After the Wedding: A totally unputdownable psychological thriller full of suspense Read online

  AFTER THE WEDDING

  A TOTALLY UNPUTDOWNABLE PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER FULL OF SUSPENSE

  LAURA ELLIOT

  BOOKS BY LAURA ELLIOT

  After the Wedding

  The Silent House

  The Thorn Girl

  The Wife Before Me

  Guilty

  Sleep Sister

  The Betrayal

  The Prodigal Sister

  Stolen Child

  Fragile Lies

  Available in audio

  The Silent House (Available in the UK and the US)

  The Thorn Girl (Available in the UK and the US)

  The Wife Before Me (Available in the UK and the US)

  Guilty (Available in the UK and the US)

  Sleep Sister (Available in the UK and the US)

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Part I

  1. Christine

  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

  Part II

  16. Jessica

  17. Rachel

  18. Jessica

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Part III

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Part IV

  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

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Epilogue

  The Wife Before Me

  Hear More from Laura

  Books by Laura Elliot

  A Letter from Laura

  The Silent House

  The Thorn Girl

  Guilty

  Sleep Sister

  The Betrayal

  The Prodigal Sister

  Stolen Child

  Fragile Lies

  Acknowledgements

  *

  After the Wedding is dedicated to my circle of family and friends. To those who enrich my life with love, laughter, music, song, food and good conversation, thank you one and all.

  PROLOGUE

  Everyone said Christine was the prettiest flower girl, ever. More beautiful even than the bride but, shush, that was a secret, a finger to their lips when they told her. She looked like a princess, with sparkly shoes and a lacy, purple dress with petticoats. Now, her flower-girl dress lies on the floor. It’s wet and torn, and her shoes are lost.

  ‘Tell us – what happened to you?’ They keep asking her the same question over and over. They don’t say cross words about her dress, even though it’s ruined from the river. Instead, they tell her: ‘You fell into the river, Christine, darling, but you’re safe now with Mammy and Daddy.’

  The doctor gives her an injection. It hurts but not for long. He says she now has the cleanest lungs in all of Dorset. He puts ointment on the big cut on her forehead and tells her to stay away from rivers in future.

  ‘Where did you go?’ Daddy asks her again. Tell us… tell us… tell us. His forehead is wrinkly and there’s red all around his eyes. Mammy’s cheeks are black from the mascara and she’s no longer wearing her floppy wedding hat.

  Sharon comes into the bedroom and says, ‘Oh, my lambkin, what a fright you gave us.’ She has taken off her wedding dress and is wearing a yellow one with ruffles that flounce. She doesn’t look happy anymore. Not the way she did when Christine was scattering petals all along the aisle to make a carpet of love for her to walk over.

  Tell us… tell us… They won’t stop asking about the river. When she falls asleep, Christine sees it leaping and roaring. But that’s okay because she’s wrapped tight in Mammy’s arms and the dream is gone when she awakens.

  She remembers running through the rose garden. Red roses everywhere, not like the petals she scattered for Sharon – they were antique-gold petals, like her wedding dress. Christine scattered them all along the aisle of the church. Everyone turned to look at her. They were all adults because Sharon didn’t want children at her wedding. ‘Only you, my little flower girl,’ she’d said. ‘You have the most important task of all to do.’

  No one noticed her anymore when they reached the hotel. It was just like a really posh castle with suits of armour standing inside the entrance and swords criss-crossed on the walls. Everyone went out into the rose garden and held glasses with long stems. They talked… talked… talked. The sun dazzled her eyes. It would dance in the sky if she stared at it for too long. Then she would go blind. The grown-ups didn’t notice when she pulled one of the roses apart. She watched the petals fly away on the breeze. She pulled the petals from another rose, then another. Grumpy, old Great-uncle Ned frowned so hard she ran away.

  That’s all… that’s all… She tries hard to please Mammy and Daddy but she can’t think of anything else except the hole in the wall at the end of the rose garden. Two steps up and two steps down into the meadow. It was filled with buttercups that reached up to her knees. She could see a real castle on a hill. It was old and scary, just walls with holes that looked like eyes watching her. She turned the other way and the long grass swished against her flower-girl dress as she ran… and ran.

  But that’s a memory that comes like a dream and flies away from her again.

  All she can see are the roses. Big, thorny roses with their droopy heads and the red petals spilling like drops of blood to the ground.

