The Second Wife Read online

  But of course it’s all a question of motive. ‘I mean it,’ I say firmly. ‘It just isn’t safe, particularly in light of what you told me this morning.’ I pause, thinking about the unpleasant resonance in what I’ve just said. My daughter has told me that there’s a strange man hanging around, someone she’s seen several times. And now there’s this ‘boy’, worming his way into her messages, trying to get close. Is this just the way things are now – potential danger curling out like smoke from every corner? Or is this more than coincidence?

  Jade raises her eyes to mine, and I can see that she’s got there at the same time as I have. ‘Dad, you’re wrong about this, I promise,’ she says. ‘And besides, that wouldn’t make any sense! That man’s never really come anywhere near me, not until the other night. If he wanted to talk to me then he could just do it. Why would he waste his time trying to meet up with me when he already knows who I am and where I live?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I say slowly. ‘I suppose, if he wanted to catch you off guard …’ I stop myself. Speculating about potential gruesome scenarios is only going to frighten her. ‘You need to be sensible about this, Jade,’ I say.

  ‘I am sensible,’ she says, a little grumpily.

  ‘So take it slowly. Stop messaging this boy for a bit, and give what I’ve said some thought. OK? Will you?’ I take a breath, aware I’m pressing the button on the teenage urge to kick back and defy. But she’s sucking on her lower lip, her eyes flicking back and forth as she thinks, and after a few seconds she shrugs and nods.

  ‘’K,’ she says. As monosyllables go, it’s about as comforting as I’m going to get right now. She frowns, and for a moment I think she’s going to say something else, but in the end she just reaches her arms out silently, dropping her gaze from mine as if she’s almost ashamed to be asking for this comfort. I put my own arms around her and hug her to me tightly, hoping that applying this pressure will somehow transmit this complex cocktail of emotions: love, protectiveness, warning, chastisement, and all the rest.

  Natalie and I have dinner downstairs at the hotel restaurant and drink a couple of bottles of wine between us in the bar afterwards, faster than we usually do. In another situation, I would look at my wife in the flattering candlelight across the table, the shadows playing over the inscrutable angles of her face, and be thinking about nothing but what I saw. I might even slip my hand on to her knee and let it ride up under the silk fabric of her skirt, suggest we go back to the room for an early night. As it is, she’s the one who suggests it, and I can see from the sudden droop of her eyelids that it’s only sleep she’s considering.

  I follow her silently back up the stairs and lie down on the bed, watching her strip off her clothes in front of the half open window with the lights from the pier shining dimly through the glass and illuminating her outline. I can smell the perfume she often wears, the one that always makes me think of cut grass and rain. If I closed my eyes and she came at me in the dark, I’d know her by that scent. Not just by the pure smell of it – I’ve come across it in shops before and it’s never been the same – but by the way it reacts on her skin. It’s this kind of thing that tricks you and makes you think you know someone, I think suddenly. It’s easy to confuse familiarity with knowledge.

  When she’s drifted into sleep beside me, I try to do the same, but I can’t relax. It strikes me that what I need is to be alone. It’s not that I don’t want to be close to her, exactly. More that I want to feel like I have a choice.

  It’s for this reason, perhaps, that I start thinking about going to the house. It’s not a pleasant place to spend time right now, but nonetheless there’s a kind of homing instinct, boomeranging me back. And I’m also thinking of my laptop. I’ll need it to keep an eye on things at work from afar, but it could be useful for more than that. My conversations with Natalie have been frustrating in the extreme. She’s told me almost nothing about what happened in her past, but I have a nasty feeling that it was something big. If she won’t tell me anything more for now, then I can at least try and use the very little I’ve got to find out more online. It’s more than simple curiosity – it concerns me too, and Jade. It’s not right of Natalie to keep me at arm’s length, no matter how difficult it is for her.

