The Stranger in Our Bed Read online

  The Stranger in Our Bed

  SAMANTHA LEE HOWE

  One More Chapter

  an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain in ebook format by HarperCollinsPublishers 2020

  Copyright © Samantha Lee Howe 2020

  Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2020

  Cover photograph © Shutterstock.com

  Samantha Lee Howe asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

  Ebook Edition © February 2020 ISBN: 9780008374570

  Version: 2020-01-23

  For Ayshea,

  Friend, adviser and cheerleader.

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Based on a true story

  About the Author

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  The rain fell in big fat droplets and poured down into my eyes. My hair was plastered to my head – blonde turned into dirty wet streaks that clung to my cheeks. I’d been here before, another time, another moment of betrayal and sadness. Déjà vu. Fear sank down into the pit of my stomach. I was drowning in the endless possibilities of ‘future’. What about my daughter? So small, so helpless, so alone.

  Oh God! Melody. She was in the house …

  I wanted to run, make sure Melody was all right, but I couldn’t move. My limbs were frozen, my whole body weak. I might have been suffering from shock – and no surprise.

  I ran my hand over my face, clearing the water from my eyes. And then my fingers touched the sore sticky wound on my forehead and I found myself staring at the red stain on my palm. The rain eroded the blood, as though it could wash away the evidence of my crime.

  I was standing on a precipice, swaying slightly. I closed my eyes, blocking out the sight of the hole in the ground at my feet. Nothing moved. I didn’t want to look down at the picture of death below, even though I was responsible for it, but the shape of the body crumpled in the void was still visible behind my eyes. I shook my head, trying to dispel the unwelcome thought along with the guilt I carried.

  When did this all start? How had my life taken this terrible turn?

  The shovel weighed heavy in my hand, a presence in its own right, further evidence of my guilt. Like the horror of my situation, the shovel’s weight was too much to bear; I dropped it down beside the makeshift grave.

  Like a guilty child whose hand is caught in the cookie jar, I wiped my soiled palm on the leg of my sodden jeans.

  There was nowhere to run, and no escape from the truth.

  I jumped as I heard a distant, persistent wail. Sirens approached. The screeching grew louder.

  I opened my eyes and lights came on in the big house behind me. The back door stood open. My only witness was framed in the glare of the kitchen light, blurred by the slicing rainstorm.

  I turned to look beyond the house, facing the rain. It blinded me, as did the flashing blue light that pierced through the trees lining the long driveway.

  The sirens dropped off, but lights still flickered above two police cars. In the house, I thought I heard Melody crying. And then, my legs began to work.

  Unaware of the black shape slowly getting to its feet in the pit behind me, I started to walk towards the first police car.

  Chapter One

  Two Years Earlier

  I woke early. My husband, Tom, was still sleeping. It was 5.30 a.m. and I usually slept through until Tom’s alarm went off at 7.30. I listened to the sounds of our home. There was nothing unusual, yet something had woken me. My mind was fully alert, like a light switch had been turned on. I lay on my side, watching Tom’s handsome face. He looked so young when he slept. It was hard to imagine him as the CEO of the conglomerate that was Carlisle Corp.

  We’d met at university, ten years earlier. We’d both been studying law at Oxford. Tom was focusing on corporate law, already preparing for the day when he would take over the family business. I’d been studying corporate law too and I had ambitions for the future, but unlike Tom I’d had to work in a bar to help fund my education, and relied heavily on my student loans and any bursaries I could apply for.

  I turned over and trying not to disturb Tom I got out of bed. But as I took my first step an overwhelming bout of nausea came over me. No longer trying to be quiet I ran into the bathroom, and vomited into the toilet bowl. When the sickness subsided, I brushed my teeth and looked at the yellow pallor of my skin in the mirror. I felt terrible. Perhaps I had come down with some bug?

  ‘Char?’ said Tom from the bedroom. ‘Are you all right?’

  I couldn’t believe my luck when he asked me out for the first time. For a while I didn’t trust we could have a relationship, we were too different. But when we finished our education, Tom asked me to marry him, and the future I’d planned for myself changed.

  Soon after our wedding, Tom’s father, Conrad Carlisle, succumbed to the cancer that had been eating away at him for years. Tom hadn’t exp
ected me to work after that.

  ‘I need your support, Char,’ he’d said. ‘I’m going to be working long hours at first. If you take a job too, then we’ll never see each other. Besides, you don’t need to work. I’ll give you everything you need.’

