The Mistress: A gripping and emotional page turner with a killer twist Page 13

Ralph reached out a hand and helped her jump down off the edge of the desk as if he were a knight guiding her down from a horse.

  ‘Amazing, Meg! Well done!’

  Meg? My insides twisted.

  He took care to settle her into a seat, close to Olivia, as if he were handing over a treasure for safekeeping. Why such a fuss?

  When he read his own work, he addressed some spot at the back of the classroom, declaiming his unrequited love to somewhere north of year ten’s map of the United States of America. I sat, rigid, listening with misery, feeling utterly ignored. Even Olivia, whispering now and then to the young woman at her side, didn’t deign to look in my direction.

  At the end of the session, I stayed in my seat and waited to see what would unfold. I wasn’t willing to walk away without seeing him and finding out who this young woman was.

  Ralph was all attention, helping her on with her coat, asking what she’d thought of the session.

  I watched and didn’t leave. As he ushered her towards the door, I followed him.

  ‘Ralph?’

  He turned at last, forced to acknowledge me.

  I put my hand out to the young woman. ‘Hi. Laura Dixon. I don’t think we’ve met?’

  She had the grace to blush and hesitated, looking at my hand as if she didn’t know what to do. Ralph stepped in. ‘This is Megan. She’s in my English set. She’s just had an offer from Edinburgh. To read English. Obviously.’ He smiled down at her. ‘She’s a very talented writer.’

  She gazed at his face as he praised her as if he were a prince. Her prince. My fingers curled.

  ‘Well, Megan.’ I could hardly get out the words. ‘Well done, you! You must have worked very hard.’

  Ralph managed to tear himself away from her face for long enough to give me a parting glance.

  ‘Look, sorry, I must go.’ He pulled an apologetic face. ‘I promised I’d give Meg a lift home.’

  I stared after them as they hurried away together to the Upper School car park where Ralph’s car was waiting. I thought of those long, elegant legs sliding into the passenger seat beside him, the short skirt riding up even higher, his hand reaching over to caress them. Ah, she has legs!

  I put my phone on the seat beside me as I drove home, waiting for a message. Nothing. At home, I paced up and down the flat, opened a bottle of wine and began to drink. My body was tight with fury. How dare he humiliate me like that. With a schoolgirl. A girl in his own class. Had he gone mad? What was he thinking? They’d fire him on the spot, if anyone found out.

  Gradually, as the wine took hold of my senses, my anger melted away to misery. I sprawled on the settee, on my bed, on the floor, tearful and despairing. Ralph, was this it? Have you really moved on?

  At two in the morning, unable to sleep, I broke down and sent him a series of rambling texts.

  I love you. Don’t do this.

  She’s so young, too young for you.

  Can’t you see? They’ll finish you if they find out. You’ll never teach again.

  Don’t do this, please.

  I love you so much.

  Silence and again silence.

  Thirty-Three

  I was always a fool for love. Perhaps I should have been more like Helen and bided my time. Perhaps if I hadn’t said anything, if I hadn’t done anything, the infatuation would simply have passed. Megan would be off to start a new life in Edinburgh soon enough.

  But I couldn’t. Besides, it was simply wrong. She was a child, a schoolgirl. He was her teacher. It was abuse, plain and simple. It would ruin him.

  I didn’t hear from him after that evening, not for days. Every minute hurt. I couldn’t sleep. I could barely eat. The face in the mirror each morning was haggard.

  At work, Elaine and Hilary whispered together when they saw me sitting alone in the staffroom, pretending to read a book. Elaine took me aside at one point and said she was worried about me, was everything all right?

  I went to the doctor. Just to appease Elaine and stop them talking.

  ‘I can’t sleep,’ I told the doctor. ‘I feel panicky. I need something to calm my nerves.’

  She gave me a cursory examination, then sat down heavily and turned to me, sober-faced, all white coat and stethoscope, trying her best to bond with me in the remaining two minutes of our ten-minute slot.