  I know from experience that I could spend hours lying here, fighting this disconnect between the exhausted heaviness of my limbs and the swift weightless whirring of my thoughts. It’s a hiding to nothing. I could walk to the house in thirty minutes, and be back here in less than a couple of hours. Once I’ve made up my mind I climb out of bed and dress quietly in the dark. Slipping one of the room keys into my pocket, I go softly to the door and ease it open, a shaft of light from the hallway filtering through. Natalie stirs, her lips moving lazily in an inaudible whisper, but then she settles back against the pillow and is still again, and I slip out of the room and close the door silently behind me. I hurry down the corridor and take the lift to the ground floor, then step out on to the street. I feel a fleeting stab of guilt as I consider the possibility of Natalie waking up while I’m gone, but I remember the screwed-up note she left me yesterday; she didn’t seem to care too much if I worried about her absence.

  Half an hour later I’m descending the hill and the house comes into view. I’m struck again by the starkness of its blackened walls, a Hallowe’en nightmare against the orange gleam of the streetlights. I slip under the red and white tape, and I register how cool and empty the air inside is, now that it’s abandoned. I flick the hallway switch on instinct, feeling stupid an instant later.

  Instead, I pull my mobile from my pocket and activate the flashlight, moving forwards into the lounge. The tiny beam of light bounces dimly off the walls, throwing the room’s cracks and crevices temporarily into relief. It reminds me of something, and it takes me a few moments to realize that it’s straight out of a TV drama: the police entering a crime scene, scanning and excavating, uncovering some hideously mutilated corpse.

  ‘Get a grip, you prat,’ I say out loud. Now that I am here, the homing instinct that seemed so strong when I was lying in the room at the hotel seems misplaced. This isn’t home anymore – it’s a grotesque parody, incapable of offering the kind of comfort I need.

  I go to our bedroom, in search of my laptop, and sure enough I find it tucked under the foot of the bed. Sitting cross-legged, I hold my breath as I press the power button, and exhale in relief when it sparks to life. I click on the browser icon at the base of the screen. The Wi-Fi here doesn’t work any longer, but when I open the available connections I see the log-on for the pub down the road, for which I’m still in range, so I click connect and open up the search engine. I start off vaguely, hopelessly. I enter the names Rachel and Sadie, along with the word ‘sisters’, which yields nothing but a few amateur porn sites. I add the name of the man in the photograph that Natalie let slip, trying a few different spellings: Cas, Kaz, Kas. Still there’s nothing. I scroll through pages of search results, my eyes starting to glaze over, the words fuzzing on the screen.

  And then I remember another detail. A nightclub, Natalie had said. She had told me that the man in the photograph ran a local club – although I realize that I have no idea where ‘local’ might be, and it’s partly this which is making this task so difficult. Something is nagging at the back of my mind, and I pull out the photograph from my pocket, angling it up to the light of the screen. There’s a mirror running along the length of the wall behind the bar where Kas and Sadie are sitting, and reflected in it I can see a logo, painted across the opposite wall. The letters are blurred and in mirror image, but I can just about make them out: KASPAR’S.

  Galvanized, I search again. At first it seems there’s nothing new, but as I’m scanning another interminable page of results, I see a YouTube link. The name of the video is ‘Promo – Blackout Club (ex Kaspar’s)’.

  I click on the link and play the video. It’s a pretty standard club promotion piece: shots of a darkly spotlit dance floor against a thumping beat, gyrating
scantily clad punters, rows of gleaming bottles behind the bar and overblown slogans flashing in luminous letters. YOUR NEXT BIG NIGHT OUT. CAMDEN’S NUMBER ONE DESTINATION. The description beneath the video reads, ‘7 days a week – R&B, house, underground trance nights – on the site of infamous 90’s club Kaspar’s’. I read it a couple of times, trying to wrench some significance from it, but although I feel I’m getting closer to something, it doesn’t actually take me much further forward.

  Scrolling down, I see that there are ninety-eight comments beneath the video. Most of them are inane, half-baked verdicts on the club: ‘bangin’, ‘had sick night there friday’, ‘fuckin shite dont bother’. But towards the bottom there’s a comment written about eighteen months ago from a user called LeonR: anyone know what happened to KK??

  A little message below tells me that there are five replies. Quickly, I click to display them.

  Jaz: still banged up mate

  LeonR: where he at?

