The door is opened and she stands there, the woman who looks so like me. She introduces herself and indicates that we should come in.
‘How did you find me?’ I demand as I cross the threshold.
She looks back at me for a few seconds, her gaze steady.
I press on, desperate to allay my confusion. ‘How did you even know who I was?’
Two days after the wedding ring was left at my door, Jim and I draw up in a taxi outside a house in a nondescript street, in the eastern suburb of Parramatta. Older brick homes stand back from the dusty street behind grass verges, sheltered by mature eucalyptus trees. There’s an integral double garage and a wide, screened porch, but nothing at all to save it from utter ordinariness. I try – and fail – to imagine Dom living in a place like this. Except, of course, that he’s not Dom. He’s Greg.
I stop, stock-still, at the foot of the steps that lead to the porch, feeling the touch of Jim’s fingers on my hand.
‘Alice, are you sure you want to do this? I can go in on my own.’
‘No,’ I manage to keep my voice firm. ‘I need to do this. But…’ I hesitate, a sudden thought occurring to me. ‘She does know that he’s dead, right?’
Jim nods. ‘Detective Kelly’s been round to speak to her, about the car crash and about Holly’s death.’ He rings the bell.
When the door is opened, I see that she’s probably a little younger than me. She’s wearing a simple T-shirt and jeans, feet bare.
‘Hi,’ she holds out a hand with a hesitant smile. ‘I’m Zoey. Zoey Henderson.’
As I wait for her to explain herself, I catch sight of a framed photograph on the IKEA bookcase and shock ripples through me, as though someone’s touched me with an electric cattle prod. It’s a wedding photo of Zoey – younger and with longer hair – and him.
Dom. Ben. Greg.
I turn back to her, and there’s real anger in my voice; anger I can’t explain, or hold back. ‘Well, go on,’ I say, sounding sharp and strident. ‘We’re waiting.’
‘Can I start at the beginning?’ she asks calmly. ‘And would you like coffee?’
‘That would be great, thanks,’ says Jim, throwing me a glance. A glance that tells me to cool it.
We take a seat in the open-plan lounge and Zoey returns with a tray of coffee. It’s not decaffeinated, but I accept a mug anyway, to try and settle my jangling nerves.
‘Okay…’ She smooths her mousey hair back behind her ears and takes a deep breath.
‘Before you get started, just tell me,’ I say, forcing myself to keep my voice level. ‘I have to know: the wedding ring left at my hotel room. Was that you?’
Zoey nods slowly. ‘Yes. That was me. But I have to tell you the whole story, or none of it will make any sense.’ She breathes out slowly. ‘Okay… Greg and I came from the same small town. It’s a tiny place called Coonamarra, out in the bush. He was friends with my sister Kirstie really. My older sister – there’s six years between us. But even when I was really young, I noticed Greg. When Kirstie was with him, I always used to try and tag along.’ She gives a self-conscious smile and lowers her eyes. ‘There were other good-looking guys in town, but there was just something about Greg. It was, I don’t know, just the way he took up space. His swagger. If you went into a crowded room, he was the one your eye was drawn to first.’
She can’t help but look in my direction at this point. She knows. She understands.
‘The high school put on a production of To Kill a Mockingbird, and Greg was cast as Atticus Finch. There was something about the way he transformed himself into a lawyer in the Deep South that… he was just mesmerising. Everyone said afterwards that his performance was exceptional. I went back to the second performance, and the third, and still I just couldn’t take my eyes off him. I guess that was the moment I fell in love with him. Although obviously,’ Zoey initiates eye contact again, ‘maybe the way he found it so easy to become someone else should have been a red flag.’
I flick my eyes down to my mug of coffee and wait for her to go on.
‘Greg went off to uni in Sydney, and after I left school, I went to do my nursing training at further ed college in Port Macquarie. And then Kirstie had a big thirtieth birthday party in Sydney, and Greg was there. Finally he noticed me. Kirstie works in fashion, and there were some glamorous women at the party, but it was me he paid attention to. We dated long distance for a few months, and when I’d finished my training, I moved down to Sydney full time. I wasn’t that fussed about getting married, to be honest with you, but Greg insisted.’