  ‘I can offer some medication that might help,’ she said. ‘But it’s only a temporary fix. If there are underlying causes…’

  The word ‘depression’ hung heavily in the air between us, unvoiced.

  I left with a repeat prescription, a promise to go back in three months’ time for a review and a bunch of printed leaflets about healthy eating, managing stress and counselling services. I dropped the leaflets in the bin on the way out.

  I fell to messaging him every evening. After a glass of wine or two, the pain became unbearable. My texts grew incoherent. Begging. I was humiliating myself. I knew it and I hated him for it. I hated her. My imagination drew pictures of the two of them together, his broad, middle-aged body, her immature one, the fresh white skin, the firm breasts, the legs. It was obscene.

  I tortured myself. He couldn’t do this. To leave me for another woman, another adult, that would be painful enough. But this, this madness, it wasn’t love, it was criminal.

  I sent him all manner of texts. Angry. Threatening. Pleading. Most of all, late at night, desperate and full of loving forgiveness.

  Please. I love you. I’ll do anything. Answer me. Come and see me. We need to talk about this. Please.

  An endless cycle of scolding and cajoling. Message after message, spent on empty air. I wondered if he even still used his Romeo phone or if he’d thrown it away. If he’d bought a new burner phone for her. For Megan. I wondered what name he used with her.

  His silence tormented me.

  The only thing that kept me functioning were the doctor’s tablets. I stocked up, asking for repeat prescriptions before I really needed them, and stashed them everywhere, within easy reach, in my handbag, in the car, in the bathroom cabinet, in my bedside table.

  I wasn’t a fool. I never took more than two at a time. I’d read the dire warnings inside the packet. But I needed them. It was my only chance of getting any sleep at night.

  Thirty-Four

  The middle of February. Half-term. A week away from school.

  I already knew that Ralph and his family were going on holiday to Portugal. Helen, with her librarian’s efficiency, booked everything at least a year in advance. Since the autumn, when Ralph and I first got together, I’d dreaded it, thinking how forsaken I’d feel while they were away together, imagining them having candlelit dinners, sharing a bottle of wine, playing happy families with Anna. Even though I knew their marriage was a sham, it would hurt.

  Now I was almost glad. If he was away from me for a week, at least he was away from her too, from Megan. At least I had that.

  I spent the week at home, reading in my flat, taking long walks along the river and through the park, trying not to dwell on everything that had happened, trying not to think about Ralph.

  The daffodils were out, sudden spikes of yellow along the tree-lined paths through the park. The bushes would soon come into sticky bud. The sunshine, still weak, was tempting people out into the open again after the long, cold hibernation. Elderly couples, well-wrapped in coats and scarves, rested on benches, gloved hand in hand, and watched the river slide by. Young women with pushchairs encouraged their toddlers to climb out and run across the grass, smell the earth, make round, wet stains on the knees of their trousers when they fell.

  I was heading back to the flat, tired after a bracing walk but wondering what else I could do to fill these final few days before the return to school, when I saw her. Megan. I stopped, still a distance away, moving to the side of the path so I could observe her stealthily from the cover of a large leafy bush.

  She was sitting on the grass with a group of other young people of similar age. They’d spread out a waterproof she
et and, on top of it, a patchwork of jackets and sweatshirts. There must have been half a dozen of them, a mix of boys and girls, lounging there, encircled by bags. They were cradling cans. Soft drinks, perhaps, or alcohol – I didn’t recognise the brands. Chatting and laughing.

  There were schoolbooks open on the clothes around them as if they were kidding themselves that they were there to study. Clearly, they were doing very little work.

  Megan sat cross-legged, her long limbs folded with ease, her shoes kicked off. Her blonde bob swung as she turned from one friend to another, her face filled with laughter, with life. She wore a strappy top, too skimpy for the season, and frayed jeans. Already, she looked not a schoolgirl but a young woman, ready for university, for independence, for the world.