  It was an odd notion after all of my motivations and hard work, but the whirlwind of our life soon took away any thought of finding my own place in a law firm. I became a housewife instead.

  ‘Char?’ Tom called again.

  A crushing sense of gratitude warmed by stomach. Had the upset from the previous night affected me so much that it had made me sick? Tom sounded like his usual caring self. I was relieved to hear that love and warmth back in his voice. The argument had been so ridiculous. So … unnecessary.

  ‘I’m fine. Maybe got a bug,’ I said.

  ‘Bug my arse,’ Tom said, coming into the bathroom.

  ‘What?’ I was immediately on the defensive.

  ‘When was your period?’ he smiled.

  ‘Period? No … just because I was sick doesn’t mean …’

  ‘Reckon we did the job on our anniversary trip …’ he said. ‘I’d hoped at least! But looks like we did.’

  ‘Well it’s probably too early to know. That was only …’ It was then I realized that more than a month had passed, and my period was late. By about two weeks.

  ‘I’ll ring Mother. She’ll be so happy!’ Tom said.

  ‘Darling, can’t we wait a bit? Just to be sure,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t be silly! We don’t have to keep this a secret from Mother.’

  ***

  Isadora Carlisle arrived an hour later with a small pharmacy package, which she passed to me.

  ‘Tom called on his way to work. Let’s see if he’s right, shall we?’ Isadora said. ‘You need to hold it under the flow of your pee.’

  As usual she was treating me as though I didn’t have the intelligence to read instructions for myself.

  I went into the bathroom, closing the door behind me, then unpacked the pregnancy test and read the instructions.

  ‘I’m sure it’s way too early to tell,’ I said.

  ‘No. These days they can tell even if you’re just a few days along,’ Isadora said from the hallway. ‘So useful!’

  She was right, of course; the test said it could work up to six days before your period was even due.

  After peeing on the wand, I stared at the indicator. The test said one blue line meant ‘no’, two blue lines was ‘yes’.

  ‘Let me in,’ said Isadora.

  I opened the bathroom door and held out the test. ‘It says …’

  ‘Pregnant!’ Isadora grew very quiet and thoughtful. She didn’t throw her arms around me, or start to congratulate me, she merely smiled. A kind of satisfied expression. As though she was just getting the answer she had expected all along.

  ‘That’s very good then,’ she said.

  I half-smiled, but then my mood plummeted. Was I really ready for motherhood? The thought was terrifying.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ Isadora said. ‘You see, Charlotte dear, you remind me a lot of myself at your age.’

  I sat down on the edge of the bed and stared back at her with the blankest expression I could muster. There was nothing similar about us at all. She was happy about the prospect of a future grandchild and I was a mixture of unexplainable emotions. Perhaps this self-doubt, the fear, the slight tingle of excitement was perfectly normal, I didn’t know, but they were also accompanied by a consuming loss of control. And something else at the back of my mind, a name I had told myself to forget: Ewan Daniels.

  ‘This will settle things permanently for you both,’ Isadora said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It’s just … it’s a final commitment. Having a baby …’

  ‘Isadora, we are committed. We’re married.’

  ‘Oh, yes. I know. But you know what I mean … you’ll be a family now. Not just a couple. This is grown-up. This is, well, it’s the future CEO of Carlisle Corp you have in there. Isn’t it?’

  And then she peered at me intently as though she expected me to say otherwise. I was confused by this silent enquiry.

  ‘I hadn’t thought of it that way …’

  ‘Well, I’ll get on to finding you the best doctor and private midwife service. And of course the best hospital.’

  ‘That’s usually decided by your local GP,’ I said.

  ‘Not for people like us, dear. We have to have the best.’

  And then it really sank in. I was growing tired of not being listened to. The only trouble was, I couldn’t blame Isadora or Tom for any of it. I had caused this by not standing up for myself when it was too easy to just accept another person’s decision.

  Like the bedding I’d bought months ago that had caused such a row the night before. I couldn’t make any sense of Tom’s angry outburst. It was so over the top and out of character. Tom was usually so calm.

  I asked Isadora to leave me, explaining that I didn’t feel too well. She was sympathetic, but still took it upon herself to call Tom and confirm his suspicions. I couldn’t hear everything he said to her on her mobile phone, but I heard the pleasure and excitement in his voice.

