precedent, which left him with things like singing that awful song. He shook his head. It was so humiliating. But he had no choice. If he didn’t totally overdo it he was worried the mask would slip and she would see his true feelings, and then it – all of it, the cars and houses and holidays and money – would be gone. And he had no intention of letting that happen, especially not now when he’d had a taste of it. All he needed was an escape.
Which was where Henry Bryant came in. It had started with a fake email address. It was amazing, really: all he’d had to do was open a gmail account in the name Henry Bryant and pop! All of a sudden, he existed. He could communicate with people, log into chat rooms, post underneath newspaper articles, get Facebook and Twitter accounts.
Which he did for a while. He got involved in conversations in chat rooms and comments sections, and one of them – he’d forgotten which one – had led to an app which brought people who were looking for illicit, extra-marital affairs together.
You posted a photo, your age, some interests, and the app proposed some matches. You messaged back and forth, and, if you both agreed, you met up.
The first woman did not look like the photo she had posted at all. In the photo she looked in her early thirties and in reasonable shape; in reality she was ten years older and about three stone overweight.
Alfie didn’t care. He would not have been attracted to her under normal circumstances, but that was the whole point: these were not normal circumstances, and he was not Alfie Daniels.
The second candidate he chose was a blonde, stick-thin mother of three in her late thirties. It was a clinical transaction; afterwards, Alfie asked her if she wanted to meet again. She didn’t. The third one did, though, and she wanted to learn more about Henry Bryant.
So Alfie gave her more to learn.
It became a kind of game, to see how far he could take it.
And he had taken it much, much further than he had thought possible.
He got an address – a PO box number – and used it to get a bank account. With that, a bank account and then a credit card and a PayPal account. With his PayPal account he could buy and sell on eBay, which provided Henry Bryant with an income. The fact that the things he sold – first editions of books, rare vinyl, other collectables – were things Alfie bought was neither here nor there. None of his customers would, or could, ever know. He just needed a way of getting some money to Henry Bryant.
And with the money came – all acquired illegally and incredibly cheaply on the dark web – a birth certificate, passport and National Insurance number. Which meant Henry Bryant was real in every meaningful way possible. He could buy a house, get a job, cross international borders. He could do anything he wanted.
He just happened not to exist.
It had been perfect for Alfie. It offered him everything he wanted: a release from his life with Claire, the thrill of illicit sex with a variety of women, and most of all, a sense that he was beating the system, outsmarting everyone around him. And there was no link to him. The phone, bank account, everything – it all led to Henry Bryant.
It was odd: the longer it had gone on, the more he had started to feel that he and Henry Bryant were different people. When he was with some woman he’d met online in the corner of a pub in a part of London where Claire and her friends would never go, he was Henry Bryant. He didn’t really feel guilty, but the slight misgivings he did have were eased by the thought that it wasn’t him doing it.
It was Henry Bryant.
He even developed Bryantisms; mannerisms and affected patterns of speech – a pursing of the lips and drawing out of vowels – that he only did when he was being Henry. In some ways – and this was worrying – he preferred Henry. He was funnier, more relaxed. Moreover, he didn’t have to be the soft, unthreatening little bitch that Alfie Daniels pretended to be.
He could be whatever he wanted, and he was. He cancelled at the last minute (on the occasions when it was too risky to go), drank hard when he wanted and was rough in bed. Most of all he didn’t apologize, didn’t simper and coo, and didn’t sing any fucking stupid songs.
It was wonderful. And it was the only thing that was keeping him sane.
He became aware of a tapping on the window. He looked up. Claire was beckoning him inside.
Christ. He’d almost forgotten. He glanced at Jodie’s buttocks; she was wearing a pair of very tight jeans. He pictured peeling them off, revealing some expensive underwear, an image which allowed him to force a smile on to his face. He waved at Claire, then blew her a kiss; she mimed catching it and planted it on her cheek.
It was sickening.
Inside, he kissed Claire for real, then hugged Jodie, enjoying the press of her breasts against his chest. She gestured at the guy standing with them.
‘This is Trevor.’
Alfie shook his hand. He had a fixed, goofy grin. If this idiot was fucking Jodie he didn’t think he could take it.
‘We were on our way out,’ Jodie said. ‘I have to go and meet a friend. She’s not doing so well.’
‘Oh,’ Alfie said. ‘Everything OK?’
‘Boyfriend troubles.’ Jodie took out her phone. ‘Quick photo before I go?’
She handed the phone to Trevor, who looked put out she didn’t want him in the picture. Alfie thought it might be deliberate. Maybe he wasn’t getting any with Jodie, after all.
The three of them lined up and Trevor took a few snaps. When he was done, he gave the phone back to Jodie.
‘Nice to see you,’ Alfie said. ‘And good luck with your friend. I’m going to grab a drink.’
As he walked away, Henry Bryant’s phone buzzed in his pocket. Pippa, again. Obviously, despite how clear he’d been, she hadn’t got the message. He’d reply later and get rid of her once and for all, before she became a problem.
Henry Bryant would never let her become a problem. He dealt with things, decisively. He would never have put up with what Alfie put up with. He would have found a way to deal with Claire.
And Alfie needed to. He just had no idea what to do.
Claire (#ulink_f04c789a-4873-52b7-ab0e-ca35198812d3)
Dr Singh sat opposite Claire and studied his notes. He looked to be in his sixties and had small, precise features. She had googled him and, as her dad had said, he really was an expert in the field of fertility; he had pioneered a number of treatments with spectacular results, which probably explained the fee her dad was paying.
It was the second time they had met that day; in the morning he had asked her a bunch of questions and discussed her goals, and then he’d sent her into the room next door where a nurse had drawn blood and performed an ultrasound scan, along with some X-rays.
We’ll have the results shortly, he said. But you’ll have to see when Dr Singh is free to take you through them.
Dr Singh was free that afternoon, and Claire had left work to come and meet him. She’d had to move a couple of meetings around, but as a partner she had that flexibility. Besides, she had been thinking about it all day, unable to focus on anything other than what the doctor might tell her.
‘Well …’ He smiled. ‘So far, it’s good news.’
‘What do you mean “so far”?’ Claire said.
‘I mean the tests we did showed no abnormalities, but there are more procedures we can do. However, I’m not sure they’re warranted, at this point. I see nothing wrong.’
He pulled a piece of A4 paper from a file and handed it to her. ‘These are the results of your Hysterosalpingography – that’s the fancy name for the X-ray we took of your uterus and fallopian tubes. As you can see, nothing showed up.’
She studied the paper. There was a lot of text, but her eyes settled on the only words that mattered to her.
Abnormalities: None
‘What about the other test?’ she said. ‘The one about the eggs?’
‘The ovarian reserve test,’ Dr Singh said. ‘That, too, was fine. You have a normal egg supply, and they are of good quality.’ He laced his fingers together and leaned forwards. ‘As far as I can tell, there is no problem with your fertility. We could do further imaging, or even a laparoscopy.’
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s a procedure to take a look inside the uterus. We make an incision in the navel and put a camera in there. If there was anything going on – endometriosis, scarring – it would show up. But, like I said, there’s no reason to believe there is anything.’
Claire met his gaze. ‘Then why can’t I get pregnant?’
‘Sometimes it takes a while,’ Dr Singh said. ‘And the stress caused by worrying about it can make it more difficult. If you can relax, take your time, that would probably help.’
She already knew this. Every one of the myriad of websites about pregnancy and childbirth mentioned it. Make sure you stay relaxed. The body is less likely to conceive when under stress. A relaxed body is a body ready to have a baby. All very well; the problem was that when you tried to relax the trying got in the way of the relaxing. It was like telling somebody not to think of an elephant; as soon as you said it an elephant popped into their mind.
‘It’s hard,’ she said. ‘I can’t stop worrying that something’s wrong.’
‘There’s nothing that I can see.’ Dr Singh twirled his pen in his fingers. ‘At least, not with you. There is, however, one other avenue to explore.’
‘Which is?’
Dr Singh took off his glasses. ‘Has your husband had his sperm tested?’
Claire nodded. ‘A couple of months ago. It was fine.’
When she hadn’t got pregnant after the first few months of trying, Alfie had declared that he was going to take a test.
I don’t want to waste any time, he said. If there’s something wrong, I want to know so I can fix it.
She had asked if he thought she should get tested too.
Not yet. You’ll need to go to a doctor. I can do a home test. It’s easy. And I want peace of mind that everything’s OK with me.
And it was. She was at work when he did it, but when she came home he was beaming: sperm count was normal. She was pleased for him, but it only made her feel worse. If there was a problem then it was with her, and not him.
‘Where did he have it done?’ Dr Singh said. ‘If you don’t mind me asking. You don’t have to say, of course.’
‘It was a home testing kit.’
‘Ah.’ Dr Singh pursed his lips. ‘Those kits are perfectly accurate, if correctly used, but there is scope for error. Do you know if he kept it?’
‘I doubt it. I think he threw it away. I’ve never seen it.’
‘Well, it’s only something to consider, but maybe you could suggest that he come and see me. We can do a more comprehensive fertility test, so we’re absolutely sure.’
‘You think there’s a chance it was wrong?’
‘There’s always a chance. Faulty test, or maybe user error. Think about asking him to come in.’
‘There’s no need to think. He’ll want to do it. Can I book it now?’
‘Are you sure you don’t want to check with him first?’ Dr Singh asked.
Claire shook her head. Alfie would be on board, she had no doubt about that.
Alfie (#ulink_cb55359a-997e-54fc-bc3f-f5c2ca75623b)
Alfie turned into their street – they lived in a double-fronted Victorian villa halfway down the street – and walked slowly towards the house. It was a few minutes past seven p.m.; he’d been to a showing in Battersea. He normally tried to avoid showings as much as he could. After he and Claire got married he had felt he needed some kind of job, but he had no idea what to do, so, when Mick suggested becoming an estate agent he had agreed. Mick had helped him to find a post at a different agency – he claimed he didn’t want to mix family and business, but Alfie was convinced it was because Mick thought he was incompetent and didn’t want him near his business. As it was, it had turned out to be an inspired choice of career.
He was, if he did say so himself, fucking good at it. People seemed to want someone with a big smile to convince them that whatever property they were looking at was the perfect place for them, and Alfie was happy to oblige. Even when he knew the neighbours were noisy and annoying and there was a problem with cockroach infestations in the summer he looked them in the eye and said they’d be so happy there. Not giving a shit about them made it easier, of course.
The other benefit – and this was huge – was that he could come and go as he pleased during the day and, even better, the agency had the keys to all kinds of empty properties all over the city which he could use when he met people online.
Claire had texted – Doc sayseverything OK! – so he had bought a bottle of champagne to celebrate.
‘Hey!’ he called out as he opened the door. ‘Are you home?’
‘In the kitchen,’ Claire replied.
He walked in, making sure there was a wide smile on his face. ‘I got your text. It’s wonderful news. I’m so glad the doctor didn’t find anything.’
‘I know,’ Claire said. ‘In one way it’s a relief, but in another it’s frustrating – and worrying – because if there was a reason then at least the doctors could fix it, and if they couldn’t we’d know for sure and could make other plans. As it is, all I – we – can do is wait.’
‘It’ll happen,’ Alfie said. ‘Eventually. Lots of people have been in this exact situation.’
Claire seemed about to say something but she hesitated. She looked a little sheepish.
‘Everything OK?’ Alfie said.
‘He did ask about one other thing.’
‘Which was?’
‘Your test. The one you took at home.’
‘What about it?’
‘He wondered whether you should take another one.’
Alfie was, for a moment, lost for words. He had not been expecting to hear that. He’d taken his test – or so he’d told Claire – and he’d assumed the whole sperm-count question was settled. The last thing he needed was anyone else interfering. ‘Doesn’t he think they’re accurate?’
‘He didn’t say so. Not exactly, anyway. All he said was, there’s some margin for error. Maybe you didn’t get it right.’
Alfie laughed. ‘It’s not tremendously hard to do. You just – you know, point and shoot – on the test and a line pops up in a window.’
‘Still. He said there are other, more reliable tests he could do.’
‘And get paid for.’
‘I don’t think he was trying to drum up business, Alfie. I think he was making a suggestion. Being helpful.’
Alfie held up his hands. ‘I’m sorry. I was only being cynical.’
‘So will you do it? Go and see him?’
Alfie weighed it up. He could say yes, and then simply put it off. Find reasons to cancel appointments. Eventually she might forget.
‘Sure,’ he said. ‘I don’t think it’ll come to much, but why not? If it helps, I’ll do it.’
‘I knew you wouldn’t mind.’ Claire smiled. ‘So I made the appointment. It’s for seven a.m., this Thursday.’
Seven a.m. thisThursday? The stupid fucking bitch. What had she done now? This was typical of her. She had to fucking interfere. He’d told her his test was OK, but did she believe him? No – she went jabbering on to her private doctor that Daddy paid for because the NHS wasn’t good enough for her and then she went and actually made an appointment for him, an actual goddamn appointment that he would have to attend. There was no way he had something going on at seven a.m., and she knew it.
But he couldn’t attend. Any half-decent doctor would see immediately that he didn’t have a low sperm count; he had no sperm at all. And then they’d see the vasectomy scar – it was small but they’d know exactly what it was – and he’d be screwed.
Totally screwed.
He’d wake up on Thursday and say he was ill. But then she’d reschedule.
He was trapped. Shit. Shit. Shit. He needed a way out. And fast.
‘Are you all right, Alfie?’
He smiled at her and took out his phone – his iPhone, not his Henry Bryant phone, Henry Bryant who would have told her to go to hell, he’d already done the test and she’d better believe what he damn well said – and opened the calendar.
‘What day was it?’ he said, his voice calm and even. He grabbed her glass of wine and took a sip. He fought the urge to chug the whole thing.
‘Thursday at seven a.m. Dr Singh said he’d open early for you.’
He nodded. He’d have to go. He’d simply have to find another way to deal with it. This was a real problem.
Unless. Unless he could find a way to nip it in the bud. He had the beginnings of an idea. Perhaps there was something he could do after all. He felt himself relax.
‘I’ll be there,’ he said.
Claire (#ulink_0ddd4148-63c6-5012-96e0-5e815c69bf23)
Claire swayed as the Tube train pulled out of the station. She glanced at her watch. Alfie should be with Dr Singh now. She’d wanted to go with him but she had a meeting with a client at eight. They were working on the product launch of a new flask, and they still hadn’t settled on the design. It was getting late in the project so they had fired their original designers and come to Claire’s firm. Part of the problem was the brief; they wanted something urban and sleek, but rugged and tough. It wasn’t immediately obvious how to incorporate all those things, but she had some ideas.
She got off at her Tube stop and her phone rang. It was Jodie.
‘Hi,’ she said. ‘What’s up?’
Jodie didn’t answer. Instead she made the sound of someone blowing out their cheeks in frustration.
‘That good?’ Claire said. ‘Fill me in.’
‘It’s Pippa. She’s driving me nuts.’
It took Claire a moment to place the name, but then it came to her. Pippa was the friend whose boyfriend had broken up with her by text. ‘What’s she doing?’
‘She’s moved in. She can’t bear to be alone. And all she talks about is Henry fucking Bryant—’
‘He’s the guy who broke up with her by text?’
‘The very same, and I never want to hear his name again. I didn’t get to bed until one a.m. last night. She was telling me how she loved him and she’d been convinced he was the one and she didn’t know what she’d done wrong, she simply couldn’t understand how he’d changed from one day to the next, and didn’t I think it was weird? And maybe there was something else going on with him because he hadn’t been answering her texts or calls; he could have been taken ill or something bad had happened to him which was the real reason he’d dumped her and so maybe there was a chance they could get back together after all.’ Jodie paused and took a deep breath. ‘I get it, Claire, I really do, and I feel sorry for her. It’s horrible to be dumped – we’ve all been there – and you get trapped in a cycle of wondering if you messed up in some way or other, but this is extreme. I mean, if she’s like this it’s no wonder he wanted out.’
‘Or that he did it by text,’ Claire said. ‘He probably knew how she’d react. Not that it’s an excuse. He should have told her to her face.’
‘Yeah, he should. But that doesn’t help me. She was up at five this morning, which meant I was too, ready for another few hours of speculation about why Henry Bryant had broken up with her. What am I going to do?’
‘It’ll pass. She’ll get over it.’
‘But in the meantime it’s torture.’
‘Take her out. Meet some new guys.’
‘I’d feel bad inflicting her on them.’
Claire laughed. ‘Then you’ll just have to get her to move out in a kind and gentle way. Tell her she’s welcome to stay for a while longer but you’re busy at work and you need your space. Don’t do it by text, though.’
Jodie gave a sardonic laugh. ‘Maybe I should. It might work. Or I’ll tell her I’m going on a business trip and come to stay with you guys.’
‘Sure. Do whatever you need.’ Claire checked the time on her phone. ‘Anyway, I have to run. I have a meeting.’