  PART 1

  ONE

  CHRISTINE

  She has a feeling about Jessica from the beginning. Unsettling – that is the only word Christine can use to define the sensation that affects her whenever she leaves her office and enters Foundation Stone’s central hub with its circle of work stations and small, private alcoves, its bucket armchairs, coffee bar, storyboards and flat screens. Jessica is usually on her laptop, fingers flying over the keyboard, her attention on the screen. She wears her hair loose, streaks of red highlighting the sleek brown strands. Sometimes she ties it in a ponytail, which accentuates her cheekbones. She is beautiful but Christine, who has been working in advertising for ten years, is accustomed to beauty and its allure. However, she is not immune to its impact. Like a perfect painting or the streaks of a flame-hued sunset, beauty will always quicken her heartbeat and it is this same sensation, only sharper, and almost disconcerting, that she experiences when her gaze settles on Jessica.

  Christine shakes herself, as if awakening from a reverie, and hurries back to the quietness of her own office.

  Jessica looks younger than she remembers from the interview: more like a teenager than a woman in her mid-twenties
. Her hair was in a chignon then, a sophisticated style that she wore with confidence as she sat upright but relaxed on a high-backed chair, her legs together, her hands cupped primly on her lap as she faced Christine and her husband, Richard Stone. Jessica’s reference from the editor of the celebrity magazine Zing was excellent, and her knowledge of digital marketing, especially her awareness of the reach of social media, was impressive enough for Richard to nudge Christine discreetly with his elbow to signal his approval. Had she been aware of her uneasiness then? She and Richard had been interviewing all day and Jessica came to them in the late afternoon. If she had experienced any disquiet, it was forgotten when she agreed with Richard that Jessica Newman was the most suitable candidate for the position of copywriter. Since then, she has become part of the competitive, argumentative and flamboyant team that has made Foundation Stone one of the most successful advertising agencies in Dublin.

  Christine tries to analyse her reaction to their newest employee. Is she afraid Richard will be attracted to her? Is it something as simple as jealousy? Christine shakes this thought off and wonders if, at the age of thirty-five, she is becoming attracted to women or, in particular, to one woman? This possibility is also dismissed. She is as confident in her sexuality as she is in her marriage. One possibility is that Jessica reminds her of someone. She has no idea who that could be yet there is something transfixing about her – tantalising, even. Christine feels as if she is on the verge of making this connection yet it continues to elude her.

  She must stop watching her. It seems voyeuristic, unworthy of her, but denying her fixation only adds to her awareness of the younger woman’s presence. This constant preoccupation could become irritating: an itch that can’t be scratched, which is an unpleasant comparison to make but that is what it is beginning to feel like as the first month of Jessica’s presence at the agency draws to a close.

  Christine considers firing her. A performance assessment will be coming up at the end of the second month. Richard will carry it out but a few hints from Christine could shape the result. But what hints, what reasons can she possible give him to justify firing Jessica? How can she explain to him that Jessica Newman is no longer a suitable employee because she causes Christine’s heart to tremble?

  TWO

  The tide is high on the Liffey as Christine crosses over the Ha’penny Bridge and a gusting October wind forces her to hold onto the brim of her hat. She has booked a table for two at Mira’s Restaurant in the Italian quarter and is the first to arrive.

  Seated by the window, she watches Amy hurrying as fast as it is possible to do with a three-month-old baby in a sling. Making time for Amy is important. Christine’s friendships have dwindled in recent years as more of her friends marry and become mothers. Apart from Amy, she has let them go. She is too busy with her career to pretend to be interested in the merits of breastfeeding or the agonies of that first tooth forcing its way through tender gums.

  Amy arrives with a breathless explanation about a delay at the Rotunda Hospital where Daniel was undergoing a test for something or other. Christine’s ignorance about baby matters is profound. Daniel remains undisturbed as his mother unwraps various straps from around her body, and then holds him out to be admired.

  Christine coos and gurgles at him, a procedure that fixes her face in a rictus-like smile. She doesn’t dislike babies. She enjoys them when they belong to other people, and is convinced that they must abhor the nonsensical sounds and expressions adults force upon them until they are old enough to be treated normally.

  ‘How’s life with New Girl?’ Amy asks, after the waitress has departed with their orders. ‘Do you like her any better?’

  ‘I never said I disliked her.’

  ‘Sounds like it, from what you’ve told me over the phone.’

