The phone stops ringing just as I see her. “Deb? Is that you?”
There’s a glow in her hand as she walks towards me. “Lisa?” She puts the phone in her pocket. “What are you doing out here?”
She takes a few moments to take in the scene, and her eyes widen. “What happened? What’s going on?”
I want to hug her and tell her everything. Just cry with her. I breathe through the dizziness and smile. “I’m okay now.”
“Come, let’s go in,” she says, taking my hand.
But I don’t move. “I’m leaving.”
“What?”
“I’m going back to the UK,” I say. “Or maybe somewhere else. I haven’t figured it out yet.”
Her brow creases as she pulls her coat tighter around her. I notice she’s wearing her slippers. “You’re leaving?”
I nod. “I need to get out of here.”
She looks baffled. “Why? Did something happen?”
“I just can’t stay here anymore.”
She’s silent for a moment, and I can see she’s confused. “I saw Seb walking back from the dock,” she says. “From the window. He looked like he was storming off. I couldn’t reach you on your phone and… I got worried. So I came to look for you.”
She looks me up and down again. “Did you have a fight?”
I think of what Alice told me. How I should be honest with myself and own up to my life. I want to tell Deb the truth about what happened, but the last thing I want to do is talk about Seb. All I want is to move on.
“My phone’s in the house,” I tell her, pulling the scarf tighter around my neck, the memory of the last hour still making my skin crawl. Suddenly, a thought surfaces. “Where’s Richard?” I ask.
Deb gives a small shrug. “His flight got delayed. But never mind that now.”
I study her. Through the haze of alcohol and ibuprofen, I try to look into her soul, as if my pain could reach out to hers. Tell her that amidst all the darkness, there is a ray of sunshine. I don’t know what lies ahead, but I do know that finally, I can trust myself again. Not with Eleanor’s help, not with Seb’s help, but mine alone. And if I can let another woman know that she has options too, then I’ll do it.
I take a step forward. “You should leave too, Deb.”
She frowns again. “What do you mean?”
“Richard’s stealing money from you.”
Until now, Deb has been shivering in the cold. Now, she’s frozen to the spot. “What?”
I take a deep breath. “I should have told you sooner. I’ve been doing a bit of snooping about him. Ever since that day he came to the house—”
She holds up a hand, her voice suddenly panicky. “Wait. What? What are you saying?”
“Something seemed off,” I continue. “I hated him for how he treated you. I wasn’t looking for anything specific, but then I found his email open on the computer one day. And Deb, I’m really sorry for looking at it… but I found things that didn’t add up.”
She says nothing, her eyes boring into me. I can’t tell if she’s horrified or angry.
“I found a charity he’s been donating to. For five years already. Then I asked you that one day if you both donate, and you said no. I found it strange that he would donate and not tell you. I figured he wasn’t telling you. So I contacted the charity and they told me it no longer exists. It hasn’t for years, Deb.”
The words spill out of me in a heated rush. I need to rip the whole band aid off, no matter how hard it is. “It gets worse. I’m so sorry, but I then looked into your bank statements. The ones you print out and keep in the study. The money’s been leaving your account each month. Five hundred pounds every time.”
I pause, taking a breath. “He’s been stealing from you. For years. I counted two years’ worth of payments, but it could have been longer.”
Then there’s silence. The longer it expands between us, the uneasier I feel. I search Deb’s eyes for a hint of something. Fear, distress, sadness. But she just looks shocked. Finally, she crosses her arms and frowns. “You invaded my privacy.”
I look down, the shame running through me. “I know.”
“You violated it,” she says, her voice louder. “I thought I could trust you.”
My head shoots up. “You can.”
We stare at each other. But I look away again. I feel so ashamed that I did this to her.
Deb scoffs and looks away. She stares out at the water for a while, then turns back. “So you say he’s been stealing from me?”
I nod. “I think he’s hiding assets. I think he wants to make it look like there’s less money to split between the two of you when you divorce. The charity—it’s just one thing I found. Who knows what else he’s doing.”
Deb seems to consider this, her eyes looking over my shoulder. “How do you know all this?”
“It happens in case law,” I say. “It’s been a while. But I remember reading about it at uni. Before the divorce, you need to declare your total savings and assets. When I spoke to the woman from the charity, she asked for proof…”
She puts up a hand. “Wait, what woman?”
“The woman I called,” I say. “The one who said the charity didn’t exist anymore. She said we can report the fraud. She says it happens all the time, actually.”
Suddenly, Deb looks scared. “Did you give her our details?”
There’s a flutter in my stomach. I keep telling myself I did this for a good reason, but I’ve meddled so much in Deb’s life. I clear my throat. “Not yet.”
“So what happens now?” she asks.
“We just need to send her proof. She can report the charity fraud.” I feel the shame burning my cheeks. “I have screenshots to prove it.”
Deb looks overwhelmed. She runs her hands through her hair. She paces the walkway and then moves to the railing.
“I’m so sorry Deb,” I say. “But you can’t let him win. He’ll try to take everything from you. Everything you’ve worked for.”
Her hands wrap around the railing, and she’s quiet for what feels like a minute. Then, her head snaps back. “Have you shared the screenshots? With the woman?”
“No,” I say. “I wanted to tell you everything first.”
“Can you show them to me?”
I take the old phone from my pocket and start searching for the pictures.
“I thought you left your phone at home?” Deb asks.
“This is my old one,” I say. I find the screenshots and turn the phone so she can see them. She takes my phone and zooms in on the pictures. I show her the fake email address I created and the messages I sent to Richard. And what he sent back to me.