‘OK. And thanks for the advice, although I’m not sure I’m much closer to a solution. I feel better for venting though. By the way, I’ve got some good photos of us at the party. I’ll send them over.’
They hung up and, a few seconds later, Claire’s phone buzzed. Jodie had sent two photos from her birthday party: one of her and Jodie and Alfie standing together and one of Alfie singing the song he’d written, with her dad in the background looking at him in mild disgust.
Here you go, the message said. Look at your dad! Not sure what he thinks of the song! I’m sure he likes Alfie, but they’re so different. Anyway, thought you’d get a kick out of this.
Claire laughed and walked towards the office. As she turned on to Haymarket there was a busker singing ‘Father and Son’. She stopped to listen. She’d forgotten about Alfie but the song reminded her where he was. It was a good omen, a sign the appointment was going well. She smiled and reached into her bag for some change. All she had was a twenty-pound note. For a second she hesitated, but then she bent down and threw it into the guitar case. She had to. She had a sudden sense that it was all linked and she couldn’t ignore the fact there was a busker singing a song about a father right at the point Alfie was with Dr Singh. She had to give to receive.
The busker looked at the note lying among a scattering of coins. He grinned at her.
‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘And good luck.’
She turned away and headed up the street, smiling so much it was almost painful.
This was it.This was the day it all fell into place.
Alfie (#ulink_eed476b5-fa01-54a2-97cc-facb913f5c1a)
Dr Singh folded his arms and looked at Alfie. He had a puzzled expression on his face.
‘So,’ he said. ‘I have some results. Before we discuss them, I must say I am a little surprised.’
Alfie had no doubt that he was, but he frowned, then widened his eyes as though he was worried. ‘What kind of surprise?’
Dr Singh sat back in his chair. ‘Mr Daniels,’ he said. ‘Your sperm count is zero. There are no sperm.’
Alfie let his mouth drop open. ‘But,’ he stammered, ‘but I took a test. It was OK.’
‘I don’t know how. Unless you read it incorrectly. Tell me, did you refrain from sex and masturbation for forty-eight hours before coming here?’
Alfie nodded. He’d made a big thing of it, telling Claire how hard it was to resist her.
‘Then there can be no doubt. You are not producing sperm.’
‘I can’t believe it,’ Alfie said. ‘I really can’t believe it.’
The doctor’s bedside manner could use some work, Alfie thought. He’d just blurted out the news that a man would never be a father. He wasn’t to know Alfie was perfectly aware of that already. For all Dr Singh knew, Alfie’s devastation was genuine.
‘I want to discuss something else with you,’ Dr Singh said. ‘There are some other avenues we could explore.’
‘Oh?’ Alfie said. ‘Please. Anything.’
‘Normally we would do two or three tests to get a good sense of the quality and quantity of sperm being produced over a period of time, but since there are no sperm at all I’m not sure it makes sense.’
‘I get it,’ Alfie said. ‘If there are none then I have no chance.’ He looked down, focusing on his fingernails. ‘I can’t believe it’s come to this. It seems so hopeless.’
‘Maybe not,’ Dr Singh said. ‘I’d like to do further tests. It’s possible there is a blockage which is stopping the sperm from getting from the testes into the ejaculate. In fact, since there are no sperm at all, I’d like to check for this.’
‘How would you do that?’
‘We could do an ultrasound as a first step. We can do it now, if you like? We’ll have results right away.’
Alfie looked at the doctor. He felt a violent hatred for him but he bit it back. He had to stay calm. If he let the doctor do this then it would be obvious he had had a vasectomy. It would be equally obvious he had lied about it. That said, Dr Singh would have to keep quiet – he couldn’t reveal anything to Claire because of confidentiality. Still, it was better not to have anyone know.
He shook his head. ‘There’s no point,’ he said. ‘I’ll know more about why I have no sperm, but it won’t help.’
‘Oh, it will,’ Dr Singh said. ‘It’ll make all the difference in the world.’
Alfie straightened in his chair. ‘Oh? How so?’
‘Because if there is a blockage then that means you may well be producing plenty of healthy sperm. We can then either fix it, and you’ll be able to get pregnant in the traditional fashion, or we can harvest those sperm and use them for IVF, or other such treatments.’
‘I’m not sure,’ Alfie said. ‘It might be better to let it be. Accept the situation.’
Dr Singh frowned. ‘Mr Daniels! This is a very simple procedure and it could change everything. You should at least discuss it with your wife. I’m sure she would be keen to pursue this option.’
‘She wouldn’t need to know, would she?’ Alfie said. ‘I mean, you can’t tell her any of this, can you?’
Dr Singh did not reply for a long time. When he did, his voice was low and guarded. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I can’t.’
‘Good. Then I’d like it if you didn’t.’
‘May I ask a question, Mr Daniels?’
Alfie nodded.
‘Do you intend to tell your wife that everything is normal with your sperm test?’
Alfie thought for a moment. ‘Yes, I do. But you can’t say anything.’
‘No,’ Dr Singh said. ‘I can’t. But I will have no choice but to stop treating her.’
Alfie looked at him. That could be a problem. ‘Why?’ he said.
‘Because I will know – even though I will say nothing – that the real cause of her not conceiving is your sperm. Knowing that, I cannot continue to act as though the problem might be her, not to mention the ethics of charging for treatment I know will be ineffective.’
‘What will you tell her?’
‘That an ethical concern has arisen and I can no longer be her doctor.’
‘She’ll want to know why.’
‘I’ll tell her I can’t say why.’
Alfie nodded, slowly. He shouldn’t have said he was going to tell Claire his sperm was normal, but then Singh would have felt he could have discussed it with her, since Alfie had already told her. And he had to keep it from her.
So he’d had no choice. And now it was obvious what would happen: when the doctor told her there was some ethical concern, Claire would think something was badly wrong and would go immediately to another doctor. She’d make Alfie go with her, and she’d insist she was there at every appointment. That doctor would discover his zero sperm count and suggest a scan to look for a blockage, at which point the vasectomy would be revealed and his marriage, and the lifestyle that went with it, would be over.
The problems would pile on top of each other until the whole thing came crashing down, and that left him with only one option. The option Henry Bryant would have taken.
‘OK, I’ll tell her the truth. I have no sperm.’ Alfie tapped the desk. ‘Then what will you do?’
‘I’ll say it is true you have no sperm, but I don’t know why, and since you do not want further treatment there is nothing more I can do to help at this point.’
‘Well,’ Alfie said. ‘Let me tell you – patient to doctor – why I have no sperm. It’s because I had a vasectomy. And before you ask, Claire doesn’t know about it, and she’s not going to find out. So here’s what’s going to happen: I’m going to tell her I have no sperm, and then, if she asks you about it, you’re going to say it’s true. And that’s it. You’re not going to say another word.’
Dr Singh’s eyes narrowed, and he pointed his index finger at Alfie’s chest. ‘I’m not intimidated by you, Mr Daniels. I will keep your secrets, but I will not treat—’
Alfie’s hand snapped out and he grabbed the doctor’s finger. He stared at him and slowly bent it back. Dr Singh flinched in pain. ‘Listen to me,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Listen to me, you filthy little Paki. You’re going to tell her there’s nothing more you can do to help me and she’s going to leave here feeling sad, and you’ll never see her again. And if you don’t, you won’t need to worry about breaking doctor–patient confidentiality. You’ll need to worry about me breaking your disgusting brown neck.’
‘I’ll call the police,’ Dr Singh said, through gritted teeth. ‘This is assault.’
Alfie shook his head. ‘No, you won’t,’ he said. ‘There’s no evidence of any assault. And when they get here I’ll say you fondled me when you examined me. I’ll tell everyone. And they’ll believe me, because people believe that kind of thing.’
He tightened his grip and lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘And I will kill you. One night, when you’re all alone, you’ll wake up and wonder what the noise in your house was, whether there even was a noise, and then you’ll look up and I’ll be in your bedroom and it’ll be the last thing you ever see. Understand?’
He could see fear in the doctor’s eyes. He relaxed. This was going his way.
‘I asked you a question,’ he said. ‘Answer it, you piece of immigrant shit. Do. You. Understand?’
Dr Singh nodded, his lips pressed together to suppress the pain.
‘I understand,’ he said.
‘Good,’ Alfie replied, and let go of his finger.
Claire (#ulink_0f83ad8f-70ff-59ee-9482-21e1f8eeb8e4)
Claire’s phone buzzed and she glanced at the screen. It was a text from Alfie. The meeting was in full flow, but she had to read his message.
Can you call?
Her stomach balled up. There was something about the text message which didn’t seem right to her. He’d have his results by now. She’d been expecting a breezy no problem or all fine down below, but not this. Not a request to call her. She started to type a reply – call you back soon – but before she could finish it, she became aware that the room was silent. She lifted her head. Vicki Turner, the senior partner and founder of the firm, was looking back at her.
‘Claire?’ she said. ‘Your thoughts on the last question?’
Claire swallowed. She had no idea what the last question was.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t catch the question.’
Vicki Turner – tall, late-fifties, hair groomed into a static pile, pencil skirt and expensive jacket – looked pointedly at Claire’s phone, and then spoke slowly.
‘The question,’ she said, ‘was about the relationship with the client. If we have a strong relationship then maybe we can resolve the matter without pursuing legal action. Since you manage this contract, I was wondering whether you might be able to provide an opinion on the matter.’
‘Right,’ Claire said. ‘Of course.’ She searched for something to say but her mind had gone blank. She felt the heat rise in her neck and cheeks, felt herself flush. It was ridiculous; she was a grown woman, but here she was, her mind frozen.
‘It’s …’ she began, ‘it’s fine, I think. No, it’s better than that. It’s good.’
Vicki nodded. ‘Do you think we may be able to resolve this payment dispute without going down the legal route?’
‘I’m not – well yes, maybe.’ Claire smiled. ‘Maybe I can talk to someone there. Test the temperature.’
‘OK,’ Vicki said. ‘Let’s do that. Perhaps by the end of the day, if possible?’
‘No problem,’ Claire said. ‘End of the day it is.’
Back at her desk, she picked up her phone and called Alfie. He answered on the second ring. She could tell immediately it wasn’t good news.
‘Alfie,’ she said. ‘What happened?’
There was a long pause. ‘It turns out,’ he said eventually, ‘the problem is me.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well,’ Alfie replied. ‘I have a very low sperm count.’
‘But you took that test! It was fine.’
‘I know. That’s what I thought. But it must have been faulty.’
‘OK,’ Claire said. ‘It’s not the end of the world. There are things they can do even if you have a low sperm count. We can try those.’
‘Not in my case,’ Alfie said. He sounded worse, flatter and more exhausted, than Claire had ever heard him sound before. ‘I have no sperm, Claire. None at all. It’s impossible.’
‘No,’ Claire said. ‘It can’t be! I’ll talk to Dr Singh. See if—’
‘Claire!’ Alfie’s voice was almost a shout. ‘Please don’t make this any worse than it needs to be. It’s time to move on.’
She was about to argue, but she caught the words on her lips. Now was not the time. And besides, Alfie had no doubt explored all the possibilities with Dr Singh, and so if he said it was impossible it must be. He wanted this as badly as she did; there was no way he would leave any stone unturned.
‘OK,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry, darling. I feel for you.’
‘I don’t care about me. It’s you. This is your dream. You deserve better.’
‘There is no one better,’ Claire said. ‘And this test result doesn’t change how I feel about you one bit. I love you as much – more – than I ever did. This will only bring us closer.’
‘Thank you,’ Alfie said. ‘Thank you for saying that. It means a lot. I love you.’
She looked at her watch. It was ten a.m. ‘I’ll see you tonight. What time are you home?’
‘I don’t know. I’m a bit behind. But I don’t want to be too late. I need to see you.’
‘Get back as soon as you can. We can have a drink and talk about how to deal with this. OK?’
He agreed and she put her phone on her desk. She pushed it away from her, then rubbed her temples. So there was a reason she couldn’t get pregnant, and it was this. Although she’d wanted him to go and see Dr Singh she hadn’t really thought there was a problem. It was more for peace of mind than anything else. But now this had happened.
And as it started to sink in tears came to her eyes.
She shook her head. She could cry about it later. For now she needed to get her thoughts straight. Firstly, Alfie would be devastated, so she needed to be sensitive to him. Secondly, there were still avenues they could explore. If she wanted to have her own baby then they could use a sperm donor, or they could adopt. She’d often thought that, after she had a couple of her own and built a family home, she would like to adopt a child. There was something about the idea of sharing what she had with someone in need that appealed to her.
Well, maybe that was going to happen sooner than she’d thought.
She closed her laptop. She needed a coffee. As she got up, Jodie called.
‘Hey,’ Claire said. ‘How’re things?’
‘Good,’ Jodie replied. ‘You? Want to meet up tonight?’
‘I can’t. And I thought you were locked into Pippa world.’
‘I was. But, amazingly, she’s going out tonight. We were supposed to be watching a movie, but she called and said she had plans. She sounded quite happy, actually. Maybe she got asked out on a date. Either way, I thought I’d take advantage and see if you were free.’
‘Sadly not,’ Claire said. ‘I have plans with Alfie. But I’m glad Pippa is off your hands, for a night at least.’
‘Me too. See you soon.’
Claire put her phone in her bag and headed for the main doors. She needed to get some fresh air. She could get her coffee somewhere nearby.
As she left the building she noticed that the busker was gone.
Alfie (#ulink_6fec0ac7-9e7f-5eb0-bd30-82556563f0d3)
Alfie put his phone down – his Henry Bryant phone – and stared out of the office window.
He was in trouble. Big trouble.
Just before he’d given Claire the bad news, Pippa had sent him a text message – We need to talk– which he’d ignored, as usual. He hadn’t been able to ignore the next one she sent, though, since it contained his name. His real name.
You’ll have to answer this one, Henry, it read. Or should I say, Alfie?
She knew who he was. How, he had no idea, but she knew. And if she knew, then others might. She was right; he had to answer, so he had called her.
Well, well, she said. Nice to hear from you, Henry.
She put a heavy, sarcastic emphasis on the ‘Henry’.
Look, he said. I can explain.
Can you? she replied. I doubt it. Although I suppose you’re trapped in an unhappy marriage and Henry Bryant was your way out?
Yes, he said. I know it’s a cliché but it’s true. And this is true, too – I was falling for you too deeply and I knew that if it carried on I’d be in trouble, which was why I had to end it.
You texted me, she said. You didn’t even have the decency to call.
I knew if I did you’d persuade me. I’m weak, Pippa, when it comes to you. I would have heard your voice and I would have been unable to do it.
She paused and he sensed her soften. He was telling her what she wanted to hear. It was amazing how easily people would believe you when you did that.
Pippa, he said. I knew that if we stayed together I’d eventually have had to choose between you and my marriage, and I’d have chosen you. But that’s impossible. My wife is vindictive. The divorce would have been messy and she’d have made sure I was left with nothing. And that’s not all … she’s violent. There’s no telling what she would have done. So I couldn’t let it come to that.
I’d have helped you, Pippa said. We’d have been OK together.
You couldn’t stop her. No one could.
It wouldn’t have mattered. As long as we had each other, everything else would have been irrelevant.
Oh, Pippa, he said,injecting real longing into his voice. I want to see you. Can we meet? Tonight?
I don’t know, she said. You hurt me.
Now she thought she was in the driving seat, she was playing hard to get, but that was all it was.
Please, he said. I miss you.
I miss you too, she replied, her voice almost a whisper.
Will you meet me? he begged.
Yes. I’ll meet you.
Tonight?
Tonight.
And so they had arranged to meet later. Claire would be expecting him home, but he’d have to come up with some reason he’d stayed out later. For now, Pippa was the priority. He had no idea what he was going to do, but he knew he had to find out how she knew, who else she had told, and then he could start to figure out how to fix this.
He took his car from the office car park and drove to Barnes, where they had arranged to meet in a pub. They hugged and he was struck by how, even at an emotional reunion, there was a limpness and passivity in the way she embraced him. A shudder of disgust ran through him.
They ordered two glasses of wine and sat at a corner table.
‘So,’ he said. ‘It’s great to see you. How’ve you been?’
She looked at him, her eyes wide, almost fearful. ‘Not good,’ she said. ‘I was going a bit crazy.’
‘Me too. But I’m here now.’
‘And you’re not Henry Bryant,’ she said. ‘You lied to me.’
‘Only about that. Not about how I felt about you.’
‘How do I know that? It’s going to be hard for me to trust you again.’
Going to be, he noted. In her mind, they were already back together.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Truly I am. And not that it matters now, but how did you find out?’
She smiled a sly smile. ‘A friend.’
Shit. So someone else knew. This was getting worse. ‘Which friend?’
‘Jodie.’
He froze. If Jodie knew then it was only a matter of time before she told Claire. They were best friends. He was surprised she hadn’t called already. ‘How did she find out?’ he asked.
‘She didn’t. Not exactly.’
‘Then what happened?’