Jim looks over at me. I force a smile, though smiling is the last thing I feel like doing.
‘So how much did you know?’ Jim cuts in. ‘How much did you know about your husband’s… lifestyle?’
Zoey takes a deep breath, and for the first time I notice the deep shadows under her eyes, like old bruises, and the tension lines round her mouth. ‘I realised fairly quickly that he saw other women. He worked late constantly, and had a social life with his colleagues that didn’t involve me. Not long before—’ She stops suddenly, as though she has run out of breath. ‘Before he left, I found a second phone, with messages from girls who clearly thought he was single. After he left, I approached his colleague, Brad Chapman, at Spectrum, and he was stunned. Said none of them at work even knew Greg was married. Turned out he was renting an apartment in Darlinghurst and using it as a bachelor pad.’ She folds her hands in her lap. ‘But what could I do? I was hundreds of miles from my family and friends, and I was completely dependent on him for the roof over my head, and for money.’
‘Weren’t you working?’
On cue, one of the doors off the ground-floor passageway bursts open and a small child runs into the room. A little boy of three or four, with blond hair. When he spins round in my direction, a shudder runs through me. He has eyes the colour of golden topaz.
‘This is Dougie,’ Zoey says, smiling and ruffling the boy’s hair, ‘Named after his great-grandfather. That’s what Greg wanted to call the baby if it was a boy.’ She glances reflexively at my own pregnant abdomen. ‘Not that he was here to know either way, but I honoured his wishes anyway.’
‘So Greg never met his son?’ Jim asks gently.
Zoey shakes her head. ‘I was pregnant when he disappeared. And, to answer your question: yes, I work now, to support us. Thank God I had my nursing certificate. But Greg wanted me to be a stay-at-home wife and mother. He was happiest when we were at home, just hanging out and doing nothing in particular. Those were the good times. When he seemed content.’ She hands her son a biscuit and gives a rueful smile in my direction. ‘I guess you might know something about that.’
I nod. ‘It sounds familiar.’
‘I was expecting Dougie and despite the fact he was screwing around, things were okay, and then one day he didn’t come home until the small hours of the morning. I heard him come in and move around the house a bit. I now know he was getting his passport and stuff together. When I woke up, he was gone. No note, no explanation, nothing. His phone was out of service. Then, a few days later, the police came looking for him, asking questions. And, later, they told me he’d flown to Europe and gone into hiding.’ Zoey leads Dougie to the far side of the room where his toys are, lowering her voice when she returns. ‘And that they think he killed that Chinese waitress.’
I stare at her, confused. ‘But you must have known where he was. Who he’d become. Or how would you have found me?’
‘I had a child to raise, so at first I just kind of shut it out and got on with it.’ She glances in her son’s direction, but he’s engrossed in his Lego bricks. ‘But then, one day, out of the blue, I had a visit that changed everything.’
‘Don’t tell me,’ says Jim quietly. ‘Holly Galea.’
Zoey picks up a stone paperweight from the table and begins turning it over and over between her fingers. ‘Yes. It was about a year and a half ago. This woman came round, saying she’d had a thing with Greg. That wasn’t so much of a surprise. The huge shock was her saying that she’d tracked him down online, and that he was in London. And that he had another wife.’
I swallow hard, finding it hard to look at her. ‘Except that I wasn’t his wife. You were.’
She gives a self-deprecating little smile. ‘Trust me, I didn’t feel like a wife at the time. After her visit, I looked you up online. I saw Facebook photos of your wedding. Sorry…’ She stands up abruptly and walks over to her son, bending down and kissing his head. ‘Why don’t you go and play outside, sweetie?’ She leads him to the patio doors and watches him for a few seconds. When she turns back, there are tears in her eyes. She wipes them away with an impatient gesture, as though angry with herself. ‘That’s where I saw it, the—’
‘The photo of my wedding ring.’ I supply the words for her.
‘I saw the inscription was exactly the same as mine. That moment was the closest I came to going back to the police and telling them I knew where Greg was.’
‘But you didn’t,’ says Jim flatly.