  ‘She disturbs me, but it’s hard to dislike her. I can’t put my finger on it. Just when I think I’ve become used to having her around she triggers this uneasy feeling in me again. It’s as if I’ve seen her before but can’t remember where.’

  ‘What does she look like?’

  ‘She’s… oh… I guess she’s beautiful.’

  ‘Beauty is nothing new in the great dream factory.’

  ‘True enough.’ Christine often wonders how she gravitated towards an industry that is based on illusion. If she hadn’t met Richard and been introduced to a world where imagination has the ability to conjure a different reality, she would never have appreciated the creativity necessary to lift a product from the mundane into a must-buy brand. Richard’s vision and her hard-headed financial acumen, they are the perfect business partnership.

  ‘You were saying…’ Amy is waiting for a response.

  There is nothing illusionary about Jessica, yet Christine finds it hard to describe her. Eyes, green, framed by dark, sweeping eyelashes; a perfect nose; and lips that are full yet not excessive enough to take from the symmetry of her face. Her skin is flawless, her legs long and shapely, her figure in proportion. She is like a self-assembly kit with no screws left over at the end of construction.

  Amy laughs at this description and when their food arrives, she returns to the subject of Jessica. ‘It’s unlike you to be insecure. Are you sure that feeling is not related to Richard?’

  ‘I’m not insecure. And if you’re suggesting I’ve something to worry about with Richard—’

  ‘No… no,’ – Amy backtracks quickly – ‘I know you’ve nothing to worry about there. But could she be attracted to him?’

  ‘They work closely together but it’s professional. I’d know immediately if it was otherwise.’

  ‘How can you tell?’

  ‘Antennae alert. I always trust it.’

  Amy sighs. ‘I’m so busy wiping off dribble that Jonathan could be keeping a harem and I wouldn’t know a thing about it.’ She says it cheerfully and draws her scarf around her shoulders as Daniel stirs, his lips puckering.

  Christine looks away as her friend unbuttons her blouse. She should be used to it by now. Daniel is Amy’s third baby in four years and her friend has been breastfeeding for what seems to Christine like an eternity. ‘I feel as if I know her, which isn’t possible because we never met until I interviewed her.’

  ‘Maybe you knew her in another lifetime?’

  ‘Other lifetimes don’t exist.’

  ‘So you keep saying. But what do we really know about the dimensions beyond this one? I read a book recently. I’ll email the title to you. You really should read it and broaden your horizons.’ Amy insists there is more to life than the mortal coil they occupy. She reads tarot cards, studies the energy of chakras and has an angel who comforts her during night feeds. She will email the title of the book to Christine, who will promise to buy it then forget to do so.

  They part amicably. For once, Amy has not warned Christine about the tick-tock of her biological clock. For that reason, she is hugged tightly before she straps her baby in front of her and transforms him into a contented joey.

  The restaurants and sandwich bars on Temple Bar are quieter after the lunchtime rush when Christine returns to the agency. She loves this part of the city with its cobbled streets and old buildings. Foundation Stone sits between an art gallery and a bar that specialises in craft beers. No matter how often she studies the brass plate on the exterior wall with Foundation Stone Advertising Agency engraved on it, she feels a swell of pride when she thinks about everything that she and Richard have achieved since they met.

  Eleven years previously, Christine had been travelling home from work when the train stopped shortly after leaving Connolly station. Passengers had muttered and checked their watches when ten minutes passed and no announcement had been made to explain the delay. Christine shrugged resignedly at the man sitting opposite her when a crackling explanation was finally heard.

  ‘Did you understand one word he said?’ she asked.

  ‘I’ve learned to interpret “tannoy”.’ He grinned back at her. ‘It happens if you travel regularly on the 5.
30 to Glencone. We should be moving again in another five minutes.’

  ‘You must be quite a linguist, then.’

  ‘A modest one,’ he replied. ‘You’re a new learner. You’ll pick it up soon enough.’

  ‘What makes you think I’m a new learner?’

  ‘I recognise you from the station in the mornings. The 7.35 express to Connelly but only recently. You’re a newbie to Glencone. Am I right?’

  She nodded and laughed with him. To be observed yet be unaware of someone else’s scrutiny could be unnerving, but on that occasion, she found it flattering.

  By the time the train was moving again they were talking animatedly. He was an only child whose mother had died two years previously. Glencone seed and breed, he said, unlike Christine, who had only recently moved there. Its distance from the centre of the city had made her apartment affordable, but she was still trying to adjust to the quietness of the small, coastal village.