The Happy Couple: An absolutely unputdownable and gripping psychological thriller Read online

  The Happy Couple

  An absolutely unputdownable and gripping psychological thriller

  Samantha Hayes

  Books by Samantha Hayes

  The Happy Couple

  Date Night

  The Liar’s Wife

  Tell Me A Secret

  The Reunion

  Available in Audio

  Date Night (Available in the UK and the US)

  The Liar’s Wife (Available in the UK and the US)

  Tell Me A Secret (Available in the UK and the US)

  The Reunion (Available in the UK and the US)

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  The Reunion

  Hear More From Samantha

  Books by Samantha Hayes

  A Letter from Samantha

  Date Night

  The Liar’s Wife

  Tell Me A Secret

  Acknowledgements

  For Simon… and TTTNAT

  One

  Now

  Jo whips out her phone, quite used to her heart racing every time she hears it ring or ping.

  It could be news.

  She’s also used to the rush of adrenaline burning through her body, dissipating in disappointment as soon as she sees her screen.

  It’s not Will. Not her missing husband.

  Afterwards, she’s left feeling frustrated, drained and useless, each false alarm a mini-trauma, though no one would know this to look at her. Barely a flicker of her eyes these days, and her palms hardly sweat any more. She wonders if her friends and family know what they do to her with their well-meaning calls and texts.

  But each time, she thinks as she fumbles with her phone, each time is one call closer to getting news. To knowing where he is.

  Jo remembers her counsellor telling her to look on the bright side, to stay positive. What are you taking about? she’d thought, mentally shaking her head, almost wanting to lash out as tears welled through a forced smile. Not helpful. Not even close. The woman clearly had no idea how she was feeling. But, a year later, she can see that maybe it was helpful, albeit in the simplest of ways.

  Fake it till you make it, the counsellor had said, making Jo wonder if she’s not doing as well as she thought – that she still needs to fake it because, even now, she’s still not making it.

  But what is it she is supposed to fake – Will’s return, as if nothing has happened? She could do that, she supposes. Pretend he’s there when he’s not. In fact, she often does, although she can’t help it. Has no say in when he comes. She sees him lying beside her in bed, hears him singing in the shower, smells the deliciousness of his Friday-night classic – jerk chicken with rice and peas, the thick, sweet smell seeping through the house. Happiness seems so long ago. As if it belonged to someone else.

  No. She’s sick of faking life.

  ‘Easier said than done,’ Jo mumbles as she answers her phone. She trips on a raised paving slab, almost running into a man wheeling his bike along.

  ‘What is?’ comes the voice down the line.

  ‘Oh… oh, nothing,’ Jo says, regaining her footing. ‘Just me thinking out loud.’ She glances back at the man with an apologetic look. She’s relieved it’s just Louise calling. She doesn’t think she can cope with do-gooders as that day approaches. She doesn’t want to use the word anniversary. Ever. That implies something to celebrate, to share, to mark another milestone. She hates it even has a date – a date she has no choice but to remember, live through for the rest of her life. It’s tattooed on her soul.

  Wednesday 20 May.

  Sometimes she wishes Will had never existed, that they’d never met, and she hates herself for that.

  ‘Well, don’t,’ Louise says. ‘Thinking is dangerous, especially out loud.’ She laughs. ‘What are you doing?’

  Louise. Her best friend. Straight to the point.

  Jo slows her brisk walk – more in tune with how she’s feeling, finally stopping and leaning on the railings of a park. Should she reveal that she’s retracing the steps of the last walk she and Will took together the day before he vanished, that she’s wondering if she might catch a trace of his aftershave on the breeze, spot a tissue or receipt from his pocket blowing along the pavement?

  Should she mention that she’s got a bagel in a paper bag, clutched in her right hand – salmon and cream cheese, the same as they’d had that day – most likely destined to end up in the park bin because she’s not had an appetite in nearly a year?

  Should she let on that, if she’s honest with herself, she’s hoping to catch a glimpse of Will amongst the lunchtime crowd, that even if it’s not really him and just a figment of her exhausted mind, or someone who vaguely resembles him, simply imagining he’s there would be enough?

  ‘Getting lunch,’ Jo replies, gripping the paper bag. It’s a ritual she feels she must perform each day, even if food rarely passes her lips. Maybe a bite or two if she’s in the mood. She hates how thin she’s become, how she’s taken to wearing baggy clothes to hide the jut of her collarbones, the sharp blades of her shoulders, the lack of tone to her once-fit legs. Her chestnut hair falls in straggly layers around her shoulders.

  ‘Well, don’t fill up too much,’ Louise goes on. ‘You’re coming round for dinner tonight.’

  ‘I am?’

