Behind Closed Doors: The gripping debut thriller everyone is raving about (7 page)

‘Especially as Grace often forgets to tell me things,’ Jack says, smiling indulgently at me.

Esther looks thoughtfully at the two of us. ‘You really are a joined-at-the-hip couple, aren’t you? Well, as you haven’t got a mobile, I suppose you’ll have to resort to pen and paper to take my numbers down. Have you got a pen?’

I know that I don’t. ‘I’m not sure,’ I say, intending to make a show of looking for one. I reach for my bag, which I had slung over the back of my chair, but she gets there first and hands it to me.

‘Goodness, it feels empty!’

‘I travel light,’ I tell her, opening my bag and peering inside. ‘No, sorry, I don’t have one.’

‘It’s all right, I’ll get them.’ Jack takes out his mobile. ‘I already have your home number, Esther, from Rufus, so if you just give me your mobile?’

As she reels it off, I try desperately to commit it to memory, but I get lost somewhere near the end. I close my eyes and try to retrieve the last few numbers but it’s impossible.

‘Thanks, Esther,’ says Jack. I open my eyes and find Esther looking at me curiously from across the table. ‘I’ll write it down for Grace when we get home.’

‘Wait a minute—is it 721 or 712 in the middle?’ Esther furrows her brow. ‘I can never remember which it is. The end is easy enough—9146—it’s the bit before I have a problem with. Could you just check, Diane?’

Diane gets out her phone and locates Esther’s number. ‘It’s 712,’ she says.

‘Oh yes—07517129146. Did you get that, Jack?’

‘Yes, it’s fine. Right, anyone for coffee?’

But we don’t bother, because Diane has to get back to work and Esther doesn’t want any. Jack asks for the bill and Diane and Esther disappear off to the toilet. I would like to go too, but I don’t bother following them.
The bill paid, Jack and I take leave of the others and walk towards the car park.

‘Well, did you enjoy that, my perfect little wife?’ Jack asks, opening the car door for me.

I recognise one of his million-dollar questions. ‘Not really.’

‘Not even the dessert you were so looking forward to?’

I swallow hard. ‘Not as much as I thought I would.’

‘It’s lucky Esther was able to help you out then, wasn’t it?’

‘I would have eaten it anyway,’ I tell him.

‘And deprived me of so much pleasure?’

A tremor goes through my body. ‘Absolutely.’

He raises his eyebrows. ‘Do I detect a renewal of your fighting spirit? I’m so glad. To tell the truth, I’ve been getting quite bored.’ He gives me an amused glance. ‘Bring it on, Grace—I’m waiting for you.’

T
hat evening, the evening of my wedding day, when I stepped into the bedroom after my bath, I was dismayed to find it empty. Presuming that Jack had gone off to make a phone call, I felt irritated that something could be more important to him on our wedding day than me. But my irritation quickly turned to anxiety when I remembered that Millie was in hospital and in the space of a couple of seconds I managed to convince myself that something terrible had happened to her, that Mum had phoned Jack to tell him, and that he had left the room because he didn’t want me to hear their conversation.

I ran to the bedroom door and flung it open, expecting to see Jack pacing up and down the corridor, trying to work out how to break some tragic news to me. But it
was empty. Guessing he had gone down to the lobby and not wanting to waste time going to find him, I searched through my luggage, which had been dropped off at the hotel by the chauffeur, dug out my phone and rang Mum’s mobile. As I waited to be connected, it occurred to me that if she was talking to Jack, I wouldn’t be able to get through to her anyway. I was about to hang up and call Dad’s mobile instead when I heard her phone ringing and, soon after, her voice.

‘Mum, what’s happened?’ I cried before she’d even finished saying hello. ‘Has there been a complication or something?’

‘No, everything’s fine.’ Mum sounded surprised.

‘So Millie’s all right?’

‘Yes, she’s sound asleep.’ She paused. ‘Are you all right? You sound agitated.’

I sat down on the bed, weak with relief. ‘Jack’s disappeared so I thought that maybe you’d phoned with bad news and that he’d gone to talk to you in private,’ I explained.

‘What do you mean, “disappeared”?’

‘Well, he’s not in the room. I went into the bathroom to have a bath and when I came out he was gone.’

‘He’s probably gone down to the reception for something. I’m sure he’ll be back in a minute. How did the wedding go?’

‘Fine, really well, considering that I couldn’t stop thinking about Millie. I hated that she wasn’t there. She’s
going to be so disappointed when she realises that we went ahead and got married without her.’

‘I’m sure she’ll understand,’ Mum soothed, and I felt furious at how little she knew Millie, because of course she wouldn’t understand. I was appalled to find I was near to tears, but after all that had happened, Jack’s disappearing act was the last straw. Telling Mum that I would see her at the hospital the next morning, I asked her to give Millie a kiss for me and hung up.