  I hesitated, shaking with emotion at the sight of her, so young, so carefree, so confident. I couldn’t tear myself away. It wasn’t just her youthfulness. I’d been that young once. But I’d never been like her. So easy with the people around her, so natural and, I had to admit it, so very lovely. I couldn’t walk right past them, I simply couldn’t, but I wasn’t ready yet to pull back and find a different path to bring me out higher up the road.

  I was still there, shrinking back into the trees and bushes, when she jumped up, pushed her feet into her shoes, grabbed her bag and came bounding down the path towards me, followed by another young woman. I couldn’t move. Whatever I did, she’d see me. If I emerged from the branches and tried to walk away, in whichever direction, she’d know I’d been hiding here. I froze.

  She was almost upon me when I stepped abruptly out of the sparse foliage. I hadn’t planned to confront her. I could only think later, when I reflected, that it was fate that brought us together that afternoon. It was meant to be.

  She started when she saw me and put a hand to her mouth. Her friend, running, almost collided with her. The two of them stared at me.

  ‘Miss Dixon?’ Her eyes were large and blue, shining with sunshine.

  ‘Megan.’ It was my stern, school teacher’s voice. I couldn’t help it. She was a pupil, not my friend.

  The other girl, sharp-featured with short-cropped, spiky hair, said, ‘You all right, Miss Dixon?’

  I flushed. ‘Could I have a word, Megan? Alone.’

  The friend pulled an amused face at Megan. ‘Shall I see you there?’

  Megan nodded and watched as the friend sauntered off in the direction of the park café.

  She turned back to me. ‘Is something the matter?’

  I bit my lip. ‘I’m concerned about you, Megan. Very concerned.’

  Her eyebrows lifted a fraction. I must seem impossibly old to her. Past it. Sad old spinster. I imagined her mimicking me to her friends, there on the grass, after I’d gone. Maybe even to Ralph. My insides tightened.

  ‘What exactly is your relationship with Mr Wilson?’

  She cocked her head. ‘He’s my English teacher, Miss Dixon.’

  ‘I’m aware of that.’ I knew how absurd I sounded, how uptight. I couldn’t help myself. My hands, at my sides, clenched into fists. ‘He seems very… fond of you.’

  She shrugged and looked away. I didn’t know what I’d expected. That she might seem embarrassed, perhaps, or even contrite. That she might burst into tears, realising I was onto her, and beg me not to tell anyone. Her eyes swung back to meet mine. They were cold.

  I swallowed. ‘You should watch yourself. You’re a schoolgirl. A child. You don’t know what you’re doing.’

  Her expression hardened. ‘Actually, I’m nearly seventeen years old.’ She hesitated. ‘And anyway, it’s none of your business.’

  My legs trembled. I could just see her with him, naked, bold and alluring, entwining herself round his body. I wanted to slap her self-satisfied face.

  ‘Don’t you see? He’s your teacher. It’s abuse. He could go to prison. You’d ruin him, if this got out.’

  ‘If what got out? What are you even talking about?’ She turned back and looked, checking out the distance from her friends. ‘What’re you doing here, anyway?’

  ‘Taking a walk. I live near here.’

  ‘What a coincidence.’ She tightened her lips. ‘Looks to me as if you’re spying on me.’

  I tutted, flustered. ‘Don’t be absurd.’

  She tossed her hair, sprayed with sunlight. ‘It’s true then, that you had a thing for him? He’s so over you. If you don’t believe me, ask him yourself.’

  She flounced off, leaving me standing still, too shocked even to cry, staring after her.

  Thirty-Five

  I barely remember the following weeks. I drank, mostly. It was too painful to be sober.

  If I closed my eyes, I saw Megan. She was a siren, luring him to destruction. It had to end.

  I messaged him even more. Begging him to see me, just to talk to me.

  I need to see you, I typed. Don’t shut me out. I love you.

  Even once he was back from holiday, my messages went not just unanswered but unread.

  I tried everything to see him. When I wasn’t actually teaching, I raced up the hill and haunted the Upper School corridors, trying to catch a glimpse of him. I hung around the Upper School car park at the end of the school day, trying to intercept him. Somehow, he managed always to evade me.

