The Man She Married (ARC) Read online

  * * *

  My next two dates are an abject failure. The first girl has the most terrible onion breath and I slip off to the toilets and leave the pub via a fire door. The second has nothing to say for herself – even Jilly’s prattling about her friends would be preferable – and sits there expecting me to do all the conversational donkey work while she plays constantly with her phone. When the fact that I’m in finance filters through the wall of self-absorption, she asks me if I would be able to help her with her tax return. I weigh up this option. She’s attractive enough from the waist up, but her online photos failed to disclose heavy thighs and thick ankles. So I give the date up as a bad job, feigning a plumbing emergency back in my flat and leaving after one drink.

  During these two disasters, I’ve been chatting online to a girl called Holly, and I know as soon as she walks into the hotel bar where we’ve arranged to meet that she represents a more intriguing prospect. She says she trained as a lawyer; and she’s smart and sharp-tongued, on top of being slim and attractive. She has a lot of wavy, strawberry-blonde hair and pretty blue eyes. She also has an annoying high-pitched laugh, like a dingo barking, but I’m undeniably attracted to her, and I can tell from her body language that it’s mutual.

  We meet in the Hyatt Harbourside bar and enjoy several cocktails and a flirty chat.

  ‘So what are you looking for?’ she asks me, glancing up from under her lashes, bunching her curvy lips around the straw in her Mai Tai.

  ‘That special someone,’ I lie.

  ‘That can’t be too hard, surely?’ she says, crossing one leg over the other so that I get a good look at her long, muscled thigh. ‘Good-looking, successful bloke like you.’

  ‘You’d be surprised,’ I smile, thinking of Onion Breath and Tax Return.

  ‘So what’s the problem?’ Holly teases the straw with her tongue. ‘You shit in bed or what?’

  She doesn’t pull her punches, this girl. She’s direct. So I decide to be just as direct back. ‘No, I’m great in bed. It’s more a matter of having a demanding job and hardly any free time.’

  ‘I see.’ She smiles, but does not elaborate.

  ‘How about we go back to your place?’ I ask.

  She shakes her head firmly. ‘My flatmate’s having a dinner party tonight. It would… you know… it would be a little awkward. Another time, maybe.’

  I’m not about to break my golden rule and offer to take her back to mine. That would risk my anonymity, and be a potential disaster for so many reasons. I’ll only take a girl back to the apartment if I know I can trust her and I’m sure there’s some long-term mileage. Then I have an idea.

  ‘Excuse me one second: just going to the little boys’ room.’

  I go out to Reception and queue behind a group of slow-moving Japanese tourists, until a clerk comes and opens up a second desk and waves me over. ‘How can I help you, sir?’

  ‘I’d like to book a room.’

  ‘We’re pretty full…’ He scrolls through his screen. ‘I have a junior suite available, at $489?’

  I hand over my corporate credit card and take the key card from him.

  ‘Any luggage we can assist you with?’

  I shake my head, hurrying back to the bar. When I get there, Holly has asked for the bill.

  ‘I guess I ought to get going,’ she says, but she makes no attempt to pay, instead waiting for me to pull out my wallet. ‘I told my flatmate I’d come back and join the dinner party.’

  I turn the key card around in my trouser pocket. ‘Surely there’s time for one more? Look: my company has a room that we booked for a client and no longer need because he’s flown out of Sydney after all. Why don’t we go up there and have a quick nightcap? The view over the Opera House is stunning.’ I’m making this up, but I’m assuming that since it’s a suite, it will at the very least have a harbour view.

  Holly weighs this up. ‘Just a quick one for the road?’

  ‘Sure.’

  She follows me to the lift. Her body language is emitting interest and she subtly shifts her body towards me. I rest a hand on her waist, and she does not resist, instead giving me a flirtatious smile.

  ‘Oh, wow – look at the view,’ she says as I unlock the door. ‘No more drink for me, though, I need a clear head.’

  I raise my eyebrows but say nothing, slamming open the door of the minibar and draining a miniature of whisky in one go. The view is indeed impressive and Holly stands in the floor-to-ceiling window admiring it for all of twenty seconds before turning round.