‘She was showing me some photos on her phone, and one came up of her with you. And your wife. Who I’ve met, by the way, a while ago. There was another photo of you singing a song. A romantic one, I assume. Of course, I was more than a little surprised to see you, so I asked who you were and she told me. Alfie Daniels, husband of the lovely Claire.’
‘She isn’t so lovely.’ He shook his head. ‘And it wasn’t a romantic song.’ There was an important piece of information he needed. The most important piece. ‘You told Jodie about us?’
Pippa shook her head. ‘No. I wanted to speak to you first.’
Alfie fought to stop himself shouting in relief. ‘Did you tell anyone?’
‘No. Like I said, I wanted to give you a chance to tell me your side of the story.’
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘That’s very fair. And it’s one of the reasons … it’s one of the reasons I love you.’
She blinked. There they were, the three little words that made all the difference.
I.Love.You.
‘Oh my God,’ she said. ‘I love you too, Alfie Daniels.’
Hearing her words also made all the difference to Alfie, but not the ‘I love you’. It was hearing his name.
It reminded him that she knew who he was, and that she held his fate in her hands as a result. And it made everything clear to him. He knew exactly what he had to do.
‘Let’s go,’ he said. ‘I have my car. We can book into a hotel. I can’t wait any longer.’ He took her hands in his and stared into her eyes. ‘And then I’m going to tell Claire it’s over. Tonight.’
She blinked rapidly, her lips pressed together. ‘Do you promise?’ she said.
Alfie nodded. ‘I promise.’
He told Pippa there was a hotel he had in mind in Tunbridge Wells, a hotel that was special to him and that, although it was a long drive, was worth it for what was, after all, a special occasion. He had no intention of going to a hotel there, but it sounded good. It was the kind of place where girls like Pippa imagined illicit assignations took place. He switched off his iPhone; he had a plan for what he would tell Claire later and it involved her being unable to get in touch with him.
As they approached Tunbridge Wells he turned on to a B road heading east. Pippa glanced at him.
‘Is this the right way?’ she said.
‘Yep. It’s a quiet little place. It’s in the countryside. Hardly anyone knows about it.’
Which was all true. Hardly anyone did know about their destination. The only thing he had failed to mention was that it wasn’t a hotel.
Ten minutes later he pulled into layby. It was on the edge of a dense forest. He switched off the engine, then put his hand on her knee. Her jeans were soft and expensive. He ran his hand up to her crotch.
‘Alfie,’ Pippa said. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m getting desperate,’ he said. ‘I can’t wait any longer. I want you. Now.’
‘How far is the hotel?’
‘Not far. But I thought’ – he turned and placed his hands on her cheeks and pulled her towards him – ‘we could get started early.’
She twisted in her seat and kissed him. As she did, he put his hands on her cheeks and held her face. She gave a slight moan and, for a second, he hesitated.
Then he slid his hands down her face and around her neck, and began to squeeze.
‘Alfie,’ she gasped. ‘What are you doing?’
He squeezed harder, and she squealed as the pressure increased and her windpipe began to narrow.
‘You silly little girl,’ he muttered. ‘Did you really think I was in love with you? Then you’re more stupid than I thought. But that’s good for me, because it made this easy.’
He looked at her. Her eyes were beginning to bulge in their sockets. Strangely, he felt nothing. Just a deep calm. He pressed harder, felt the flesh yield.
‘I couldn’t have you wandering around knowing that Henry Bryant and Alfie Daniels are one and the same,’ he said. ‘You understand that, right?’
In her eyes he saw that she knew she was going to die. She grabbed his wrists and tried to pull them away. She was surprisingly strong. He supposed she was desperate.
He focused on putting as much pressure on her throat as he could. Gradually, her attempts to pull away his hands grew weaker – he had some scratches which would need some explanation – until they stopped entirely. Slowly, he relaxed his grip, ready to tighten it at the slightest sign of movement.
There was nothing. He examined her face. She was wide-eyed, her mouth slack and open.
She was, without question, dead.
And Alfie felt great.
Claire (#ulink_ad904900-ae09-5441-849c-e67903d61e6e)
Claire looked at the call log on her phone. She’d tried Alfie eleven times since she’d got home from work. Eleven calls, none of them answered. She’d been expecting him home, expecting a quiet night together as they talked through their options.
She had not been expecting an empty house and eleven unanswered phone calls, or the intense and deepening worry. She imagined everything that could have possibly happened to him: hit by a car, mugged, stuck at work.
Suicide.
It was this that brought her out in cold sweats. He was a sensitive, caring man who had found out he couldn’t have his own children, which was what he wanted more than anything else. He hadn’t ever said much about his childhood, but she got the impression it hadn’t been all that happy even before both his parents had died. She thought that was part of the reason he wanted to be a father so much; like her, he wanted to put right some of what had gone wrong in his own life.
So it was entirely possible he had killed himself. She loved him, but she knew he was not the strongest of men, and that made this situation all the more worrying.
She picked up her phone and glanced at the time. Nearly midnight. That was it. She’d call him one more time, and if he didn’t pick up she was calling the police.
It turned out there was no need to call the police after all. Five minutes later he was back, assuming that it was him stumbling around in the hallway.
The door to the living room opened. She watched Alfie walk in, the top two buttons of his shirt open. His hair was dishevelled and his face was red. The harsh smell of whisky came off him in waves.
He stared at her, his mouth an unhappy line. He looked close to tears. Claire felt her anger – along with the worry – melting away.
‘Where the hell have you been?’ she said, her tone much softer than she’d been imagining it would be for the last few hours.
‘Went for a drink,’ Alfie said. His words were slurred and indistinct. He was not a big drinker and she had never seen him like this.
‘On your own?’
He nodded.
‘Where?’
‘Bunch of places.’
‘Why, Alfie?’
He shrugged. ‘Why do you think?’
‘You should have called. I was worried.’
‘I’m sorry.’ He looked away from her, his gaze unfocused. ‘I couldn’t face you. I feel like I’ve let you down.’
‘Alfie!’ Claire said. ‘That’s the last thing you’ve done! This isn’t your fault. It’s nobody’s fault. It’s just one of those things. It’s sad – of course it is, I mean, I’m devastated – but I don’t blame
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Alex Lake
THE TWISTY NEW PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF AFTER ANNA, KILLING KATE AND COPYCATEveryone lies…but some lies are deadly.For Claire Daniels, life is good. She has everything she’s ever wanted – a career she loves, friends she can rely on and a husband who dotes on her. All she needs is to start a family of her own and things will be even better than good.They’ll be perfect.For Alfie, it couldn’t be more different. His life with Claire is built on a lie. A lot of lies. And she can never find out.Because Alfie has plans for her. Plans which must never come to light. But lies have a way of taking on a life of their own, and when his do, the consequences threaten to destroy everything.For him and Claire.
Copyright (#u42a39495-a7a3-5675-98f3-80f3ed7e8b86)
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2018
Copyright © Alex Lake 2018
Cover design by Ellie Game © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018
Cover photographs © Mark Owen/Plainpicture (https://www.plainpicture.com/en) (house, front cover), Shutterstock.com (http://Shutterstock.com) (figure in window, house on back cover)
Alex Lake asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008272371
Ebook Edition © December 2018 ISBN: 9780008272395
Version: 2018-10-24
Dedication (#u42a39495-a7a3-5675-98f3-80f3ed7e8b86)
To Paul Ponder
Contents
Cover (#uc5ffd0ac-c1a6-584c-be6e-717215e0e782)
Title Page (#u1e5d9d39-0d66-56e4-a578-84aa2d3e90d3)
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
Part One: Alfie and Claire
Claire (#u2b286e41-3120-5b2b-be73-875818b9b88c)
Alfie (#ueb7a0800-c9e0-56ca-bc94-34d6716387ef)
Claire (#u6bc95162-8e94-58cf-931d-6543c3ea0d9c)
Alfie (#u5efb6850-2c45-5ddb-8c1b-1de610fa5e50)
Claire (#u3cd4dd68-8ce2-5c55-b23d-c6e45a40331e)
Alfie (#u927ef27e-5328-5763-be53-2c06860dffc4)
Claire (#u24cfd107-4bb7-5a24-b2c1-d2c743682944)
Alfie (#u69f31041-d316-5b7d-a573-9eeb48074592)
Claire (#u69811be8-f4a1-5e3c-9bd4-8314dc10092a)
Alfie (#ue5489570-1cf9-59ad-b9d6-253155f32f3d)
Claire (#ub30dadaa-fd66-5dac-ad31-34bf030ea03c)
Alfie (#uecda842e-0d5f-5671-a1c5-8186c9e68f52)
Claire (#u996a2357-e119-520e-9486-91f7df787e5e)
Alfie (#ud824be8a-59b0-5a9d-89a2-848f175a267c)
Claire (#u9a960006-c193-5cc6-ad73-0cc1db20e60a)
Alfie (#litres_trial_promo)
Claire (#litres_trial_promo)
Alfie (#litres_trial_promo)
Claire (#litres_trial_promo)
Alfie (#litres_trial_promo)
Claire (#litres_trial_promo)
Alfie (#litres_trial_promo)
Claire (#litres_trial_promo)
Alfie (#litres_trial_promo)
Claire (#litres_trial_promo)
Alfie (#litres_trial_promo)
Claire (#litres_trial_promo)
Alfie (#litres_trial_promo)
Interval (#litres_trial_promo)
Part Two: Alfie
Friday: i (#litres_trial_promo)
ii (#litres_trial_promo)
iii (#litres_trial_promo)
iv (#litres_trial_promo)
v (#litres_trial_promo)
Saturday: i (#litres_trial_promo)
ii (#litres_trial_promo)
iii (#litres_trial_promo)
iv (#litres_trial_promo)
Sunday: i (#litres_trial_promo)
ii (#litres_trial_promo)
iii (#litres_trial_promo)
iv (#litres_trial_promo)
Monday: i (#litres_trial_promo)
ii (#litres_trial_promo)
iii (#litres_trial_promo)
Tuesday: i (#litres_trial_promo)
ii (#litres_trial_promo)
Early Wednesday Morning: i (#litres_trial_promo)
ii (#litres_trial_promo)
iii (#litres_trial_promo)
Wednesday: i (#litres_trial_promo)
ii (#litres_trial_promo)
iii (#litres_trial_promo)
Thursday: i (#litres_trial_promo)
ii (#litres_trial_promo)
iii (#litres_trial_promo)
Friday: i (#litres_trial_promo)
ii (#litres_trial_promo)
iii (#litres_trial_promo)
iv (#litres_trial_promo)
v (#litres_trial_promo)
Saturday: i (#litres_trial_promo)
Sunday: i (#litres_trial_promo)
ii (#litres_trial_promo)
Part Three: Alfie, Claire, and DI Wynne
Alfie (#litres_trial_promo)
Wynne (#litres_trial_promo)
Claire (#litres_trial_promo)
Wynne (#litres_trial_promo)
Alfie (#litres_trial_promo)
Wynne (#litres_trial_promo)
Claire (#litres_trial_promo)
Street (#litres_trial_promo)
Alfie (#litres_trial_promo)
Street (#litres_trial_promo)
Claire (#litres_trial_promo)
Alfie (#litres_trial_promo)
Claire (#litres_trial_promo)
Street (#litres_trial_promo)
Claire (#litres_trial_promo)
Wynne (#litres_trial_promo)
Claire (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)
Read on for a sneak preview of Alex Lake’s new novel (#litres_trial_promo)
Enjoyed The Last Lie? Try three more psychological thrillers by Alex Lake … (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
Also by Alex Lake (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue (#u42a39495-a7a3-5675-98f3-80f3ed7e8b86)
The woman driving the car knew better than to stop for hitchhikers. Maybe, decades ago, she would have considered it. Things were different then. People had good intentions. Kids were polite, and respectful to adults. They didn’t hang around the streets wearing hoodies and intimidating passers-by. A hitchhiker would, more than likely, be in search of nothing other than a lift to their destination. So yes, she might have picked one up years ago.
But only in the right circumstances. If she was with someone. And it was daylight. And the hitchhiker looked respectable.
Even back then she would never have picked someone up alone, at night, on a quiet road through deserted countryside, a road lined by half-bent trees and high hedges.
And she wasn’t about to start now.
It was still awkward, though. You didn’t want to acknowledge the person as you passed them because that meant acknowledging you were not generous enough to help them out. It was like passing a beggar on the street; you didn’t want to look at them, didn’t want to have the embarrassment of saying ‘no’ when they asked for money. So you marched on, eyes forward, as though they weren’t even there.
It was easy on a busy street with other people around, other things to look at, but on a country road at night? It was much harder. There was nothing to pretend you’d been distracted by. It was obvious you would have noticed the hitchhiker. You couldn’t not.
Who was, she saw as she approached, a young woman. At least she thought so, from a distance. Long hair, slight build. For a moment her resolve wavered – maybe she would pick her up, she shouldn’t be out here alone – but then she stiffened. She’d heard of this kind of trick: put an innocent, unthreatening woman out there and then, when the driver stopped, a thug – or gang of thugs – would jump out, steal the car and leave her there, alone.
Or worse. Raped. Dead.
She got ready to swerve in case the young woman jumped or stumbled into the road. That was another trick she’d heard about. Or maybe she was drunk. It wouldn’t be a surprise. Nowadays young women got drunk all the time, out in town centres that were no-go areas at night, vomit-streaked war zones populated by feral youths intent on fighting and drinking and having sex with each other.
The hitchhiker’s head turned towards the sound of the car. She raised her hand. It was a curiously weak movement. Hesitant. Tentative. Fearful, almost. The woman driving the car shook her head. She was definitely not stopping. The girl was probably on drugs, as well as drunk.
And then the beam of the headlights lit her up and the woman driving the car let out a sharp gasp.
The hitchhiker was a young woman, in her late twenties, or maybe early thirties.
She was also completely naked.
But that wasn’t the most shocking thing about her.
The most shocking thing was that the woman driving the car recognized her.
It took her a few moments to realize where from, and then she gasped again.
She wasn’t a hitchhiker – although there was no doubt she needed a lift – she was something completely different.
She braked, coming to a halt a few metres past the young woman, then opened her door.
The young woman stared at her, her eyes wide and unseeing. Her hair was matted, and she was streaked with dirt. She took a step towards the car, and the driver flinched, glancing around to see if there was anyone hiding in the shadows.
There was nothing. Just the hedges and the moon and the silence of the night.
She looked back at the young woman.
‘Are you—’ she said, then paused. ‘Are you her?’
PART ONE (#u42a39495-a7a3-5675-98f3-80f3ed7e8b86)
Claire (#ulink_5a2cc9fc-287c-5d8c-a69e-1205b21bfb82)
Claire Daniels stood on the tiled floor of the bathroom and stared into the mirror. She studied the face that looked back at her. She recognized every feature and freckle and contour. She had seen them a thousand times. More. Many thousands. The face belonged to her. It was utterly familiar.
And yet, in a few minutes, she might be a totally new person.
From time to time a person could change in an instant into someone new. It had happened to her twice: the day her mum died and the day she met Alfie. Once for bad, once for good. And today – this morning – it might be about to happen a third time.
That first time was awful. Beyond awful. She was fourteen and had just walked in from Lacrosse practice after school. Her best friend Jodie’s mum had brought her home and on the way back she had asked if they wanted to go to a Coldplay concert, on their own. Jodie’s mum said she would drop them off and pick them up but they could watch the concert without any adults present.
Thank you, Mrs Pierce, Claire said. That would be amazing.
Call me Angie, Jodie’s mum said. But you need to clear it with your parents.
Which was what Claire had been planning to do when she ran into the house. Her dad would be at work, but she could hear the television in the living room, which was where her mum would be.
She was there, all right, slumped on the cream leather sofa in the living room. At first Claire had thought she was sleeping, but then she noticed the trickle of blood coming from her nostril and the vomit on her jeans and the glassy-eyed stare into nowhere.
She was dead. Claire knew it as soon as she saw her, but that didn’t stop her slapping then hugging then slapping her to wake her up. What followed was a whirl she had never been able to put in order however many times she had thought about it. She’d called her dad and then it was sirens, medics, police officers. A doctor had given her something and she’d gone to bed, only to wake up the next day to the same horror.
Her mother never gave permission for Claire to go to the Coldplay concert. She never gave permission for anything else ever again.
Heroin, her dad told her a few days later. Her mum had overdosed, an addiction from her twenties that she’d managed to beat down had come roaring back in her forties and burned her out.
It snuffed out Claire, too. Left her hollow. When she looked at herself in the mirror she saw someone else. Someone lost, unsmiling, changed. There was a gap at the centre of her, a gap that was only filled when she met Alfie. She remembered getting home after their first date, a date that had begun as an afternoon coffee and grown into dinner and drinks and a night-time walk through central London. She’d glimpsed herself in the mirror. Something about her reflection had caught her eye and she’d paused, and looked again, and seen a new woman. Seen herself again.
And she knew she had changed in the space of that night, had started to emerge from the hole her mum’s death had left her in.
