My Husband's Son: A dark and gripping psychological thriller (14 page)

It took me a few minutes to realise why I’d woken up. I’d been having a dream in which I was in the off-licence with the boy. I was thirsty. Somehow, I’d managed to get round to the other side of the cage where the boy was being kept, and there I’d discovered an enormous bottle of water. It was the boy’s water, but I was so thirsty that I took it from him. I’d only planned on having a sip and then giving it back. But, when I drank, I discovered it was the coolest, sweetest water I’d ever tasted and so then I took another sip and another. It seemed that, no matter how much of the water I consumed, I couldn’t quench my thirst. At first, I thought the dream was my body’s way of telling me I was dehydrated, the way it sometimes does if you’ve eaten too much salty food. But then I felt the spit rushing in my mouth and I knew I had woken because I was going to be sick.

I got out of bed, went to the bathroom and knelt in front of the toilet. As I waited for the first hot sting of acid in my throat, I realised how quiet the house was, and yesterday’s events floored me all over again.

Afterwards, I’d waited in all day and then all night, hoping for Jason’s return. By midnight, there was still no sign of him and so I’d tried to go to bed. But rest had proved impossible. Lying there, I’d found myself paralysed by the same feeling I used to have in the years before we met. It was as though the marrow had been scraped from my bones, as though I was a hollow woman, desiccated and lighter than air.

I still found it impossible to believe Jason might think Vicky had anything to do with Barney’s disappearance. That he would ever consider her capable of hurting her own son. But then, sometimes mothers did kill their children. On purpose or accidentally. In their right mind or not. I thought about the locked drawer and the folder it held. Maybe Jason knew things about Vicky and her history that meant he couldn’t totally disregard the possibility she had been involved. Maybe he suspected she had been to blame all along.

The boiling in my abdomen was getting worse. What had I eaten to make me ill? No doubt the wine I’d drunk to help me sleep had something to do with it, but then, I’d only had a couple of glasses. Maybe I’d had more than I’d realised or maybe the bottle was off. That happened sometimes. As my stomach began to pulse I braced myself, ready. Before long, whatever it was inside of me that was wrong was out and it was all over.

My knees shaky, I grabbed hold of the towel rail and used it to pull myself up to standing. And then it happened.

I don’t know if it was the acrid smell in the air, or the fact that for the first time in ages I’d spent last night alone, but I found myself remembering one particular day when Lauren had been sick. She must have been three or four years old. The sounds of her retching had woken me and I’d gone to her room to check on her. Bleary-eyed, I’d tried to clear the vomit from the carpet: all smushed up pitta bread and pasta shells from her dinner the night before. I remembered how some of its wet warm had grazed my knuckles as I scooped it up with the cloth.

But then I’m not sure that ‘remembering’ is the right word for the way that that particular image had come into my head. I mean, how
do
you describe it when you suddenly recall something you haven’t thought of since? Something so banal and everyday that it dissolved from your brain almost as soon as it happened? I had many precious memories of Lauren stored away, memories that I liked to turn over like jewels in my hand, enjoying them again and again. But, until now, I’d always thought they were finite, that I’d gleaned my mind for every last drop of her. So, to have something like this come back to me was such a peculiar and unexpected treasure. It felt like I had found a bit of unwatched home-movie footage at the bottom of a cupboard.

I went back into the bedroom, to where my phone sat on the dressing table, and checked for missed calls. But the screen was a blank. Where had Jason spent last night and when was he going to get in touch? I resisted the urge to call around his friends and ask if any of them had heard from him. Something told me I’d be better off keeping this to myself.

Then I had a thought that, even as it formed in my brain, I tried to dismiss.

What if he’d spent the night at Vicky’s?

He could have asked for refuge: a blanket and the sofa and time to sort out his head. She would never refuse him.

It was 4 a.m. I could drive over there now and see if his car was outside.

Swathes of fog rolled low on the ground and old leaves rucked brown against walls and fences. The sun had yet to come up but sparrows were already chittering in the trees. Blanketed by the warm air thrumming from the vents and the dashboard glowing blue and red in the gloom, I drove on towards my destination.

I reached the entrance to Vicky’s cul-de-sac and slowed to a crawl. Parking on the opposite side of the street, some distance from her house, I turned off the engine and sat there in the dark. Populated by identical semi-detached houses, the close seemed to radiate with yellow-coloured bricks, the white gabling around each front door like a fluorescent marker, there to semaphore each resident’s home. Every house, including Vicky’s, was dark, the day to come still sandbagged by closed curtains and drawn blinds. I listened to the clicks and creaks of the car engine cooling and got Lauren’s compass out of my bag. Holding the silver disc in my palm, I completed an inventory of every parked car. There was no sign of Jason’s Golf.

I breathed out, long and slow, and gripped the steering wheel. Once I’d recovered myself, I looked at Vicky’s house, trying to imagine Barney playing football on the crunchy gravel in the drive. Vicky and Jason had bought the place when they got engaged. When they divorced, he’d let her have it as part of the settlement.

