‘You’ll be tried together,’ Xander said. ‘You might even get similar sentences. And think about it. When you get out you’ll have this shared experience. She won’t have been out in the world getting on with her life while you’ve been rotting away in here. You can start a new life together, put all this behind you.’
I looked at Xander and his blue eyes, which reminded me sometimes of Kaitlyn’s. He smiled slowly as his words sank in. There was something intoxicating about them. Something which demanded surrender. Which felt like stepping on to warm sand or into a proper hug. It was a part of the Crave neither of us had anticipated, but maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. There was an undeniable beauty in the idea of V safely packed away in a cell just like mine, waiting to be taken out like a precious jewel in a few years’ time. It almost sounded romantic, like something we might tell our grandchildren.
Xander told me to expect certain aspects of our story to be leaked. He was sorry, he said, but there was nothing he could do about it. Office juniors like to gossip, he said, sighing as he stopped his hands from rubbing together. But I didn’t expect these ridiculous, bald headlines which leave out so much. I have started cutting them out and sticking them in here so that I never again forget what the world is like out there.
MAN KILLS RIVAL IN TRAGIC SEX GAME
DESIRE, DEATH & DESTRUCTION
THE LOOK OF GUILT
THE COLD-EYED WIFE
WAS ANGUS METCALF MURDERED BY JEALOUSY OR DESIGN?
THE CARE HOME BOY WHO NEVER FITTED IN
THE CARE HOME KILLER
IS VERITY REALLY TELLING THE TRUTH?
THE TRUTH BEHIND VERITY’S EYES
VERY CLEVER VERITY
THE BRILLIANT EXECUTIVE SUCKED INTO A DANGEROUS GAME
CONSTANT CRAVING
THE KILLER CRAVE
THE BOY WHO CRAVED LOVE
I also cut this article out on Saturday. It’s an opinion piece, written by someone called Helen Bell, whose name I will remember, published in the best-selling national newspaper in Britain.
IS VERITY METCALF A MODERN-DAY LADY MACBETH?
What an odd name for a woman at the heart of a seedy and deadly love triangle: Verity, supposedly the teller of truth. Except I’ve always thought it asking for trouble to give your children any of those Faith, Hope and Charity names. What a task to set a child, almost as if you’re goading them to rebel before they’re even out of the pram.
Verity Metcalf, 29, was, however, not someone you would look at and consider a rebel. On the surface she has in fact lived an exemplary life. She excelled at her ￡12,000-a-year private girls’ school, Haverfield in Sussex, near to the ￡3-million house where she was brought up. She did very well in her exams, 10 A* GCSEs and 3 As at A level. From there she went to Bristol University where she received a first in Applied Sciences. She then moved to London and secured a six-figure salary at the world-renowned Calthorpe Centre, taking part in pioneering work in Artificial Intelligence.
To top it all, she had recently married the so-called most eligible man in London, Angus Metcalf, a high-flying advertising executive at the top of his game. They lived in a house estimated to be worth over ￡8 million on one of London’s smartest streets, with pop stars and Russian oligarchs as their neighbours. They attended charity balls and dined with the rich and famous. They had works of art on their walls which wouldn’t have looked out of place in the finest galleries, and holidayed in some of the most exclusive resorts in the world. Their honeymoon to South Africa, taken only in September this year, reportedly cost over ￡20,000.
So what went wrong? How has Verity Metcalf found herself at the centre of a tawdry ménage à trois, as her brilliant husband lies dead and her ex-boyfriend, Michael Hayes, 30, languishes in prison awaiting trial for the murder?
The truth, as it always is, is much more complicated than the perfect face Verity presents to the world.
An undeniably beautiful woman, Verity has shown almost no emotion since the death of Angus Metcalf. She has been photographed countless times: near her house, at the police station, running in the park, at her parents’ country mansion, and yet her expression is always the same. The steely eyes, the pursed lips, the upturned chin. There is often jewellery at her ears and neck, sometimes she even appears to be wearing a bit of make-up. Certainly her eyes are never puffy or bloodshot, as one would expect from a devastated new widow. She walks almost with her head held high, her gait strutting, as if daring us all to cross her.
I look at Verity and I don’t see a shocked woman in mourning, but instead a calculating temptress. She telephoned Mr Hayes to warn him that her husband was on his way over on the night of the killing. And she was apparently found embracing Mr Hayes by police called to the house by a neighbour, as her husband lay dead at their feet.
By all accounts, Verity liked sex and she liked to experiment. An ex-boyfriend has been quoted as saying that she sometimes ‘scared him with her passion’. We will never know if this was the hold she exerted over Michael Hayes, but many testify to how enchanted he always seemed by her.
Hayes is an interesting character. Brought up by a violent, alcoholic mother until the age of ten and then placed into the care system, with all its failings, he was an unruly and difficult child. Excluded from three schools, he only found stability from the age of twelve when he was placed in the permanent foster care of Elaine and Barry Marks. His behaviour certainly appeared to settle with them and his obvious intelligence blossomed enough for him to do well in his exams and secure a place at Bristol University to read Economics.
Verity and Hayes met during their second year and looking at photographs of them from that time it is hard to put the beautiful, confident girl with the shy, awkward boy. Friends say he was infatuated by her from the start and would follow her around like a puppy.
After graduating, Hayes went into banking, where he excelled. Not as rich as Metcalf, he still earned a substantial sum of money, with bonuses which regularly topped a million.
Verity and Hayes split up at Christmas last year, but she had already met Metcalf by then and begun an affair. Friends describe them as seeming blissfully happy and they were engaged within months and married this September at a lavish ceremony in the grounds of her parents’ home. Bizarrely, Hayes attended the wedding, but guests have said he seemed agitated and out of place.
No one knows when Verity and Hayes reconnected or what happened. All we know for certain is that they were seeing enough of each other for her to now accuse him of assaulting her in her own home 24 hours before the murder took place, whilst Angus was on a business trip in LA.
Perhaps they never stopped loving each other? Or perhaps Verity never loved Hayes or Metcalf? Perhaps she saw an opportunity in both men and played one off against the other? Because Verity Metcalf is now a very rich woman, being the sole beneficiary of her husband’s substantial fortune.
We’ve all known a Verity Metcalf; I certainly have. She’s the prettiest girl in school, the one who gets all the boys. She’s clever and bright and funny and always invited to all the parties. She looks good in clothes but never seems to work out. She gets the dream jobs and the sunniest holidays; she eats in the best restaurants and drives the fastest car. She knows the power of her sexuality and isn’t afraid to use it.
Except, when you try to have a proper girly chat with her, you realise there is something missing. She doesn’t want to curl up in her pjs with a bottle of Pinot Grigio and compare dating disasters. She keeps herself aloof, with one eye trained over your shoulder in case a good-looking man should walk in.
The last time I trusted a woman like Verity Metcalf she walked away with my husband, and since then I’ve been able to see past the glitz and the glamour and look into these women’s eyes. They’re dangerous, the Verity Metcalfs of this world, and they know it. It’s just a shame it takes the rest of us too long to learn the lesson.
One thing’s for sure: whether or not Verity is responsible for her husband’s death, I doubt she’s really innocent or truthful underneath all her perfection.