She didn’t get back to sleep again. Instead, she lay there, listening to Mark’s snuffling and occasional snore. Once, she turned over and pressed her nose to his back. He smelled the same as usual, maybe a little citrusy from the shower gel in the main bathroom. He didn’t stink of betrayal.
If she went in search of his clothes, if she stuck her nose in them, would she find the sweet smell of another woman’s perfume, the acrid smell of sex, the stench of infidelity? And if she did… if she did… could she bear it?
She lay there. No comfort in the darkness, none in the light that started to creep into the room around the edges of the heavy curtains. Even when the room was filled with daylight, she stayed unmoving as fear shot through her. Without Drew, without Mark, who would she be?
It was ridiculous. She’d had a life before either of them. Hadn’t she? Or had that one belonged to her sisters, her mother? There’d always been someone who’d needed her and although she’d frequently railed at her mother and sisters’ demands on her time, she’d felt useful, needed. Now, she felt lost, redundant. She didn’t even have a career to return to and the thought of sitting at a till in the local supermarket, subject to the stares of curious neighbours, filled her with dread.
Mark snored beside her. She turned, rose onto her elbow, and stared down at him. The years had been good to him. Laughter lines around his eyes and frown lines that cut into the skin above his nose had added character to a face which had been almost too boyishly handsome. The sprinkle of grey through his dark hair made him look so damn sexy. She wanted to reach out and brush it from his forehead. More, she wanted to wake him, make love with a passion they seemed to have lost in the last couple of years.
Make love, brand him with her smell, her sex, so that she’d be the one he’d be thinking of as he headed off to work. And in the afterglow, she’d ask him if he still loved her, and she’d believe him when he said yes, because he never lied to her. Honesty and trust. It was the core of their relationship, always had been. So why was she doubting him now?
She flopped back and covered her eyes with her arm. Maybe she was being foolish. Imagining things. Searching for something to worry about now that Drew was making a life of his own. Yes, that’s all it was. Foolishness. When he woke, Mark would explain, and things would return to the way they were.
It was another hour before she felt him stir beside her, sixty minutes of swinging one way, then the other, from believing he’d cheated and lied, to being sure he wouldn’t do such a thing.
As was usual for him when he woke, he immediately threw back the covers and swung his feet to the floor.
‘Hi,’ she said.
‘Hey, you’re awake early.’ He rested one knee on the bed and leaned forward to give her a kiss. On her forehead. Not on her lips. ‘I hope I didn’t disturb you last night.’ He smiled, before turning and moving to the window. ‘Looks like it’s going to be another nice day,’ he said, peering through the crack he’d made between the curtains.
‘What time did you get in?’ Trying to sound casual, not accusatory.
‘Far later than I’d expected.’ He stretched then rubbed his belly. ‘We ended up back in his apartment where he smoked one fat cigar after the other. I stank and had to have a shower when I got home.’ He collected fresh clothes from the dresser and wardrobe. ‘Try and get back to sleep for a bit.’
‘Yes, I’ll try.’ She was smiling as he opened the door into the en suite. How stupid she’d been. She’d let her worries escalate out of proportion and given herself a hideous night. Curling on her side, she shut her eyes and reached for sleep. It didn’t come. What did sneak into her head was a laughing gremlin that whispered she was a fool, that Mark was lying to her and had come up with an excuse to shower away the scent of deceit; that he thought she was stupid enough, trusting enough, to believe every lying word he’d told her.
She heard the gurgle of water. He’d be having a shave. It would be a couple of minutes before he was done. She scrambled from the bed.
He’d hung yesterday’s clothes, the trousers and jacket, on the back of a chair in the corner of the spare bedroom he sometimes used to dress in when he was up very early. The bedroom window had been opened. If his clothes had stunk of cigar smoke, or anything else, they didn’t now. There was nothing in the jacket pockets apart from a few coins and a receipt for coffee dated a month before. She was ridiculously relieved to see it was for one coffee. His wallet and mobile were in the inside pocket. The mobile was of no use to her. It was password protected and she’d no idea what that was. The wallet held a photo taken of the three of them a few years before. A holiday they’d taken in Dubai. It had been magical. She stared at it for far too long, reliving the memory, then flicked through the rest of the contents. Credit cards. A couple of business cards. Petrol receipts.
Replacing wallet and phone, she was about to scarper back to bed before Mark came out when she decided to check his trouser pockets. One of those last minute, in for a penny in for a pound things, really not expecting to find anything. Her fingers had closed around a crumpled piece of paper when she heard Mark’s voice calling her.
Clutching the scrap, she hurried across the landing to the bathroom. Inside, she pulled Drew’s abandoned, raggedy dressing gown from the back of the door, slipped it on and tied the belt. When she opened the door, Mark was across in the bedroom. ‘I’m here,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t get back to sleep and needed a wee.’ She shoved her hands into the pockets of the dressing gown. The crackle of the paper seemed so loud, she wondered that he didn’t hear it but he was yawning, reaching for his suit trousers.
‘I’ll go and make some coffee,’ she said, trying to sound casual. ‘It looks like you could do with some.’
‘I’m going to be mainlining it all day, I’m guessing.’
‘Right.’ She left him to finish dressing and headed downstairs to make the promised coffee. The machine was gurgling, the room quickly filling with the aroma of the strong coffee he preferred in the morning. With maybe a minute before he arrived down, she sat at the table and took out the piece of paper.
It was a receipt. Small Bar was written across the top. King Street, Bristol, in smaller typeface underneath. It wasn’t a place she knew, but King Street wasn’t far from Mark’s office. Maybe he’d taken the client there for a drink. She looked at the two items on it. Mark had said the client had smoked fat cigars. That didn’t sound like the kind of man who would drink Prosecco by the glass. And she knew her beloved husband hated the stuff. His drink would have been the beer.
So who was drinking the Prosecco?
A woman. It had to be. Which meant Mark had lied to her.
Susan’s life had been a little empty recently. She knew how she was going to fill it. Find out what bitch was trying to lure Mark away. Find her and get rid of her.
She’d lost Drew; she had no intention of losing her husband.