Started. Even after three years of marriage – three happy years – there was still something missing. And hopefully that final piece of the puzzle would be in place any minute. If it went as she hoped, she’d look in the mirror and see, once again, a new person.
A mother.
At least, a mother-to-be.
A mother who would not overdose on heroin and leave her daughter alone. A mother who would love and cherish her child, her children. A mother who would heal her own wounds by making sure she didn’t inflict them on her children.
And then she’d go and wake up her husband, the man who had made her feel warm and safe and whole from the moment they’d met and every moment since, and tell him that she was pregnant. After all these months trying, finally, they were going to be parents, going to have new titles, new roles.
Claire and Alfie, daughter and son, wife and husband.
Mum and dad.
She blinked, and opened the bathroom cabinet. She took out a pregnancy test. It was the first of a packet of two. She’d bought them nine months earlier in anticipation of needing them sooner, but her period had come, on time, month after month. She and Alfie did everything right: they had sex constantly when she was ovulating, and plenty besides, but it didn’t matter. Inevitably at the appointed time she started to feel bloated and lethargic and then her period arrived.
But not this month. This month she was two days late. Two whole days. She knew there could be many reasons why, but she didn’t care.
She was pregnant. She felt it.
And it was her birthday this weekend. She had drinks planned after work – it was a Friday – and then a party at her dad’s house on Saturday. It was the perfect present. It all hung together. It was too right not to be true.
She took the test from the cardboard and sat on the toilet. She positioned it between her legs and a few seconds later a stream of warm urine ran over the white plastic. She left it there until the stream stopped and then placed it by the sink. She didn’t look at it; the line she craved could take a minute or so to show up and she wanted to give it every opportunity.
She washed her hands, her heart racing and her stomach tight. She pictured herself walking into their bedroom and shaking Alfie awake. Telling him the news. Watching him smile. No – she stopped herself. She shouldn’t get carried away. Her dad called it the commentators’ curse: just when a commentator was saying how some football team was about to score or some player was playing well, something bad would happen.
But this was it; she was sure of it. There’d be a line and she’d be pregnant and even if it didn’t work out, if there was a problem of some sort, she’d know she could get pregnant, and even that would be enough, would be better than the doubt and worry and anguish of wondering if it would ever happen.
She picked up the pregnancy test. Turned it around. Let her eyes travel to the end where the little window contained—
Nothing.
No line. Not the faintest imprint of a line.
She shook it. She put it down next to the sink and waited a minute or two. Then she picked it up again.
No line.
She pressed the pedal at the base of the bin and flipped the lid open. She looked one last time – to be sure – and then threw the test, the negative test, into the trash. She’d ask Alfie to take it out later. She didn’t want to. She didn’t want any reminder of her failure.
Alfie (#ulink_fdd16ff1-f313-5480-a078-0cb99c4edf87)
Alfie Daniels lay in bed listening to his wife move around in the bathroom. He knew what she was doing, despite the fact she’d said nothing. He knew when her period was due and he knew it hadn’t come because Claire had not walked into the living room with tears in her eyes or sent him a text message with sad emojis saying she had her period.
For nine months he had hugged her each time and promised her it would happen eventually, only to watch her hope build through the month and be dashed again.
And now she was late and he could tell she was convinced that this was it. For the last two days he had watched her move from a state of quiet introspection to nervous excitement. She thought she was pregnant.
If she’d told him, he would have suggested not getting her hopes up, but it was too late for that now. Her hopes were flying high and turning into dreams of the future and there was only one thing that would bring them down.
Which, from the sound of things, had just happened. There was no cry of excitement or rush of steps to come and tell him the good news. Only the thud of the bathroom door closing and a slow, heavy tread towards the bedroom.
The door opened and she came in. She stood by their bed, her face set and unsmiling.
‘Hey,’ he said. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘My period was late. I took a test.’
Alfie sat up on his elbows. ‘And?’
Tears formed in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. She shook her head.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and held out his arms. ‘Come here.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I want to be alone. I’m going to have a shower.’
‘I don’t think so. Not before a hug.’
‘I’m OK.’
‘It’s not for you. It’s for me. I’m disappointed too.’
It was clearly the wrong thing to say. Her lips quivered and tears welled in her eyes. She let out a loud, wracking sob then slumped on the edge of the bed and buried her face in his neck.
‘I tried not to hope,’ she said. ‘I told myself not to get my hopes up, but it’s impossible. I want this so much.’
‘Me too,’ he said. ‘And it’ll happen. It takes time for lots of people.’
I know,’ she replied. ‘But what if we’re the ones who it never happens for? What then?’
‘We’re a long way from that,’ Alfie said. ‘A long way.’
‘But what if?’ Claire said. ‘What if we can’t have kids?’
‘Don’t think like that.’
She nodded. ‘I won’t. I’m going to have a shower.’
When she came back her eyes were red.
‘You not feeling too good?’ Alfie said.
‘I was sure I was pregnant this time,’ she said. ‘I felt different, somehow. And I’ve been so regular. I don’t know why my period would suddenly be late.’
‘Stress can do that,’ Alfie said. ‘This is a difficult time for you. For us.’
She wiped a tear from her eyes. ‘I can’t stop crying. It’s the sense of loss. Even though I wasn’t pregnant – so there was nothing to lose – I’d let myself think I was, and I was already imagining a future with us as parents. And now it’s gone.’
‘Only for now,’ Alfie said. ‘We’ll get there in the end, I know it.’
He held her tight, then sat up.
‘I have to get ready for work,’ he said. ‘I’ve got an early meeting.’
In the bathroom, Alfie stripped off. He looked in the full-length mirror. He flexed his pectoral muscles, then turned sideways and admired his flat abdominals. His chest and back were waxed and smooth, unlike the thick, brown hair on his scalp. He kept himself in shape; the only thing he couldn’t do anything about were the pock-marks on his face, the scars left by the acne he’d suffered from as a teenager.
He turned on the shower and stepped in. He let the hot water run over him. He washed his hair, massaging the shampoo into his scalp. The shampoo he used cost over thirty pounds a bottle, but it was worth it. According to his hair stylist, he had the kind of hair that movie stars had. He could be a hair model, she said, and it was worth paying the extra for good shampoo. So he treated himself.
And besides, they could afford it. Claire’s dad was both rich and generous.
When he was finished, he wrapped a towel around his waist and grabbed his razor. As he started to shave the bathroom door opened.
‘Would you take out the bin?’ Claire said. ‘The test is in there. I don’t want to go near it.’
Alfie nodded. ‘OK.’
‘And thanks,’ she said. ‘For being so supportive. I’m lucky to have you. And we’ll be pregnant, one day.’
He smiled. ‘We will. I know we will.’
She closed the door and the smile fell from his face. He looked at himself in the mirror and shook his head.
Stupid bitch. She wanted him to take out the bin. Of course she did. She was too infantile to deal with a negative pregnancy test so she needed him to deal with it for her, like it was a fucking python or something. It was pathetic.
It was typical of her.
As was the way she used ‘we’ instead of ‘I’. ‘We’ll be pregnant, one day.’ He hated that ‘we’. Hated the cloying, saccharine refusal to accept the biological truth of the situation: it was her who would be pregnant, not him.
The irony – and he took great pleasure in it – was that, whatever words she used, she was wrong. They – she – wouldn’t be pregnant any time soon. Ever, in fact.
Because what she didn’t know was that her husband had no intention of having children. They were the last thing he wanted. There were many reasons why, but the main one was because the arrival of kids would render all his careful plans redundant.
They would tie him to the simpering bitch forever, and there was no way he was letting that happen.
But she couldn’t find out he didn’t want them. Not yet, at any rate. He still needed her for a while, which was why he had never mentioned – and did not plan to – the reason why she would not be getting pregnant any time soon.
Her husband had had a vasectomy.
He’d had it done a year after they married – almost exactly two years earlier, now – when she had started talking about having kids in earnest. He’d gone to see the doctor, told him what he wanted – the doctor was surprised given how young he was and had tried to talk him out of it, but he had referred him nonetheless – and then, one morning, Alfie had gone to the hospital and had the operation.
He’d been back at his desk the same afternoon. He was a bit sore, but it was OK.
And it would remain his little secret.
He glanced at the bin. The negative pregnancy test lay there, pointing at him, accusing him.
‘Fuck you,’ he said, then wiped the shaving cream from his face.
Claire (#ulink_9f912094-033f-5766-91a0-b6f078e1f2e3)
Claire picked up her phone from the bedside table and glanced at the time:
Ten a.m.
She lay back on her pillow, her head thick with a nasty hangover. Friday had been awful, but at least it was Friday. She’d gone out with her colleagues to a bar in the West End and drunk away the disappointment of the pregnancy test. She didn’t even mind the headache. It took her mind off it all.
She did mind the cramps. Her period had arrived and the cramps were worse than they had been for a while, each one reminding her of what had happened.
She turned on her front and buried her head underneath her pillow. She heard the muffled sound of the door opening. She smelled coffee. It made her feel sick.
‘Hey,’ Alfie said. ‘Did I hear you moving around? I brought you breakfast in bed.’
She peeked out at him. He was holding a tray with a bowl of something and a mug of coffee on it.’
‘You didn’t have to do that,’ she said.
‘Of course I did!’ Alfie said. ‘It’s your special day! Happy birthday, darling.’
Claire groaned. She’d forgotten it was her birthday.
She’d forgotten they had to go to the party at her dad’s house later.
Claire sat on the bed in her childhood bedroom. It was a single bed with a pink-and-purple duvet cover. On the wall next to it were faint stains of Blu-tack from the posters she’d had up there – David Beckham, Robbie Williams, the usual teenage girl crushes. It was an hour until the party. Her hangover was gone – two ibuprofen and a mid-afternoon nap had seen it off – and Alfie had texted to say he was on his way. He’d been playing golf that afternoon. It was his new hobby, and he’d been spending a lot of his weekend afternoons on the golf course. He’d tried to persuade her to join him, but she couldn’t think of any way she’d less like to spend an afternoon than hitting balls around an over-sized garden.
She’d been hoping the party would be a celebration of a little more than her birthday. Not that she would have announced the pregnancy to everyone this early, but she’d wanted her and Alfie and her dad to know a baby was on the way and to spend the day giving each other secret smiles, the knowledge too momentous to ignore. She’d pictured herself holding a glass of wine (but not drinking it), so nobody would suspect she was pregnant but the baby would come to no harm.
It was not to be. It was a birthday party and no more.
She’d learned her lesson, though. Don’t get carried away with the hope. It only led to disappointment, which was a new and unwelcome shock to her. She had never really had to face not having something she wanted. Her parents had come from humble backgrounds in the North East, but had managed to build up a chain of estate agents together. They had both worked long hours to do it and, in her mum’s case, developed unhealthy ways of coping with the stress. After her mum died, her dad threw himself into the business even more, assuaging his guilt at his absence from the home with extravagant gifts.
And as the years had gone by the gifts had grown more and more extravagant, from the house in Fulham where she and Alfie lived, to the holiday they’d recently had in Cannes, to the Range Rover they drove. In truth, she found his generosity a bit uncomfortable. A few times she and Alfie had discussed telling him they didn’t need any help, but Alfie had persuaded her there was no harm in it. He also pointed out how happy it made her dad, so they kept accepting his gifts.
Apart from in her career. That was the one area Claire refused to let him help her. She was a partner in a design firm, a world her dad knew nothing about, and she had worked her way up from the ground floor.
But now, all pride aside, she would have accepted any help her dad could have given her, but there was nothing he could do. She had everything going for her: a loving dad, a wonderful husband, her career. She was smart, athletic, healthy.
And she would have given it all to be a mother.
But she couldn’t shake the feeling that being a mother was the one thing the universe was going to deny her. She felt almost as though she was in a fairy story, the lucky princess given everything, except the thing she wanted most.
She knew she was getting sick with worry – she’d been losing weight – and it made her want to hide away from the world, but she’d have to put on a brave face for the party, would have to smile and say Oh, no, we’re so busy we haven’t even thought about it yet when people asked her whether she and Alfie were planning to start a family.
She took off her jeans and sweater and opened a large cardboard box. It came from an internet company that sent new clothes; depending on what you kept and what you returned someone – although, according to Jodie, it was most likely not a person at all but an algorithm of some type, whatever the hell an algorithm was – figured out what you liked. Whoever or whatever was doing it, was uncannily accurate.
She pulled out a sleeveless navy-blue dress. It had a one-shoulder neckline, and an asymmetric hem. She pulled it on and looked over her shoulder at the back.
There was a knock on the bedroom door.
‘Hello,’ Alfie said, the door opening a crack. ‘Are you decent?’
‘Come in,’ Claire replied. ‘I’m trying on a dress.’
Alfie whistled softly. ‘Wow. You look amazing.’
‘You like it?’
He nodded, and moved behind her, running his hands from her hips to her buttocks, then around to her stomach. He pressed his lips to her neck.
‘Very much,’ he said. He reached down and pulled the dress up, stroking the backs of her thighs as he did so.
‘Alfie,’ she said, her voice low and breathless. ‘We can’t. I have my period.’
He turned her round and kissed her.
‘I don’t care,’ he said. ‘I want you too much.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I want to, but no. It’ll only be a few days.’
‘Ok,’ he said. ‘I can wait. Let’s get ready for the party. I have a surprise for you.’
‘Really?’ She was not in the mood for surprises. ‘What kind of surprise?’
‘You’ll see,’ he said. ‘You’ll see.’
Alfie (#ulink_e57b07cb-c4c7-5eb2-80e9-1e17fd147858)
Standing in front of the fireplace, Alfie tapped his glass – crystal, full of vintage champagne, he loved this stuff, he really did – with the handle of his fork – silver, antique – and watched as conversations died down and heads turned to face him. When the room was silent, he smiled and started to speak.
‘Thank you all,’ he said, ‘for coming to celebrate this very special day. My wife’ – he turned to Claire and smiled – ‘it’s still a thrill to call her that, even after three years, is celebrating her thirtieth birthday. I told her before the party that I had something special for her, and I do.’
He gestured to Jodie, who moved to the front of the guests and handed him a guitar. It was a Martin D50 which Claire had bought him, after some not-too-subtle hints, for his last birthday. It was an instrument he had dreamed of owning all through his childhood, but which, until he met Claire, had been woefully out of his reach. Woefully out of most people’s reach.
‘Alfie,’ Claire said, ‘what are you doing?’ She looked at Jodie, eyebrows raised.
Jodie held up her hands, palms facing Claire. ‘Merely doing what I was told,’ she said.
‘Thank you, Jodie,’ Alfie said, and then turned to Claire. ‘I wrote you a song,’ he said. He slipped the strap over his neck and held up his right hand. ‘I know, it’s soppy and over the top but I don’t care. I’m the luckiest man alive, and I want everyone to know it. So, here we go. It’s called “Since the Start”.’
He strummed an E chord and started to sing.
‘Since the start
Since the day I met you
Since the start
I have known I loved you.’
He sang the rest of the song. It was pretty good, in a way. Highly derivative, basic chords, minimal musicianship required, but writing and playing and singing it would be far beyond most people, which was what mattered. When he finished, he could tell that the guests’ reactions were mixed: the women were touched at his display of naked emotion, the men looked faintly embarrassed for him.
Which was good. That was exactly what he wanted them to feel. He wanted everyone to see how much in love with his wife and how different to all the other guys he was.
Claire, predictably, had tears in her eyes. As the applause died down she hugged him, kissing his cheek and ear and mouth.
‘Thank you,’ she whispered. ‘That was beautiful. I love you.’
‘I love you too,’ he said. ‘Happy birthday.’
After the song, Mick, Claire’s dad spoke. He gave a tearful tribute to her and talked about how proud Penny, his wife and Claire’s mum, would have been of her daughter. He didn’t mention Alfie – or his song – which was par for the course. When he had finished and the guests had returned to their increasingly drunk and loud conversation about politics or sport or something else they knew nothing about, Alfie slipped out to the kitchen.
He put on his jacket. He had a packet of Chesterfields and a book of matches and he was planning to sneak off and find a secluded spot – there was a bench in a corner of Mick’s vast back garden that would do – where he could light up and have a quiet smoke. He had a packet of mints, too; on one occasion before they got married he’d said he’d do anything for her and Claire had asked him to give up – for his sake, she said, because she loved him so much and couldn’t bear the thought of him poisoning himself, the soppy bitch – and he didn’t want her finding out he’d lied.
He walked through the kitchen and opened the back door to the terrace. There was a footstep behind him.
He turned around. It was Mick. He was holding a large tumbler of whisky, his face red with a combination of high blood pressure and too many drinks.
‘Mick,’ Alfie said. ‘Thanks for hosting. It’s a great party.’
‘No problem. Anything for my little girl.’ Mick nodded at the terrace. ‘Going out?’
‘Could do with a bit of fresh air.’
‘Too warm in here?’ Mick glanced at the window. The moon was visible, still low in the sky. ‘It’s dark out.’