  Jaz: belmarsh i think

  DJW: he aint getting out anytime soon mate lol. Those were the days tho the club was quality back then

  LeonR: thx

  Once again, it doesn’t prove anything. Natalie didn’t tell me Kas’s surname, but there’s a sudden tightness in my throat, a slipperiness of my palms, that tells me I’m on the right track. Returning to the search engine, I type in ‘Kaspar’s Camden’. There’s surprisingly little – a defunct website that now simply states the domain name is up for sale, a couple of old and inconsequential forum comments – but I find a short, cryptic article announcing the club’s closure in the year 2000 on behalf of the club’s owner, Kaspar Kashani.

  KK. There’s no photograph, but it all fits. If what I’ve seen on the YouTube link is right, then Kas is in prison, and it sounds as if he’s been there for a long time. I have no idea if Natalie knows this, or if it’s linked in any way to her own past. I could ask, but something tells me that she might shut up like a clam, and I’m not sure I want to risk pushing her too fast.

  Something brings me out of my reverie then, snaps my attention away from the lit-up screen to the darkness of the room around me. I’m on red alert. Listening. There are always noises in an old house: pipes whistling, floorboards expanding and contracting. The house talking to itself, we used to call it. But crouching here in the dark with the wreckage of a half-destroyed home around me, the cutesy turn of phrase doesn’t feel so appropriate anymore.

  I listen harder, straining my ears. There’s a creaking, yes, but it doesn’t sound like the familiar, internal readjustments of the foundations. It’s slower, more deliberate. Like footsteps across the floor below, not seeking to advertise themselves, but not tiptoeing either. An unhurried patrol, back and forth and back again.

  As silently as I can, I close the laptop, tuck it under my arm and stand up. I creep towards the bedroom doorway, still trying to determine exactly what it is I’m hearing. There’s a buzzing in my ears, the start-up of panic, and it makes it even harder to be sure. For a full ten seconds it seems there’s nothing. I start to relax, already chastising myself, and then it comes again: another beat of pressure, like a tap or a knock against floorboards, and then a slow scrape which could be the sound of something being dragged across a table or shelf. A few seconds later, a muffled clatter, as if some light object might have fallen to the floor.

  Drawing in breath painfully, I’m acutely aware of just how stupid I’ve been – coming to an unsecured house after dark, a place that I already know has been under threat. It comes to me that if I died here tonight, my last coherent thought would be that I was a fucking fool. Peering down into the chasm of the hallway below, I try to think. If I stay here, then whoever is downstairs is likely to come up eventually, and then I’ll be trapped without an escape route. And the best-case scenario – the most likely one – is that this is some common or garden burglar, or even a squatter, looking for a sheltered place to spend the night. If that’s the case, then they’ll be easily scared off, and I have the advantage of surprise.

  Without giving myself time to waver, I stride towards the staircase, no longer bothering to try and stay quiet. ‘Get the fuck out of my house,’ I say loudly, with as much aggression as I can muster.

  The house is quiet. No response. The echo of my voice lingers, and I feel immediately ridiculous. I’ve seen countless reconstructions of unprovoked attacks and break-ins on TV, and I’ve often wondered why the victims so rarely scream. Surely if you’re in danger, you react – make everyone in shouting distance know that you need help. But now I get it. We’re conditioned to downplay. Even now, I’m not quite convinced that this is any kind of emergency, and the instant those words leave my lips I’m embarrassed.

  I walk fast down the stairs, my footsteps clattering on each step, and turn the corner towards the kitchen, thinking too late of the torchlight on my phone. Without the streetlight shining through the window, the blackness is even denser than it was upstairs, and my eyes need a few seconds to readjust, before the outlines of the room form themselves into a more familiar shape. In those few seconds, I can’t be completely sure of what I see – of whether the sense of something moving swiftly and fluidly through the dark like an escaping shadow is real, or just my nerves playing tricks. By the time I can see more clearly, it’s gone. The burnt-out back door yawns open, the yard behind empty. I step outside, feeling the coolness of the night sharp against my skin. There’s no one around. But something feels different. A kind of tension, as if the air is holding its breath.