  ‘At seven,’ she says. ‘No need to bring anything except your cheery self. Archie’s inviting a work colleague. He’s new at the hospital but they’ve played squash a few times and—’

  ‘No, Louise,’ Jo replies as firmly as she can manage. What she really wants to say is Christ, Lou, what are you trying to do – destroy me? Not only are you playing matchmaker with some innocent guy who would run a mile if he knew the truth about me, but you have just informed me, unwittingly or not, that Archie has a new squash partner. A squash partner who’s not Will.

  ‘No?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So, what, you’re going to sob into your pillow with a bottle of cheap wine, maybe trawling the missing persons websites if your tears stop long enough for you to actually see straight?’

  Jo waits a beat, a technique she’s learnt to employ these last few months. Fake it until you make it…

  �
�Yes.’

  ‘Jo, when are you going to—’

  ‘Sorry, Lou, got to go.’

  Jo hangs up, not with any kind of angry flourish or jab of her screen. Louise will know from the tone of her voice that the boundary is set, that she is not furious with the world like she used to be (she has little energy left for that) but having dinner as part of a cosy foursome during the anniversary month is not something she can cope with. And yes, she’d rather sob into her pillow with a bottle of Echo Falls on the bedside table while scrolling through the faces of missing persons. One of them might, just might, be Will.

  ‘Hey,’ comes a voice beside her. A hand on her back. Jo freezes. ‘Fancy some company?’

  ‘Oh… sure,’ she replies, turning to see Beth. Part of her wonders if she’s followed her from the workshop, tailed her to the bakery and stalked her to the park. It happens too often – bumping into people she knows, well-meaning phone calls, friends ‘popping in’. Jo also wonders if Louise has had words with everyone in her life, organising some kind of rota for keeping watch. She imagines they have a WhatsApp group to coordinate whose turn it is.

  She was fine at lunchtime. Spotted by the park. Didn’t eat her bagel though. Who’s on night duty?

  She loves Louise for caring, for always being there for her.

  ‘There’s some real warmth in that sun today,’ Beth says, holding up a brown paper bag with the same bakery logo on as Jo’s. ‘Shall we go and sit down over there?’

  ‘Why not?’ Jo says, really wanting to be alone. But Beth is a harmless girl, quite new to the workshop and good at what she does. She wonders how much she knows – what, if anything, Margot has told her about her situation.

  ‘You know, Jo, I really admire your…’ Beth stops, prawn sandwich against her lips. She stares at the sky for a second. ‘How you—’

  ‘You don’t have to say it,’ Jo interrupts. She doesn’t want the pity. ‘It won’t make any difference, but thanks for your concern.’ She smiles.

  Beth raises her eyebrows as she nibbles at the sandwich, staring at Jo. ‘I was just going to say that I really admire your flair for making something amazing on a budget,’ she continues, unfazed.

  ‘Oh.’ Jo shrugs and swallows, even though there’s nothing but the taste of guilt in her mouth. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Where did you train?’

  ‘London,’ Jo says. ‘It’s where Margot and I met. After our course, we moved up to the Midlands and started Sew Perfect.’

  ‘That’s cool,’ Beth says, chewing. She stretches out in the sun – her legs clad in cream flares, feet in scuffed brown ankle boots. ‘Respect to you both.’

  Jo unwraps her bagel, taking a bite. Eating, she has decided, is easier than talking.

  ‘And look, I know I haven’t known you that long, Jo, but Margot told me about… about you know, and I just wanted to say—’

  ‘You don’t have to say anything, Beth,’ Jo says with her mouth full, knowing it was coming. She holds up her hand in a stop sign, smiling. ‘Really.’

  She’s just being nice, Jo. Give the girl a break. It’s hardly her fault your husband didn’t come home from work. And not her fault it’s almost a year since the first prickles of concern that afternoon had swollen into a full-blown fever by the next morning. When are you going to accept that he’s not coming back, that he didn’t want you? Jo shakes her head, trying to silence the voice.

  ‘So, remind me again where you worked before you joined us?’ Jo asks, quite used to changing the subject. It was Margot who interviewed Beth a couple of months ago, saying she was just what they needed to move their little business forward.

  ‘I was at college,’ Beth says. ‘And before that, I was a teaching assistant.’

  Teaching, Jo thinks, feeling the pang in her heart. Will was a teacher, she wants to say but doesn’t. Somehow, everything always comes back to Will. A teacher and an actor. When he wasn’t ‘resting’, she thinks with a smile. How he hated people saying that. Will never rested. He had one of those minds that never stopped, audible even when he was sleeping.

  ‘Ah yes, that’s right,’ Jo replies, recalling what Margot had told her about their new employee. ‘Local, wasn’t it?’ Jo asks, thinking the bagel actually tastes good.