‘It’s fine in here.’ Alfie smiled. ‘I was just thinking of taking a walk. But I don’t have to.’
Mick held up a hand. ‘No. You do whatever you want. I was only asking. I did want to talk to you, though.’
‘Oh?’ Alfie said. Mick and he had never been close. They had probably had no more than two or three one-on-one conversations since he and Claire had met. Mick was not the kind of father who warmed to the men who were sleeping with his daughter. No doubt he had fantasies of taking Alfie shooting and accidentally unloading both barrels on him. Alfie didn’t mind. He’d had the same thoughts himself. He couldn’t stand the old bastard.
He liked his money, though.
And the money he’d given to Claire. There was at least a couple of million in various investments, moved into some kind of trust in her name to avoid inheritance tax. Claire didn’t like to talk about it, but Alfie knew it was there, because Mick had tried to make him sign a pre-nup.
Well, he’d tried to make Claire make Alfie sign one. When she mentioned that her dad thought it might be a good idea, Alfie had agreed.
If you think it’s necessary, darling. I wouldn’t want it to come between us. I trust you totally.
She was visibly uncomfortable. I trust you too. But Dad’s insisting.
Then you should do it. Your dad obviously doesn’t think we’re going to last, and maybe you share his opinion.
She didn’t do it. She told Alfie a few weeks later there wouldn’t be a pre-nup, and she never mentioned it again. It was at least two months before Mick spoke to him again, and when he did Alfie loved it. Mick didn’t like losing; Alfie liked winning.
Mick coughed. ‘I wanted to say that I was touched by your song. It’s not the kind of thing I would ever have done – or anyone I know, for that matter – and I have to say I found it a bit bloody much, but Claire liked it. And that’s all that counts.’
It was clear the words were hard for him to say. He would have preferred to have been congratulating Alfie for scoring a hat-trick of tries or his first test century or landing a particularly hard left hook, but a romantic – soppy – song would have to do.
‘Thank you, Mick,’ Alfie said. ‘That means a lot.’
‘You probably guessed this,’ Mick said. ‘But I didn’t think much of you when I first met you. I thought you were a bit of a chancer, if I’m honest. I thought you lacked drive, and ambition, which is why I wanted the pre-nup. And maybe I should have insisted, but you make Claire happy. I’ve realized it doesn’t matter whether you’re the kind of man that I think is right for her. All that matters is whether she thinks you are. I’m glad she’s found somebody she can have the life she wants with.’
He was, Alfie realized, quite drunk. Perhaps it was deliberate. After all, it was the only way he would ever be able to force the words he’d just said out of his mouth.
‘She makes me very happy too,’ Alfie said.
‘Good.’ Mick was clearly not interested in how Alfie felt. ‘And now you need to give her what she really wants.’ He grinned wolfishly. ‘I never thought I’d say this to any man about my little girl, but it’s time to get busy! She wants a baby, and there’s no point in wasting time.’
His little girl, Alfie thought, who liked, on occasion, to be handcuffed to their bed and blindfolded. She was an annoying bitch, but in the right mood, she was good in bed. He wondered what Mick would think if he knew. Perhaps some photos could find their way into his possession so he could see what his little girl got up to.
‘We’re working on it,’ Alfie said. ‘Hope to have news soon.’
Mick’s eyes narrowed. Alfie realized he had said too much. Claire, evidently, had not mentioned they were trying.
‘Is everything OK?’ Mick said. ‘Are you having problems?’
‘No,’ Alfie said. ‘No problems. It’s early. That’s all.’
‘OK. Good luck.’ He reached forward and patted Alfie on the shoulder. ‘And take care of my girl.’
‘I will,’ Alfie said. ‘You can count on it.’
Claire (#ulink_c8c0c6aa-2b8d-5585-a10b-670af11c9b97)
Claire finished her glass of champagne. She looked around the room for Alfie; after his song and her dad’s speech he’d disappeared. It had been a while – maybe twenty minutes – and she wondered where he’d gone.
She was glad he’d gone, as it happened. She’d kissed him and whispered a Thank you, that was beautiful in his ear when he had finished singing, but in truth she wasn’t exactly sure how she felt about it. She veered between thinking it was a beautiful and touching gesture, and thinking it was a bit – well, a bit embarrassing. She knew he was soft and romantic and she loved that about him, but the song had been a little too soft and romantic – not to mention too public – for her.
She sometimes wondered whether Alfie misunderstood her. She loved his kindness and generosity but she got the impression he thought she was fragile and needed to be handled with kid gloves. She wasn’t; she might have lived a life of material privilege, but she’d lost her mum as a teenager and no amount of holidays and clothes and cars could take away the hard edge that had left her with. It rarely came out in her private life, and almost never in her marriage, but Claire was known at work as a tough-minded and serious professional. Alfie never really talked to her about work. She got the impression he thought it was just something she did for fun, but it was far from it. She would explain it to him one day.
She walked towards one of the waiters for a refill. She’d already had three – or maybe four – glasses, but more champagne was the only way she would get through the party. As she reached him, she felt a tap on her shoulder.
She turned around. A guy called Hugh was smiling at her. He was wearing red trousers and a designer cardigan. His thinning hair was cut short and his eyes were glassy. She’d known him for as long as she could remember; his parents were friends with her mum and dad, and he had been invited to family events – birthday parties, weddings – over the years. He was a few years older and for a while their parents had harboured ideas that they might get together when the right time came, ideas that Hugh had clearly shared; on her fifteenth birthday he had tried to kiss her and, when she twisted away, had grabbed her breasts with both hands. She froze, and he took advantage of her shock by thrusting his hand up her skirt and into her underwear.
As soon as she realized what was happening, she ran downstairs, intent on telling her dad what Hugh had done, but when she got there he was standing with Bill, Hugh’s dad, laughing about something. She hadn’t seen him laugh much since her mum died, and she stopped, suddenly unwilling to do anything to upset him.
So she said nothing. And she’d said nothing ever since. But every time she saw Hugh she felt sick.
‘Hi,’ he said, his hand running down her arm to her elbow. ‘Nice party.’
She shrugged his hand away. ‘Thanks for coming.’ Her voice was cold.
‘Don’t be like that,’ he said. ‘We’ve not seen each other for ages. Since the wedding, I think?’
‘Could be,’ Claire said.
‘What have you been up to?’ Hugh asked.
‘This and that.’
‘Have I caught you in a bad mood? You can tell me. We go back forever.’
‘No,’ Claire said. ‘I’m looking for Alfie. He’s gone missing.’
‘Alfie,’ Hugh said. ‘The lovely Alfie. I must say, it was quite a song. Quite a … scene.’
Claire looked at him for a while before she answered. She realized she was no longer embarrassed by Alfie’s song. It represented everything that was good about him, everything that was genuine and decent and honest. Everything that made him different to Hugh.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It was. It was wonderful.’ She smiled. ‘Very few men could do something like that, Hugh, don’t you think?’ She didn’t wait for an answer. ‘I have to go. And hopefully it’ll be another three years before we meet again.’ She sipped her drink, then added, ‘Or maybe longer. A lot longer.’
She walked across the room, not sure where she was heading but simply glad to be away from Hugh. She saw her dad walking into the living room. He caught her eye and gestured to her to come over.
‘You got a second?’ he said.
‘Of course.’
‘I was just chatting to Alfie,’ he said. ‘Telling him I’m glad you two are happy …’
Claire raised an eyebrow. That kind of conversation was not the norm for him and his son-in-law.
‘I know, I know,’ he said. ‘I’m getting soft in my old age. Anyway, he mentioned something about trying for a baby.’ He looked at her, his eyes fixed on hers. ‘Is everything OK?’
Claire nodded, then, after a second, shook her head. ‘It’s been a while,’ she said.
Her dad pointed to a man standing by the fireplace. He was tall, with neat grey hair. ‘That’s Tony Scott. He’s a friend of mine, and a doctor. I asked him for the name of a good fertility specialist—’
‘Dad!’ Claire said. ‘I don’t want everyone to know.’
‘They won’t. He’s a doctor. He’ll keep it to himself. And he gave me a name. Dr Singh, in Harley Street. Call him and say that Tony Scott gave you his name. He’ll see you.’
Claire shook her head. ‘We’ll be OK. It’s not time for a doctor yet.’
‘Don’t be daft,’ her dad said. ‘See him, get checked out. If there’s nothing wrong, it’ll put your mind at ease.’ He put his hands on her shoulders. ‘OK? You going to do it?’ He smiled a sad smile. ‘Your mum would want me to do whatever I can to help. She loved you, Claire. I know she had her problems, but she was a good mum. All she wanted was for you to be happy. That’s all I want.’
‘I am happy, Dad,’ Claire said. ‘And I’ll do it. Thank you.’
Her dad nodded and headed off towards the waiter. Claire watched him go. He was as good and loving a father as anyone could wish for. Between him and Alfie, she had the best two men possible in her life.
Alfie (#ulink_3788bb36-7736-5638-b74b-cfea67e3b828)
Alfie sat on the stone bench and sucked on his cigarette. The house was at least fifty yards away and he was hidden from view by a pergola. He looked back at the house, watching for anyone coming towards him. He could easily put out his cigarette and vanish into the bushes, if he needed to.
It was ridiculous, hiding out to smoke a cigarette. He was a grown man. But it was typical of his wife: she had gone on and on at him about quitting since what felt like the day they’d married.
I know I’m nagging, Alfie, but it’s only because I love you. I can’t bear to see you harming yourself. And what about our kids? I don’t want them to be deprived of their father.
Over and over and over again, until in the end he’d given in and promised to stop, a promise he had no intention of keeping, so now he had to do it in secret.
It was the perfect symbol of how trapped he was by his stupid bitch of a wife.
They had met at a house like this, at the ostentatious wedding of some school friend of Claire’s. It was quite a party – magicians working the crowd, a mini-fairground, all the booze you could drink. The champagne fountain alone probably cost more than Alfie earned a month. Three months.
Not that he was drinking from it. Claire was there as a guest. Alfie was the help.
Specifically, he was in the band, playing bass. Alfie was a recent, part-time member. The band had been mildly successful – a few top twenty hits – in the early 2000s, but had been playing smaller and smaller venues as their popularity dwindled, until they ended up doing cover versions of bigger hits than theirs at expensive weddings. Over time the line-up had changed until only the singer and drummer remained. To fill the gaps they brought in jobbing musicians and Alfie was merely the latest.
He noticed Claire early on. At first he wasn’t sure why, but something set her apart. It wasn’t the way she looked – she didn’t particularly stand out from the other expensively dressed, tanned, yoga-bodied mid-twenties women. It was amazing what expensive clothes, professional make-up and a flattering haircut could do. All of them, whether naturally pretty or not, looked like models. The kind of models you’d see in a Land Rover advert at any rate.
Alfie found them both fascinating and repellent. He hated the way they took all this for granted, as though this kind of party, this kind of wealth, was simply how the world was. They had no idea how other people – people like him – lived, and they didn’t want to know. They kept to their own set, gave their kids names that marked them out as belonging, as being ‘one of us’.
Yet at the same time he couldn’t keep his eyes off them. He was jealous, and hated that too.
But more than anything he hated the fact these people would never accept him.
Strangely, though, it was that which drew him to Claire. She seemed vulnerable, a little apart from her friends. Watchful. Later he’d find out it was because her mum had died when she was young and she had lost the ability to trust – other people, her future, the world in general, or so her therapist had told her – but looking at her from the stage at that moment he didn’t care why it was.
He cared that she turned away from the braying City boys who grabbed at her hand in an attempt to get her to dance, and then watched them, almost wistfully, as they turned their attention to someone else. He could see she was glad they had left her alone, but also disappointed. All she needed was the right one, one who understood her insecurity, who knew how fragile she was.
He could see she needed someone who wasn’t threatening. Well, he could be that. He could be whatever she wanted, if it meant he got to come to these weddings as a guest.
Not to mention all the other benefits that went with life as someone like Claire’s boyfriend. Smart address, smarter holidays, no money worries ever again. So, yes, whatever she wanted, he would be.
Midway through their set, the band took a break. He declined their offer of a joint behind the stage, and walked to the bar, where Claire was getting a drink.
Water please, he said, then nodded at Claire. Hi.
Hi, she said. Are you in the band?
Yep. Hope you’re enjoying it.
Up close she was very pretty. Unlike most of the other guests she didn’t need the expensive grooming.
You guys are great! I loved your song. You know – the one – she blushed as she realized she didn’t remember the name of the band’s hit. Alfie smiled.
Don’t worry. I wasn’t in the band then. At the moment I’m helping them out.
Is that what you do? Help out bands?
I’m a musician, yes. If that’s what you’re asking. I do all kinds of stuff.
Wow, Claire said. I wish I could play an instrument.
You could, if you tried.
You’re very kind, but I don’t think so. I’m tone deaf. She laughed. You should hear me singing.
I’d like to. And anyone can learn.
Not me!
The barman handed Alfie his water.
Not drinking? Claire said. I thought you musicians were wild?
I have to drive home. I have work tomorrow.
Another wedding?
Alfie shook his head. Tutoring. It’s hard to make a living from royalties alone.
Royalties? Claire’s eyes lit up. Have you released records?
Quite a few. At least, I’ve been on quite a few.
Anything I’d have heard of?
I doubt it.
Her smiled faded. Are they alternative indie things that only the arty kids listen to?
They’re certainly things kids listen to, but I’m not sure about the alternative indie part.
Come on, then. Tell me one of them.
Well, Alfie said, the most recent one was a ballad. It tells the story of a worm who lives at the bottom of a garden, and whose name is Wiggly-Woo. The one before you might remember from your infant school – I played piano on ‘The Dingle-Dangle Scarecrow’.
Claire burst into laughter. You sing children’s songs?
I do. What’s so funny? Music is an important part of childhood development.
I know, but – it’s just – well, I had an idea of sex and drugs and rock’n’roll and that’s a bit more—
Nappies and wet wipes and singalongs? I know. Not exactly living the life. He shrugged. But I enjoy it. And it pays the bills. And I do think it’s important for kids to have access to quality music from an early age. It might only be ‘Twinkle Twinkle’ but it doesn’t have to be bad.
I agree, she said. And I admire you. It’s very impressive.
He glanced at the stage. The rest of the band was re-emerging. He grabbed a napkin and took a pen from his pocket.
Here, he said, and wrote his number down. Give me a call sometime. I’ll play you some of my back catalogue.
He handed it to her and headed back to the stage. She’ll call, he thought. She’ll call because she feels superior to me. Stronger. Because I’m a kids’ entertainer and anyone who does that is safe. Weak. Not going to leave her. And that’s what she wants.
So that’s what he’d be. He made a mental note to buy some kids’ music CDs the next day. He’d never played on a kids’ CD in his life, but he’d tell her he was on them. She wouldn’t know any different.
Back on stage, he picked up his bass as the band played the opening bars of ‘Wild Thing’. He glanced at her. She was talking to a friend who had her back to the band, but as he watched she looked up at him. He gave a little wave. She waved back at him.
He knew then this was a done deal.
And it was. They went on dates, ate meals Alfie couldn’t afford in places he’d never known existed. He met her friends and their husbands, listened to how they spoke and matched his accent to theirs, modelled his behaviour – confident, charming – on the way they acted. She fell in love with him, head over heels. He fell in love with the life she offered him.
It was a life he could get no other way. He worked, on and off, but he didn’t get very far. It wasn’t his fault; he was as able as anyone else but he had the wrong background. He’d managed to get into a marketing firm at one point but had got sick of seeing graduates with RP voices and degrees in art history from Warwick and Durham and Oxford show up and take all the promotions. He hated them, hated taking orders from a fucking idiot who just happened to have been to the right school and the right university and whose dad had the right connections and whose mum had the right clothes and gave head to the right fucking people.
And there was nothing he could do about it. He had nothing and he was going nowhere.
But Claire fixed both his problems. She had money, and she had connections, and at first he had quite liked her, which was, for Alfie, as good as it got. He didn’t really care about anybody – he certainly didn’t love anyone in the way other people claimed to; in fact, it seemed absurd to him that anyone could ever be so dependent on someone else – so why not Claire? And what wasn’t to like? She was pretty, quiet, and, if he was ever getting too bored with talking to her there was always sex. Like most new couples, they did that a lot.
But it had all changed now. Now he hated her.
He finished his cigarette and put his lighter and cigarettes back in his jacket pocket. As he did, his fingers brushed the phone he kept with the illicit tobacco. It wasn’t his iPhone; that was in the back pocket of his trousers.
It was his other phone, a pay-as-you-go Android device he’d bought in a backstreet electronics shop.
He took it out and glanced at the screen. There were four missed calls and three messages. He swiped and read them.
The first was from that morning.
Hey! I’m missing you! Give me a call. It’s been a week! Pippa x
Then, a few hours later:
Are you ignoring me? Only kidding. But call! Pips.
Then a new arrival only a few minutes old:
Henry! What’s going on? Get in touch. Please?
