Silent Victim(34)

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

ALEX





2017


After my conversation with Luke, everything I did was on autopilot. Leaving the pub, finding my key and sliding it into the hotel room door, even getting undressed. I didn’t remember anything because all my attention was on my son. Ever since Luke mentioned his relationship with my wife, suspicion had lurked in the back of my mind. Those blue eyes . . . they had triggered a spark of recognition. I could not focus on who was telling the truth because something far more troubling was plaguing my thoughts. I kicked off my duvet, allowing the air conditioning to chill my bare skin. I thought about Emma and Luke together and imagined our family being ripped apart. I didn’t want to believe Luke’s story and felt disloyal for its presence in my thoughts. Emma had not mentioned a sexual liaison between them, but there was an undercurrent of tension when she talked about that day. Luke’s parting shot was in the forefront of my brain. October 2013. It suggested just one thing. Betrayal.

I rose from my bed. There was no point in trying to sleep tonight. I switched on the kettle on the hotel room desk, tearing open the decaf coffee sachet into a cup. As I emptied the capsules of milk I saw Jamie’s face, the child we never thought we could have. Our fertility problems had consumed our marriage, and the strain on our relationship had been immense. It was nature, part of the driving need to reproduce. But it was my fault, not Emma’s. My weakness.

I thought back to when she fell pregnant. It had felt like our marriage had been given a reprieve. We would have done anything to make it work. She had gained weight, turned her back on her eating disorder, at least for a while. Wearily, I took a sip of coffee, briefly closing my eyes as I remembered the argument we’d had about a sperm donor at the time. I’d found her searching for clinics and donors online. When I’d snapped the lid of the laptop shut she had jumped as if it were a crocodile about to bite her. I desperately wanted a child but she simply could not see how small the suggestion of a sperm donor made me feel. Then, like a miracle, we conceived and Jamie was born the following June. Had she instigated contact with Luke? Slept with him just one more time? She knew every inch of her fertility cycle – but only because I had piled the pressure on. I could not accept the doctor’s prognosis of a low sperm count. I took another mouthful of coffee, trying to commit Luke’s words to memory. He instigated the injunction, not Emma, as she had implied. Why would she lie about such a thing? Backgrounds could be checked – couldn’t they? The same could be said for being in trouble with the police. Luke’s version of events was similar to Emma’s – but turned on its head. I felt disorientated, as if I was walking through a hall of mirrors. Had Emma gone off the rails after her mother left? Or was Luke lying, deliberately playing me to turn me against my wife? Wasn’t that what stalkers did? Tore apart their victims until there was nothing left? My thoughts tortured me.

I checked my watch. Jamie would be sleeping now. I pictured him dressed in his Superman onesie, his tousled blond hair falling over his face as he slept. Everybody said he looked like his mother. But I couldn’t see any of Emma in him. And his eyes . . . as blue as the sky. A throwback from a grandmother who had long since passed. At least, that’s what Emma had told me. A wave of nausea made itself known. I sat up on the bed, planting my bare feet firmly on the floor. The world felt like it was tilting, and I dug my fingers into the mattress as I clung on for dear life. I had to get to the bottom of it. Grief swept over me, pre-empting the results. In my mind, I had lost a child and a wife. What if Emma left me? My name was on the birth certificate but what rights did I have? Could I live with not knowing? If a DNA test proved Jamie wasn’t mine, where did that leave me then? I thought of my relationship with my father, his steady influence on my life. Jamie needed his dad. Emma was troubled at times – how would she cope on her own? Despite it all, I still loved her.





CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

EMMA





2017


Postman Pat filled the air with a cheerful jingling tune as I replayed the latest episode for Jamie, who was nicely tucked up in his pyjamas under a blanket, a bowl of jelly on his lap. I had spent the evening cuddling him on the sofa, but as Alex pushed his key in the door, I could already feel the panic rising in my chest.

I met him in the hall, away from little ears. ‘You’re an hour late; I was worried sick,’ I said, despite his text telling me he had been delayed. It was only seven o’clock in the evening. I knew the train journey was horrendously long, but it did not stop me getting anxious as I awaited his return. Last night I had quickly come to, waking up on my bedroom floor. I knew it was the lack of food that had made me dizzy and faint so I had forced myself to eat some spoonfuls of dry cereal before bed. Spooked by the storm outside, I squeezed in beside Jamie, listening for every sound. Only as dawn filtered through his window blinds did I relax.

‘But I texted you. You said it was OK.’ He took one look at my face. ‘Is everything all right? Is Jamie—’

‘He’s fine.’ I cut off his sentence. ‘But I’m not – I didn’t get a wink of sleep last night.’ I looked him up and down. His crumpled clothes and the shadows under his eyes told me he hadn’t slept much either. ‘Had a good night, did you?’ I hated feeling this way, irritable and snappy. Alex worked hard and deserved a break. But last night had felt like a year without him. I rubbed the back of my neck, still feeling cold prickles after the silent call.