Page 44 of Happily Never After
I smile nervously. I hope he doesn’t shoot this idea down in flames as it’s central to the second half of the story at the moment. ‘I was thinking that he never leaves the house.’
‘Go on.’
‘Claire’s dad is a builder by trade and notices that the fireplace in the sitting room has alcoves either side. So they wrap him up securely, put him in one of the alcoves and brick them up. Bit of plaster and redecoration and you’d never know it wasn’t original.’
He considers for a moment and I’m aware that I’m chewing my lip, waiting for him to reveal his verdict.
‘Can I ask a couple of questions?’ he says eventually.
‘Of course.’
‘Presumably the dad would have to bring building materials into the house. Wouldn’t the neighbours see that?’
‘Yes, but they wouldn’t find it suspicious. They’d just think Darren was having some work done.’
‘OK. Question two: Wouldn’t the body start to smell after a bit?’
‘It would, but if you wrapped it securely and sealed the cavity properly, you wouldn’t be able to smell it from the rest of the house.’
Finn grimaces. ‘Do you know, I’m starting to wonder if evil Gina has a point. Your mind must be a truly macabre place to come up with something like that.’
‘Oh, it’s not completely original. I saw something similar on a true crime documentary and decided to adapt it.’
‘I’ve just thought of another question. What about the missing person aspect?’
‘Yes, that’s got to be done carefully. Darren’s a loner, so we don’t have friends as such to worry about, but he will be missedat work, and there needs to be some sort of plausible explanation for his disappearance that points the finger away from her.’
‘She’s going to be the prime suspect though, because they lived together.’
‘Yes, but remember the coercive control. The neighbours will have seen her coming and going, but she won’t have been allowed to socialise with them. Also, there’s no way he’d have allowed her name to appear on any official documents to do with the house, because of a further twist I’m planning to throw in right at the end.’
‘So people would know he had a girlfriend, but nothing about her.’
‘Exactly. All she needs is time to construct a plausible story.’
‘OK, so I guess she could call his work and say he’s sick.’
‘Not call, because we don’t want to risk anyone recording her voice. So she’ll email from his work laptop, pretending to be him.’
‘How does she have the password? There’s no way he’d have let her know what it was.’
‘I’m working on that. Then she’s going to clear all of her stuff out, making sure the neighbours see her leaving with it. And finally a forged suicide note saying he can’t carry on after his girlfriend left so everything’s tied up in a neat bow.’
He thinks for a moment. ‘What about the body though? Wouldn’t there be a body if he’d committed suicide?’
‘Good point.’ I think for a while. ‘How about this? At some point after she’s very publicly left, Claire and her dad sneak back to the house in the middle of the night to set the scene. Dad dresses up in some of Darren’s clothes and puts on a cap so his face can’t be seen when he passes any CCTV cameras. He then drives Darren’s car to a remote car park at the coast and leaves it there. The working assumption would be that he’d drowned himself.’
‘That would work. But it means she gets away with it.’
‘She does.’
‘Is that allowed?’
‘Everything’s allowed, but remember that this is just the first half of the book.’
‘So something will happen in the second half.’
‘It will.’