As I dialled Jack’s mobile, I told myself to calm down. We had never rowed before and shouting at him down the phone like a fishwife wouldn’t achieve anything. Something had obviously come up with one of his clients, a last-minute problem that he needed to sort out before we left for Thailand. He would be just as annoyed at being disturbed on his wedding day as I was.

I was relieved when I heard his phone ringing, relieved that he wasn’t on the phone to someone, hoping it meant that the problem—whatever it was—had been sorted. When he didn’t pick up I stifled a cry of frustration and left a message on his voicemail.

‘Jack, where on earth are you? Could you phone me back, please?’

I hung up and began to pace the room restlessly, wondering where he had gone. My eyes fell on the clock on the bedside table and I saw that it was nine o’clock. I tried to imagine why Jack hadn’t answered his phone, why he hadn’t been able to take my call and wondered if one of the other partners had come to the
hotel to talk to him. When another ten minutes had gone by, I dialled his number again. This time it went straight through to his voicemail.

‘Jack, please phone me back,’ I said sharply, knowing he must have turned his mobile off after my last call. ‘I need to know where you are.’

I heaved my suitcase onto the bed, opened it and took out the beige trousers and shirt I planned to wear for travelling the following day. Pulling them on over my camisole and knickers, I dressed quickly, put the key card into my pocket and left the room, taking my telephone with me. Too agitated to wait for the lift, I took the stairs down to the lobby and headed for the reception desk.

‘Mrs Angel, isn’t it?’ The young man behind the desk smiled at me. ‘How can I help you?’

‘Actually, I’m looking for my husband. Have you seen him anywhere?’

‘Yes, he came down about an hour ago, not long after you checked in.’

‘Do you know where he went? Did he go to the bar, by any chance?’

He shook his head. ‘He went out through the front doors. I presumed he was going to fetch something from the car.’

‘Did you see him come back in?’

‘Now that you mention it, no, I didn’t. But I was busy checking in another client at one point, so it could be
that I didn’t see him.’ He eyed the phone in my hand. ‘Have you tried phoning him?’

‘Yes, but his mobile’s switched off. He’s probably in the bar, drowning his sorrows that he’s now a married man.’ I smiled, trying to make light of it. ‘I’ll go and have a look.’

I made my way to the bar but there was no sign of Jack. I checked the various lounges, the fitness room and the swimming pool. On the way to check the two restaurants, I left another message on his voicemail, my voice breaking with anxiety.

‘No luck?’ The receptionist gave me a sympathetic look as I arrived back in the lobby on my own.

I shook my head. ‘I’m afraid I can’t find him anywhere.’

‘Have you looked if your car is still in the car park? At least you’d know whether or not he’d left the hotel.’

I went out through the front doors and followed the path round to the car park at the back of the hotel. The car wasn’t where Jack had left it nor was it anywhere else. Not wanting to go back through the lobby and face the receptionist again, I went in through the back door and ran up the stairs to the bedroom, praying that I would find Jack already there, that he would have arrived back while I’d been out looking for him. When I found the bedroom empty, I burst into tears of frustration. I told myself that the fact the car was missing went someway to explaining why he hadn’t answered his phone, because he never answered his phone while he was driving. But if he’d had to go back to the office on urgent business,
why hadn’t he knocked on the bathroom door and told me? And if he hadn’t wanted to disturb me in my bath, why hadn’t he at least left me a note?

Increasingly worried, I dialled his number and left a tearful message saying that if I didn’t hear from him within the next ten minutes I was going to phone the police. I knew that the police would be my last port of call, that before phoning them I would phone Adam, but I hoped that in mentioning the police Jack would realise just how worried I was.

They were the longest ten minutes of my life. Then, just as I was about to call Adam, my phone beeped, telling me I’d received a text message. Letting out a shaky sigh of relief, I opened it and when I saw that it was from Jack, tears of relief fell from my eyes, making it impossible to read what he had written. But it didn’t matter because I knew what it would say, I knew it would say that he’d been called away unexpectedly, that he was sorry I’d been worried but that he hadn’t been able to answer his phone because he’d been in a meeting, that he’d be back soon and that he loved me.

I reached for a tissue from the box on the desk, wiped my eyes, blew my nose and looked at the message again.

‘
Don’t be so hysterical, it doesn’t suit you. Something’s come up, I’ll see you in the morning.
’

Stunned, I sat down on the bed, reading the message over and over again, convinced I had misunderstood it in some way. I couldn’t believe that Jack would have written something so cruel or been so cutting. He had
never spoken to me in such a way before, he had never even raised his voice to me. I felt as if I’d been slapped in the face. And why wouldn’t he be back until the following morning? Surely I deserved some explanation and, at the very least, an apology? Suddenly furious, I called him back, trembling with anger, daring him to answer his phone and, when he didn’t, I had to force myself not to leave a voicemail that I would later regret.

