The Ex-Husband: An absolutely gripping psychological thriller with a killer twist Read online

  THE EX-HUSBAND

  AN ABSOLUTELY GRIPPING PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER WITH A KILLER TWIST

  SAMANTHA HAYES

  BOOKS BY SAMANTHA HAYES

  The Ex-Husband

  The Trapped Wife

  Single Mother

  The Happy Couple

  Date Night

  The Liar’s Wife

  Tell Me A Secret

  The Reunion

  Available in Audio

  The Trapped Wife (Available in the UK and the US)

  Single Mother (Available in the UK and the US)

  The Happy Couple (Available in the UK and the US)

  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

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Epilogue

  Date Night

  Hear More from Samantha

  Books by Samantha Hayes

  A Letter from Samantha

  The Trapped Wife

  Single Mother

  The Happy Couple

  The Liar’s Wife

  Tell Me A Secret

  The Reunion

  Acknowledgements

  *

  This book is dedicated to Martyn Eagles

  Many thanks for your generous winning bid in

  the Book Aid for Ukraine charity auction

  PROLOGUE

  The bonfire smoulders in the chill autumn air, the charred arm sticking out of the garden rubbish as if the blackened fingers are reaching for something. Thin plumes of smoke twist up into the overcast sky, a light breeze carrying the acrid smell over the wall into the neighbour’s garden. Several bronzed leaves spiral to the ground, landing at the feet of DI Carla Nelson as she stares down at the fire – what’s left of it.

  Fleetingly, her mind casts forward to Bonfire Night next week – wondering whether she, Dan and the kids will trudge down to the recreation ground as they always do, stuffing their faces with hot dogs and toffee apples as their twins stare expectantly into the night sky, the fireworks glittering in their eyes. Even though they’re thirteen now, they still love the excitement, the anticipation, wrapping themselves up warm and snug. Then she imagines Dan glued to his phone, angling it away from her and missing the display entirely, thinking she hasn’t noticed the secret smile on his face as he texts her back.

  ‘What do you reckon?’ the DI says, refocusing her attention on the body in the fire, studying the one or two patches of skin that have escaped incineration. ‘Twenties? Early thirties?’ She crouches down for a closer look. It’s like he’s wearing a mask, his melted features barely human any more and his skin swollen and taut.

  ‘Hard to tell,’ DC Flynn Marshall replies, shrugging. ‘Could be older. Or much younger.’

  Carla winces as she stands up, her bad knee clicking. ‘Helpful,’ she says, rolling her eyes. Though everyone seems young to her these days, even a charred corpse. She squints at the blackened arm. There’s a watch still on the wrist – impossible to tell what make it is, or if it’s expensive or cheap. She notices there’s no wedding band on the ring finger, and a molten film – once clothing – is stuck to his chest.

  When they’d first arrived, Carla had noticed that the body appeared to have been dragged halfway out of what was left of the bonfire and, from what they’d gathered so far – which wasn’t much – it was his partner who’d discovered him. The woman’s screams had alerted one of the neighbours and she’d dashed out of her house; between them, they’d tried to haul the remains from the fire.

  Carla stands, hands on hips, staring down, coughing as the smoke suddenly surges up into her face. The body is burnt to an extent that will make the task of identification difficult rather than impossible for the forensic pathologists to complete. Though, given the distraught state of the woman next door, his identity is likely already known.

  Craig Forbes, of the same address, was reported missing less than twenty-four hours ago.

  ‘Poor fucker,’ Flynn says, shifting from one foot to the other. He yawns. ‘Forensics are on their way.’

  ‘And the liaison officer?’ Carla replies, stifling her own yawn. It’s been a long shift. She hears another wail coming from the neighbouring property and then a distant male voice trying to calm her down – PC Wentworth. Being local, he was first on the scene and took the woman back to her house until the specially trained liaison officer arrived. Carla had assumed the woman to be the deceased’s wife, though she supposed she could be his girlfriend, partner, lover, mistress. Who knew these days? Her mind flashes forward to Bonfire Night again – Dan with his nose in his phone, his smug smile. She imagines herself knocking it from his hands, sending it flying into the huge fire, sparks raining upwards as she watches it melt. But then the evidence she needs would be gone too.

  Evidence… Jesus, she thinks, wincing inside. This is your husband, not some case to be pored over, picked apart and analysed.

  ‘The FLO is also on the way,’ Flynn says, inclining his head in the direction of the big house on the other side of the old Victorian garden wall.

