Dirty Noir

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Dirty Noir - book excerpt

Mexico

We got married in Mexico and he left me six weeks later.

I loved him, was insanely in love with him.

But you need some context for all this.

I was studying philosophy at St Edmund Hall, Oxford’s oldest college, when we met, and was tipped for a first.

Adam blazed into my life and it was as if a piano had fallen on me, “with all its melodies” – that was his phrase when I shared the image with him.

He was a rally driver and engineer, and flew his own private jet, travelling regularly to French Guyana where he was supervising a comms-satellite programme for an International company with a big French government stake in it. Too many of the satellites were landing in the sea or exploding in the stratosphere. It was his job to get the programme back on track. He’d developed specialist software he claimed would revolutionise the comms-satelite industry, which he successfully used on that contract.

Good-looking, charming and successful, he had everything going for him – including me, for those mad weeks we spent together.

Then it was all over as suddenly as it’d begun. He didn’t even say goodbye. Just left a note in our hotel room. I found it when I got back from a dip in the pool.

“Dear Jessica,

I’ve had a great time with you but I’m sorry, marriage isn’t for me.

I still love you. But with the deepest regret I’m calling time on our relationship.

Please don’t think badly of me.

Love,

Adam.”

I shook as I read those words and rushed to the wardrobe to check if his clothes were still there. They weren’t. Even his toiletries had vanished from the bathroom. When I’d established that every physical trace of him was gone I became a sobbing hysterical wreck.

When I’d recovered sufficiently to pack my suitcase, I booked a flight home and got the hotel to order me a taxi to the airport. While I was waiting in reception a middle-aged American man came up to me. He was obviously moneyed - his watch alone must’ve cost more than I earned in a month. The corners of his mouth were pointed towards the floor as if unable to resist the pull of gravity.

“You must be Jessica,” he said.

“What if I am? What business is it of yours?” I was in no mood to socialise.

“Your husband just ran off with my wife.”

He showed me a photograph of a stunning young woman at least twenty years his junior.

So, I thought to myself, Adam’s note was a lie. It’s not that marriage isn’t for him. He found someone else and couldn’t keep his dick in his pants. It’s that simple.

The taxi arrived just as I was looking up from the photo of the woman my husband had run off with, sparing me the ordeal of further interaction with her aggrieved husband.

“I’m sorry, I have to go.”

Picking up my bags I marched out with what little dignity I could muster.

For long enough after that I was a nervous wreck. I’d given up everything to be with Adam. The future I’d planned for myself – for both of us – had been cruelly snatched away from me.

Reality was so difficult to face that I saw a doctor who prescribed pills to help me cope. They were at their most effective when taken with copious amounts of alcohol.

Now and again I’d read a story in a newspaper about how Adam’s business empire was growing, or see a photo on Instagram of him with one or another of his many stunning girlfriends. The sight of him enjoying the company of so many nubile partners was the most exquisite torture for me.

Cue more pills and drink.

In the wake of my nervous breakdown, I was unable to have a relationship for a long time. When I eventually began dating again, much to my surprise, it was a woman who stole my heart. Maybe I’d always been lesbian; or possibly it was a reaction to having been so brutally betrayed by a man.

At some point, with my new partner’s help, I emerged from my alcoholic and pill-fuelled haze, picked myself up off the floor, and began to think clearly.

A simple equation formed itself in my mind: he’d taken my future away. He owed me.

I could’ve had a high-flying career if not for Adam. Because of him I’d abandoned my degree which would’ve been the key to it all, then I’d spent two years in a state of near oblivion, due to his betrayal.

It was payback time. Adam was extremely wealthy. He’d inherited a lot of money, plus he was a big earner. He could afford to compensate me for the wrongs he’d done me. Handsomely.

I saw a lawyer and instructed him to arrange my divorce and ensure I got a big payout.

It was then that I learnt how truly devious Adam had been.

Wealthy guys like him often insist on prenup agreements to protect their fortunes. He hadn’t done that. Instead, he’d gotten us married in a ceremony that wasn’t legally recognised anywhere but the remote Mexican village where it’d taken place.

He’d obviously been planning for the future, thinking that if someone else turned his head at some stage he could get out of our relationship as easily as he’d gotten in it.

And the cunning bastard had left me high and dry. Ruined my life.

Somehow I managed to retrain in IT and painstakingly, over a period of years, I became an internet security expert for a company based in LA, although I continued to live in the Home Counties.

It was eight years after Adam and I separated that I was in Mexico – the place held bad memories for me but that didn’t stop me going – at the same time as him. I was on a business trip and he was there because, well, he was just being Adam.

I saw him but he didn’t see me. I was tempted to introduce myself but I didn’t. Just kept my distance. He went into a hotel and I followed discreetly, watching as he ordered a drink at the bar. I knew he’d go there. It was his favourite haunt. The place was ill-lit, thick-carpeted, marble-walled, and catered to the more vulgar of the moneyed elite. The Adams of this world.

I snuck into a dark corner. A waiter glided my way and I ordered a dry martini in a quiet voice.

Over at the bar Adam was being given his drink, a gin-and-tonic. There was a girl on a stool about a yard from him sipping an exotic cocktail. She was wearing a close-fitting white silk dress and wearing it well, her black hair cascading over honey-coloured shoulders. She looked towards Adam and gave him a shy smile. An obvious come-on.

I knew from personal and painful experience that Adam rarely hesitated when given such a smile.

He immediately instigated a conversation with the girl. They had a couple of drinks together and left. I didn’t follow, assuming they’d gone for a night out, and would go to his suite later. Or maybe they’d go straight to his room.

I finished my drink and went to my own hotel.

The following evening my business trip ended so I took a flight home. After landing at Heathrow I got the express to central London and went to a room I’d hired at the Double Tree hotel. I’d been there no more than five minutes when there was a knock at the door.

“Come in,” I said.

A stunning young woman entered. The girl who I’d seen Adam with in Mexico. My partner. She’d been willing to sacrifice some of her principles in order to help me. Her help had gotten me access to Adam’s laptop for long enough to extract vital information about his companies and finances.

His bank accounts made for a decent immediate injection to my bank balance, via a dubious world-wide trail of transactions that would throw any investigation off the scent.

I’m selling his trade secrets via the dark web – signs are they’ll fetch a very high price.

Poor old Adam. I don’t think I left him with enough ready money even to pay for a flight home. He’ll have to raise some cash by selling shares in his companies.

But he had better do that quickly – they’ll drop in value faster than the South Sea Bubble when word gets out that all his competitors know his trade secrets.

I’m planning a holiday with my gorgeous partner. A honeymoon.We’ve just married in style. Maybe we’ll go to Mexico and stay in an expensive hotel.

The End