I needed to talk to someone, badly, so it was sobering to realise there was no one I could call. My parents and I didn’t have the sort of relationship that would allow me to sob down the phone that Jack had left me by myself on our wedding night and for some reason I felt too ashamed to tell any of my friends. I would normally have confided in Kate or Emily, but at the wedding I realised how much I’d neglected them since I met Jack, so I didn’t feel able to call them either. I thought about phoning Adam to see if he knew why Jack had been called away so suddenly but as they didn’t work in the same field, I doubted he would know. And again, there was the feeling of shame that something could be more important to Jack on our wedding night than me.

Stemming the tears that fell from my eyes with a tissue, I made an effort to understand. If he was with one of the other lawyers, I reasoned, locked in some delicate meeting, it was normal that he had turned his phone off after my first attempt to contact him so that he wouldn’t be further disturbed. He had probably intended to phone me back as soon as he had a
chance, but the meeting must have gone on longer than expected. Maybe during a quick break he had listened to my messages and, angry at my tone of voice, had retaliated by sending me a sharp text message instead of phoning me. And maybe he had guessed that if he did speak to me, I’d be so overwrought that he wouldn’t have been able to get back to his meeting until he’d calmed me down.

It all sounded so plausible that I regretted acting as hysterically as I had. Jack had been right to be angry with me. I had already seen how his work could impinge on our relationship—God knew how many times he had been too tired or too stressed for sex—and he had already apologised for it, and had begged me to understand that the very nature of his work meant that he couldn’t always be there, both mentally and physically, for me. I had been proud of the fact that we had never rowed but now, I had fallen at the first hurdle.

I wanted nothing more but to see Jack, to tell him how sorry I was, to feel his arms around me, to hear him say that he forgave me. Reading his message again, I realised that when he said he’d see me in the morning, he probably meant the small hours. Feeling much calmer, and suddenly very tired, I got undressed and climbed into bed, relishing the thought of being woken before too long by Jack making love to me. I just had time to hope that Millie was still sleeping soundly before I fell into a deep sleep.

It hadn’t occurred to me that Jack might be spending the night with another woman, but it was the first thought that entered my mind when I woke sometime after eight the next morning and realised that he hadn’t come back after all. Fighting down panic, I reached for my mobile, expecting to find a message from him, if only to say at what time he would be at the hotel. But there was nothing, and because there was the possibility that he’d decided to snatch a couple of hours’ sleep in the office rather than disturb me, I was reluctant to phone him in case I woke him up. But I was desperate to speak to him, so I called him anyway. When I got his voicemail, I took a deep breath and left a message in as normal a tone as I could muster, asking him to let me know what time I could expect him at the hotel and telling him that we needed to call by the hospital to see Millie on the way to the airport. Then I showered, dressed and sat down to wait.

As I waited, I realised that I didn’t even know what time our flight was due to leave. I vaguely remembered Jack saying something about an afternoon flight so I guessed that we would have to be at the airport at least a couple of hours before. When I eventually received a text message from Jack, almost an hour later, I was again bewildered by its tone. There was no apology, no mention of anything except an order to meet him in the hotel car park at eleven. By the time I struggled into the lift with our two suitcases and my hand luggage, my stomach was churning with anxiety. As I handed the
room key in at the reception, I was glad that the man I had spoken to the night before had been replaced by a young woman who, I hoped, knew nothing of my missing husband.

A porter helped me take the luggage out to the car park. I told him that my husband had gone to fill the car with petrol and headed for a nearby bench, ignoring his suggestion that I’d be better off waiting in the warmth of the hotel. I hadn’t wanted to take a heavy coat with me to Thailand and because I’d expected to go from the hotel to the car to the airport, barely venturing out into the open, I was only wearing a jacket which was no match for the vicious wind that whipped across the car park. By the time Jack showed up twenty-five minutes later, I was blue with cold and on the verge of tears. Stopping the car only feet away from me, he got out and walked over to where I was sitting.

‘Get in,’ he said, picking up the cases and loading them into the boot.

Too cold to argue, I stumbled into the car and huddled against the door, wanting only to feel warm again. I waited for him to speak, to say something—anything—which would go some way to explaining why I felt as if I was sitting next to someone I didn’t know. When the silence had gone on for too long, I summoned up the courage to look at him. The lack of emotion on his face shocked me. I had expected to see anger, stress or irritation. But there was nothing.

‘What’s going on, Jack?’ I asked unsteadily. It was as if I hadn’t spoken. ‘For God’s sake, Jack!’ I cried. ‘What the hell is going on?’

‘Please don’t swear,’ he said distastefully.

I looked at him in amazement. ‘What do you expect? You disappear without a word, leaving me to spend our wedding night alone and then you turn up half an hour late to fetch me, leaving me waiting in the freezing cold! Surely I have a right to be angry!’

‘No,’ he said. ‘You don’t. You have no rights at all.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous! Is there someone else, Jack? Is that what all this is about? Are you in love with somebody else? Is that where you were last night?’

‘Now it’s you who’s being ridiculous. You’re my wife, Grace. Why would I need anybody else?’