The next morning I wake early. I slept deeply and now every muscle in my body aches, torn and battered from hours of stress and exertion. I rise and make myself a hot chocolate. I need the sugar. I need the warmth.
At five past seven I call Mark’s mobile again.
“Mark, it’s Erin. I’m not sure what’s up. I’m getting a bit worried now, so can you call me please?” I hang up.
I go to the living room and light the fire. I’m staying in today. All day.
I check the Swiss account. Two million euros went in yesterday morning. He must have planned to transfer it all over to his new account after the handover. But I do notice around £800,000 is missing from the account. I do not find it in Mark’s savings account. I do not find it in his current account. It must already be nestling in his Swiss account, somewhere out there, God knows where. There’s no way to find out now. But so much the better for my current purposes.
Now that I think about it, it all fits perfectly. The story of Mark will hang together nicely.
Mark has been asking around about a client wanting to shift diamonds, a client needing help with certain assets. It will look suspicious. It will. Which is ideal. My husband has stumbled into something he shouldn’t have and run away. Or something worse has happened. Perhaps he got involved with the wrong people. We’ll never know. They will look, the police, but they will never find anything.
There are three stages in documentary filmmaking, and they are: research and preparation, patience while the narrative unfolds, and, finally and arguably most important, editing your footage to create a lucid and compelling narrative. I know life isn’t a documentary—but if the process works, then why not use it? And believe me, this story is not a story I ever wanted to tell, but here I am; this is what I have to work with and this is the narrative I have chosen. And it’s a narrative I’m sure the police will buy into.
In his online bank account I see he took out three hundred pounds from the cash point near our house after he got back from New York. It’s the largest cash withdrawal you can make. My guess is he hailed a cab to take him all the way up to Norfolk—he knew where I was because of my phone, or because of Patrick. Patrick was following me; he followed me up to Norfolk. He texted Mark to let him know but he must have been in the air by then. Mark would have known I was there even without turning on the find-my-phone app.
Patrick is the bit I can’t understand. I’m not sure who killed Patrick and left him crumpled in the woods. Mark or the tall man? Perhaps Mark met up with Patrick after Patrick had attacked me at the hotel, maybe that’s when Mark collected my rucksack, phone, and gun. Maybe that’s when Mark slit his throat? I found the knife in some leaves near the body and buried it with them both. Perhaps Mark didn’t want to risk having to share his earnings? Or perhaps the tall man killed Patrick? Maybe Patrick heard the gunshots, came to investigate, but ran into the man as he left. Too close to the road to fire his gun, perhaps the tall man cut Patrick’s throat and let him bleed out onto the leaves.
Either way, Patrick is hard evidence of what kind of man I married. I can’t quite believe Mark did what he did: having me followed, terrifying me, making me doubt myself. Hiring Patrick to attack and rob me. And now they’re both dead.
I’ve been trying to pin down the exact moment it all changed between Mark and me. But maybe Mark never trusted me. It’s funny: the more I question his reasons for betraying me, the clearer his story becomes. To the extent that it shocks me I didn’t see this entire thing coming. How could I not have noticed? But I was so happy; I loved him so much.
As I tidied the house I kept replaying an argument we had two months ago, after our wedding menu tasting. The worst argument we ever had. I’ve tried to forget that argument, what he said that day. I nearly had. I chalked it up at the time to stress, to fear after he lost his job. But now I wonder if that is when all this really started.
I remember I didn’t know what to do to absorb his fury at me. Everything was going wrong that day. And there was nothing I could do to fix it.
I remember him shouting at me—my heart skipping a beat in my chest. I remember thinking Mark has gone, just like that, and someone else is standing in my living room. My breathing was shallow and I remember such a strong feeling of being alone. Completely alone. I told myself not to cry, to be strong. That it wasn’t his fault. That it was probably mine. But I remember feeling the sharp prickle of tears behind my eyes. He looked at me then, like a stranger, and turned away.
“I can’t believe you just said that, Mark,” I had said.
But now, of course, it makes perfect sense.
Nothing links Mark to Norfolk. Good luck to the police trying to track the cabbie down who drove Mark all the way to Norfolk, especially when they don’t know he even took a cab anywhere. As far as they can ever find out, Mark got off his flight at Heathrow, cabbed home, and then took money from the cash machine and vanished. He never called me; he never saw me. His last text simply said he knew where I was and that he’d see me later and then he disappeared.
And while all this was happening I was in Norfolk. I have credit card receipts. Witnesses. The hotel receptionist can even vouch for my head wound, a slip in the bathroom. I am safe.
I back up all the files I want to keep from my laptop onto a hard drive. Eddie’s sending someone to wipe my computers and reinstall after lunch.
I cancel the impending payment from the Swiss account into my account. I’ll stay away from it until everything is done.
An hour and a half after the first call of the day, I call Mark again.
“Mark. Where are you? Call me, please. I’ve checked your flights and there weren’t any delays. Did you miss your flight, honey? Getting really worried, can you call me? I’m going to call the airline and check now.” I hang up. I call BA. They, of course, confirm he made the flight.
So where is Mark?
I call Mark’s parents. I have to hang up the first time around, when his mum answers, and run to the toilet to vomit bile into the bowl. The second time around I manage to hold it together.
“Hi, Susan. Yes, yes, it is. Hi, hi. Um, strange question, Susan, but have you heard from Mark?”
I explain the New York business trip and how he was definitely on the flight home but that he hasn’t turned up today. She sounds slightly concerned but assures me he’ll turn up. He’s probably lost his phone or he’s got a work thing on. That gives me an idea.
I call Hector. He’s been spending so much time with Mark that it seems appropriate to check in with him next.
Hector hasn’t heard from him either.
“So the last time you saw him was the weekend?” I ask.
Silence from the other end. And then Hector says something I wasn’t expecting at all.
“Erin, I haven’t seen Mark since your wedding.” He sounds bewildered. And for the first time since what happened in Norfolk, I feel genuinely surprised.
Where the fuck was Mark going all those days he said he was meeting Hector? Checking in with Patrick? Setting up his new life in New York?
“He hasn’t called you about work?” I ask.
“Um, no, no. Has he found something new?” he asks, cheered by the apparent change of subject. Perhaps he suspects Mark has been cheating on me and using him as an excuse. Who knows? But it’s clear Mark wasn’t setting up a business with him. Good. I can use that. I move on.
One last call.
“Mark. I don’t know if you’re listening to these but no one knows where you are. I just spoke to Hector and he says he hasn’t seen you since the wedding. He doesn’t know anything about a new business. What the fuck is going on? I need you to call me, please. I am freaking out here. Call me.” I hang up. The trail has been laid. My husband has run off.
Tomorrow morning I will call the police.