It was the ‘please?’ that did it. He’d sensed she was getting too attached and this was confirmation. Besides, he was getting bored with Pippa Davies-Hunt anyway. Most of the thrill with her had been in the chase. She knew how to play hard to get, understood that once she let him screw her the mystery would be gone, the novelty would have worn off.
And she was right. All the thrill was in the chase. She was well educated and rich and lean and pretty but she was a disappointment in bed. She was stiff and unresponsive; compliant, yes – in order to try and keep himself interested he’d suggested some light bondage the third time they’d slept together and she’d gone along with it, not complaining when he choked her hard enough to leave her gasping – but it was the dumb compliance of a farmyard animal. She seemed to take no pleasure in it, seemed to think it was a grim necessity, the price paid for a boyfriend, the thing boyfriends and girlfriends did. It was like she was acting, and Alfie – Henry – was bored of her.
Yes, Henry was bored of her. Henry Bryant – handsome and elusive doctor, frequenter of the websites where people like Pippa went to meet men, owner of the Android phone in Alfie’s pocket – was no longer interested in her.
And there was only one way to deal with it. He had to rip the plaster off. Put an end to it, immediately and irrevocably. It might as well be now. She didn’t know it, but this had been coming from the start. As far as she was concerned, he was Henry Bryant, a doctor, single, and devoted to his work, which was why he would often be out of touch for a few days. She had no idea he was married and called Alfie Daniels and about to shatter her dreams.
Sorry, he typed. Been busy. I’ve been thinking too. I’m not sure this is working out. I think it’s better if we call it a day. Sorry to do this by text, but I’m a bit of a coward.
Nice touch of humility at the end there, he thought. Bit of humour too. Should soften the blow.
The reply was immediate.
Are you fucking SERIOUS??! We need to talk, Henry. You can’t end it like this.
He chuckled. There was no point being gentle with her. This was the last he’d have to do with her and so he might as well leave her thinking he was an arsehole. It’d help her get over him.
I can, and I just did. Sorry. It’s over. Please don’t contact me again.
He hit send and took a mint from his pocket. He slipped it into his mouth. Time to go back in.
The screen lit up with a message. Pippa, again. Fucking hell. She needed to get the message and fuck off.
You bastard. You absolute bastard. You can’t do this to me! I won’t let you. I love you, Henry! I need to see you one last time so we can talk about this. I’ll come to your hospital at a time that suits you. OK?
Shit. She wasn’t going to give up easily. It didn’t matter, though. She had no idea who he really was, and if she did show up at the hospital he’d told her he worked at, they’d inform her there was no Dr Henry Bryant on the staff. He smiled at the thought of it. She really would be shocked then. Anyway, it made no difference to him. He was done with Pippa Davies-Hunt. He deleted her message and headed for the house.
Claire (#ulink_f2abe2cd-137e-511b-b994-f978e055f293)
Jodie, Claire’s oldest friend, was walking towards her across the living room. She was with a man Claire vaguely recognized – perhaps a university acquaintance – and as she reached Claire she gestured at her companion.
‘You remember Trevor?’ Jodie said. ‘I think you may have met at Bunny’s wedding last year?’
Trevor shook her hand. ‘Sorry to crash your birthday party. But I was out with Jo this afternoon. Happy Birthday, by the way.’
Claire smiled, and glanced at Jodie. No one called her Jo. Jodie rolled her eyes slightly, in a look that said I can’t get rid of him.
‘No problem,’ Claire said. ‘Nice to see you.’
‘Where’s Alfie?’ Jodie asked.
‘I’m not sure. Maybe getting a drink? He’s around.’
‘That was quite the … performance earlier,’ she said.
‘It was sweet of him,’ Claire said. She felt defensive, especially after Hugh’s comments. ‘You know Alfie. That’s how he is.’
‘God, I totally agree,’ Jodie said. ‘I didn’t mean anything negative, but not every guy sings songs at his wife’s birthday, you know? I actually thought it was amazing.’
‘He has a really good voice,’ Trevor said. ‘It was … impressive.’
‘He was in a band,’ Claire said, looking at Trevor. ‘That was how we met.’
‘He picked you out in the crowd?’ Trevor said.
‘Not exactly. They were playing at a wedding and he was on his break. I know – it sounds like a cliché, but he wasn’t the band guy looking for groupies at all. He was so nice. So relaxed. He told me about his career singing children’s songs. He wasn’t embarrassed, like some guys would be.’
‘He sings children’s songs?’ Trevor said.
‘He used to,’ Claire said. She was aware there was a hard edge in her voice, but she was getting sick of people thinking Alfie was some kind of beta male because he didn’t run about thumping his chest and downing pints of lager. ‘But sadly not any more.’
‘Well,’ Trevor said, finding it hard to know where to look. ‘It’ll – er – it’ll be a useful skill when you have kids.’
Jodie caught Claire’s eye. She knew they had been trying – unsuccessfully – and she changed the subject.
‘Great party,’ she said. ‘I saw Derek Pritchard. He’s back from Australia. Isn’t he the—’ Jodie was interrupted by her phone ringing. She looked at the screen. ‘God,’ she said. ‘I have to take this. It’s a friend. She’s been having a tough time.’ She lifted the phone to her ear.
‘Pippa?’ she said. ‘Are you OK?’
Claire watched as her friend’s eyes widened.
‘The bastard,’ she said. ‘That is so awful.’ She looked at Claire and Trevor and shook her head. ‘Pips,’ she said. ‘It’s noisy in here. I’m going to call you back, OK? Give me five seconds.’
‘Everything OK?’ Claire asked.
‘Not exactly,’ Jodie replied. ‘Her boyfriend dumped her by text. I think you met her once – Pippa Davies-Hunt?’
‘Yes,’ Claire said. She had a vague memory of a tall woman with very long hair. ‘Maybe at someone’s Christmas do?’
‘Dave Chapel,’ Jodie said. ‘She was dating him for a while. Anyway, she was convinced this new guy was the one, but I had my doubts. He came and went, you know? Blamed it on his job. He’s a doctor.’
‘Did you meet him?’ Claire said.
‘No. But I got a bad impression from the way she talked about him. Anyway, now he’s dumped her, and she’s distraught. The thing is, Pippa is a little bit’ – she pointed her finger at her temple and twirled it – ‘and she doesn’t take this kind of thing well. She wants me to come over. I ought to.’
‘No problem,’ Claire said. ‘You need to leave now?’
‘Maybe in half an hour,’ Jodie said.
‘Great.’ Trevor grinned. ‘I’ll grab some more drinks. Champagne?’
They watched him walk away. ‘Is he—’ Claire began. ‘Are you?’
Jodie shook her head. ‘He called out of the blue and asked if I wanted to meet for coffee. I remembered him from Bunny’s party and I figured it couldn’t do any harm, but now I can’t get rid of him. I told him I was coming to your birthday party and he invited himself along.’
‘At least you’ll be able to tell him you need to be alone with Pippa.’
‘Right,’ Jodie said. ‘Not that that’s going to be great fun. She’s really upset.’
‘I’m not surprised. Dumping someone by text is pretty harsh.’
‘Not something you’d have to worry about,’ Jodie replied. ‘Alfie’s not going anywhere.’
‘No,’ Claire said. ‘I doubt he is. It’s such a relief to be with someone who makes you feel secure. In every other relationship I was always wondering whether whoever it was really loved me, and if they did, why, what it was about me that they loved. It was a constant search for proof so I could relax. But with Alfie – I know he loves me. We connect on some deep level. It’s like we were made for each other. And it’s such a lovely feeling.’
‘You really are lucky,’ Jodie said. ‘I hope I end up in the same boat.’
‘But not with Trevor.’
‘No, not with Trevor. And I know it’s not going all that well right now, but you’ll be pregnant soon, and you two will be the perfect parents. Your kids will be the luckiest kids around.’
Claire didn’t want to say so, but she agreed. It was part of what attracted her to Alfie. She knew their kids would grow up with a dad who showed them how to be affectionate and loving, taught them it was OK to cry and show emotion, hugged and kissed and cuddled them long after they were babies. She had an image of her and Alfie and two children camping in the Lake District or riding bikes in a forest or eating popcorn on a family movie night. It was all she wanted – all he wanted, too – and the thought that it might not happen was unbearable.
‘I hope so,’ Claire said. ‘I’m not sure what I’d do if it didn’t work out. And Alfie would take it hard. I think he’s more desperate than me for kids.’
Jodie gestured to Trevor. He was walking towards them with a bottle of champagne. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘There is one saving grace about not being pregnant. You can have another drink.’
Alfie (#ulink_18aa0f33-f141-5306-ac18-e782aa39c19b)
Alfie headed back to the house. There was a group of people smoking on the terrace. Perfect. He could stop for a chat and then if Claire detected any lingering smell of smoke on him he could blame it on them.
‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Nice evening.’
There were five of them, four men he didn’t know and a woman he vaguely recognized. Her face was flushed and she was a little glassy-eyed. No wedding ring and probably no boyfriend, which was why she was out here smoking with a bunch of men who were no doubt hoping she’d leave them so they could talk about football or rugby or the other women at the party. He looked at her for a few seconds longer than was polite. She was starting to put on weight she would never get rid of and was on the cusp of losing the youthfulness that gave her what little appeal she had. She knew it, too; there was something desperate about the way she smiled at the men and laughed too loudly at their jokes.
He felt a twinge of lust. He found that kind of vulnerability irresistible. He’d have to behave himself, though. He could hardly go chasing women at his wife’s birthday party.
‘You want a ciggy?’ one of the men said. He was tall and had thick red hair and a thin, irritating voice.
‘No thanks,’ Alfie said.
He walked across the terrace to the house. Through the window he saw Claire. She was clinking champagne glasses with Jodie and some tall guy. Did Jodie have a boyfriend? He’d be jealous if she did. He looked at her for a moment. He would have loved to fuck her. Two summers ago they’d gone for a weekend in St Tropez with her. She had a white bikini and he’d spent the entire time staring at her from behind his sunglasses, and then thinking about her while he was having sex with Claire.
Claire. It was getting worse. As soon as he was in there she’d ask where he’d been, and he’d say nowhere, just a walk, when what he wanted to say was none of your fucking business. He hated the feeling he was being watched the whole time. It made him feel trapped, like a wild animal that had wandered into a house and was now being kept as a pet. He couldn’t look at her without feeling a deep and mounting anger.
Because there was no escape. Worse, by acting so in love with her from the start he had set a precedent, which left him with things like singing that awful song. He shook his head. It was so humiliating. But he had no choice. If he didn’t totally overdo it he was worried the mask would slip and she would see his true feelings, and then it – all of it, the cars and houses and holidays and money – would be gone. And he had no intention of letting that happen, especially not now when he’d had a taste of it. All he needed was an escape.
Which was where Henry Bryant came in. It had started with a fake email address. It was amazing, really: all he’d had to do was open a gmail account in the name Henry Bryant and pop! All of a sudden, he existed. He could communicate with people, log into chat rooms, post underneath newspaper articles, get Facebook and Twitter accounts.
Which he did for a while. He got involved in conversations in chat rooms and comments sections, and one of them – he’d forgotten which one – had led to an app which brought people who were looking for illicit, extra-marital affairs together.
You posted a photo, your age, some interests, and the app proposed some matches. You messaged back and forth, and, if you both agreed, you met up.
The first woman did not look like the photo she had posted at all. In the photo she looked in her early thirties and in reasonable shape; in reality she was ten years older and about three stone overweight.
Alfie didn’t care. He would not have been attracted to her under normal circumstances, but that was the whole point: these were not normal circumstances, and he was not Alfie Daniels.
The second candidate he chose was a blonde, stick-thin mother of three in her late thirties. It was a clinical transaction; afterwards, Alfie asked her if she wanted to meet again. She didn’t. The third one did, though, and she wanted to learn more about Henry Bryant.
So Alfie gave her more to learn.
It became a kind of game, to see how far he could take it.
And he had taken it much, much further than he had thought possible.
He got an address – a PO box number – and used it to get a bank account. With that, a bank account and then a credit card and a PayPal account. With his PayPal account he could buy and sell on eBay, which provided Henry Bryant with an income. The fact that the things he sold – first editions of books, rare vinyl, other collectables – were things Alfie bought was neither here nor there. None of his customers would, or could, ever know. He just needed a way of getting some money to Henry Bryant.
And with the money came – all acquired illegally and incredibly cheaply on the dark web – a birth certificate, passport and National Insurance number. Which meant Henry Bryant was real in every meaningful way possible. He could buy a house, get a job, cross international borders. He could do anything he wanted.
He just happened not to exist.
It had been perfect for Alfie. It offered him everything he wanted: a release from his life with Claire, the thrill of illicit sex with a variety of women, and most of all, a sense that he was beating the system, outsmarting everyone around him. And there was no link to him. The phone, bank account, everything – it all led to Henry Bryant.
It was odd: the longer it had gone on, the more he had started to feel that he and Henry Bryant were different people. When he was with some woman he’d met online in the corner of a pub in a part of London where Claire and her friends would never go, he was Henry Bryant. He didn’t really feel guilty, but the slight misgivings he did have were eased by the thought that it wasn’t him doing it.
It was Henry Bryant.
He even developed Bryantisms; mannerisms and affected patterns of speech – a pursing of the lips and drawing out of vowels – that he only did when he was being Henry. In some ways – and this was worrying – he preferred Henry. He was funnier, more relaxed. Moreover, he didn’t have to be the soft, unthreatening little bitch that Alfie Daniels pretended to be.
He could be whatever he wanted, and he was. He cancelled at the last minute (on the occasions when it was too risky to go), drank hard when he wanted and was rough in bed. Most of all he didn’t apologize, didn’t simper and coo, and didn’t sing any fucking stupid songs.
It was wonderful. And it was the only thing that was keeping him sane.
He became aware of a tapping on the window. He looked up. Claire was beckoning him inside.
Christ. He’d almost forgotten. He glanced at Jodie’s buttocks; she was wearing a pair of very tight jeans. He pictured peeling them off, revealing some expensive underwear, an image which allowed him to force a smile on to his face. He waved at Claire, then blew her a kiss; she mimed catching it and planted it on her cheek.
It was sickening.
Inside, he kissed Claire for real, then hugged Jodie, enjoying the press of her breasts against his chest. She gestured at the guy standing with them.
‘This is Trevor.’
Alfie shook his hand. He had a fixed, goofy grin. If this idiot was fucking Jodie he didn’t think he could take it.
‘We were on our way out,’ Jodie said. ‘I have to go and meet a friend. She’s not doing so well.’
‘Oh,’ Alfie said. ‘Everything OK?’
‘Boyfriend troubles.’ Jodie took out her phone. ‘Quick photo before I go?’
She handed the phone to Trevor, who looked put out she didn’t want him in the picture. Alfie thought it might be deliberate. Maybe he wasn’t getting any with Jodie, after all.
The three of them lined up and Trevor took a few snaps. When he was done, he gave the phone back to Jodie.
‘Nice to see you,’ Alfie said. ‘And good luck with your friend. I’m going to grab a drink.’
As he walked away, Henry Bryant’s phone buzzed in his pocket. Pippa, again. Obviously, despite how clear he’d been, she hadn’t got the message. He’d reply later and get rid of her once and for all, before she became a problem.
Henry Bryant would never let her become a problem. He dealt with things, decisively. He would never have put up with what Alfie put up with. He would have found a way to deal with Claire.
And Alfie needed to. He just had no idea what to do.
Claire (#ulink_f04c789a-4873-52b7-ab0e-ca35198812d3)
Dr Singh sat opposite Claire and studied his notes. He looked to be in his sixties and had small, precise features. She had googled him and, as her dad had said, he really was an expert in the field of fertility; he had pioneered a number of treatments with spectacular results, which probably explained the fee her dad was paying.
It was the second time they had met that day; in the morning he had asked her a bunch of questions and discussed her goals, and then he’d sent her into the room next door where a nurse had drawn blood and performed an ultrasound scan, along with some X-rays.
We’ll have the results shortly, he said. But you’ll have to see when Dr Singh is free to take you through them.
Dr Singh was free that afternoon, and Claire had left work to come and meet him. She’d had to move a couple of meetings around, but as a partner she had that flexibility. Besides, she had been thinking about it all day, unable to focus on anything other than what the doctor might tell her.
‘Well …’ He smiled. ‘So far, it’s good news.’
‘What do you mean “so far”?’ Claire said.
‘I mean the tests we did showed no abnormalities, but there are more procedures we can do. However, I’m not sure they’re warranted, at this point. I see nothing wrong.’
He pulled a piece of A4 paper from a file and handed it to her. ‘These are the results of your Hysterosalpingography – that’s the fancy name for the X-ray we took of your uterus and fallopian tubes. As you can see, nothing showed up.’
She studied the paper. There was a lot of text, but her eyes settled on the only words that mattered to her.
Abnormalities: None
‘What about the other test?’ she said. ‘The one about the eggs?’