  DI Nelson nods and shifts from one foot to the other, staring down. God, she hates these shoes, but they’re the only type that get her through a twelve-hour shift and beyond. She can’t remember the last time she wore a pair of heels. A dress and heels, she thinks to herself. Maybe the lack of them is the reason for Dan’s self-satisfied smiles.

  Another guttural scream from next door.

  ‘Doesn’t seem right, just standing here,’ Flynn says, walking around to the other side of the smouldering fire to escape another plume of smoke. ‘I feel like I want to chuck water over him or something.’ He takes a packet of mints from his pocket and pops one in his mouth, crunching it.

  ‘Too late for that,’ Carla says through a sigh, staring at his charred head again. No sign of any remaining hair, if there was any there in the first place. Fleetingly,
Dan is on her mind again. ‘Anyway, I don’t want this scene disturbed until the others get here.’ She points to the dwindling pyre with her foot, catching sight of her ugly shoe again. ‘There’ll be evidence in there.’

  She casts her eyes around the walled garden, wondering what the hell has gone on. It’s clearly a vegetable garden with a few remaining raised beds, raspberry cages and cordons of fruit trees wired neatly to the old brick wall – or rather, it was a vegetable garden. She spots a chicken run in one corner, but part of it has collapsed, with the side of the wooden coop in a similar state. There are no chickens now, and the structure looks as though it’s been smashed up. In fact, the entire garden appears as if it’s been recently vandalised by… ‘By a bulldozer,’ Carla says, eyeing the line-up of diggers by the gateway. Another machine stands closer to the fire, beside a trench, as if abandoned midway through digging, its bucket raised about six feet. The whole area looks more like a building site now.

  She walks over to the five-bar gate – the only boundary in the rectangular-shaped garden adjoining the road. The hawthorn either side of it appears to have been recently chopped back to reveal the gateway – its edges freshly clipped and sharp. She notices that about six feet of the hedgerow has been professionally laid, though the work appears unfinished. When she looks down at the ground, muddy caterpillar tracks are imprinted in the churned-up earth. Around the site, areas of ground have been dug, leaving trenches and mounds of turf and earth, while remaining vegetables from the summer months lie pulled up and destroyed, chucked away from their growing site.

  ‘Ma’am…’ Flynn says. Carla turns, faced with a team of forensics officers arriving at the scene.

  ‘Afternoon, lads,’ she says, striding back towards the arched gateway in the brick wall across the other side of the site. Behind it is a small courtyard garden belonging to the little house, which neighbours the bigger, adjoining property. She hears a female-sounding voice from beneath the hood of a white coverall suit and mask making a disgruntled sound. ‘And ladies,’ she adds. ‘Just hold off a moment here, if that’s OK,’ she says to the only face she recognises from the group. She’s worked with Dave Simmons many times before and knows he’s damn good at his job. ‘There are a few things I want to check out before you kick off.’

  Maybe I’ll surprise him, she thinks as she walks over to the chicken coop, watching every footfall for fear of treading on precious evidence.

  ‘Flynn?’ she says, beckoning him over with a flick of her head. ‘Walk with me.’

  Buy a pair of impossible-to-walk-in scarlet heels, some stockings and one of those sexy corset things I once clicked on by accident. Get dressed up for when he comes to bed.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ Flynn asks, glancing over at her and seeing her expression.

  ‘I wasn’t laughing,’ Carla replies sourly, pacing along the perimeter wall, scanning the ground. It’s when she’s looped right back round again that she slips – but not because of the mud.

  ‘Oh Jesus,’ she mutters, staring at her foot before wiping her shoe on a patch of long grass. ‘Someone couldn’t keep it in.’ She stares down at the vomit – a browny-beige patch that has settled on an area of flat mud, making her already unattractive shoe now appear disgusting.

  Then she spots it, lying in the grass near to where she wiped her foot – a small scrap of paper about two inches by four, old and crinkled with something written on it in faded black marker. ‘Flynn,’ Carla says, pointing down. ‘It looks like a sticker.’

  ‘Petrol,’ they both read in unison, each of them glancing around to see if they can spot what it was obviously once stuck to.

  CHAPTER ONE

  TWO MONTHS EARLIER

  Leah grabbed the top of the stepladder with one hand, holding the wallpaper stripper in the other. The machine sighed its final breaths as the water tank ran out again, though that wasn’t the reason for pausing. No, she’d heard something outside.

  An unfamiliar noise. Rumbling.

