Valentina: A Hauntingly Intelligent Psychological Thriller (37 page)

“
It won’t. It’s OK. She believed me.”

“
She believed you today. But this will happen again. You can’t expect to keep track of her twenty-four seven and you know she won’t believe you a second time.” I touched his arm, gently. “We can’t keep this hidden, Michael. She won’t be losing sleep forever and she will want to go back to work. She’s already mentioned it to me.”

“
What are you saying?”

“
Nothing. I’m only telling you what you already know. I love you, you know that. I wouldn’t have agreed to this crazy scheme otherwise. But there’s a difference now, and you know what that is.”

He pouted, folded his arms.

“
Come on, you do.” When he said nothing, I continued. “Back in Glasgow, Shona and I weren’t close, we didn’t even know one other. But we’re friends now. She cares about me. She won’t want to lose me.”

“
What are you saying?” He took a sip of coffee, winced, poured the rest down the sink.

I took a step nearer to him. “I’m saying we have to be clever. We have to anticipate this whole thing coming out and when it does we have to control it. It’s all about presentation.”

“
What?”

“
We have to present the situation as we want her to see it.” I took hold of his hands. We had agreed never to do this in the office
–
we were work colleagues who got on well, nothing more, but I was sure it wouldn’t be long before we could come out, as it were. “The only difference to her life will be knowledge. And knowledge, the truth, finally, has got to be better than nagging suspicion.”

“
No,” he said, panic in his voice. “No, we can’t tell her. We can never tell her.”

I squeezed his hands, made him look at me. “Michael, listen. I think we can persuade her to live exactly as before.”

“
No. She will never go for that.”

“
You underestimate her. She has the intelligence. She has the spark. We need to find out if she has the imagination. She could have the happy family she dreams of. You, me, Zac, Isla. Perhaps not quite the nuclear family she comes from but something else, something better.”

“
Never. She knows that’s not right.”

“
Who’s to say what’s right and what’s wrong? Why does this have to be wrong? Why can’t it be simply different?”

“
She’ll see it as wrong, I know she will.” He looked like he was about to cry. It was an appalling sight in a man I had thought so strong, and disappointment coursed through my veins like poison.

“
Michael. Michael? You did this with the best of intentions, with the interests of your children at heart. Shona will understand that. Don’t you know right from wrong too?”

He pulled his hands from mine and pushed them through his hair. He was looking at the floor, apparently searching the linoleum squares for answers.

“
I only know it in my head,” he said miserably. “She feels it, Georgie. It’s in her body, the blood and bones of her. I’ve seen her take on a bunch of men late at night
–
absolute meatheads, you should’ve seen them
–
while I was hiding in the shadows. She doesn’t think, she bursts. I know, I’ve seen her. It’s ... it’s elemental.”

“
I don’t really see what other choice we have.” I drained my coffee. It was cheap, bitter.

So Michael wasn’t ready. Yet. But you can’t say I didn’t try to keep the charade going. You can’t say I didn’t do my bit. I even found a tourist and persuaded him to have his picture taken with me. I needed a John Duggan now that Shona had put him in my bed and that’s what I was reduced to in the name of evidence: propositioning strangers on the damn street. Luciano Sarti, bless him, over visiting family in Glasgow, strayed north for a day trip with no idea what awaited him. Thirty-three, thin but nice-looking and such a good sport. I suppose he didn’t look like you’d imagine a policeman to look but then I didn’t need him to walk the beat for me, did I? And the thing about Italians is, they really know how to talk to women. They know how to take them for lunch, make outrageous suggestions about how to fill an afternoon without anyone having to feel sordid. I had to text Shona:

Sorry, babe, won’t make it over this afternoon – urgent police business!

I had worked hard to find a decent PC John Duggan and, now that I had, it was only fair to let him take down my particulars.

Sorry, couldn’t resist that one.