  ‘So, it’ll be four hundred dollars for an hour, a grand if you want me to stay overnight.’

  I stare at her. ‘You’re a hooker?’

  She gives one of her honking laughs. ‘I prefer “escort”.’

  ‘I thought you said you were a lawyer?’

  ‘I did train in law, yes, but doing this I can make nearly the same money for far fewer hours.’

  I’ve been had. People are always telling me that a lot of women on dating sites are pros, but I didn’t really believe them. It’s never happened to me. Until now.

  ‘Now, hold on a minute, I never said anything about money.’ I pull her large bag from her shoulder and toss it on the sofa. Then I back her towards the window and pin her against it, yanking up her skirt. ‘I’ve never paid for it in my life, and I’m not about to start now. This is what you lawyers call misrepresentation.’

  ‘No,’ she says angrily. ‘Not without the cash.’

  She struggles against me, and I feel the blood coursing through my body, ringing in my ears. I’m looking at Holly, but I can’t see her. I can’t see anything. I’m angry with her but also incredibly aroused, my breath coming in deep gusts. Then there’s a sharp pain as she digs her long fingernails into my right wrist. I pull my left hand back and slap her, hard. I grab her neck, closing both hands around her throat, but she’s strong and quick. She ducks out of my grasp, grabbing her bag and running to the door.

  ‘Fuck’s sake!’ she snarls, as she wrenches it open. ‘What’s wrong with you; you psycho? Men like you want locking up!’

  Nineteen

  Ben

  Then

  I have several different dating apps on my phone and rotate between them.

  The one I use most is Furnace. It’s a commonplace, heteronormative swipe-right-for-yes site. The other one I tend to use is Plungepool, a site which attracts a more elite membership but where women have to green light any contact. They have to make the first approach for a convo to happen. Only then can a man start talking to a girl he has potentially selected. Gives the chicks the impression they’re in control.

  I met Holly on Furnace. I don’t expect to hear from her again after her little outburst, so I boot up the app to start chatting to some new candidates. Only I can’t login. An error message keeps coming up, saying that my access is denied. Then I receive an email from the administrators informing me that my account has been terminated following a complaint of inappropriate behaviour. I try texting Holly, but she’s blocked my number.

  This is annoying because Furnace gets the most traffic, and that’s where I meet the most women. But I log onto Plungepool, and, sure enough, within a few hours, I get a message from a girl called Corinne. She has platinum blonde hair cut into a bob, freckles and a good line in playful banter. She seems fun.

  After a couple of days of messaging with ever-increasing frequency, we arrange to meet. I’m busy at work and don’t have time to come up with anywhere new, so I suggest the Hyatt again, and Corinne agrees.

  She’s waiting for me in the bar when I arrive, and I immediately notice the tattoos, which were not showing in her photo. I’m not a big fan of tattoos. Also, she’s a lot shorter than I was expecting, bordering on dumpy. And she’s not smiling.

  ‘So, here you are in the flesh,’ she says drily. ‘At least your photos were honest.’

  I cock my head to one side slightly to indicate that I’m not sure what she means.

  ‘And, tell
me, have you booked us a room?’

  I can feel my face colour slightly, but outwardly I stay cool. ‘Why would I do that? It would be a bit presumptuous, wouldn’t it?’

  And now I’m here, I don’t really fancy you anyway, I think.

  I perch on the edge of a chair and pick up the drinks menu, looking around me for a waiter I can flag down. One drink and I’m out of here.

  ‘Heard of a girl called Holly?’ she asks. Her tone is waspish.

  My head jerks up from the menu. ‘You know her?’ I ask without thinking, then realise this was probably a mistake.

  She smiles. ‘Not personally. She’s on Plungepool too. There’s a community message board, just for the female users, a place for them to compare experiences and warn each other about creeps. She posted about you on there. Said you got her up to a hotel room and then assaulted her.’

