Only The Truth

Chapter 6

6

I dart into the bedroom and grab my phone from the bedside table. It’s exactly where I left it before I went down to dinner. I always leave it up here. I’m not the sort of person to sit playing on my phone in the middle of a restaurant, no matter how bad it is. It takes me a couple of attempts to unlock my phone, my fingers shaking as I jab in the four-digit pin code.

I go into my Messages app and open up the conversation thread with Lisa. We don’t really text much, so the only messages there are spread out over the past couple of weeks. The message on Lisa’s phone isn’t here on mine, though.

I go back into the bathroom and pick Lisa’s phone up off the floor, where I dropped it. I tap my name at the top. It was definitely sent from my phone number, from my phone. I look at the time the text was sent. I can’t be sure, but I reckon it was only a couple of minutes after I went down for dinner.

The only thing I can be sure of is exactly how this looks. I’m not stupid. My wife’s lying dead in my hotel room, seventy miles away from home and anyone she knows, shortly after a text was sent from my phone to tell her to come up to my room. After I’d spent a good deal of the year working away from home as our marriage slowly broke down. Oh, and I’d been screwing the receptionist.

Again, that mix of emotions flips and turns inside me. Anger, fear, paranoia, desperation. Not only has someone murdered my wife, but they’ve tried to pin it on me.

Everything’s a blur. I can’t have been back in my room a minute, if that. Two, tops. Yet my brain seems to know exactly what to do. Even though this whole situation is confusing the hell out of my conscious mind, my subconscious is right there, dealing with this quickly and instinctively.

What can I do? Call the police? There’s no way I can prove this wasn’t me. I was downstairs in the restaurant for twenty minutes, perhaps half an hour at the most. They can’t be that specific about a time of death, particularly as she will have died at most fifteen minutes apart from me either leaving the room or re-entering it.

I try to think about whether or not the hotel has CCTV. Even if it does, it’ll presumably show Lisa heading to my room, then me doing the same a few minutes later. Around the time she was killed.

The husband is the prime suspect in any murder, I know that much, and this one is going to look like a pretty open-and-shut case for even the laziest police detective.

My instincts take over. I walk steadily back into the bedroom, collect my things together, shove them into my holdall and leave the room.

I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t know what I’m going to do. All I know is that running isn’t going to make things any worse this time. If I stay, I’m doomed to the same fate that I could possibly, just possibly, get away from. It sounds crazy, but that thought pops into my head again: the desire to up sticks and disappear, embracing my free spirit. In this moment, I know I will never truly be free, but right now the only option I have is to try.

My legs feel like jelly as I descend the stairs. I can hear the blood pulsing in my temples and feel my heart trying to burst through my chest. Everything else appears to be silent. I can’t even hear my footsteps on the floor, nor can I feel them. Everything is numb. It’s almost as if I’m cocooned, unable to take in any sort of external stimuli. As I push open the door to reception and head for the exit, the sound of Jessica’s voice bursts through my bubble and yanks me back into reality.

‘Dan? Is everything okay?’

I just look at her, unable to say anything. I can see that she’s spotted something in my eyes as they well up, the tears clouding my vision as I blink furiously to hold them back. I manage it.

‘Fine,’ I say.

‘Are you sure? Where are you going with all your stuff?’

‘I have to go,’ I say. ‘I need to check out.’

‘You’re not due to check out until tomorrow,’ she says, almost as if I’ve somehow got the days muddled up – silly me – but with more than a hint of concern in her voice, too. ‘You don’t look well, Dan.’

‘No, I feel ill,’ I say, hoping this somehow explains everything. ‘Sorry, I have to go.’

I pick up my bag and head for the exit, my hand fumbling in my pocket for my car key as I walk quickly in the direction of where I parked. My head’s pounding and I can’t even remember what my car looks like. Did I even drive here?

Before I can answer any of those questions, there’s a hand on my shoulder. Jessica.

‘Dan, what’s wrong? What’s happened?’ she says, a real look of concern in her eyes now.

‘I’m sorry,’ I reply. It’s all I can think to say. I kiss her on the forehead.

I press the unlock button on my car’s key fob and walk over to where I heard the bleep and saw the lights flashing. Jessica’s still trying to talk to me as I open the boot and throw my bag in, closing it before I walk round and climb into the driver’s seat. Before I get there, Jessica’s opened the passenger door and got in.

‘What are you doing?’ I say.

‘I don’t know, but I’m not letting you go like this. Something’s not right, Dan. Tell me. I’m not taking no for an answer.’

I sit in silence, staring through the windscreen for what seems like an age. Suddenly, it feels like I’ve got all the time in the world to work out my reply, almost as if the solitude of the car has provided some sort of barrier. I know I need to tell her. She’ll find out in a few hours anyway, but she should at least know that I’m innocent. The police won’t believe a word she says, but I hope that at least she will know. Someone needs to know.

‘My wife. Lisa. She’s here.’ All that time sat silently and that’s the best I can come up with.

‘Here?’ she replies. ‘Where?’

‘In my bathroom.’

‘I’m not sure I understand.’

‘She’s lying in my bathtub. Dead.’

Jessica just sits looking at me. I’m still looking straight ahead, but I can feel her eyes burning into the side of my face.

‘Dan, what happened?’ she whispers.

‘I don’t know. I came back up to my room after dinner and she was lying there. I swear.’

‘But how? How did she get in there? How did she die?’

‘It looks like she was strangled.’

Jessica takes her eyes off me for the first time. ‘Jesus, Dan. We need to call the police.’

I sigh. ‘We can’t. They’ll think it was me.’

‘Why would they?’ she says. ‘You were down in the restaurant. If it wasn’t you, you can prove it. They have forensics and stuff. If you didn’t do it, what’s the matter?’

‘I can’t explain,’ I repeat.

‘I really can’t get my head round this,’ she says. ‘This is crazy.’

‘Tell me about it.’

She puts her hand on my upper leg. ‘Dan. Look at me. Look me in the eye and tell me you didn’t kill Lisa.’

‘I told you, I didn’t. I just came back up to my room and—’

‘I need you to look me in the eye and tell me, Dan. It’s important.’

I do as she says. Her eyes look lost, hopeful and desperate.

‘I didn’t do it.’

She closes her eyes and nods, then puts on her seatbelt. ‘Start the car.’