It was only that one time, I swear. Just a bit of fun, as they say. No children or animals were harmed etcetera. By way of distracting Shona from, if not home truths then truths nearer to home, I shared the John gossip with her
–
although I have to admit some of the more risqué details did come from Michael and me. What? There are only so many yarns you can spin from one afternoon and I don’t think Luciano, slight as he was, could have tipped for room service in such physically demanding circumstances.

But that distraction wore thin fast. Michael was still set against Shona finding out, still convinced we could carry this on forever. I was becoming restless. The whole double life scenario had run its course. There was nothing more to be gained. And Shona was ripe, she was ours for the taking. We had to make sure we took her instead of letting her go screaming off into the night. The time was coming for her to join us in a real life, an honest life, one which soared above everyday existence in ways only we could show her. Only we could free her from the kind of blinkered drudgery only a lobotomised chimp could endure. Only we could save her.

The next phase would be the trickiest. How does one foil one’s husband’s plans whilst appearing to support him every step of the way?

I wonder now, when Shona saw the letter, whether I let her see it. Subconsciously, of course. I’m not a mean person. I would never hurt anyone intentionally. But I’d realised it was down to me to move things on. This is what women are good at
–
getting things done. Need a fridge, a television? Ask a woman. The next day you’ll have your fridge, your television. A man meanwhile will still be lost in pages of research, signing up for
Which?
magazine, price comparison websites, not a domestic appliance in sight. So I got on with it, told a lie so pathetic, so dreadful, you’d have to be a total imbecile to believe it. The letter must have hitched a ride to Fittie on its way to Union Grove? What was I on?

It worked. Shona did not let me down. The blinkers of trust were falling away; the horse could be led stumbling to water. Something was iffy about that G. Smyth-Banks. To put it mildly.

I spent that night preparing my story: Georgia was my former yoga student, a friend. She had an obsessive crush on Michael and had asked me to be complicit in her schemes. Schemes which I, upon meeting Shona, had rejected. I was quite proud of that. It explained away everything and at the same time was dubious enough to unsettle Shona. If it worked as well as I hoped, the ‘truth’ would drive her even further into my arms. Had I not protected Shona from this terrible woman?

Meanwhile, I could fill Michael in on my small mistake. I could tell him how ingeniously I had put it right. I could share with him Shona’s every thought and doubt so that when he got back from ‘offshore’, when Shona, tearful and anxious, confronted him with what she ‘knew’, he would be able to back me up one hundred percent without hesitation. A lie told by two has a much more solid base than a lie told by one.

When another invitation to dinner materialised, I knew we were back on course. On the phone, Shona’s voice had acquired a repentant softness.

“
I want to say sorry,” she said. “I should’ve known there’d be an explanation. I didn’t know what to think, that’s all.”

“
That’s quite all right, babe,” I said, sliding into Valentina’s sunshine drawl. “No worries. I’m sorry too. I should have told you ages ago. I don’t know why I didn’t.”

I rang off. We’d had our first fight, I thought. Like lovers.

But now it was time to put our love to the test, whether Michael liked it or not. To help things along, I took Zac. He’d been grisly all day, hadn’t given me any peace to get ready. I’d ended up rushing to get out of the house in the hope the drive would knock him out. Once we got there, all he’d have to do was see Michael, shout “Dada,” and we could all, finally, progress.

As it was, Michael really went to town, buying that rabbit. It was almost as if he knew this was the big one, the night we all held hands and jumped into the flames.

She was upstairs when I got there. I cornered Michael in the hallway and kissed him full on the mouth. He pushed me away, but I pushed back, laughing.

“
Hello,” came her voice from the stairs.

“
Hey, babe,” I said, turning, my face composed into innocence itself. “Michael reckons he’s burning a bunny in the backyard.” He’d been on his way to pick it up when I spoke to him. I even knew the ingredients in the marinade.