  ‘Now, hang on!’ I say hotly. ‘That’s a bit of an exaggeration. She was only too happy to flirt with me, and she came up to the room voluntarily. I didn’t make her. I rightly assumed she was up for sex – why wouldn’t I, once she’d confessed to being a hooker?’

  A waiter approaches, but I wave him away and stand up again.

  ‘So why are you here, Corinne? Really?’

  ‘I’m just here to deliver a warning… to stay off dating apps. Not that you’ll be getting many matches from now on. Oh, and in case you don’t take me seriously, a copy of the chatroom thread has been downloaded ready to forward to the local cop shop.’

  I turn on my heel and walk out without a word. Back in my apartment, still tense with rage, I try to log into Plungepool. Sure enough, I’ve been booted off that site as well. The bloody sisterhood strikes again.

  It’s okay though, I’m not really bothered. I can get by without the online thing.

  It’s not like I’m not impressive enough in the flesh to go analogue. I can easily pick up a girl the old-fashioned way, by talking to her in a bar or club. It’s just not a very efficient method, and the quality varies. You don’t have the chance to screen people in advance to avoid wasting time. The upside is that when your eyes meet across a crowded room, you know. It’s either a yes or a no.

  They’re different girls too, this crowd. On the one hand they’re less likely to be husband-hunters and more into casual sex. Which is a good thing. On the other hand, they’re more likely to have disordered private lives, addictions or criminal tendencies. You have to be a little bit careful.

  * * *

  One night after a work drinks function, Brad and I and a couple of the other guys decide we’ll go on somewhere else. I spot her as soon as we walk into the basement dive in Bondi. She’s Asian – probably Chinese – tiny as a doll, with waist-length raven hair. After we’ve squeezed ourselves into a corner table, it turns out that she’s one of the cocktail waitresses. She comes over to serve us, her little feet balanced on huge black patent stripper heels, and I deliberately make eye contact as Brad hands over his company credit card to open a tab. She returns my look with a shy smile.

  Brad has to get home to his wife after one drink and the others quickly peel away, leaving me to settle our tab. I do so with cash, which later turns out to be the right decision. When the Chinese girl comes over with the bill, I ask her what time she gets off work. Her shift ends at midnight, she tells me in halting English, although it’s usually a little bit later by the time she gets away. When she emerges at quarter past twelve, I’m waiting for her by the side of the building where the bins are lined up,

  She fans her face when she sees me; a girlish gesture meant to communicate surprise and embarrassment.

  ‘Want to go for a walk on the beach?’ I ask her, and she nods, tugging off her ridiculous heels and holding out her hand to me like a trusting child. I pull her down the passage to the side of the bar and onto the darkened patch of scrub just above the beach path. The tide is a long way out, but the rush and sigh of the ocean is still audible.

  We start making out, and she makes eager little mewling noises. Her skirt is round her hips, and I tug off her underwear and thrust myself hard into her diminutive pelvis. There’s barely room for me. She wriggles her hips uncomfortably and tries to pull away.

  ‘Stop!’ I say. ‘Just keep fucking still, will you?’

  She doesn’t stop squirming, so I heft my body weight up and forward, pinning her down with my forearms across her sternum and her neck. The wriggling intensifies, then fades out. Once I’ve ejaculated, I release the pressure of my arms and roll over onto my back.

  ‘Wow!’ I exhale. ‘You little tiger! What’s your name?’

  She doesn’t reply. I pull myself up on my elbows and look at her. Her eyes and mouth are half open, and even in the faint light of the moon, I can tell that her lips are a strange colour. I place a hand on her chest to feel for the rise and fall, but there is none. Shaking with panic, I find a narrow wrist and feel for a pulse.

  Nothing.

  * * *

  It’s not like I meant to do it, I tell myself as I sit on the edge of the sofa, still rigid and quivering with shock. I definitely didn’t mean to crush her windpipe. I was just being playful and a little bit assertive. There’s no way I intended for her to end up dead.

  I don’t go to bed but just sit like that for what feels like hours before the insane levels of adrenaline start to drop and the image of the girl’s face is starting to recede a little.

  Be logical, I tell myself. You’ve got to look at this logically, so you can work out what to do. Think back over every single detail.