‘The ovarian reserve test,’ Dr Singh said. ‘That, too, was fine. You have a normal egg supply, and they are of good quality.’ He laced his fingers together and leaned forwards. ‘As far as I can tell, there is no problem with your fertility. We could do further imaging, or even a laparoscopy.’
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s a procedure to take a look inside the uterus. We make an incision in the navel and put a camera in there. If there was anything going on – endometriosis, scarring – it would show up. But, like I said, there’s no reason to believe there is anything.’
Claire met his gaze. ‘Then why can’t I get pregnant?’
‘Sometimes it takes a while,’ Dr Singh said. ‘And the stress caused by worrying about it can make it more difficult. If you can relax, take your time, that would probably help.’
She already knew this. Every one of the myriad of websites about pregnancy and childbirth mentioned it. Make sure you stay relaxed. The body is less likely to conceive when under stress. A relaxed body is a body ready to have a baby. All very well; the problem was that when you tried to relax the trying got in the way of the relaxing. It was like telling somebody not to think of an elephant; as soon as you said it an elephant popped into their mind.
‘It’s hard,’ she said. ‘I can’t stop worrying that something’s wrong.’
‘There’s nothing that I can see.’ Dr Singh twirled his pen in his fingers. ‘At least, not with you. There is, however, one other avenue to explore.’
‘Which is?’
Dr Singh took off his glasses. ‘Has your husband had his sperm tested?’
Claire nodded. ‘A couple of months ago. It was fine.’
When she hadn’t got pregnant after the first few months of trying, Alfie had declared that he was going to take a test.
I don’t want to waste any time, he said. If there’s something wrong, I want to know so I can fix it.
She had asked if he thought she should get tested too.
Not yet. You’ll need to go to a doctor. I can do a home test. It’s easy. And I want peace of mind that everything’s OK with me.
And it was. She was at work when he did it, but when she came home he was beaming: sperm count was normal. She was pleased for him, but it only made her feel worse. If there was a problem then it was with her, and not him.
‘Where did he have it done?’ Dr Singh said. ‘If you don’t mind me asking. You don’t have to say, of course.’
‘It was a home testing kit.’
‘Ah.’ Dr Singh pursed his lips. ‘Those kits are perfectly accurate, if correctly used, but there is scope for error. Do you know if he kept it?’
‘I doubt it. I think he threw it away. I’ve never seen it.’
‘Well, it’s only something to consider, but maybe you could suggest that he come and see me. We can do a more comprehensive fertility test, so we’re absolutely sure.’
‘You think there’s a chance it was wrong?’
‘There’s always a chance. Faulty test, or maybe user error. Think about asking him to come in.’
‘There’s no need to think. He’ll want to do it. Can I book it now?’
‘Are you sure you don’t want to check with him first?’ Dr Singh asked.
Claire shook her head. Alfie would be on board, she had no doubt about that.
Alfie (#ulink_cb55359a-997e-54fc-bc3f-f5c2ca75623b)
Alfie turned into their street – they lived in a double-fronted Victorian villa halfway down the street – and walked slowly towards the house. It was a few minutes past seven p.m.; he’d been to a showing in Battersea. He normally tried to avoid showings as much as he could. After he and Claire got married he had felt he needed some kind of job, but he had no idea what to do, so, when Mick suggested becoming an estate agent he had agreed. Mick had helped him to find a post at a different agency – he claimed he didn’t want to mix family and business, but Alfie was convinced it was because Mick thought he was incompetent and didn’t want him near his business. As it was, it had turned out to be an inspired choice of career.
He was, if he did say so himself, fucking good at it. People seemed to want someone with a big smile to convince them that whatever property they were looking at was the perfect place for them, and Alfie was happy to oblige. Even when he knew the neighbours were noisy and annoying and there was a problem with cockroach infestations in the summer he looked them in the eye and said they’d be so happy there. Not giving a shit about them made it easier, of course.
The other benefit – and this was huge – was that he could come and go as he pleased during the day and, even better, the agency had the keys to all kinds of empty properties all over the city which he could use when he met people online.
Claire had texted – Doc sayseverything OK! – so he had bought a bottle of champagne to celebrate.
‘Hey!’ he called out as he opened the door. ‘Are you home?’
‘In the kitchen,’ Claire replied.
He walked in, making sure there was a wide smile on his face. ‘I got your text. It’s wonderful news. I’m so glad the doctor didn’t find anything.’
‘I know,’ Claire said. ‘In one way it’s a relief, but in another it’s frustrating – and worrying – because if there was a reason then at least the doctors could fix it, and if they couldn’t we’d know for sure and could make other plans. As it is, all I – we – can do is wait.’
‘It’ll happen,’ Alfie said. ‘Eventually. Lots of people have been in this exact situation.’
Claire seemed about to say something but she hesitated. She looked a little sheepish.
‘Everything OK?’ Alfie said.
‘He did ask about one other thing.’
‘Which was?’
‘Your test. The one you took at home.’
‘What about it?’
‘He wondered whether you should take another one.’
Alfie was, for a moment, lost for words. He had not been expecting to hear that. He’d taken his test – or so he’d told Claire – and he’d assumed the whole sperm-count question was settled. The last thing he needed was anyone else interfering. ‘Doesn’t he think they’re accurate?’
‘He didn’t say so. Not exactly, anyway. All he said was, there’s some margin for error. Maybe you didn’t get it right.’
Alfie laughed. ‘It’s not tremendously hard to do. You just – you know, point and shoot – on the test and a line pops up in a window.’
‘Still. He said there are other, more reliable tests he could do.’
‘And get paid for.’
‘I don’t think he was trying to drum up business, Alfie. I think he was making a suggestion. Being helpful.’
Alfie held up his hands. ‘I’m sorry. I was only being cynical.’
‘So will you do it? Go and see him?’
Alfie weighed it up. He could say yes, and then simply put it off. Find reasons to cancel appointments. Eventually she might forget.
‘Sure,’ he said. ‘I don’t think it’ll come to much, but why not? If it helps, I’ll do it.’
‘I knew you wouldn’t mind.’ Claire smiled. ‘So I made the appointment. It’s for seven a.m., this Thursday.’
Seven a.m. thisThursday? The stupid fucking bitch. What had she done now? This was typical of her. She had to fucking interfere. He’d told her his test was OK, but did she believe him? No – she went jabbering on to her private doctor that Daddy paid for because the NHS wasn’t good enough for her and then she went and actually made an appointment for him, an actual goddamn appointment that he would have to attend. There was no way he had something going on at seven a.m., and she knew it.
But he couldn’t attend. Any half-decent doctor would see immediately that he didn’t have a low sperm count; he had no sperm at all. And then they’d see the vasectomy scar – it was small but they’d know exactly what it was – and he’d be screwed.
Totally screwed.
He’d wake up on Thursday and say he was ill. But then she’d reschedule.
He was trapped. Shit. Shit. Shit. He needed a way out. And fast.
‘Are you all right, Alfie?’
He smiled at her and took out his phone – his iPhone, not his Henry Bryant phone, Henry Bryant who would have told her to go to hell, he’d already done the test and she’d better believe what he damn well said – and opened the calendar.
‘What day was it?’ he said, his voice calm and even. He grabbed her glass of wine and took a sip. He fought the urge to chug the whole thing.
‘Thursday at seven a.m. Dr Singh said he’d open early for you.’
He nodded. He’d have to go. He’d simply have to find another way to deal with it. This was a real problem.
Unless. Unless he could find a way to nip it in the bud. He had the beginnings of an idea. Perhaps there was something he could do after all. He felt himself relax.
‘I’ll be there,’ he said.
Claire (#ulink_0ddd4148-63c6-5012-96e0-5e815c69bf23)
Claire swayed as the Tube train pulled out of the station. She glanced at her watch. Alfie should be with Dr Singh now. She’d wanted to go with him but she had a meeting with a client at eight. They were working on the product launch of a new flask, and they still hadn’t settled on the design. It was getting late in the project so they had fired their original designers and come to Claire’s firm. Part of the problem was the brief; they wanted something urban and sleek, but rugged and tough. It wasn’t immediately obvious how to incorporate all those things, but she had some ideas.
She got off at her Tube stop and her phone rang. It was Jodie.
‘Hi,’ she said. ‘What’s up?’
Jodie didn’t answer. Instead she made the sound of someone blowing out their cheeks in frustration.
‘That good?’ Claire said. ‘Fill me in.’
‘It’s Pippa. She’s driving me nuts.’
It took Claire a moment to place the name, but then it came to her. Pippa was the friend whose boyfriend had broken up with her by text. ‘What’s she doing?’
‘She’s moved in. She can’t bear to be alone. And all she talks about is Henry fucking Bryant—’
‘He’s the guy who broke up with her by text?’
‘The very same, and I never want to hear his name again. I didn’t get to bed until one a.m. last night. She was telling me how she loved him and she’d been convinced he was the one and she didn’t know what she’d done wrong, she simply couldn’t understand how he’d changed from one day to the next, and didn’t I think it was weird? And maybe there was something else going on with him because he hadn’t been answering her texts or calls; he could have been taken ill or something bad had happened to him which was the real reason he’d dumped her and so maybe there was a chance they could get back together after all.’ Jodie paused and took a deep breath. ‘I get it, Claire, I really do, and I feel sorry for her. It’s horrible to be dumped – we’ve all been there – and you get trapped in a cycle of wondering if you messed up in some way or other, but this is extreme. I mean, if she’s like this it’s no wonder he wanted out.’
‘Or that he did it by text,’ Claire said. ‘He probably knew how she’d react. Not that it’s an excuse. He should have told her to her face.’
‘Yeah, he should. But that doesn’t help me. She was up at five this morning, which meant I was too, ready for another few hours of speculation about why Henry Bryant had broken up with her. What am I going to do?’
‘It’ll pass. She’ll get over it.’
‘But in the meantime it’s torture.’
‘Take her out. Meet some new guys.’
‘I’d feel bad inflicting her on them.’
Claire laughed. ‘Then you’ll just have to get her to move out in a kind and gentle way. Tell her she’s welcome to stay for a while longer but you’re busy at work and you need your space. Don’t do it by text, though.’
Jodie gave a sardonic laugh. ‘Maybe I should. It might work. Or I’ll tell her I’m going on a business trip and come to stay with you guys.’
‘Sure. Do whatever you need.’ Claire checked the time on her phone. ‘Anyway, I have to run. I have a meeting.’
‘OK. And thanks for the advice, although I’m not sure I’m much closer to a solution. I feel better for venting though. By the way, I’ve got some good photos of us at the party. I’ll send them over.’
They hung up and, a few seconds later, Claire’s phone buzzed. Jodie had sent two photos from her birthday party: one of her and Jodie and Alfie standing together and one of Alfie singing the song he’d written, with her dad in the background looking at him in mild disgust.
Here you go, the message said. Look at your dad! Not sure what he thinks of the song! I’m sure he likes Alfie, but they’re so different. Anyway, thought you’d get a kick out of this.
Claire laughed and walked towards the office. As she turned on to Haymarket there was a busker singing ‘Father and Son’. She stopped to listen. She’d forgotten about Alfie but the song reminded her where he was. It was a good omen, a sign the appointment was going well. She smiled and reached into her bag for some change. All she had was a twenty-pound note. For a second she hesitated, but then she bent down and threw it into the guitar case. She had to. She had a sudden sense that it was all linked and she couldn’t ignore the fact there was a busker singing a song about a father right at the point Alfie was with Dr Singh. She had to give to receive.
The busker looked at the note lying among a scattering of coins. He grinned at her.
‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘And good luck.’
She turned away and headed up the street, smiling so much it was almost painful.
This was it.This was the day it all fell into place.
Alfie (#ulink_eed476b5-fa01-54a2-97cc-facb913f5c1a)
Dr Singh folded his arms and looked at Alfie. He had a puzzled expression on his face.
‘So,’ he said. ‘I have some results. Before we discuss them, I must say I am a little surprised.’
Alfie had no doubt that he was, but he frowned, then widened his eyes as though he was worried. ‘What kind of surprise?’
Dr Singh sat back in his chair. ‘Mr Daniels,’ he said. ‘Your sperm count is zero. There are no sperm.’
Alfie let his mouth drop open. ‘But,’ he stammered, ‘but I took a test. It was OK.’
‘I don’t know how. Unless you read it incorrectly. Tell me, did you refrain from sex and masturbation for forty-eight hours before coming here?’
Alfie nodded. He’d made a big thing of it, telling Claire how hard it was to resist her.
‘Then there can be no doubt. You are not producing sperm.’
‘I can’t believe it,’ Alfie said. ‘I really can’t believe it.’
The doctor’s bedside manner could use some work, Alfie thought. He’d just blurted out the news that a man would never be a father. He wasn’t to know Alfie was perfectly aware of that already. For all Dr Singh knew, Alfie’s devastation was genuine.
‘I want to discuss something else with you,’ Dr Singh said. ‘There are some other avenues we could explore.’
‘Oh?’ Alfie said. ‘Please. Anything.’
‘Normally we would do two or three tests to get a good sense of the quality and quantity of sperm being produced over a period of time, but since there are no sperm at all I’m not sure it makes sense.’
‘I get it,’ Alfie said. ‘If there are none then I have no chance.’ He looked down, focusing on his fingernails. ‘I can’t believe it’s come to this. It seems so hopeless.’
‘Maybe not,’ Dr Singh said. ‘I’d like to do further tests. It’s possible there is a blockage which is stopping the sperm from getting from the testes into the ejaculate. In fact, since there are no sperm at all, I’d like to check for this.’
‘How would you do that?’
‘We could do an ultrasound as a first step. We can do it now, if you like? We’ll have results right away.’
Alfie looked at the doctor. He felt a violent hatred for him but he bit it back. He had to stay calm. If he let the doctor do this then it would be obvious he had had a vasectomy. It would be equally obvious he had lied about it. That said, Dr Singh would have to keep quiet – he couldn’t reveal anything to Claire because of confidentiality. Still, it was better not to have anyone know.
He shook his head. ‘There’s no point,’ he said. ‘I’ll know more about why I have no sperm, but it won’t help.’
‘Oh, it will,’ Dr Singh said. ‘It’ll make all the difference in the world.’
Alfie straightened in his chair. ‘Oh? How so?’
‘Because if there is a blockage then that means you may well be producing plenty of healthy sperm. We can then either fix it, and you’ll be able to get pregnant in the traditional fashion, or we can harvest those sperm and use them for IVF, or other such treatments.’
‘I’m not sure,’ Alfie said. ‘It might be better to let it be. Accept the situation.’
Dr Singh frowned. ‘Mr Daniels! This is a very simple procedure and it could change everything. You should at least discuss it with your wife. I’m sure she would be keen to pursue this option.’
‘She wouldn’t need to know, would she?’ Alfie said. ‘I mean, you can’t tell her any of this, can you?’
Dr Singh did not reply for a long time. When he did, his voice was low and guarded. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I can’t.’
‘Good. Then I’d like it if you didn’t.’
‘May I ask a question, Mr Daniels?’
Alfie nodded.
‘Do you intend to tell your wife that everything is normal with your sperm test?’
Alfie thought for a moment. ‘Yes, I do. But you can’t say anything.’
‘No,’ Dr Singh said. ‘I can’t. But I will have no choice but to stop treating her.’
Alfie looked at him. That could be a problem. ‘Why?’ he said.
‘Because I will know – even though I will say nothing – that the real cause of her not conceiving is your sperm. Knowing that, I cannot continue to act as though the problem might be her, not to mention the ethics of charging for treatment I know will be ineffective.’
‘What will you tell her?’
‘That an ethical concern has arisen and I can no longer be her doctor.’
‘She’ll want to know why.’
‘I’ll tell her I can’t say why.’
Alfie nodded, slowly. He shouldn’t have said he was going to tell Claire his sperm was normal, but then Singh would have felt he could have discussed it with her, since Alfie had already told her. And he had to keep it from her.
So he’d had no choice. And now it was obvious what would happen: when the doctor told her there was some ethical concern, Claire would think something was badly wrong and would go immediately to another doctor. She’d make Alfie go with her, and she’d insist she was there at every appointment. That doctor would discover his zero sperm count and suggest a scan to look for a blockage, at which point the vasectomy would be revealed and his marriage, and the lifestyle that went with it, would be over.
The problems would pile on top of each other until the whole thing came crashing down, and that left him with only one option. The option Henry Bryant would have taken.
‘OK, I’ll tell her the truth. I have no sperm.’ Alfie tapped the desk. ‘Then what will you do?’
‘I’ll say it is true you have no sperm, but I don’t know why, and since you do not want further treatment there is nothing more I can do to help at this point.’
‘Well,’ Alfie said. ‘Let me tell you – patient to doctor – why I have no sperm. It’s because I had a vasectomy. And before you ask, Claire doesn’t know about it, and she’s not going to find out. So here’s what’s going to happen: I’m going to tell her I have no sperm, and then, if she asks you about it, you’re going to say it’s true. And that’s it. You’re not going to say another word.’
