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The Dead Wife

Sue Fortin
Chapters (49)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Chapter One
  4. Chapter Two
  5. Chapter Three
  6. Chapter Four
  7. Chapter Five
  8. Chapter Six
  9. Chapter Seven
  10. Chapter Eight
  11. Chapter Nine
  12. Chapter Ten
  13. Chapter Eleven
  14. Chapter Twelve
  15. Chapter Thirteen
  16. Chapter Fourteen
  17. Chapter Fifteen
  18. Chapter Sixteen
  19. Chapter Seventeen
  20. Chapter Eighteen
  21. Chapter Nineteen
  22. Chapter Twenty
  23. Chapter Twenty-One
  24. Chapter Twenty-Two
  25. Chapter Twenty-Three
  26. Chapter Twenty-Four
  27. Chapter Twenty-Five
  28. Chapter Twenty-Six
  29. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  30. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  31. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  32. Chapter Thirty
  33. Chapter Thirty-One
  34. Chapter Thirty-Two
  35. Chapter Thirty-Three
  36. Chapter Thirty-Four
  37. Chapter Thirty-Five
  38. Chapter Thirty-Six
  39. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  40. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  41. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  42. Chapter Forty
  43. Chapter Forty-One
  44. Chapter Forty-Two
  45. Chapter Forty-Three
  46. Acknowledgements
  47. About the Author
  48. Also by Sue Fortin
  49. About the Publisher

Cover

Cover image: The Dead Wife by Sue Fortin

Dedication

To Ged and our first trip to the Lake District back in the 1990s when we toured the area on a motorbike. It rained a lot. We got very wet. But, despite rotten weather, we still had great fun and fell in love with the area and the fantastic scenery.

Chapter One

Two Years Earlier,
Conmere Resort Centre, Lake District, Cumbria

Everyone who visited, worked or lived at Conmere knew the lake to be both beauty and beast all at the same time. A water with two faces – the south shoreline the beauty, bathed in sunlight, the water sparkling and glistening as it gently lapped the pebbles around the edge. It was the jewel in the crown of the Conmere estate. By contrast, the north side was where the waters were dark and shrouded for most of the day in shadow cast by the Con Point Hills, which loomed large and jagged over the water. This was where secrets were drowned and silence prevailed.

It all happened in a matter of seconds, but to her, time stretched as her brain registered her body falling towards the water. So many more impressions filled her mind. The blackness of the water, that it was particularly deep at this point of the lake, that there was no gentle slope from shallow to deeper depths, and there was a tangle of weeds. She wondered if the weeds would soften her fall but then remembered she was wearing a heavy Barbour coat – one that Harry had insisted she wear that morning because the weather had taken a turn for the worse overnight. Then, of course, there were her wellington boots – she wished she’d had time to kick them off before they filled with water.

Turning her face to the side, she impacted the lake with first her shoulder and then her hip and her feet. For a moment she thought the weeds had acted as a safety net but then her head went under the water and the cold water swamped her face, rushing up her nostrils. She kept her mouth closed, squeezed her eyes tight shut and blew out from her nose. Automatically her arms flew out as she tried to paddle water, but her limbs were heavy and it was difficult to move in the thick coat. The water had already soaked through her clothing and the cold and wet wrapped itself around her arms. She kicked her feet, but her boots had gulped in the water, making it impossible for her to move.