Vogel told her.
‘And you kept it from me, for nine days?’ Mary queried gently.
Vogel nodded.
‘David, I know that you’ve spoken to your father at least twice in that time. Didn’t you mention the letter?’
Vogel shook his head. Vogel’s father, Eytan, now lived in Israel with Vogel’s younger brother, Adam. David Vogel was a secular Jew. He believed in no god, actively practiced no religion and privately questioned the intelligence of anyone who did. His father was a devout Jew, who had never quite come to terms with his elder son’s rejection of the faith. Adam, on the other hand, was always so committed to the faith that he ultimately became a rabbi and moved to The Promised Land. After the atrocities against the Jewish race during the second world war, the Israeli Knesset passed the Law of Return in 1950. This allows all Jewish people, as their birthright, to resettle in Israel and become Israeli citizens. It had seemed quite natural that, when Vogel’s mother died a few years previously, the widowed Eytan had followed his rabbi son and gone to live in Tel Aviv.
Mary persisted, her tone even more gentle.
‘David, why haven’t you asked Eytan about it?’
Vogel blinked rapidly behind his spectacles.
‘Because I’m not at all sure I want to hear his answer,’ he said.
‘Oh David, it must be so difficult for you,’ responded Mary quietly. She glanced at the clock on the wall. ‘Look it’s nearly two a.m. Let’s go to bed. You must get some sleep, perhaps things will seem clearer in the morning.’
Vogel smiled wryly.
Mary knew he was unconvinced of that. She followed him out of the sitting room. As usual, when he was late home, he quietly opened the door of Rosamund’s bedroom and stood, for a minute or two, watching his sleeping daughter. He would now have very little time for sleep himself. Mary was well aware that he’d leave the house before six.
She also knew how disturbed her husband had been by the extraordinary revelation that he had just shared with her.
Saul
The replies started coming in within days.
The first two girls didn’t sound right at all. I thought one, reading between the lines, was just after western money. I had seen a lot of warnings online about that happening. The other seemed like the sort of good-time girl, who were ten a penny in any pub or club in the UK. I hated that type. Six didn’t reply. Another two didn’t appeal to me, for reasons I couldn’t explain.
I entered into correspondence with the remaining two who had responded. Manee and Apinya. I didn’t know if those were their real names but, nonetheless, I looked up the meaning of both. All oriental names have meanings: Manee meant precious stone and Apinya meant magical power.
I guess I leaned towards Manee from the start. I realised it was silly to be influenced by names, particularly when they may not even be real, but I felt it might be too dangerous for me to become involved with a woman whose name meant magical power. Who knows, she might see right through me.
Manee began to sound more and more like Sonia, I thought. But a Sonia who was prepared to travel halfway across the world to be with a man she’d never met. A woman who told me she’d been brought up in an orphanage, her only relative being a sister she hardly ever saw. A woman who was so desperate to start a new life, to have any sort of life at all, that I thought she might even put up with me. Just as I was, as I had to be.
‘I am not like western girl,’ she wrote. ‘I want to look after man. I want to have his children and look after them too. That all. I do not want partying. Manee hate partying. Want home with her man.’
She seemed very trusting too, which was absolutely necessary to me. She agreed at once to exchange email addresses, something the site warned against. I told her that was only because they wanted more money from us. She did, however, ask why I hadn’t posted a picture of myself on the site. I replied that I was a very private person, which was surprisingly near the truth. As we were now in direct contact via email, I sent her the same heavily Photoshopped picture I had posted on Marryme.com.
Things moved quickly then. I understand they often do.
I had circumnavigated Thaibrides-introductions.com protocol. I explained to Manee that I was too busy to travel to Thailand. We needed to move to the next step.
Manee agreed to fly to England to be with me. If we liked each other, we would be married. I became carried away by it all, just as I had with Sonia, but I told myself that this time would be different. Thai girls were different and Manee would have to rely on me totally, in a land that was foreign to her. This time there was hope, surely. This time maybe I could make it work. I could fulfil my dreams.
I sent Manee the money for her fare. I did wonder if I was being naïve, perhaps she would just take my money and I would never hear from her again. I wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. But, within days, she emailed me to say she had booked her flight for the following week. Unlike Sonia, who’d wanted to speak to me on the phone before even agreeing to meet me — let alone flying across the world to me — Manee had not asked to speak to me at all. I wasn’t sure if I was glad or sorry about that. It did mean I was really thrown into the deep end.
I had a lot of planning to do and the short period of time, before she was due to arrive, flew by. As soon as the reality began to sink in, the realisation of what I’d done and what was about to happen overwhelmed me. I couldn’t bring Manee to my home, that was for sure.
I already had the basis of a false identity, which I’d started to build some years ago, just in case! I’d used the old Frederick Forsyth, Day of the Jackal trick to obtain a passport and taken it from there. I was aware of that idiot who faked his own death in a canoeing accident and had successfully done the same thing. It seemed crazy that the scam had still worked, more than forty years after Forsyth taught us all how do it. But, knowing that it had worked so much more recently for canoe man, I’d decided to give it a go. It worked for me too and hadn’t proved too difficult either.
I’d homed in on a male, who’d died as a child, but would have been about my age had he lived. and visited the national records office to gain the necessary papers, starting with a birth certificate. It was easy enough to follow through the required steps to acquire a passport, set up a bank account and so on. That gave me the debit card, which I used to pay for my online dating activities and anything else which necessitated plastic rather than cash. I’d opted for internet banking, of course, so all correspondence with my bank was online. Even acquiring a driving licence hadn’t been difficult, I’d just had to apply for a provisional and take a test. I was a good driver and sailed through it.
I scanned the internet for affordable, rental properties in Bristol. Most of what was on offer was out of my budget and I was looking for a private rental; a property being advertised directly by the landlord. I wasn’t sure that my false identity would stand up to the scrutiny of a bona fide estate agent.
Eventually, I found a furnished, two-bedroomed flat, albeit in an area where I would not normally choose to live, which seemed suitable and was being advertised by a private individual. Apart from anything else, someone who wanted to avoid estate agent’s fees was more likely to bend the rules.
I arranged to meet the landlord at the property the same evening, it wasn’t much. The kitchen was dirty, the furniture had seen better days and the whole place needed redecorating. But, after a cursory glance around, I decided to take it. I didn’t have the time to be choosey. I just had to hope that Manee accepted the story I was planning to tell her.