Read Online Watching You by Michael Robotham - Free Book Online Page B

They were hiring casuals instead of experienced journalists; buying agency copy instead of using staffers. These were publicly listed companies, answerable to shareholders, who were more interested in the bottom line than breaking big stories and winning awards.
    Management started laying people off. Daniel would call Marnie and say that he’d survived to fight another day. “I’m just taking a few of the lads out for a farewell drink.”
    These were colleagues. Mates. They went to the pub and then to a nightclub and at some point Daniel would find his way to the casino, playing cards or roulette. He would stumble home at three a.m. reeking of beer and curry, tip-toeing past the bedroom, trying not to wake the kids. Then he’d sit in the dark, watching TV.
    “Come to bed,” she’d say.
    “When the room stops spinning,” he’d reply, nursing a pint glass of water on his chest.
    Marnie would watch him for a minute, her stomach in knots, wanting to say something, but not wanting to be the wife who nags.
    “I know things are difficult right now.”
    “You have no idea.”
    “Tell me.”
    “It’s fine for you. You sit at home all day. I’m the one who has to earn the money.”
    “I’m working.”
    “Part-time. You’re a waitress.”
    “I’ll go back full-time…get a job in advertizing.”
    “There are no jobs in advertizing.”
    When they fought it was over money. Daniel loved Zoe and Elijah, but seemed to resent how much they cost. He acted as though Marnie had never had a job, but that wasn’t true. Before Elijah came along she was writing copy and earning almost as much as Daniel, but he didn’t think her job was as important as his.
    The final nail in his newspaper coffin was self-inflicted. Daniel thought he could take voluntary redundancy and “walk across the road” into another job. The Times would snap him up or The Guardian, but none of them were hiring, not even the trade magazines he once laughed at.
    For the first few months he tried to freelance, selling occasional pieces for shitty money. Marnie tried to be supportive, but Daniel would pick fights with her. He imagined her tallying up his shortcomings, when in reality her heart was breaking for him. Her big Aussie bloke with the killer smile had become bitter and brittle, knotted inside like an overwound clock, angry with himself and everyone else.
    His redundancy money should have lasted six months. Daniel gambled it away in two. He told Marnie he was paying contacts and researching stories that would get him “back in the game.” One morning she picked up his wallet from the floor. It was bulging with receipts and ATM dockets. She searched through the cash withdrawals and noticed how many ATMs were adjacent to a casino. Five hundred pounds had been withdrawn the evening before. Forty pounds was all that was left.
    Marnie could picture Daniel spending up big at the casino, splashing money around, big-noting himself. She found another piece of paper with a phone number and the name, “Sam.” She pictured some firm-breasted TOWIE with a postage stamp dress and a be-jazzled vagina, pressing herself against Daniel, putting her glossy lips to his ear.
    Then she told herself she was being ridiculous. “Sam” was a man’s name. Daniel would never have been unfaithful. When he married Marnie he said he was “over the bullshit.” He had met the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.
    She shouldn’t have mentioned the phone number. She could have kept quiet. Instead she opened her mouth. Daniel accused her of jumping to conclusions and acting like a shrill fishwife. Marnie hated quarrelling. She had seen other couples pick apart each other’s flaws like carrion, but she and Daniel had never gone to bed without making up after an argument.
    That day it changed. She didn’t back down. Daniel didn’t suffer in silence. Glass was broken. Tears were spilled. He grabbed his coat and stormed out. He didn’t come home for two