The Lake Louise Sharland (each kindness read aloud txt) 📖

the Great Barrier Reef. What about another online search? I can’t really imagine finding anything more than Doris and I did this afternoon. I wonder about looking through her HR documents once again, but it’s getting late and Adam will be expecting his tea.

I prepare something simple – grilled salmon and asparagus – and we eat our meal in the garden, enjoying the fading sunlight and cool evening breeze.

‘I’ve booked a weekend away for us in Dorset,’ Adam announces, biting through an asparagus spear. ‘I could do with a break. What do you think?’

I sense that what I think is irrelevant to Adam, but if I’m really going to make a go of rebuilding our marriage, I’d better do my part.

‘Sounds great.’

We travel to Lyme Regis on the following Friday evening and arrive to indigo skies and a moon so bright I can see every cobblestone on the pathway to the pub.

‘Just tonic for you,’ Adam says, as he sips the thin layer of froth from the top of his Guinness.

I hadn’t fancied something alcoholic, but the thought of it being forbidden suddenly makes it more appealing.

‘And add a shot of vodka,’ I whisper to the barman, as I watch Adam negotiate a table near the fire.

The sex that night is successful insomuch as Adam is asleep long before I am. I stand and gaze out of the open French doors, watching as moonlit waves disappear into the shadows. Try as I might to avoid it, water makes me think of only one thing.

‘What happened to you, Michael?’ I whisper, before closing the doors behind me and returning to bed.

We spend the morning at a ruined castle, and then at a fossil museum where Adam scours the gift shop for the perfect ammonite.

It is late afternoon by the time we make it back to the hotel; still hours until dinner. Adam’s excess energy seems to flood the room. I find watching him completely draining. The solution pops into my brain so quickly that I know my recuperation is complete.

‘Why don’t you go to the gym and then have a nice long sauna?’

He easily agrees, and I find myself alone in the lounge with a chilled glass of Chablis and a stack of daily newspapers. With so much on my mind I’m finding it hard to relax. I need a distraction.

‘Crosswords, crosswords,’ I mumble as I rifle through the nationals. I tut in frustration as I realise that the other guests have already beaten me to the best ones. All that’s left is the Quick Quiz and Word Match in the Lyme Regis Echo.

I race through the quiz and word match in record time. Now pleasantly bored, I begin reading the paper. I work my way through stories about TB-infected cattle and the Dorset Super Slimmer of the Year before chancing upon the recent marriages section. The bride wore a strapless gown of ivory silk, finished with hand-sewn freshwater pearls.

My wedding to Adam was a straightforward affair; an off-white designer dress and a civil ceremony at Exeter County Hall followed by lunch at a posh hotel. I check the Echo for any more reports of joyous celebrations, and something catches my eye. In the bottom corner is a recent write-up about a local society wedding.

Professor Duncan Masters and Mrs Maureen Masters were delighted to host the wedding of their daughter Matilda Josephine to Captain Gerald O’Neill of the Royal Navy, from Portsmouth Hants. The ceremony was held at St Mathias Church in Bridport. In attendance were the bride’s younger sister and bridesmaid Lucy, and her older brother Niall, who also acted as best man to Captain O’Neill. In a departure from tradition, the groom was also attended by a ‘best woman’, his sister Mrs Desra McKinley of Perth, Scotland.

Next to the write-up is a photograph of the bridal party. I can feel the blood pumping through my head so fiercely I think I’m going to faint. Had my mouth not been so dry I may have cried out. The woman in the picture – the best woman to Captain Gerald O’Neill – is Susan O’Neill. The woman from the photo.

I have to look at the photograph a few more times to make certain. I even think about asking the woman at reception if she has a magnifying glass, but I know that isn’t necessary. The hair is different, but the face is the same: sharp-featured, unsmiling – even at a wedding – and with an air of adolescent sulkiness that clearly identifies her as the same person in the photograph with Michael and Lisa. I order another glass of wine and stare at the picture in front of me. Only moments before the path to finding Susan had seemed so unclear, so undecided. Finding this photograph, in the most unexpected of places, is a sign. An omen. There is no going back. My journey is set.

I trace my finger around the small, dark spot that Susan O’Neill, now Desra McKinley, has left on the page. She has obviously married; but why the change of first name?

Then I remember. On her HR file she was listed as Susan D O’Neill. Did Desra seem more exotic? Or more anonymous for her new life in Scotland? Does it matter?

All this time I have been investigating, all the questions I have asked, all the phone calls and visits I have made. Now, out of the blue, without forethought or design, they are being answered, and the one person who has the answers to the questions I have been so desperately seeking is staring right back at me.

‘Got you,’ I whisper, my smile vicious and victorious at the same time.

When Adam returns from the gym, I have replaced my glass of wine with herbal tea. The newspaper article is carefully tucked away in my pocket.

‘I’m feeling really good,’ he says, giving me a kiss on the cheek. ‘I’m really glad we came away this weekend.’

‘Me too,’ I reply, ‘me too.’

23

We have dinner in the