The Guilty Couple(12)

The moment the front door closed behind us, denial kicked in. The money couldn’t all be gone, could it? There had to be a way to get it back. Some kind of ombudsman or compensation scheme? Dominic shook his head, telling me over and over again that it was gone. When denial slid into anger I ranted and raged until Dominic threw me across the room in frustration. As my tears dampened the carpet he announced that he was going to pick Grace up from Brownie Camp and that I should sort myself out before our daughter returned. The next day I moved out, telling Grace I had to go to an art fair. I went to Ayesha’s for forty-eight hours and Dominic bombarded me with texts. He was sorry. He’d made the biggest mistake of his life. He wanted me to come home. Grace missed me. So did he.

I moved back in – more for my daughter than myself or Dominic – and, for a couple of weeks, Dominic became the man I’d fallen in love with so many years before. He was thoughtful and gentle, clever and funny, and then, just as I began to soften, he wasn’t. He began sniping at me and he criticised every decision I made – whether it was to do with the business, the Tesco order, or Grace. His temper, which had always been short, became explosive. A simple request to hand me a mug from the cupboard would either be ignored or result in a cup being thrown across the room. When I told him I’d decided to sleep in the spare room for a bit, he put his fist through the wall. What began as irritation morphed into something much worse. He resented me. I was the reason his life hadn’t panned out the way he’d planned. I was the reason he felt like a failure. Being with me made him feel trapped. I felt it as powerfully as a heatwave. And then I met Jack.

Over lunch, Jack said he’d come with me when I told Dominic about us. He was worried that, this time, it wouldn’t just be the wall that Dominic punched. I was touched by his protectiveness but there was no way I could agree. To tell my husband I was leaving him was one thing; to parade the man I was in love with in front of him was another. Jack and I hugged at the entrance to London Bridge station and told each other we loved each other. I promised to text him from Paris and let him know I’d arrived safely, and again, after I’d seen Dom.

‘He didn’t write to you in prison?’ Nancy searches my face. ‘Not a single letter to explain why he ghosted you?’

‘No.’

‘What an absolute bastard.’

Tears prick at my eyes but a sudden rush of anger dries them. I promised myself a long time ago that I’d never cry over Jack Law again.

He responded to the text I sent him from Paris but he didn’t reply to the ones I sent when I returned, from the spare room at home, my eyes red and puffy and my throat raw after the most awful conversation of my life. He didn’t pick up when I rang the next day and he didn’t answer the intercom when I stood outside his flat in the rain with my finger on the buzzer. The last text I received from him was three days after I ended my marriage to my husband: I’m sorry, Liv. I love you but I can’t do this anymore.

I replied, begging him to meet up, but my WhatsApp messages went unread. I rang, only for each call to go to voicemail. I wrote him letters and virtually camped outside his flat, ringing his bell over and over again. But he never caved, and he never replied. I’d destroyed my marriage, my daughter’s stability and my life for Jack, and in return he ran away.

I didn’t think I could feel any lower, any more wretched or any more broken.

And then three weeks later I was arrested for a crime I didn’t commit.

We sort through the cardboard boxes and bin bags stacked up in one corner of the garage, the silence occasionally punctuated by Nancy saying, ‘This dress is nice. Do you want to take it with you?’ or ‘Do you need books? I’m sure Ayesha has loads.’ I say no to most of her suggestions. What I’m searching for are photographs of Grace but it looks like Dominic has kept them all.

‘Are you going to confront her?’ Nancy asks, out of nowhere, as I sort through a bag full of underwear, toiletries and jewellery, all thrown in together.

‘Who?’

‘Dani.’

A shudder ripples through me. ‘God no. If she could screw me over once she could do it again. If I’m going to confront anyone it’s Jack.’

The thought of seeing him again floods my mind with memories: his eyes searching mine before he leaned down and our lips touched for the very first time; the weight of his arm across the back of my neck as we walked along the Southbank; the studied concentration on his face as we looked through second-hand books under Waterloo Bridge; the deep rumble of his laughter in a Chinatown restaurant as I stared in horror at the plate full of chicken feet that had been placed in front of me; and the warmth of his body as it curled around mine. I’d been trudging through life for months, weighed down by worry after Dominic had squandered our life savings, shackled to a man who seemed to view me as an irritation in his life. Being with Jack was like I’d thrown off those chains, like I was suddenly free. I felt alive, I felt young, I felt like anything was possible as long as Jack was by my side. Then he disappeared when I needed him most.

‘But aren’t you curious?’ Nancy says, whisking me back into the dimly lit garage. ‘To hear Dani’s side of things?’

I spent days, months, in prison analysing my relationship with Dani and the events that led to me being arrested. I hadn’t expected to build a friendship with my personal trainer – how could you like someone who caused you pain on a weekly basis? Then there was the fact we had nothing in common. I was a flabby mum of one in my thirties who spent her days balancing childcare and trying to get her gallery off the ground. Dani was mid-twenties with a rock-hard body and drive and determination that I could only dream of. But we did become friends, in the gym at least. Looking back I can see how one-sided that relationship was. She knew loads about me and I knew next to nothing about her. I didn’t even know she worked for the Metropolitan Police. When she invited me out for a drink one night, I was so flattered I immediately said yes. She was a fast drinker and nipped off to the bar before I could offer to get a round in. We mixed our drinks – gin and tonics, cocktails and then shot after shot after shot. I couldn’t remember a thing the next morning, not even how I got home.