Dr Singh’s eyes narrowed, and he pointed his index finger at Alfie’s chest. ‘I’m not intimidated by you, Mr Daniels. I will keep your secrets, but I will not treat—’
Alfie’s hand snapped out and he grabbed the doctor’s finger. He stared at him and slowly bent it back. Dr Singh flinched in pain. ‘Listen to me,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Listen to me, you filthy little Paki. You’re going to tell her there’s nothing more you can do to help me and she’s going to leave here feeling sad, and you’ll never see her again. And if you don’t, you won’t need to worry about breaking doctor–patient confidentiality. You’ll need to worry about me breaking your disgusting brown neck.’
‘I’ll call the police,’ Dr Singh said, through gritted teeth. ‘This is assault.’
Alfie shook his head. ‘No, you won’t,’ he said. ‘There’s no evidence of any assault. And when they get here I’ll say you fondled me when you examined me. I’ll tell everyone. And they’ll believe me, because people believe that kind of thing.’
He tightened his grip and lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘And I will kill you. One night, when you’re all alone, you’ll wake up and wonder what the noise in your house was, whether there even was a noise, and then you’ll look up and I’ll be in your bedroom and it’ll be the last thing you ever see. Understand?’
He could see fear in the doctor’s eyes. He relaxed. This was going his way.
‘I asked you a question,’ he said. ‘Answer it, you piece of immigrant shit. Do. You. Understand?’
Dr Singh nodded, his lips pressed together to suppress the pain.
‘I understand,’ he said.
‘Good,’ Alfie replied, and let go of his finger.
Claire (#ulink_0f83ad8f-70ff-59ee-9482-21e1f8eeb8e4)
Claire’s phone buzzed and she glanced at the screen. It was a text from Alfie. The meeting was in full flow, but she had to read his message.
Can you call?
Her stomach balled up. There was something about the text message which didn’t seem right to her. He’d have his results by now. She’d been expecting a breezy no problem or all fine down below, but not this. Not a request to call her. She started to type a reply – call you back soon – but before she could finish it, she became aware that the room was silent. She lifted her head. Vicki Turner, the senior partner and founder of the firm, was looking back at her.
‘Claire?’ she said. ‘Your thoughts on the last question?’
Claire swallowed. She had no idea what the last question was.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t catch the question.’
Vicki Turner – tall, late-fifties, hair groomed into a static pile, pencil skirt and expensive jacket – looked pointedly at Claire’s phone, and then spoke slowly.
‘The question,’ she said, ‘was about the relationship with the client. If we have a strong relationship then maybe we can resolve the matter without pursuing legal action. Since you manage this contract, I was wondering whether you might be able to provide an opinion on the matter.’
‘Right,’ Claire said. ‘Of course.’ She searched for something to say but her mind had gone blank. She felt the heat rise in her neck and cheeks, felt herself flush. It was ridiculous; she was a grown woman, but here she was, her mind frozen.
‘It’s …’ she began, ‘it’s fine, I think. No, it’s better than that. It’s good.’
Vicki nodded. ‘Do you think we may be able to resolve this payment dispute without going down the legal route?’
‘I’m not – well yes, maybe.’ Claire smiled. ‘Maybe I can talk to someone there. Test the temperature.’
‘OK,’ Vicki said. ‘Let’s do that. Perhaps by the end of the day, if possible?’
‘No problem,’ Claire said. ‘End of the day it is.’
Back at her desk, she picked up her phone and called Alfie. He answered on the second ring. She could tell immediately it wasn’t good news.
‘Alfie,’ she said. ‘What happened?’
There was a long pause. ‘It turns out,’ he said eventually, ‘the problem is me.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well,’ Alfie replied. ‘I have a very low sperm count.’
‘But you took that test! It was fine.’
‘I know. That’s what I thought. But it must have been faulty.’
‘OK,’ Claire said. ‘It’s not the end of the world. There are things they can do even if you have a low sperm count. We can try those.’
‘Not in my case,’ Alfie said. He sounded worse, flatter and more exhausted, than Claire had ever heard him sound before. ‘I have no sperm, Claire. None at all. It’s impossible.’
‘No,’ Claire said. ‘It can’t be! I’ll talk to Dr Singh. See if—’
‘Claire!’ Alfie’s voice was almost a shout. ‘Please don’t make this any worse than it needs to be. It’s time to move on.’
She was about to argue, but she caught the words on her lips. Now was not the time. And besides, Alfie had no doubt explored all the possibilities with Dr Singh, and so if he said it was impossible it must be. He wanted this as badly as she did; there was no way he would leave any stone unturned.
‘OK,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry, darling. I feel for you.’
‘I don’t care about me. It’s you. This is your dream. You deserve better.’
‘There is no one better,’ Claire said. ‘And this test result doesn’t change how I feel about you one bit. I love you as much – more – than I ever did. This will only bring us closer.’
‘Thank you,’ Alfie said. ‘Thank you for saying that. It means a lot. I love you.’
She looked at her watch. It was ten a.m. ‘I’ll see you tonight. What time are you home?’
‘I don’t know. I’m a bit behind. But I don’t want to be too late. I need to see you.’
‘Get back as soon as you can. We can have a drink and talk about how to deal with this. OK?’
He agreed and she put her phone on her desk. She pushed it away from her, then rubbed her temples. So there was a reason she couldn’t get pregnant, and it was this. Although she’d wanted him to go and see Dr Singh she hadn’t really thought there was a problem. It was more for peace of mind than anything else. But now this had happened.
And as it started to sink in tears came to her eyes.
She shook her head. She could cry about it later. For now she needed to get her thoughts straight. Firstly, Alfie would be devastated, so she needed to be sensitive to him. Secondly, there were still avenues they could explore. If she wanted to have her own baby then they could use a sperm donor, or they could adopt. She’d often thought that, after she had a couple of her own and built a family home, she would like to adopt a child. There was something about the idea of sharing what she had with someone in need that appealed to her.
Well, maybe that was going to happen sooner than she’d thought.
She closed her laptop. She needed a coffee. As she got up, Jodie called.
‘Hey,’ Claire said. ‘How’re things?’
‘Good,’ Jodie replied. ‘You? Want to meet up tonight?’
‘I can’t. And I thought you were locked into Pippa world.’
‘I was. But, amazingly, she’s going out tonight. We were supposed to be watching a movie, but she called and said she had plans. She sounded quite happy, actually. Maybe she got asked out on a date. Either way, I thought I’d take advantage and see if you were free.’
‘Sadly not,’ Claire said. ‘I have plans with Alfie. But I’m glad Pippa is off your hands, for a night at least.’
‘Me too. See you soon.’
Claire put her phone in her bag and headed for the main doors. She needed to get some fresh air. She could get her coffee somewhere nearby.
As she left the building she noticed that the busker was gone.
Alfie (#ulink_6fec0ac7-9e7f-5eb0-bd30-82556563f0d3)
Alfie put his phone down – his Henry Bryant phone – and stared out of the office window.
He was in trouble. Big trouble.
Just before he’d given Claire the bad news, Pippa had sent him a text message – We need to talk– which he’d ignored, as usual. He hadn’t been able to ignore the next one she sent, though, since it contained his name. His real name.
You’ll have to answer this one, Henry, it read. Or should I say, Alfie?
She knew who he was. How, he had no idea, but she knew. And if she knew, then others might. She was right; he had to answer, so he had called her.
Well, well, she said. Nice to hear from you, Henry.
She put a heavy, sarcastic emphasis on the ‘Henry’.
Look, he said. I can explain.
Can you? she replied. I doubt it. Although I suppose you’re trapped in an unhappy marriage and Henry Bryant was your way out?
Yes, he said. I know it’s a cliché but it’s true. And this is true, too – I was falling for you too deeply and I knew that if it carried on I’d be in trouble, which was why I had to end it.
You texted me, she said. You didn’t even have the decency to call.
I knew if I did you’d persuade me. I’m weak, Pippa, when it comes to you. I would have heard your voice and I would have been unable to do it.
She paused and he sensed her soften. He was telling her what she wanted to hear. It was amazing how easily people would believe you when you did that.
Pippa, he said. I knew that if we stayed together I’d eventually have had to choose between you and my marriage, and I’d have chosen you. But that’s impossible. My wife is vindictive. The divorce would have been messy and she’d have made sure I was left with nothing. And that’s not all … she’s violent. There’s no telling what she would have done. So I couldn’t let it come to that.
I’d have helped you, Pippa said. We’d have been OK together.
You couldn’t stop her. No one could.
It wouldn’t have mattered. As long as we had each other, everything else would have been irrelevant.
Oh, Pippa, he said,injecting real longing into his voice. I want to see you. Can we meet? Tonight?
I don’t know, she said. You hurt me.
Now she thought she was in the driving seat, she was playing hard to get, but that was all it was.
Please, he said. I miss you.
I miss you too, she replied, her voice almost a whisper.
Will you meet me? he begged.
Yes. I’ll meet you.
Tonight?
Tonight.
And so they had arranged to meet later. Claire would be expecting him home, but he’d have to come up with some reason he’d stayed out later. For now, Pippa was the priority. He had no idea what he was going to do, but he knew he had to find out how she knew, who else she had told, and then he could start to figure out how to fix this.
He took his car from the office car park and drove to Barnes, where they had arranged to meet in a pub. They hugged and he was struck by how, even at an emotional reunion, there was a limpness and passivity in the way she embraced him. A shudder of disgust ran through him.
They ordered two glasses of wine and sat at a corner table.
‘So,’ he said. ‘It’s great to see you. How’ve you been?’
She looked at him, her eyes wide, almost fearful. ‘Not good,’ she said. ‘I was going a bit crazy.’
‘Me too. But I’m here now.’
‘And you’re not Henry Bryant,’ she said. ‘You lied to me.’
‘Only about that. Not about how I felt about you.’
‘How do I know that? It’s going to be hard for me to trust you again.’
Going to be, he noted. In her mind, they were already back together.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Truly I am. And not that it matters now, but how did you find out?’
She smiled a sly smile. ‘A friend.’
Shit. So someone else knew. This was getting worse. ‘Which friend?’
‘Jodie.’
He froze. If Jodie knew then it was only a matter of time before she told Claire. They were best friends. He was surprised she hadn’t called already. ‘How did she find out?’ he asked.
‘She didn’t. Not exactly.’
‘Then what happened?’
‘She was showing me some photos on her phone, and one came up of her with you. And your wife. Who I’ve met, by the way, a while ago. There was another photo of you singing a song. A romantic one, I assume. Of course, I was more than a little surprised to see you, so I asked who you were and she told me. Alfie Daniels, husband of the lovely Claire.’
‘She isn’t so lovely.’ He shook his head. ‘And it wasn’t a romantic song.’ There was an important piece of information he needed. The most important piece. ‘You told Jodie about us?’
Pippa shook her head. ‘No. I wanted to speak to you first.’
Alfie fought to stop himself shouting in relief. ‘Did you tell anyone?’
‘No. Like I said, I wanted to give you a chance to tell me your side of the story.’
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘That’s very fair. And it’s one of the reasons … it’s one of the reasons I love you.’
She blinked. There they were, the three little words that made all the difference.
I.Love.You.
‘Oh my God,’ she said. ‘I love you too, Alfie Daniels.’
Hearing her words also made all the difference to Alfie, but not the ‘I love you’. It was hearing his name.
It reminded him that she knew who he was, and that she held his fate in her hands as a result. And it made everything clear to him. He knew exactly what he had to do.
‘Let’s go,’ he said. ‘I have my car. We can book into a hotel. I can’t wait any longer.’ He took her hands in his and stared into her eyes. ‘And then I’m going to tell Claire it’s over. Tonight.’
She blinked rapidly, her lips pressed together. ‘Do you promise?’ she said.
Alfie nodded. ‘I promise.’
He told Pippa there was a hotel he had in mind in Tunbridge Wells, a hotel that was special to him and that, although it was a long drive, was worth it for what was, after all, a special occasion. He had no intention of going to a hotel there, but it sounded good. It was the kind of place where girls like Pippa imagined illicit assignations took place. He switched off his iPhone; he had a plan for what he would tell Claire later and it involved her being unable to get in touch with him.
As they approached Tunbridge Wells he turned on to a B road heading east. Pippa glanced at him.
‘Is this the right way?’ she said.
‘Yep. It’s a quiet little place. It’s in the countryside. Hardly anyone knows about it.’
Which was all true. Hardly anyone did know about their destination. The only thing he had failed to mention was that it wasn’t a hotel.
Ten minutes later he pulled into layby. It was on the edge of a dense forest. He switched off the engine, then put his hand on her knee. Her jeans were soft and expensive. He ran his hand up to her crotch.
‘Alfie,’ Pippa said. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m getting desperate,’ he said. ‘I can’t wait any longer. I want you. Now.’
‘How far is the hotel?’
‘Not far. But I thought’ – he turned and placed his hands on her cheeks and pulled her towards him – ‘we could get started early.’
She twisted in her seat and kissed him. As she did, he put his hands on her cheeks and held her face. She gave a slight moan and, for a second, he hesitated.
Then he slid his hands down her face and around her neck, and began to squeeze.
‘Alfie,’ she gasped. ‘What are you doing?’
He squeezed harder, and she squealed as the pressure increased and her windpipe began to narrow.
‘You silly little girl,’ he muttered. ‘Did you really think I was in love with you? Then you’re more stupid than I thought. But that’s good for me, because it made this easy.’
He looked at her. Her eyes were beginning to bulge in their sockets. Strangely, he felt nothing. Just a deep calm. He pressed harder, felt the flesh yield.
‘I couldn’t have you wandering around knowing that Henry Bryant and Alfie Daniels are one and the same,’ he said. ‘You understand that, right?’
In her eyes he saw that she knew she was going to die. She grabbed his wrists and tried to pull them away. She was surprisingly strong. He supposed she was desperate.
He focused on putting as much pressure on her throat as he could. Gradually, her attempts to pull away his hands grew weaker – he had some scratches which would need some explanation – until they stopped entirely. Slowly, he relaxed his grip, ready to tighten it at the slightest sign of movement.
There was nothing. He examined her face. She was wide-eyed, her mouth slack and open.
She was, without question, dead.
And Alfie felt great.
Claire (#ulink_ad904900-ae09-5441-849c-e67903d61e6e)
Claire looked at the call log on her phone. She’d tried Alfie eleven times since she’d got home from work. Eleven calls, none of them answered. She’d been expecting him home, expecting a quiet night together as they talked through their options.
She had not been expecting an empty house and eleven unanswered phone calls, or the intense and deepening worry. She imagined everything that could have possibly happened to him: hit by a car, mugged, stuck at work.
Suicide.
It was this that brought her out in cold sweats. He was a sensitive, caring man who had found out he couldn’t have his own children, which was what he wanted more than anything else. He hadn’t ever said much about his childhood, but she got the impression it hadn’t been all that happy even before both his parents had died. She thought that was part of the reason he wanted to be a father so much; like her, he wanted to put right some of what had gone wrong in his own life.
So it was entirely possible he had killed himself. She loved him, but she knew he was not the strongest of men, and that made this situation all the more worrying.
She picked up her phone and glanced at the time. Nearly midnight. That was it. She’d call him one more time, and if he didn’t pick up she was calling the police.
It turned out there was no need to call the police after all. Five minutes later he was back, assuming that it was him stumbling around in the hallway.
The door to the living room opened. She watched Alfie walk in, the top two buttons of his shirt open. His hair was dishevelled and his face was red. The harsh smell of whisky came off him in waves.
He stared at her, his mouth an unhappy line. He looked close to tears. Claire felt her anger – along with the worry – melting away.
‘Where the hell have you been?’ she said, her tone much softer than she’d been imagining it would be for the last few hours.
‘Went for a drink,’ Alfie said. His words were slurred and indistinct. He was not a big drinker and she had never seen him like this.
‘On your own?’
He nodded.
‘Where?’
‘Bunch of places.’
‘Why, Alfie?’
He shrugged. ‘Why do you think?’
‘You should have called. I was worried.’
‘I’m sorry.’ He looked away from her, his gaze unfocused. ‘I couldn’t face you. I feel like I’ve let you down.’
‘Alfie!’ Claire said. ‘That’s the last thing you’ve done! This isn’t your fault. It’s nobody’s fault. It’s just one of those things. It’s sad – of course it is, I mean, I’m devastated – but I don’t blame
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Alex Lake
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: THE TWISTY NEW PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF AFTER ANNA, KILLING KATE AND COPYCATEveryone lies…but some lies are deadly.For Claire Daniels, life is good. She has everything she’s ever wanted – a career she loves, friends she can rely on and a husband who dotes on her. All she needs is to start a family of her own and things will be even better than good.They’ll be perfect.For Alfie, it couldn’t be more different. His life with Claire is built on a lie. A lot of lies. And she can never find out.Because Alfie has plans for her. Plans which must never come to light. But lies have a way of taking on a life of their own, and when his do, the consequences threaten to destroy everything.For him and Claire.