Zoey shakes her head, looking down at her fingernails. ‘I knew I ought to, but I just couldn’t. I guess it was for Dougie’s sake. I was worried about not being able to look him in the eye if I’d been the one to turn his father in. I knew it would mean he could never come back to us. Because part of me…’ She smiles weakly at me. ‘Stupid, I know, but part of me still thought he might come home at some point.’ She looks out at the garden, where her son is playing in a sandpit.
‘But the ring… your ring… how did you know I was here in Sydney?’
Zoey turns back to face me. ‘I have a first cousin who works for the Border Force at Sydney International. I asked her to set up an alert if you or Greg – Dominic Gill – flew into the country. Because I thought you might come at some point. And your passenger card had the address of your hotel on it.’ She shrugs, then sighs. ‘I’d planned to come and talk to you, but when I got to the hotel, I bottled it and just left my ring. I reckoned it would speak for itself. At that point, I thought Greg could still be coming back here at some point. But now of course…’ She slumps back in her chair and I remind myself that this is all brand new to her: the news of Greg’s death, being a widow. ‘…I know he’s never coming back, except in a coffin. That he’s gone for ever.’
I give Jim a look that tells him it’s time to leave. He takes Zoey’s wedding ring from his pocket and holds it out to her, but she seems almost reluctant to take it and he ends up having to place it in her palm and fold her fingers around it.
‘You can put it back on now.’
But she shakes her head sadly. ‘I’m not going to wear it again. Not after what’s happened.’ She gives me a look, and a frisson of kinship passes between us. ‘I’ve told Detective Kelly that I’ll have his remains flown back and buried here, and I’ll put this in the coffin.’ She holds up the ring so that it catches a sunbeam and gives off a flash of white light. ‘I’ll put it with yours.’
‘Are you sure you’re okay?’ Jim asks, looking at me intently. We’re sitting on the roof terrace of our hotel, enjoying our last sundowner before heading to the airport.
‘I’m okay,’ I say carefully. ‘It just feels… weird.’
‘It was certainly weird seeing the resemblance between the two of you.’ He picks up a strand of my hair and twirls it. The intimacy of the gesture is a surprise, albeit a pleasant one. ‘Apart from the hair colour, obviously.’
‘But underneath this colour, my hair’s mousey too,’ I point out, reaching for my glass of lemonade. ‘And that was how Greg preferred it.’ I trip over the name, that still sounds unnatural to my ear. ‘He didn’t like me dyeing it. He liked me looking more like Zoey. More like a wife.’
‘Are you glad we went?’ Jim asks.
‘Absolutely. If it doesn’t sound odd, I quite like the idea of both the wedding rings going to the grave with Greg. It feels right.’
Jim nods slowly.
‘It’s helped me accept that he’s really gone. And it feels as though a huge weight has been lifted from me.’
‘You mean because Zoey never divorced him?’
‘Exactly. I’m not the widow of a serial killer, because I was never really his wife. It’s Zoey who has to carry that legacy, not me.’
Jim raises his beer, and I tip my drink towards him in a silent toast.
‘Your kids will be half-siblings though,’ Jim nods at my stomach. ‘There’s still that.’
‘I know,’ I sigh. ‘Zoey and I will both have to decide what to tell our children about their father. And, with luck, we’ll be able to support each other in that. But that’s a way off. No point worrying about it now. His family and friends in Australia will be the ones with a grave to visit. This is where he belongs. Not in London.’
I think about his mother – his real mother, not Patricia Gill – and wonder how it would feel to meet her. My baby’s grandmother.
Jim sips his beer, thoughtful for a few moments. ‘At least you’re not going to have to deal with a criminal trial. With all the publicity that goes along with that. Even so, the Met are still going to have to make some sort of statement about Holly Galea’s murder. It could have the press making the connection with Dominic Gill and then beating a path to your door. You prepared for that?’
‘Let’s just say that’s a bridge I don’t intend to burn until I get to it.’
Jim drains the remainder of his beer with a grin and slaps his glass down on the table. ‘Exactly. You need to get the kid born safely first. And preferably not for another four months.’ He stands up and reaches for my hand to pull me to my feet. ‘Do you think you can manage to get back to London without involving me in any more hospital emergencies?’
I stand up, holding onto his fingers for a few seconds longer than strictly necessary. ‘I’m going to give it my best shot.’