Fiona doesn’t know how to respond. If she speculates that the men might have similar personalities – perhaps they are both ambitious, hardworking, courteous? – she is wading into murky waters. If she suggests the contrast is the appeal, she is as good as holding Mark’s head under the water, until he drowns. She stays silent as they trail through Daan’s social media accounts. He has Facebook, Insta and Twitter but it appears that he rarely posts on any of them. When he does, it is with photos of breathtaking scenery taken in far-flung exotic places: mountains, lakes, waterfalls. He – presumably they – obviously travelled a lot.
‘All those times she said she had to work away for a week, do you think they were real?’ asked Mark. ‘Or do you think she was with him?’
‘I was just wondering the same thing about that trip she had with her mother last year. You know, when the two of them supposedly met up in Dubai to celebrate Pamela’s seventieth birthday,’ sighs Fiona. ‘Did that happen or was it another lie? I remember thinking at the time ten days in Dubai seemed a lot. There are only so many glitzy malls you can trail through and Pamela isn’t a sunbather. Maybe Leigh spent a bit of time with her mum and then the rest with him.’
‘I’ll need to talk to Pamela and check the dates,’ mutters Mark grimly.
Fiona flashes him a smile that she hopes is sympathetic and supportive. ‘At least there are no pictures of beaming faces, his or hers.’ Although on four or five of the photos there are two shadows dripping across the scene. A man and a woman holding hands. Mark flinched when he first saw the shadows. He obviously recognised Leigh’s as easily as Wendy would know Peter Pan’s.
Kai Janssen has social media accounts too. Ones where she displays photos of artfully arranged books, cups of coffee, cocktails and flowers. Her hands, legs or feet are often in shot but never her face. She’s been very careful not to risk being recognised, no doubt aware that the six degrees of separation that are supposedly between everyone are often pinched to just two or three degrees on social media. Mark slowly and systematically clicks on the profiles of everyone who follows or has even liked her comments. ‘Should I reach out to each of these people?’ he asks.
‘I don’t know. To what end?’
‘I just want to know about her life. Her other life. I need to understand it.’
‘But would these people even respond? The few men who have liked her posts are likely to be couple friends – you know, Daan’s friends, really. They are unlikely to want to talk to you. And women are generally reluctant to interact with men they don’t know who approach them through Instagram.’
Mark sighs again, deeply, as though there is a storm inside him that needs to escape.
‘I could do it for you,’ Fiona offers.
‘Will you?’ He brightens.
‘Yeah, leave it with me. The women at least are more likely to respond to me.’
Fiona starts to tap on her phone while Mark continues to search for information about Daan. It doesn’t take long to find details of where the other husband’s office is and where he lives. People are unaware what information telephone directories and electoral rolls hold.
‘I’m going to visit him,’ he announces firmly.
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’
‘I have to. I need to see her home, to know this is real.’
Fiona wants to put her arms around Mark and give him a friendly hug the way she had on countless other occasions, but she stops herself. Obviously, the gesture would just be intended to reassure but it seems a weird thing to do if Leigh isn’t in the vicinity. Loaded. Open to misinterpretation. ‘It is real, Mark. I’m sorry but it is,’ she says, carefully. ‘And honestly, I think we both know you are too angry to meet up with him. It might, you know, end badly.’
Mark turns red; it isn’t clear to Fiona if it is embarrassment or a deepening fury. She knows a lot about the Fletchers’ lives. She knows about the time Mark held a guy up against a wall by the scruff of his jacket, legs dangling, even though the guy was taller than Mark. The incident had happened at one of those children’s adventure parks, a place with trampolines, rope ladders and ball pits. A family place. The guy had lifted Seb off a rocking horse so that his own son could have a go. Seb had just got on the horse after queuing for it for twenty minutes, and when Oli – protective of his younger brother – pointed out that was unfair, the guy had yelled at him. He made both boys cry. They were very young. Leigh had been there and from her account, the guy did sound like a prick.
‘Mark was terrifying,’ Leigh had laughed, not really afraid. ‘I thought this bloke was going to pee himself.’
‘What did Mark say?’ Fiona had wanted to know.
‘I don’t think it was what he said, it was how he said it. He was all quiet and threatening, proper psycho.’
And there was that time when a neighbour complained about the boys playing football in their own back garden, he said they were annoying and too noisy. He called them brats. Mark tore a strip off the neighbour. Even though he was elderly. He just snapped. ‘Where the hell do you think they should be, if not in their own garden? Hanging around the corner shop? Drinking in the rec?’ He’s never spoken to the neighbour since.
Fiona has witnessed his fierce over-protectiveness first hand. Once, when they were all on a day trip to Bath, Leigh bumped a car as she was parking, a tiny bump, no damage done. She was full of apologies
