Happily Married

HAPPILY MARRIED A COMPLETELY ADDICTIVE PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER WITH A JAW-DROPPING TWIST VICTORIA JENKINS BOOKS BY VICTORIA JENKINS Happily Married The Midwife The Bridesmaids The New Family The Playdate The Accusation The Argument The Divorce Detectives King and Lane series The Girls in the Water The First One to Die Nobody’s Child A Promise to the Dead AVAILABLE IN AUDIO The Midwife (Available in the UK and the US) The Bridesmaids (Available in the UK and the US) The New Family (Available in the UK and the US) The Playdate (Available in the UK and the US) The Accusation (Available in the UK and the US) The Argument (Available in the UK and the US) The Divorce (Available in the UK and the US) The Detectives King and Lane series The Girls in the Water (Available in the UK and the US) The First One to Die (Available in the UK and the US) Nobody’s Child (Available in the UK and the US) CONTENTS Prologue Part One Chapter 1 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 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Part Two Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40 Chapter 41 Chapter 42 Chapter 43 The Argument Olivia Hannah Hear More from Victoria Books by Victoria Jenkins A Letter from Victoria The Midwife The Bridesmaids The New Family The Playdate The Accusation The Divorce The Girls in the Water The First One to Die Nobody’s Child A Promise to the Dead Acknowledgements * For Steve – who came to stay for a week and never left PROLOGUE She doesn’t realise there’s anyone else in the house. As far as she knows, it’s just her and the silence, the echoes of their earlier argument only just faded. She should get out of here now, while she’s got a chance, and yet the same fear hangs over her. There’s nowhere for her to go. Wherever she goes, she’ll be found. It’s then she hears the creak. An old floorboard. A footstep. She goes to the bedroom door and eases it open. She waits there, listening, her body braced. Nothing but silence. She waits a while longer. There’s no one here. She feels her chest lighten, a weight of anticipation exhaled. She goes out onto the landing. Perhaps she’ll leave now. There’s still time. But there isn’t time. Everything happens so suddenly she doesn’t have time to react. A movement behind her. Hands on her back. The shove comes so hard she isn’t able to steady herself or break the fall. She hits the banister first, then the wall, pinballing down the staircase. Her head cracks against the corner of the hallway table. And then there is only silence again. PART ONE ONE Natalie closes the laptop as Jake comes back from the barn, rain-soaked and shivering. He kicks off his wellies and leaves them in the porch by the kitchen door. She grabs a tea towel and passes it to him, watching as he wipes the water from his face. A beautiful face, she thinks. Dark eyes, weather-kissed skin, thick hair that needs cutting; a strong jaw peppered with stubble. His face suits their landscape. He barely acknowledges her before going to the sink to wash his hands, his eyes weighted with tiredness; his mind presumably distracted, as hers is, by the possibility of another outbreak of illness among the cattle. ‘How is she?’ Natalie asks. ‘Tyler’s with the vet now. Everything okay?’ For a moment, she thinks he’s asking after her – an expression of concern rarely offered these days. Then she realises he’s referring to the laptop and to what she’d been doing when he’d come in. ‘Fine. Just catching up on some emails.’ She pushes her unruly hair from her face, an awkward gesture that betrays the white lie. She isn’t fine, though it’s not her he’s interested in. His thoughts seem to lie solely with the farm these days. She’s barely slept in three nights, worry keeping her awake while all her fears stood at their bedside looking worse in the darkness. Elsie has seemed lethargic again these past few days, which always reignites her anxiety. The end of the summer season has brought with it the anticipated drought in ice cream sales, and knowing it was on its way hasn’t made them any more prepared for the financial hit. Jake is distracted. The same can be said for her. They should probably talk more, she thinks, but with life as it is there never seems to be the right time or place. There never seems to be any space for saying what they’re feeling. ‘Do you want something to eat?’ She goes to him, puts her hands around his waist and rests her head on his shoulder, waiting for his response. ‘No, thanks.’ He moves away, and she feels the rejection like a burn. ‘Not interrupting anything, am I?’ She hadn’t heard Tyler at the door. He stands in the porchway, his wellies caked in mud. The rain has been relentless for hours, the mood of the place as dark as the evening sky that hangs heavy over the farm. It’s forecast to rain solidly for another two days. ‘The vet’s just left,’ he tells them. ‘He doesn’t seem overly concerned. Reckons another lot of antibiotics should sort it.’ Natalie feels relief swell in her stomach. Last year, they’d lost two-thirds of their cattle when the herd had been struck by bovine TB. It had almost broken them. They can’t afford for anything else to happen. ‘Have Peppa and George been fed?’ she asks. She bought the two piglets earlier in the year, with a plan to rear