  ‘Just south of here,’ Beth goes on. ‘At a little village school. My daughter is a pupil there and it was easy for childcare, you know, to be able to work school hours. Hardly my dream job, but when she was old enough to do after-school clubs, I did a dressmaking course at college, and here I am. Working my way up stitch by stitch. Oh, and now that her dad’s not being an idiot, he helps out more with childcare.’ Beth accidentally spills some Marie Rose sauce on her pale jeans. She wipes it but makes it worse.

  ‘I’ve got some Vanish back at the workshop,’ Jo says with a wink. ‘It removes everything.’ Even blood, she thinks, just as her phone rings again, making her jump as she answers it.

  ‘You’re coming,’ Louise says. ‘Seven o’clock at mine, or else.’ And she hangs up. Disappearing as if she was never there.

  Two

  ‘You know what you need?’

  Jo stands there, her hand outstretched to Louise, the fabric of her vintage velvet kimono quivering in time with her shaking arm. Little flutters of pale pink and black. Me and Will, she’d thought when she’d seen it at the flea market a couple of years ago. She’d had to buy it and Will loved her in it, especially with skinny jeans, her high boots. He couldn’t keep his hands off her.

  ‘Earth to Jo…’

  ‘Sorry,’ Jo says, taking the glass of wine.

  ‘Fucking hell. Drink up. Stay over. Bed’s made up.’ Louise clatters the bottle back into the fridge.

  ‘I—’

  ‘What you need is a holiday. And random sex while on holiday.’ She stands squarely in front of Jo, hands on her lower back, the way pregnant women do. Behind her, Jo sees Archie stirring something at the stove, hunched over the pan, meticulously adding a measure of this, a pinch of that as if he’s performing an operation. The extractor hood hums noisily. Jo’s eyes flick to him for help, but he’s not looking. Likely not even listening.

  So Jo sips her drink, silently squaring up to Louise with the briefest of smiles, knowing that she won’t hear her when she says that no, she doesn’t want a holiday without Will and she certainly doesn’t want sex with a stranger. No holiday is right for her without Will. What she needs is a holiday from her thoughts. What she needs is her husband back.

  ‘Can’t afford one,’ Jo says, perching on a bar stool. Managing alone is tough, but her nose is still just above the waterline, though none of the work they’d started on the house is completed, and the car still needs new tyres. And the bodywork needs sorting, she thinks, a chill running through her. Despite her best efforts, the balance on the credit card she’s had to take out gets worse each month.

  In contrast, Louise and Archie’s trendy warehouse apartment is all aluminium and rusty iron girders. High ceilings with exposed pipework and doors with trendy, waxed paintwork add to the designer look. Original parquet floors are littered with huge patterned rugs, and expanses of wall are painted in the darkest grey with empty, chunky white frames hanging in clusters, almost as if she and Archie have no history to display in them, no fond memories to share. Just the grey showing through.

  Will and I have history to display, Jo thinks. Oh, how much history we have! We could fill those frames with laughter and memories…

  Louise is particular about her apartment, doesn’t put just anything on show. ‘Statement pieces only,’ she once said. ‘My interior designer said the space can take maximum impact so we shouldn’t clutter it with, well, clutter.’

  The apartment (‘flat’ seems inappropriate, Jo has always thought) cost them a fortune but Louise had said it was ‘future-proofing’, explaining, with a hand on her belly, that they could be there for many years without the need to move.

  ‘Space for several kids and top schools close by,’ she’d said, as if s
he’d had the foresight to map out her future with only good things in it, whereas Jo had not. ‘Plenty of room for when Speck is born,’ she’d said after finding out she was pregnant. Her bump was hardly a speck any more, but the name had stuck. Unlike her and Will, when the time had come Louise and Archie had had no trouble conceiving.

  Though Jo, as she glances through the full-height Crittall glass walls making up one side of the kitchen, can’t imagine a child frolicking in the courtyard garden. Can’t even imagine a baby in a pram out there, let alone felt-pen walls or ice-cream sofas.

  ‘Garden’s looking good,’ she says, wanting to divert from the subject of holidays. Though it’s more Amazonian jungle than kid-safe haven, Jo thinks. And no room to kick a ball. It’s all philodendron and firepit. Painted wrought iron and Aperol spritz. Jo imagines a snake winding its way down the glass, its tongue flicking in and out.

  ‘Even just a caravan for a week? By the sea. You like the sea, Jo.’ Louise pulls out a stool beside her, leaning on the wooden top of the kitchen island as she balances herself. She’s not letting up on the holiday. ‘I’d offer you Mum and Dad’s little cottage, but they’re renting it out now. Airbnb.’