My mouth was still coated with an acid, sour residue, the after-effects of my earlier bout of sickness. I searched out the roll of mints I kept in the well beneath the handbrake and my hand brushed against a sheaf of papers. I popped a mint into my mouth and unfolded the four sheets of A4. They were the photo composites of the unidentified people seen in or near Ashbrook House around the time Barney went missing. I must have left them in here the day I brought them to the off-licence. I made a mental note to replace them in Jason’s files before he could notice they were gone. One by one, I held the male faces up to the weak, grey moonlight. Reassured they didn’t pass any resemblance to Keith, I folded them back together. Why none of the people pictured in these photofits had ever come forward remained a mystery. Some speculated that it was because they were involved in Barney’s disappearance, others thought it was because they didn’t exist, because they were a figment, imagined out of thin air by eager witnesses desperate to offer something, anything that might help.

I’d just placed them in my coat pocket when Vicky’s front door opened. I scrunched down in the seat, my ears full of the whump-whump of blood being moved fast around my body. Had she seen me? Was she coming out to ask why I was spying on her?

My hand on the ignition, I was about to leave when someone appeared in the doorway. Too tall to be Vicky, the person was shrugging a coat up onto their shoulders and looking right and left, sizing up the neighbouring houses. They stepped out onto the drive and I realised it was a man.

Jason?

I watched as he stopped and turned back, apparently in response to someone still inside the house. Vicky appeared on the step. Her black hair loose around her shoulders, she was wrapped in a long white dressing-gown, the collar drawn up against the cold. The man retraced his steps and Vicky brought up her hands, drawing him in for a final kiss. To reach her mouth, the man had to bend down low. As he came back up to standing, he angled his face ever so slightly to the left and the street light caught on his profile. I gripped the compass hard.

The man kissing Vicky was Martin. DS Martin Gooder.

My first feeling was relief. It wasn’t my husband on the doorstep. This soon gave way to shock. Vicky and the detective were together. Or they had been last night. I wondered if Jason had any inkling there was something going on between them? If he had, then he’d never once mentioned it to me. As far as he was concerned, since their divorce, Vicky had remained single. Would he be jealous?

They finished their goodbyes and the detective lolloped off into the dark, the dangle and swing of his arms and legs making it look like they were only loosely attached to his torso.

He was on the other side of the street to where I was parked. Still I hunched as far down in my seat as I could; I came back up to sitting only once I was sure he’d gone.

The watery dawn light was just starting to show over the rooftops. I checked back on Vicky’s house. Every window was dark, her front door closed tight.

Back home, I went through every room, checking for signs of Jason. If he’d been here while I was out, he’d left no trace. My search complete, I slumped on the small chair in front of our dressing table. I needed to get ready for work, but first I decided to give Jason one more try.

Dialling his number, I used my other hand to feel in my bag for Lauren’s compass. As his phone began to ring, I rubbed my thumb against the disc’s serrated edge and was just warming the metal in my palm when his voicemail kicked in. I let myself listen to the recording for a few seconds and then I hung up and tried again. Maybe he hadn’t been able to make it to the phone in time. But once more he didn’t answer. I decided to leave a message.

‘Where are you? I’m worried.’ I softened my tone. ‘I’m sorry, Jay. I shouldn’t have gone through your things. At least let me know you’re OK.’

As I hung up, I caught sight of my reflection in the dressing-table mirror. My eyes were swollen and the smattering of grey at the edge of my hairline seemed to have seeped from my scalp overnight. I looked all of my thirty-nine years and more. I grabbed a face-wipe and began to clean the tears from my cheeks. At least Jason hadn’t taken a bag. His things were still scattered amongst my perfume bottles and tubs of moisturiser. I looked at his tin of deodorant, tube of ChapStick and hairbrush, dense with old strands of blond hair. He’d have to come home soon, if only to get a change of clothes.

On compulsion, I scrolled through my phone again, hoping there might be some call or text message I’d missed the first time around. But of course, there was nothing. The last person to contact me had done so yesterday morning from a withheld number. Tommy’s number.

I considered Jason’s hairbrush. Some of the blond strands snagged in its teeth still had the white root-plugs attached. I’d watched enough TV to know that the root was the part of the hair they used for DNA testing.

I looked at the withheld number on the screen.

It had been weeks and still, I was unable to forget the child from the off-licence.

I imagined Jason’s face were I to be able to come to him with the wonderful news I’d found his son.

Maybe Tommy’s phone call was an opportunity? Maybe he was the one person who could help me get definitive proof as to the boy’s identity? If I could make Tommy believe that his interest in me was reciprocated, then I’d be able to visit and spend time with him – and hopefully, through his association with Keith, get access to the child, all without sounding any warning bells.

I got to my feet. I was a fool to let this chance pass me by. I needed to get closer to the boy. Without the metal security cage between us. Without spying on him in the street. Tommy. Tommy was the key.

