Aftermath (21 page)

“I know, Dad, you
’re right,” Hope sighed. “But I
can’t stand the idea of telling someone else the whole sorry story. It sounds so unbelievable and to be honest with you it’s excruciatingly embarrassing.”

“You have nothing to be embarrassed about, love,” her father replied quickly. “You haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Yeah, well, that’s not how everyone else sees it.
I’m sure even that police woman thinks I’m his mistress and that I’m trying to glorify myself as his wife.”

“Your father and I are on your side, no matter what happens; you know that darling, don’t you?” Chantale tried to comfort her daughter.

“I know, mama. I don’t know what I would have done without you and Dad,” Hope ran her fingers through her hair. “I feel like an entire chapt
er in my life is being rewritten
and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. It’s bad enough that my husband is missing but on top of that I’m left wondering if I ever really knew him.”

Hope was bitterly angry at her husband. Everything she’d believed about their relationship was unravelling
in front of her
and every day she wondered what she would discover next about him. She’d done a lot of crying after her interview with Isabel and hadn’t gotten out of bed for days. Somehow she felt safe underneath the duvet, as if the world couldn’t get at her there. Chantale had tried to encourage her to stay with her for a while but Hope refused. She wanted to stay in her own place, with her own possessions and try to digest the reality of her situation. It was horrible enough that her whole life seemed to be disintegrating around her and she desperately wanted to cling onto so
mething familiar
.

“
Will you help me?” Hope asked. She had a determined glint in her eyes
.

“Of course, darling, anything,” her mother replied without hesitation.

“I want to go through Niall’s belongings and see if I can find any clues about his other life.”

“Do you think that’s wise?” her father asked.

“I need to do something, Dad, and that’s the only constructive thing I can think of doi
ng.”
Deep down, she wanted to believe that it was some terrible misunderstanding, but that was becoming less and less likely.

She started her search in Niall’s tiny home office, looking for anything that would give her a reason as to why he’d done what he’d done. There was nothing particularly revealing in the paperwork that he’d shoved in his desk drawers and nothing incriminating on his laptop either.

What’s going to happen about his job? They won’t hold his p
osition open indefinitely.
It struck Hope
that she’d never met
any of his work colleagues. Niall had always brushed off work parties as being boring and predictable and something he had to endure, not something he wanted to inflict on her.

“Easy tiger,” Hope felt a soft kick in her stomach which caught her unawares
. Niall doesn’t deser
ve a baby.
He wasn’t a fit person to be a father and it didn’t matter how loving he was towards her, the fact was that he was a lying, deceiving man who had fooled and manipulated her.

She sat at his desk and typed the word “bigamy” into Google’s search engine. There was nothing very interesting to be found there. Most bigamists
had married for money, not simply
for the hell of it like her husband seemed to have done. What sane person would? She searched the internet to see if there were any more survivor stories from the tsunami but there was nothing new. Always, for few seconds while the stories were loading, she held her breath, hoping that Niall’s face would appear and he would be found. But he wasn’t there.

Tears began to run down her cheeks. She felt so tired and alone. It was all so unfair. She couldn’t think of being without Niall for the rest of her life. He had to come back and when he did she knew she’d forgive him, even if he really was married to Kerry too. She put her head in her hands and let the tears flow, not sure if she was crying with worry or self-pity or sheer frustration.

“What did you find?” Chantale stood in the doorway of the bedroom as if frozen to the spot.

Hope wiped her face on her sleeve and searched her pockets for a tissue.
“I haven’t found anything,” she sniffed loudly.

“Oh love, everything’s going to be ok,” her mother hugged her.

“No, it’s not mama. Nothing will ever be the same again. He lied to me every single day about every single thing. Nothing about us was true. He even lied to about his name! He has a wife and daughters and an entire other life that I didn’t have a clue about. I must be the stupidest person on the planet!”

“You’re not stupid, Hope. You’re a loving and caring person and you rightly trusted the man who was supposed to be your husband. There’s nothing wrong with that. How could anyone in their right mind even begin to consider that their husband had another wife? It’s completely ludicrous!”

“I would have understood if he’d had an affair. Of course I would have been hurt, but the fact that he covered up a wife and children from me and made me believe that when we’d have a family it would be the most wonderful time for him. I’m starting to think he lied about everything; his unhappy childhood, everything.” She blew her nose loudly on the tissue that her mother handed her. “I feel like such a fool.”

“He’s the fool,” her mother said sharply. “Did he not think that his secrets and lies would be discovered eventually? He must have thought he was so clever.”

“I always knew he was a smarmy bastard!” Hope’s dad joined their conversation. “I never liked him.”

“Oh, Dad, you never liked any of my boyfriends,” Hope managed a weak smile, in spite of herself.
“My relationship with Niall was the best relationship I ever had with any man. He was kind and loving towards me and we got on very well. It was so easy and we seemed to click right from the start.”

“He was too good to be true,” her dad interjected tactlessly.

“Ok, dad, there’s no need to rub it in. You were right and I was wrong. I probably made the biggest mistake of my life ever marrying him. Are you happy now?”

“I’m sorry, love,” Darren looked stricken. “I never wanted you to get hurt.”

Chantale shot him a glare that made him stop speaking instantly.

“What am I going to tell my friends? I was forever going on about how amazing he was, Rosanna and Grainne loved him. Although, Rosanna did say once that as he long as he made me happy that was the most important thing. I wonder if she suspected?”

