Her primary goal was to find out more about his financialaffairs, in particular if he was hiding any money from her. However, shecouldn’t resist checking out his Facebook first. He had left it logged in soshe didn’t have to worry about a password.
She went straight to his messages and found what she waslooking for right away – a stash of private messages between him and Lucy. Shesteeled herself for what she might find as she opened it up. It was everythingshe was expecting: declarations of love, oodles of kisses, hearts and otheremojis, mostly from her to him.
As she scrolled up there was also a lot of dirty talk,describing what they were planning to do to each other. She didn’t botherreading all of it. There was too much for a start, an additional 1,384 messagesabove. Clearly the affair had been going on a long time. She decided to justskim through the last few, most of which related to their Paris plans.
One phrase in his last message read:
Haha, don’t worry, the stupid cow doesn’t suspect athing. See you in the morning x x
She had replied with a graphic of two champagne glassesclinking and lots of hearts.
Kay was pleased that she didn’t feel in the remotest bitupset by reading any of this. That was good: it meant that she must be overhim. She was also amused to see that Lucy’s messages were full of spellingmistakes and bad grammar. She was obviously not the brightest tool in the box.
“Enjoy your champagne while you can,” she murmured. “Thisstupid cow is about to come back and bite you on the arse big time.”
What else could she find? She opened up his emails andscrolled through them. Nothing sprang out at her. It was mainly marketing stufffrom various companies he had dealt with.
It was time to look around the rest of the office. Sheturned her attention to his filing cabinet next. It was one of those big, grey,metal ones with four drawers, just like you would find in the average office.She tried to open the top drawer, only to discover it was locked. So wheremight be the key? Would he keep it on him? She hoped not, otherwise she wasgoing to have to try and break into it and it was made of pretty solid metal.Hopefully the key would be somewhere in the room.
There was a drawer in his desk which she was pleased todiscover was not locked. It was full of stationery and other assorted crap suchas loose batteries, random cables, and half-eaten packets of sweets. There wasalso a small, old-fashioned toffee tin which she had seen him with before. Sheremembered that he used to keep his golf tees in it. She picked it up and shookit, making it rattle.
She took the lid off, and nestling in amongst the golf teeswas a small metal key. He hadn’t been very imaginative in hiding that. She tookthe key and tried it in the cabinet. She felt a real sense of satisfaction asshe felt it turn with ease. His security measures were no match for a wife whoknew him inside out.
The cabinet was full of files, none of them labelled. Shewould just have to go through each in turn until she found what she was lookingfor. She didn’t really know exactly what that was, just that she would knowwhen she found it.
Over the next hour or so, she pulled out each file in turnand went through the contents. A lot of it was very boring stuff to do withwork: store design plans and sales data for various products. There was also alot of documentation relating to the house. This mainly consisted of stacks ofold utility bills and endless instruction manuals for various kettles, toastersand other domestic appliances that they had bought over the years.
There was even one for a VHS player they had bought in the1990s, which they must have got rid of well over a decade ago when DVDs hadrendered it obsolete.
Just as she was beginning to despair she might not findanything useful, she found a folder full of recent credit card and bankstatements. This was a lot more promising.
The credit card statements proved to be extremelyinteresting reading. They were full of sizeable payments to hotel companiesstretching back over the past couple of years.
She also found several of the accompanying hotel bills. Oneglance at them with their itemised details of room service and champagne wasmore than enough evidence that his affair with Lucy the illiterate had beengoing on for a good, long while. They stretched back at least two years.
Kay couldn’t care less about the affair now, but she couldsee that there had been no expense spared on these hotel trips. That wassomething that did annoy her. It was out of character with his skinflint naturethat she had grown to despise over the years.
Only the previous summer, she remembered how tight he hadbeen over money on their holiday. It was the first time they had been awaytogether for a proper break without Maddie since she had been born, but ithadn’t been a lot of fun.
During their week in Marbella he had been moody andmiserable throughout, doubtless because he was missing his whore of agirlfriend. No wonder he had spent so much of that week pissing about on hisphone – he was probably messaging her the whole time.
He had pleaded poverty throughout that week in Marbella,constantly moaning about the crap exchange rate since Brexit. On the firstnight he had informed her that he was setting them a budget for their mainevening meal of thirty euros per night.
He was incredibly mean about how he enforced it, too. Onenight they had dined at a nice little restaurant by the harbour. Perusing themenu, he had decided he wanted to treat himself to a fillet steak, the mostexpensive item on the menu at twenty-two euros. He then informed her that inorder to stay within their budget, she was not allowed to spend more than eighteuros on her main. So she had ended up having an omelette.
That was just one example of his tightness. He
