It’s only when the flight takes off that I begin to relax a little. But I know that even when I arrive in Bangkok, I’ll be looking over my shoulder the whole time. I doubt the feeling of menace will ever leave me; even the fact that Millie is safe at school isn’t enough to allay my fears that Jack will somehow get to us. I had thought to bring her with me, I had wanted to tell Janice that Jack had given Millie his place on the plane and ask her to bring her to the airport. But it’s better that she isn’t involved in what is to come. I’m going to have a hard enough time keeping my nerve; to have to watch over Millie at the same time might prove too much for me. After everything I’ve been through in the last few hours, the slightest thing could make me lose the control I’m trying so hard to maintain. But I remind myself that there will be time enough to let my mask slip a little when I arrive in Thailand, once I’m behind closed doors.
Going through passport control in Bangkok is a nightmare, the fear of Jack’s hand on my shoulder never greater, although it would have been impossible for him to have got here before me. Even so, I find myself checking the face of the taxi driver before I get into his car to make sure it isn’t Jack sitting behind the wheel.
At the hotel, I’m warmly greeted by Mr Ho, the manager who wrote the letter about me and, when he expresses surprise that I am alone, I express equal surprise that he hasn’t received Mr Angel’s email asking him to look after me until he arrives. Mr Ho tells me he will be delighted to do so and commiserates when I tell him that work commitments have kept my husband from joining me until Wednesday.
I sense the manager hesitate—is it possible, he asks, that my husband, Mr Jack Angel, is the Mr Angel mentioned in some of the English newspapers recently in relation to the Antony Tomasin case? I admit, in strictest confidence, that he and my husband are indeed one and the same, and that we hope we can count on him to be discreet as we would rather nobody knows where we are staying. He tells me that he heard on the international news yesterday that Mr Tomasin was acquitted and, when I confirm that he heard correctly, he says that Mr Angel must have been disappointed. And I tell him that yes, Mr Angel was very disappointed, especially as it was the first time he had lost a case. As Mr Ho signs me in, he asks me how I’ve been keeping—a delicate nod to my mental state—and if I had a good flight. When I tell him that I found it hard to sleep, he says the least he can do for such a good client as Mr Angel is upgrade us to one of their suites. The relief I feel that I won’t have to go back to the room where I realised I had married a monster is so great I feel like kissing him.
Mr Ho insists on escorting me to my new room himself. It crosses my mind that he might wonder why we always stay in one of the smaller rooms when Jack is such an illustrious lawyer so I make sure to mention that my husband likes to maintain anonymity when we’re on holiday rather than draw attention to himself by throwing money around. I don’t put it quite like that but he gets the gist.
Once Mr Ho has left, I turn the television on and search for Sky News. Even in Asia, the Tomasin verdict is big news and, as they show Antony Tomasin addressing reporters as he came out of court the previous day, Jack appears in the background, besieged by journalists. Unable to watch any longer, I turn the television off quickly. I’m desperate for a shower, but there are two calls I need to make—one to Janice and the other to Jack, to tell them that I’ve arrived safely. Luckily, both are numbers that I know by heart—Jack’s from when I first met him and Janice’s because it’s the most important number in the world. I look at my watch; it’s three in the afternoon local time, which means it’s nine in the morning in England. As the wife of Jack Angel, I make sure to get my priorities right and call him first. I have a momentary panic when I realise that anytime over the past year, he could have changed his number, so when I get through to his voicemail I feel weak with relief. I take a deep breath to steady myself and leave the sort of message a loving wife would leave, the sort of message I might have left had I been able to carry on living the dream.