“You went to a lot of trouble,” she says after a while. “You must really hate him.”
“I just wanted to protect you,” I say. “You’re better off without him.”
She steps away from me and we stand apart for a few beats, and it feels like the air has suddenly become thicker. Deb meets my eyes, her face expressionless. “I know I’m better off.”
Almost in slow motion, Deb’s eyes grow narrower and colder. I watch her put my phone into her pocket. My stomach does a frantic somersault as the realisation kicks in. “You… you knew about it.”
She stays motionless, her lips thin. Just when I think she won’t say anything, the words come. They’re low and deliberate.
“Richard isn’t the only cunning one, you know.”
For a moment, I struggle to understand what she’s saying. But then I glance down at where my phone sits in her pocket. I blink. “It… it was you?”
She’s still for what feels like an eternity. As if she’s contemplating what to tell me.
“Yes,” she says. “All of it.”
I feel the nausea build as I realise she’s proud of her admission.
I grip the wooden railing, everything suddenly shaky beneath my feet. “How? Why?”
She looks up at the dark sky, pulls her coat tighter again. “I just had to be smart about it.”
“You faked a charity? Why?”
“I did what I needed to,” she says curtly. She’s never spoken to me like this before, and it stings.
“He always earned more than me. Call it a backup plan, if you will. A buffer. He’s been splurging our money on his young mistresses for years. I knew at some point it would go badly for me. So I thought—why not cover myself? What’s a little extra money on some kids in Africa? It would set me up well. Not for life, but at least for a few years. I had to convince him to donate to something, but since he never wanted kids and I did, it wasn’t too difficult to play the victim card.”
I’m stunned by her words. More than that, I’m stunned by how she’s saying them. Completely calm, with no remorse.
“So the charity website? The fake emails every month?”
She shrugs. “A guy in Belarus I found online. He set it all up.”
“And the donations?”
“All to an offshore account.”
I stare at her, my body rigid. In what world was she capable of something like this? For weeks I’ve been watching her walk around her home in a drunken stupor. It’s almost as if she wants to both love Richard and hurt him at the same time. She had me fooled.
I grip the railing tighter. Meet her eyes again. “Deb, you have to stop this.”
“It’s too late for that now,” she says offhandedly.
“It’s not,” I say, shaking my head. “Even if your marriage is over, you want it to be on a clean slate. You don’t need to do this to be okay. It will be so much better if you’re just honest and move on.”
I think of my own plan. How I intend to live my own truth from now on.
“Go away on a nice holiday,” I cajole. “Like we talked about. Or go see your friends. You could even come with me. We could go away together.”
She scoffs. “I don’t have any friends.”
Wow, I think. I thought we were friends.
“Okay, fine,” I say. “But you don’t need his money as a buffer. You’ll be fine on your own. You just need—”
“What do you know about money?” she says, her voice high pitched and angry. “Sitting around all day pretending to be a writer, living off mummy and daddy’s money. You haven’t had to work for anything in your life. Don’t talk to me about money.”
I gape at her, the heat burning in my cheeks. I shouldn’t have snooped, but everything I did was because I cared about her. I was just trying to do what was best for her. Just to find she doesn’t care at all.
“Please give me back my phone,” I say.
She takes my phone from her pocket and starts tapping at the screen.
“What are you doing?”
She doesn’t look up. “Deleting the screenshots.”
I want to run over and grab the phone from her, but the ground is too unstable beneath my feet. “It’s my phone. You can’t delete anything.”
She keeps tapping at the screen, and I lurch towards her. I grab at the phone, but she easily blocks me.
“Stop it,” I yell. “I won’t let you do this.”
A part of me feels betrayed. She lied to me and painted herself as the victim. She made me believe yet another lie when all I wanted for once was the truth. I’m so sick of people lying to me.
“Keep it,” I say. I stumble to the railing again and lean on it for support. We’re both breathing heavily, staring at each other. My phone is still in her hands, but I let it go. I don’t need it anymore. All I want is to get away from here.
“You’re going to regret this,” I tell her, my words sticky. I start walking towards the street again.
“What are you doing?” she says, her voice suddenly nervous again.
“I’m leaving,” I mutter.
She grabs my arm, and now I’m angry too. I just want to be away from all of this. “Let me go. Just leave me alone.”
Her grip eases slightly. “Lisa. You can’t just go. We need to talk about this.”
I shake my arm loose, my eyes meeting hers. “I have nothing to say to you. You lied to me. You’re committing a crime.”
Her eyes are wide. But the words pour out of me like hot lava. “I don’t care how bad things are. Nothing justifies what you’re doing now. Lying to people who are only trying to help you. I thought we were friends.”
I’m so angry. At her, at Seb and his lies. A part of me wants to not only escape all of it, but expose all of it. I want to shout their dirty secrets from the rooftops. All they’ve done is hurt me, and that hurt has turned into a red hot fury.
It’s that same fury that makes me grab for my phone again. My body pushing against hers, and I feel her back push against the railing. I hear the phone fall onto the wooden planking of the dock. I turn to look for it, but we scuffle. Suddenly I’m the one against the railing, trying to push Deb away.
“Get off me,” I try to shout, but her hands are covering my mouth. The anger runs up my throat and out of my mouth, the words muffled by her hands. “I hope they lock you up.”
Silence. It can’t be more than a few seconds. Her mouth opens with horror at what I just said, but I won’t take it back. She deserved it.
Before I can stop her, her hands grab at me again, her eyes inky black with fear. I’m so angry I don’t register what she’s doing. She grips me tightly, then pushes me. Hard.
And then I’m falling.