When I told her Red hadn’t come with me I saw doubt flash in her eyes. I almost faltered. She was so sweet, so damn trusting, it was possible the final revelation would kill her. I had hoped to edge her towards revelation
–
as one edges hot crockery into cold water. Now I feared I had regained her trust a little too thoroughly and that, plunged headlong into the truth, she might crack. And that would be a shame. The fact was, we had all of us come this far. Either we joined together tonight or one of us would go home empty handed. And that wasn’t going to be me.

When Shona went to powder her nose, I wandered into the garden to see the hallowed beast.

“
I think you need more friends,” I said to Michael, kissing him again by the light of the flames. “We’ll never eat that, the three of us. Think your eyes might be bigger than your belly, Mr. Quinn.”

“
You have no idea how much I can eat,” he said. “My appetite is limitless.” He bit my earlobe, making me laugh. We muttered like that for a little while, flirting with danger. Michael was nervous she might come out and catch us. I was determined she would.

And when I looked up and saw her across the glow, I knew she wouldn’t need to catch us, knew I wouldn’t have to do anything more. Her jaw hung oddly, as if it were broken. Her eyes sagged at the edges, as if in the time it had taken her to go to the bathroom she had aged ten years. I knew then without any doubt that she would not join us. I had been a fool to think she would.

“
What have you done?” she said.

Indeed, I thought. What have we done?

When she ran upstairs, presumably to pack her bags, I ran through the argument with Michael, made him repeat back to me what I needed him to say. Remember, I had to play this like it was a disaster for me too or risk losing him forever. And now that Shona was lost, he was all I had left. He went into the hallway. Through the French windows I watched, hidden in the shadows. He reached for her, knelt before her, as I had told him to do. I waited and watched, resisted the overwhelming temptation to go in there and do it myself. Eventually, unable to bear the impotence any longer, I walked away, up onto the lawns. After a few minutes, he stepped out and called my name. I headed back towards the cottage and found him on the patio.

“
She’s taken the keys to the Fittie place. She’s going to sleep on it.” His eyes shone with what looked like jubilation.

“
What?” I said. “But that’s my house. She has no right to go in there. You have no right to give her my keys. They’re mine.” I grabbed him by the neck and pushed him against the back wall of the cottage. His face, half lit, half in shadow.

“
Georgie, stop,” he said. “It’s all right. She’s upset but she’s going to think about it.”

I let go, stood back. “And you believe her?”

“
She said she’d think about it. But she needs space. She’s taken the car and she’s going to stay at yours tonight. She won’t wreck anything, don’t worry. She’s not like that.”

“
Not like what? Are you stupid? She’s just found out her whole life is a lie and you’re trusting her with my house? She could torch the place.”

He laughed, sniffed. His face crumpled. He put his head in his hands. “Oh God, what’ve we done to her?”

“
To
her
? Michael, this affects all of us. She’s no worse off than we are. Don’t you see, we’re all compromised here. Come on, baby, you must see that.”

“
You don’t understand.” He stared at me, his eyes wild. “You don’t know her like I do.”

“
Are you sure she won’t damage my house?”

“
Is that all you care about?”

Yes, actually. There was no way I was letting her trash my house. I had to persuade him to let me go there. “You don’t think she’ll do something to Isla do you?”

He was still looking at me like I was the devil. “Of course she won’t hurt the baby. The only monsters here are us, Georgie.” Good God, was he crying? “We’re monsters.”

“
Hang on a second, why all the guilt all of a sudden? We’re in love, that’s all. We’re simply trying to figure out what’s best for everyone. So we can’t do the two point four kids thing, so what? Doesn’t make us monsters. You know that. I know that. And Shona will realise that eventually. She’ll be fine. I’m concerned about her, that’s all, and wonder whether I should go and talk to her. I’m her friend after all.”

“
She needs somewhere to sleep,” he said, almost absently. “She said if I text or call or do anything she’ll never let me see her or Isla again. I can’t risk that. I need to give her space. She knows I love her, doesn’t she? When you talk, you know as girls, does she tell you she loves me?”

“
Of course.” This conversation was beginning to make me feel sick.