Page 40 of Twisted Lies

‘There were no signs of violence?’ Frost asked.

‘I wish I had a pound for every time I’ve asked myself that same question. But there really weren’t any clues. He was kind and gentle, funny and interesting. I really felt like the luckiest girl alive. Until I moved in with him. At first, I just noticed his sour moods. He’d get a bit snappy over nothing, and I realised it was best to just leave him alone.’

Adapting her behaviour, Frost thought.

‘I tried not to annoy him. I knew he had a stressful job.’

Excuses, Frost realised. How quickly someone can fall into the trap, she realised.

‘The controlling started probably a week after I moved in. I was getting dressed to go to a mate’s hen party. He passed comment on the dress. He didn’t like it. I did and wore it anyway. I thought nothing more of it, until two days later, when I was putting out the rubbish and found the dress cut to smithereens in the bin.’

‘What did you do?’

‘I confronted him. I was incensed. He laughed and said he’d buy me another dress. I wouldn’t let it go, so he punched me in the mouth.’

Ariane took a deep breath before she continued, as though acknowledging that this was the point of no return. That it had been in this one moment she had sealed her own fate.

‘He couldn’t apologise quickly enough. He begged for my forgiveness, collapsed on the sofa and started crying, saying he’d never forgive himself for what he’d done. So quickly, I felt sorry for his anguish. I told him it would be okay, that everyone snaps sometimes. That we’d get through it.’

Frost shuddered, remembering her own reaction after that first shove.

‘I’m sure you know already that it wasn’t the last time. A month later, I was waiting in A&E with a broken arm. Two months after that I had two cracked ribs.’

‘Didn’t the doctors ask?’

‘Of course, but I had my excuses ready. Nick would always tell me what to say, and I’d say it. They didn’t believe me, but what could they do? I was too frightened to press charges. One time, I made the mistake of telling him I was going to leave, and he taught me a lesson I would never forget. We’d been together for eight months when I began to consider suicide. The shame of what I’d let him do to me was paralysing. That and the fear numbed me into silence. I couldn’t tell anyone, and I just wanted to escape the fear that lived inside me every day. Then one night, he came back after an evening with his friends and told me to pack my stuff and get out.

‘In my haste, I left half my stuff behind; but I filled a case, all the time thinking he was playing some kind of game with me. That he was going to stand in front of the door and laugh and tell me it was all a joke. He’d told me many times that he would never let me go.’

‘And?’ Frost asked, feeling the tension emanating from the woman as she lit another cigarette.

‘I packed like the wind was behind me, all the while questioning his motives; but I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth, when only moments before I’d been considering ending my own life.’

‘Go on,’ Frost urged.

‘When I got to the front door, he was there, waiting. He told me that if I ever spoke of our time together I’d live to regret it, and I believed him. Of course, what I didn’t realise at the time was that was the night he first met Trisha at the casino. I saw all the news headlines of the two of them together. It took me a long time to build up the courage to warn her.’

‘You believed his threats?’ Frost asked.

‘Absolutely. He’d already shown me what he could do.’

Frost said nothing.

‘I told you he gave me a warning when I threatened to leave him.’

Frost nodded. ‘What did he do to you?’

‘It wasn’t me. He was way too clever for that. My father was involved in a car accident. He was rear-ended.’

Frost tried to keep the surprise from her face. Exactly what had happened to Trisha’s sister, Penny.

‘You really think that was him?’

Ariane took another deep breath.

‘If you have to even ask me that question, you really have no idea who you’re dealing with.’

Thirty