The Most Difficult Thing. Charlotte Philby

myself I would wait five more minutes before considering my next step, I flicked through a stream of encrypted messages. Once again, my attention was caught by a single image: a photograph, blurred, but clear enough – my father-in-law, the grandfather of my children, shaking hands with a man in a dark suit – his thick black beard a smear of tar across a smudge of flesh.

      Out of the corner of my eye I noticed the streetlights flick on along the river. Looking up, I saw him. Those fierce blue eyes drilling a hole in my chest. Breathing sharply, as if struck, I said his name: ‘Harry.’

PART ONE

       CHAPTER 1

       Anna

       Three Years Later

      The house is still, as it always is at this hour. Once again, I have hardly slept, taking a moment to savour the peace, the calm before the storm: this moment in which I am neither who I was nor who I will become. My eyes skitter across the silver clock by my bed, the one that had belonged to David’s mother: 5.40 a.m. The date is already firmly etched in my mind, as it will be for as long as I live.

      Dawn has always been my favourite time of day. As a child I would wander the narrow hall of my parents’ house under a hazy bruise of light, gazing through the window overlooking a cul-de-sac of privets and exhaust pipes, imagining myself somewhere else.

      David is still asleep. I sit, slowly, careful not to rouse him, his body a mound of flesh under a blanket of Marimekko florals.

      I have spent most of the night going over the plan in my head, sealing every second of it into the recesses of memory, ensuring it could never be prised out again should I be caught. Caught. It’s not a word I allow myself to linger on too long.

      Creeping from the bed, with its expensive linen sheets and tasteful throws, I sit at the stool in front of the small oak dressing table with its neat displays of family life. Trophies, trinkets of a world I have made my own. Among them, a bronze frame with a photo of David and me in front of the vista of his father’s house in Greece. One of many of his family’s boltholes that we have jetted between over the years, the planes leaving tracks like scars through the sky, visible only to those who glance up at just the right moment.

      So young we were then, clinging to one another in front of the pool, the Greek sun bleaching out our features. David’s body turned towards mine, claiming me. Our first holiday together had been a victory, almost. This was where it all had really begun. I was his prize, he had said it a hundred times, but he never knew that he was also mine. Not yet, but he will.

      The thought jars in my mind, and I lift my head, catching my reflection in the oval mirror. For a moment I am transfixed. The same light blonde hair, pale green eyes, high cheekbones. Hardened, now. The years of insomnia have caught up with me, in the hollows of my eyes. The corners of my mouth, cracked from years of fixed smiles.

      My phone is plugged into the charger on the wall. Silently, I lift it, glancing at David’s sleeping body in the mirror – the soft line of which I could draw from memory – before tapping my password into a second phone, stashed in the pocket of my silk dressing gown. My fingers leave a streak of sweat across the screen. The phone is the same model, same sleek black cover as my other one. Same pin number – the date Harry and I first met. Fundamental differences you would have to peer inside to see.

      Once again, I flick through a stream of messages from Harry, distracted for a moment by a chip in my blood-red nail polish. Hearing David stir in the bed, I expertly lock the phone while concentrating my face in the direction of the neat row of perfumes and creams in front of me, replacing it in the pocket of my gown as I stand.

      ‘What time is it?’

      David’s voice drifts across the room, still thick with sleep.

      ‘Nearly six. My flight isn’t until twelve but I have work to catch up on; Milly’s off on maternity leave today.’

      I picture my assistant, whose belly I have watched swell and groan under its own weight over the past months. I picture the young woman’s blotchy red cheeks, which she attempts, feebly, to mellow with slightly too-orange foundation; her increasingly uncomfortable gait.

      Over the past weeks, I could almost feel her pelvic bones grating as she delivered proofs of the next issue of the magazine to my office.

      Of course Milly believed she would be back within a few months of having the baby, four to six months’ maternity leave, she had told HR. I don’t believe it for a second. Not that it matters. Either way, I won’t be seeing her again.

      ‘I’m going to have a shower.’ David’s voice interrupts my thoughts.

      Smiling convincingly back at him, I lay my hand on a pile of magazine pages, ‘Of course, I won’t be long with this.’

      An hour later, I am standing by the door, ready to leave.

      ‘You look nice.’ David sweeps down the stairs, his polished brogues crushing against chenille carpet, nudging one of the girls’ scooters back in line against the wall in the hallway as he passes; the scooters he had insisted on buying them for their third birthday, a few months earlier, ignoring my concerns that they were too young.

      I am dressed for the office. An Issey Miyake cream trouser suit fresh from the dry-cleaners. Shoulder-length hair tucked behind my ears. A slick of Chanel lipstick. The same perfume I spritz and step into every morning, the smell chasing me through the house, a reminder of who I am now.

      It was what the papers always commented on, when a picture of me found its way into the society pages of some supplement or other. Perhaps they did not know what else to say: ‘Anna Witherall, editor wife of TradeSmart heir David Witherall, perfectly turned out in …’ Ethereal beauty. Enigmatic charm. These were the words they used. Lazy attempts to place a finger on my ability to stand out and disappear at the same time.

      As David makes his way towards the open-plan kitchen – a wall of sliding glass at the back, lined with California poppies – I stand in the hall, making a show of the final check of my handbag. Inside my bag, my fingers are shaking.

      Passport, keys, purse. Just another day.

      ‘I really think you should stay at Dad’s while you’re there, it will be much nicer than a hotel,’ David calls across the kitchen as I slip my feet into a pair of black leather mules, which stand side by side next to the girls’ shoes, Stella’s scuffed at the toe.

      I feel the colour rise in my cheeks, and look down again so that he won’t notice. ‘Do you think?’

      It is exactly what I have been relying on, of course. Knowing my husband as I do, I can predict that he will push for me to stay at his dad’s place; desperate for this connection to me, this ownership of my life, even when I am abroad.

      ‘There is actually a ferry, isn’t there, which runs directly from Thessaloniki to the island …’ I add casually, as if the thought has just occurred to me.

      It takes four hours and fifty-five minutes, port to port. Not that I will be taking it, of course.

      ‘Honestly,’ I pace my words carefully, ‘your father won’t mind?’

      David doesn’t look up from his newspaper. ‘I told you, he won’t be there, he won’t be in Greece for at least another month. I’ll send a message to Athena, tell her to make up the bed.’

      Before I can answer I feel the phone purr in my pocket. I look down, keeping my breath light. WhatsApp message from Unknown Number.

      Thinking of you.

      Inhaling, I close my eyes before placing the handset in my bag along with my usual phone and house keys, and head into the kitchen, all tasteful teal cupboards