“Of course she didn’t!” Chantale explained. “Unless she’s a clairvoyant how could she have possibly known if you didn’t realise and you’re his wife?”

“She mentioned to me a few times that he was quite a bit older than me and she wanted to know if we had much in common,” Hope continued her musings.

“
Maybe she just didn’
t like him either,” her dad piped up again.

“I can’t stand the idea of everyone finding out and feeling sorry for me,” Hope chose to ignore her father. There’s nothing I hate more than people talking about me and staring at me with pity.
I’m such an idiot. I should have known he was too good to be true. I’ve never had any luck with men so why did I think that Niall was any different. I’m a fool and he must have found it easy to manipulate me.”

“None of this is your fault,” Chantale said. “How could you have known?”

“I should have guessed,” Hope replied shortly. “That police woman made me feel like such a moron. She asked me if Niall was
around at Christmas or special occasions and I could tell she thought I was a gullible fool to have believed his lies and excuses for not being around.”

“Why should you have doubted him?” Chantale tried to reason with her daughter. “You loved and trusted him.”

“I shouldn’t have believed him without thinking. Most people bring their wives to conferences and work parties, but he never brought me. He probably brought Kerry instead of me.”

She rubbed her head. “God, I could really use a glass of wine right now.”

“Come on, I’ll make you a nice cup of chamomile tea instead,” her mother closed the computer and led the way into the kitchen.

“I wish I knew what
to do,” Hope sighed.
“It doesn’t seem that I am legally married to Niall. Kerry married him first so I suppose that makes my marriage null and void. What happens when we find him and he’s ill, I won’t have any part in his life. It will be up to Kerry to make all the decisions.”

“Maybe you can come to some arrangement with her. She seems like a reasonable woman,” Chantale suggested tentatively.

“I don’t want to come to an arrangement with her,” Hope snapped. “I don’t want to have to get permission from another woman to be involved with the man I’ve been sleeping with for the past few years. Why should she be in control? It’s terribly unfair!”

“But she
is
in control,” Darren interjected. “You have to start facing facts and deciding what you’re going to do? Have you spoken to your solicitor yet?”

“Yes,” Hope nodded. “She advised that the police might prosecute me if they believed that I was part of his crazy plan. They might try to say that we were conspiring together against Kerry.” She sighed wearily. “My solicitor said she’s going to contact Niall’s solicitor and try to establish some rights for me based on the fact that I was unwittingly married him under false pretences.”

“That seems a bit pointless, if you ask me,” her father continued. “How can you have any rights when she’s his legal wife?”

“It’s worth a try, Darren,” Chantale shot him a warning glance.

“You need to think seriously about your situation, love,” her father advised. “What happens if he’s dead?”

“I don’t what will happen, Dad, that’s the problem.”

“You have to be entitled to something,” Chantale said. “You’ll get
the apartment,
surely.”

“Not necessarily,” Hope sighed again. “Legally, Kerry is entitled to everything. She might play hardball, kick me out of here and sell the apartment.”

“Is the mortgage not in both your names?” her dad asked incredulously.

“I don’t know, Dad. Niall took care of the legal stuff.”

“Now we know why,” her father mumbled under his breath. “Conniving bastard!”

“I don’t want to even consider that he might be dead,” Hope tried to swallow the huge lump in her throat. “I want to find him and I want him to be alive and well.”

“There’ll be even more problems then,” Darren said.

“I don’t care,” Hope said. “I just want him back.”

Isabel decided that it was time she asked Hope and Kerry to come down to the police station to make official statements about their relationship with their husband. Neither of them seemed very happy about her request but they’d agreed nevertheless. Isabel organised separate days for the women to come in, she didn’t think either of them needed another confrontation to add to their stress.

Later that afternoon, Kerry sat in the waiting room of the police station. It was completely surreal to her that it was her second time in a police station in just a few short weeks and what
’
s
more she was there as a witness to a crime and that crime was that her husband had married someone else
. It’s like a storyline from a very trashy soap opera on daytime television
, she thought wryly. She never imagined that she’d ever be in a police station in her life, let alone for such an outlandish reason.

The young police officer behind the reception desk was welcoming and friendly. It was nothing li
ke she’d imagined. She gazed out the window at the clear blue sky and focused on her breathing in an effort to calm her rapidly beating heart. An attack of nerves had overcome her when Isabel had rung her to come in to make her statement. What could she possibly have left to ask that she hadn’t asked already?

Isabel appeared in the waiting room and she seemed much serious and formal than before.

“Thank you for coming in on such short notice, Mrs. Darcy,” she smiled. “Follow me please.”

Kerry picked up her bag from the seat beside her and followed Isabel to a small interview room.

“Take a seat, please,” Isabel gestured to a chair on the other side of the desk that stood in the middle of the room.

There was a tinted window on one wall and Kerry suddenly had images of several police officers standing on the other side watching her, even though she couldn’t see them. She also noticed a video camera in the corner of the room which was pointing in her direction.
“May I have a drink of water, please?” Kerry asked. She swallowed hard, her throat was very dry.

“Certainly,” Isabel poured her a glass of cold water from the cooler in the corner. “You’re not in any trouble,” Isabel tried to reassure the other woman, noticing how nervous she was. “I just need your help to sort this out and I need you to sign your statement of events for me, that’s all.”

“Are you recording me?” Kerry asked, glancing towards the video camera.