  Nobody saw me with her outside the bar, and she didn’t know for sure I would wait for her, so she wouldn’t have told any of her colleagues she was meeting me. There’s probably camera footage from inside the bar, and it might have shown me talking to her, but I was towards the back of the group with the heads of the others in the way. And she probably talks to a lot of male punters, right? Dozens. In theory, there could be images of me paying the bill, but I used cash, so they can’t identify me that way. And if there’s no evidence of us together outside the bar, what have they got? I’ll just go about my daily business until it blows over. It’ll be fine.

  And then I remember. I was so overwhelmed with the need to fuck her that I didn’t bother with a condom. They’ve got my semen inside the corpse. Which means they’ve got my DNA. And if they get round to questioning me as one of the last people to see the girl, then they’re quite likely to take DNA swabs to rule me out. Shit.

  I set the kettle to boil and switch on the TV. Sure enough, on the early-morning news bulletin, there’s a report of a girl’s body being found on Bondi Beach. They say her name’s Pearl Liu, and her death is being treated as a homicide. They’re probably already at the bar where she worked, asking questions and looking at security-camera images. One thing is clear: I don’t have very much time.

  I text Brad to say that I’m dying from a hangover and won’t be coming in to work today. Then I head to the nearest ATM in sunglasses and a baseball cap pulled down low and withdraw as much cash as I have in my checking and savings accounts – about twenty thousand AUS dollars.

  I go straight home and pack a holdall with the cash, my passport and a few clothes; just casual stuff, no suits. As I’m walking out of my living room for the last time, I catch sight of a photo that I’ve always liked, an old one of my grandfather Dougie with my Mum, taken in Scotland. I throw it into my bag on top of the clothes. Then I make a diversion of a few hundred yards round the block to dodge surveillance cameras outside my home, winding up at the bus stop where the airport shuttle stops. I don’t want to risk catching a cab in case the driver remembers me later.

  Using some of the cash, I buy a ticket at the Qantas sales office.

  Once I’m through security, I phone my mother.

  ‘Mum, I’ve been seconded to our Frankfurt office for a few months,’ I tell her. ‘Or maybe longer. Only I don’t want to run up huge bills with my Aussie phone, so it’s best we use emails for contact while I’m aw
ay, okay?’

  She agrees readily enough. We don’t often speak on the phone anyway, and only see each other once or twice a year. She’s not going to ask awkward questions, or raise the alarm: that’s not Mum’s style. I rip the SIM card from my phone and flush it down the toilet, then throw my handset into a passing cleaner’s wheeled bin. Then I shoulder my bag and head to the gate to board my flight.

  ‘Berlin Tegel?’ the cabin attendant asks me as I hold out my boarding pass. ‘Enjoy your trip.’

  Twenty

  Ben

  Then

  The first thing I do after I’ve landed in Germany is to ditch my passport, along with my Australian credit cards and anything else with my real ID on it. I lay low in Germany for as long as it takes me to buy a new passport on the dark web. Which is about five days, if you’re interested.

  Actually, ditching my real passport is the second thing I do. The first, once I’ve cleared border control, is to put up the hood on my sweatshirt so that any camera tracking my movements is not going to be able to get a proper image of my face. Then I go to the electronics concession at the duty-free mall and buy myself a smartphone, for cash, before stopping at a bureau de change to convert most of my dollars into sterling, with a few euros for good luck.

  I choose the same name that I chose for my former dating app profiles for my shiny new, British passport. As soon as the courier drops it off, I head back to the airport and buy a ticket to London, for cash. Since I don’t speak any European languages, the UK is the obvious choice as a final destination.

  It’s tempting to book into a nice hotel as if I’m a tourist, but of course that would require proper ID. And, besides, I would quickly burn my way through my funds if I lived like that. I’ve got to make my resources last. So, after crouching in the shadows of a side street for at least two hours to disrupt a potential CCTV trail, I get myself a room in a grotty two-star place in Victoria that’s less a hotel, more a flophouse. Cash in hand, no questions asked.