  ‘We’re so happy,’ Isadora said before leaving. ‘Rest up, Charlotte dear. The morning sickness won’t last long. I’ll get you booked in with a private doctor as soon as possible.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said.

  She let herself out and I went back to bed and lay, eyes open, staring at the ceiling. They would control every decision that needed to be made as they always had.

  ***

  By the afternoon, the initial sickness abated and I got up, dressed and went out. I was sick of being predictable. I thought I ought to at least start to put things into place that I wanted to happen. This child might be a Carlisle but it was also my child and I would have a say. I don’t know what came over me.

  I found a note on the kitchen notice board from Tom, reminding me to return the purple satin bedding that he’d disliked so much. At least that would give me something to do. I folded the bed linen neatly, squeezing them back into the original packaging. There was no need to search out the receipt, my account would show the purchase, and so I placed all of the items into a large canvas bag.

  I didn’t feel like travelling on the tube with all of these things just in case the sickness returned, so I took a cab to Harrods.

  ‘Morning Mrs Carlisle,’ the store doorman said. ‘Let me get someone to help you with that …’

  A few moments later two shop assistants arrived and took the bag from me.

  ‘I’m afraid I have to return this,’ I told the first assistant, a different girl to the one who had originally served me. ‘My husband … doesn’t like it.’

  She processed the refund without protest. I was a good customer in the store, and so was my mother-in-law. As I waited for the refund receipt, I felt the hairs prickle on the back of my neck. I turned around with a feeling of déjà vu. A tall man stood behind me, so close I could reach out and touch him. It was Ewan Daniels. A shiver of something like excitement ran along my spine, as if I had been waiting for him to appear.

  ‘Charlotte,’ he said, as though my presence there surprised him. ‘I thought I might never see you again …’

  That was the third time I’d met Ewan by accident; it appeared it was becoming a habit.

  Chapter Two

  We went for coffee in a local café.

  Ewan looked well, but I was sure I didn’t look very good at all. I hadn’t bothered with make-up or made the usual effort I made whenever I went shopping – just in case I bumped into one of the other wives, or Isadora’s friends.

  ‘I’ve often thought of you since our meal out,’ Ewan said.

  I smiled but didn’t admit that I had thought about him too. More often than I should have. He was not as handsome as Tom, but Ewan had a boyish charm that was attractive. There was something very unassuming and modest about the m
an. His colouring was the opposite of Tom’s; Ewan had sandy blond hair and blue eyes, and Tom was dark-haired with brown eyes. They couldn’t have been more different in looks and personality. But I found myself liking Ewan, far more than a married woman should like another man.

  For that reason, I still held a residual guilt about our previous meeting.

  ‘How are you doing?’ Ewan asked. ‘Was the rest of your trip successful?’

  Successful, for a holiday, was an odd thing to say but I caught his meaning.

  ‘Yes. We had fun,’ I said. ‘The northern lights were lovely.’

  Ewan nodded. ‘And your husband enjoyed it too?’

  ‘I think so. Tom … finds it difficult to switch off sometimes. From work I mean. But yes, he enjoyed the trip.’

  Ewan smiled. ‘That’s good then.’

  I sipped my coffee to hide a moment of awkwardness at discussing Tom with Ewan.

  ‘I’m glad I was able to keep you company before he arrived that day,’ Ewan said.

  At his words I had a flash of memory about our previous meetings.

  Ewan had been in Harrods the day I found the purple satin bedding. We’d struck up a conversation and he’d bought the same bedding. A few days later I found myself in his company in Reykjavik. I’d let him take me to dinner because Tom had been delayed by a problem at work and had yet to join me in Iceland.

  I’d thought it quite a coincidence meeting the man again, but he had been kind, and his behaviour offered friendship and nothing more and so I’d agreed.

  I took a sip of coffee now with a shaking hand. As I caught his eye I found myself talking, my words falling out in a rush. At that moment I understood just how much I needed a friend. ‘It was very nice of you,’ I said. ‘I was quite … lonely.’

  I burst into tears then. I couldn’t believe I had admitted to a virtual stranger that I felt this way. It was unfathomable and embarrassing. Ewan, far from being surprised or shocked, took my hand and held it. He handed me a linen handkerchief from his pocket, and I mopped up the flow of tears with a sigh of utter exhaustion.

  ‘Would you like to talk about it?’ he asked when I finally fell quiet.

  ‘It’s silly. Probably hormones. You see, I just found out that I’m pregnant.’