  I wrote to his home address. What option did I have? I threatened to inform Sarah Baldini. Then, I’d write to the school governors and tell them everything. I’d expose him. He was under a lot of personal stress, I understood that, but what he’d done was still wrong. He was a teacher, with young people in his care. He had to uphold moral standards. Didn’t he see?

  Eventually, after a few weeks, I received a text from him. Brief but exactly what I’d longed for. A summons. To his home.

  My hands shook as I got ready.

  I didn’t turn up uninvited. He summoned me, with a text. The last thing on my mind was killing him.

  Well, you know what happened after that.

  Thirty-Six

  My encounter with Mike Ridge that Friday evening shook me to the core.

  He knew the truth. I sensed it. I didn’t know how, but he knew. He was biding his time, studying us both, Helen and me, wearing us down, waiting for us to crack.

  The next day, I didn’t leave the flat. I hid myself to one side of the sitting-room window and kept watch, a glass of wine or whisky constantly to hand.

  By evening, as darkness fell, my head swam. I didn’t bother eating, just refilled my glass and staggered back to my vantage point. So far, there’d been no sign of him.

  I checked again. I couldn’t see his car. I ran my eye along the wall to the bus stop. It was deserted.

  I closed my eyes and buried my head in my hands. I felt exhausted, dizzy and very sick.

  Don’t do this, I’d written to Ralph, time after time.

  Stop it. I love you. Don’t destroy yourself!

  I’d thought I could save him. How wrong I’d been. I’d been the one to kill him, in the end.

  I held out a hand, trying to steady it, watching it shake. Who was destroying herself now?

  I was getting drunk. It was late. I should go to bed. But I was afraid to. The nights were so dark, so long, so bleak, even with a tablet or two.

  How had I ever thought I could kill someone and get away with it? They were coming for me. Tonight or tomorrow or another day, who knew when. They’d find out, sooner or later.

  I started to cry. Alcoholic sobbing, slobbery and pathetic. Oh, Ralph, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I never meant to—

  My phone pinged. I sat up. Listened. It pinged a second time. I wiped my eyes on the sleeve of my jumper and shook myself, then crawled, hands and knees, across the carpet to see.

  Miss me? Come to the boathouse. I’m here. Waiting.

  My hands shook as I opened the car door, slid into the seat and turned the key in the ignition. I adjusted the rear-view mirror and blinked at myself, ran a hand down my flushed face and tucked stray, damp hair behind my ears.

&nb
sp; I’d had too much to drink. I knew that. I wasn’t safe. But what else could I do? This was it. After all this waiting, all this pain, this was a chance to find out the truth, to see at last who was tormenting me. My stomach knotted.

  I lowered the windows and swung out into the road, drinking in the warm evening air. The streets were quiet. I hummed to myself as I drove, trying to stay calm. My mind was racing.

  By the time I reached the car park at the back of the line of boathouses, I was close to tears. I was befuddled and drowsy with wine but spiked too with adrenalin. I had to do this. I had to know who had summoned me here and why.

  I was also frightened to move. I switched off the engine and sat in the car, thinking about Ralph, feeling the cool, salty breeze blow into the car from the sea, listening to the steady rhythm of waves bursting onto the shingle, then rattling loose stones as they drew them back into the water.

  My phone rang. I pulled it out of my pocket and stared, stupid with tiredness.

  Number withheld.

  I hesitated, heart thumping, then pressed to answer.

  For a moment, silence. Breathing.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘I can see you.’ The voice was so low, it was almost a whisper. A man’s voice.

  ‘Who is this?’

  He spoke so softly, I could barely hear. ‘So soon forgotten? Oh, Laura.’

  My heart seemed to stop. Who was this? It sounded like him, like Ralph, but how could it be? I clutched the phone, pressing it closer to my ear, shaking.

  The voice whispered, ‘You look lovely, Laura.’

  I twisted round in my seat, trying to see if anyone was watching me. Nothing but shadows, silvery with streaks of moonlight across the shingle, thickening to utter blackness along the side of each boathouse.