  A slight vibration of the walls and floor that she’d not experienced yet. Having only lived there a few weeks, she was still learning the old house’s many groans and creaks and foibles – as well as being in tune with the comings and goings of her various neighbours, getting to know who they were, which car belonged to which house, who had children and who went out to work or was home-based.

  Then louder rumbling, which caused her to step down backwards off the ladder and place the flat wide head of the stripper back on its base. She brushed down her front to rid her overalls of little pieces of woodchip that she’d been scraping away at for the last three hours. It was a slow job, but she was determined to get the room ready for painting by the end of the day. After everything that had happened, she’d promised Zoey a beautiful bedroom, and that was what her daughter was going to get.

  She heard someone yell out in the street below.

  Whoa… Stop there!

  Then the rasp of brakes.

  Leah went up to the window and pulled back the dusty old net curtains. They’d be going in the bin before long, but for now they afforded a little privacy.

  ‘Oh…’ she whispered, catching sight of the huge pantechnicon parked in the street below. The dark green removals lorry easily spanned the width of her small house, plus a portion of the big house next door that her little place was joined onto – the house that had been sold soon after she and the kids had moved in. The previous couple had been relocated overseas at short notice. ‘New neighbours already,’ she whispered again, quite used to talking to herself while Zoey and Henry were at school.

  She couldn’t help the inner smile. There was no one to hear her now, no one to judge any more. No one to tell her what to wear – implying that she was ‘asking for it’ if she dared to go out wearing a dress an inch above her knee. No one to tell her what to cook or how to cook it. No one to monitor what time she got home from work, or bombard her with hundreds of messages if she decided to go for an impromptu drink with the girls. No one to guilt-trip her into having sex if she wasn’t in the mood, and no one to tell her how much of her hard-earned money she could spend on herself or the kids.

  There was simply no one in her life to judge what she did – and she vowed there never would be again. Not like that, anyway. She’d had a few dates with a guy, but he didn’t really count.

  Not yet, she thought, her smile widening.

  He seemed nice, but a handful of meets and a few texts and FaceTime calls were a long way off a relationship, and if there was even a sniff of him being controlling or demanding, then she’d run a mile. Leah loved every last drop of her new-found safety and freedom far too much, even if it had come at a huge cost – emotionally as well as financially.

  In the street below, two removals men wearing dark green uniforms stood on the pavement, their hands on their hips while they waited for the driver to park the vehicle as close to the kerb as possible. When the noisy engine fell silent, the driver and another colleague jumped out of the cab and the men began unlatching the side of the vehicle. Leah wasn’t bothered that they’d parked right in front of her house – she’d had to park her vintage 1970s Mini further up the street anyway – and it’d only be for a few hours. She could see by the ramp they were setting up that they’d be unloading straight up the front path of the Old Vicarage next door. Her eyes cast around the street, looking out for any sign of the new neighbours arriving, but there was no one else there yet.

  Leah let the net curtains fall closed and stepped away from the window. She didn’t want to be a curtain-twitcher. If Craig were here, he’d have been outside like a shot, demanding that they move the van away from the front of their property, telling them off for blocking their light or being too noisy. Steam would have been virtually coming out of his ears, while his posturing and pent-up aggression would have made a terrible impression on the people moving in.

  Leah shuddered as she went downstairs into her kitchen to fill the kettle, counting her blessings that she was finally free. br />
  ‘My kitchen,’ she said with a smile. It would never get old.

  She didn’t even care that her new place was small and old-fashioned, needing a refit that she could barely afford. She wasn’t bothered, either, that the windows needed repainting or that the back door had seen better days. She didn’t mind a jot that the original quarry tiles needed scrubbing on her hands and knees, or that she couldn’t have the kettle and the oven on at the same time without the electricity going off. Another job for the long list, she thought, making a mental note to call Jimmy, the grandson of one of her clients. He was a decent lad and was training as a builder so always welcomed the extra cash.

  No, all Leah cared about was that Craig wasn’t here with her, criticising her every move, making her hardly dare breathe. Making her life seem not like her own.

  She shook her head, ridding herself of the bad memories. They had no place in her new life. She was over her marriage ending and would now only look to the future.

  She filled the kettle and flicked it on. Anyway, Craig would never live in a run-down little place like this; never subject himself to being the ‘poorer neighbour’ compared to the grand house next door. And for that, she was grateful. As an estate agent, he’d be constantly coveting the Old Vicarage, never shutting up about how he deserved to live there, no doubt making the neighbours’ lives hell because of his jealousy. No – he’d rather die than live in a house like this, Leah thought smugly as she dropped a teabag into a mug.