  Back at the hotel I manage a few fractured hours of sleep, simply by virtue of forcing myself to empty my mind. Whenever I wake I turn my head to look at Natalie, but she’s always motionless, her eyes closed, her eyelids unmoving and serene. I find myself reaching out in a childish impulse to hold her, circling my arm lightly around her waist and feeling the even rhythm of her breathing.

  It’s almost eight a.m. when I reach across the bedside table and check my mobile. It’s been on silent and there’s a missed call and a new voicemail from work. It’s James. Heard the news. It’s no problem if you need a few days to handle things after the fire, Alex. Just let us know. I hesitate, then type him a quick email saying that I appreciate it and that I’ll be back in soon.

  As soon as I know the pressure is off, my thoughts return to what I found out last night. Once again, I consider asking Natalie about Kas and his imprisonment, but I’m still unsure, and the unpleasant realization dawns that it’s largely because I don’t trust her to tell the truth. Until a few days ago I wouldn’t have thought her capable of any major deception, but things are different now. There’s a small, hard nub of conviction inside me that tells me that if I want to find out more about Kas and his link to my wife, I’m going to have to do it alone, difficult though that may be. But as I think about it, I realize that maybe it’s not so difficult after all. If what I read on the YouTube video is correct, then I know exactly where this man is – he’s a sitting duck. I’ve never visited anyone in prison before, but there must be a procedure.

  ‘Alex?’ Natalie’s voice, very close. I start, twisting my head back over my shoulder and seeing that she’s lying propped up on her elbow, suddenly wide awake.

  ‘Morning,’ I say. ‘What’s up?’

  She shrugs and rolls on to her back, passing her hands through her long dark hair. ‘I don’t know. I was dreaming, I think. I thought you were saying something to me.’

  I watch her fingers moving through her hair, combing it gently from root to tip. ‘Do you dye it?’ I ask.

  She stops mid-movement, a faint smile playing on her lips. ‘Yes. But so do a lot of women.’

  ‘I know,’ I say, but all the same I’m stupidly affronted. I’ve always loved Natalie’s hair, the way it shifts from dark brown to almost black, the perfect ripples of graded colour. Too perfect, I realize now.

  ‘Does that bother you?’ she asks. The bedsheet slips from her shoulder, falling down to expose the curves of her bare breasts, the hardened poi
nts of her nipples.

  ‘No …’ I say.

  ‘Everything else is real,’ she says softly, ‘in case you’re wondering.’

  In another second she’s in my arms, pressing herself up against me, her legs parting to wrap themselves around my waist. Her mouth is hot on my neck, the scrape of her teeth teasing my skin. ‘I know everything feels wrong right now,’ she says, ‘but I really want this. Do you?’

  I make some noise of affirmation, but even as I’m kissing her, running my hands over the smooth length of her back and feeling the softness of her skin against mine, I know something isn’t right. Maybe it’s the guilt of the thoughts I’ve just been having, the idea of making plans without her knowledge. I’m turned on, but the message isn’t getting through to my body. It’s an odd sensation – all the elements present and correct, the same beautiful body in my arms that has roused me countless times, and yet nothing’s happening. Her hand slips between my legs, and for a moment I think about falling back on some reliable kick-starting fantasy, but on some obscure level it doesn’t seem fair. To her, or to me.

  Her hand lingers on me for a few more moments, gentle, exploratory; then she sighs and rolls away again. ‘Not in the mood, then.’ Her tone is light, but she turns her face away and I see her shoulders tense, then hear a shaky intake of breath.

  ‘God, don’t cry.’ I lean across to touch her. This isn’t like Natalie – she’s always been practical about sex, finding the humour in it if things go awry, defusing any awkward complications. She sees it for what it is and she likes it; it’s something I’ve always been drawn to. ‘It doesn’t mean anything,’ I try. ‘I’m just stressed, you know? There’s a lot going on.’

  She sniffs, wiping a hand across her face. ‘I know that. But all the same, it feels … significant. Like you don’t want me anymore because of what I’ve told you. Because of who I was.’