I spent the rest of the day at work checking and rechecking my phone as though, if only I looked at it enough times, I could make it ring. But it had remained infuriatingly silent and now, as I returned home to find there was still no sign of Jason, a new and horrible collection of fears began to take shape.

In two years of marriage we’d never gone this long without talking. Did it mean I’d overstepped a mark there was no coming back from? And what of the folder I’d found? What else might he be keeping from me?

I got changed in a daze and as I got back in the car, I kept reminding myself I had a plan. A good, solid plan. All I needed was some of the boy’s DNA. Proof. Proof would put everything that was wrong, right. For the next few hours at least, I decided to keep my mind focused on that.

I was less than a mile away when I saw the Angel of the North. Scarecrowing up out of the dusk, it stood next to the motorway, beaconing me in. I took the next turn-off and soon I was on a narrow B road, framed on both sides by high black hedgerows. I navigated the weaves and dips of what quickly became little more than a bumpy countryside lane. The car’s headlamps cut through the darkness. Before long, I saw a sign advertising the pub Tommy had described. I slowed down and hunched forward over the steering wheel, searching the gloom for the entrance. Around the next corner my headlamps picked out a tall wooden pole, a square board announcing the pub’s name amidst an elaborate coat of arms insignia. The Ravensworth Arms: Public House and Inn.

I pulled into the car park and got out. In front of me was the pub. A long, narrow building built out of sand-coloured stone, its ground floor was ablaze with light. Meanwhile upstairs, thick curtains swagged the windows of what were presumably the hotel rooms for hire. Undeterred by the chill October wind, a collection of smokers stood by a bench near the far end of the building.

I headed for the small door set forward into an eaved vestibule and tried not to lose my balance as my metal-heeled stilettos sliced into the car park’s softer sections of grass and mud. Inside, orange lights burned in bowl-like glass shades fixed to the ceiling and the air was warm and hop-scented. A few people at the bar looked over at me and whispered. There was no one dressed in anything more formal than a jumper and jeans. I must look odd standing here in my high heels with my hair curled and pinned.

I scanned the pub from left to right. Tommy had said he would be here tonight with or without me, but it was almost 9.30 p.m. I was two hours later than the specified time. I started to worry that I’d come all the way here for no reason when I saw him. Sitting apart in a snug situated towards the back of the room, he was nursing a pint in front of a fire. I approached where he sat. Wearing jeans and a thick green fleece, he seemed so at ease in his own skin and to so completely own the space he occupied, that it felt like a shame to disturb him.

It took him a few seconds to notice my presence.

‘Heidi,’ he said, sitting up straight. He seemed relieved to see me. Maybe he wasn’t quite as blasé about my coming tonight as he’d tried to make out.

‘Hi,’ I replied, with a small wave.

He shuffled over to the far side of the sofa and patted the newly empty spot, encouraging me to sit down.

But I’d no sooner perched next to him than he got to his feet. He finished the remainder of his pint in one.

‘White wine, right?’

I caught a waft of his aftershave. Nothing like the clean, metallic scent Jason liked to wear, it had a cinnamon kick that reminded me of the way the house smelt at Christmas.

He went to the bar and was soon back with our drinks. As he handed me my glass, I saw a plaster on his thumb.

‘What did you do there?’ I asked, brushing it lightly with my forefinger.

He waited before answering, as though he wanted to see how long I was willing to let my hand remain touching his.

‘Cut myself chopping some onions at work,’ he said. ‘Had my mind on other things.’

I met his eyes with a smile and he retook his seat next to me. The fire was banked high with slack and the coals glowed amber in the grate. I tried to stop the side of my body from pressing into Tommy but the sofa was small and after a while sitting tense and upright, I became uncomfortable and so I let myself relax in next to him.

The pub crowd that surrounded us was a mixture of lone men supping pints at the bar and groups of friends and couples at the many tables arranged about the place. The air murmured with laughter and easy conversation. I watched as the people at the table nearest to us got up, ready to leave. Two couples – a middle-aged husband and wife and a much older pair, sporting grey hair and glasses; it was clear from the way the younger couple were helping the others on with their coats that they were either their parents or grandparents.

I turned to Tommy.

‘Do you have family round here?’

‘They’re mostly in Glasgow.’ He shrugged. ‘But then, I think family is what you make it.’ He laughed to himself. ‘Or who you make it.’

‘You don’t ever wish you were like Keith?’ I said, trying to find a way to turn the conversation to my advantage. I could tell by the look on his face that this was too much of a volte-face but to stop now would make it worse. ‘You know, with his Mary Poppins routine.’

‘You mean him looking after Mikey?’ he asked carefully.

I nodded, relieved. He wasn’t fazed by my random change of direction.

‘Sure. Helping your family is an important thing. The most important thing. Keith’s sister works shifts. Stacking shelves. Not easy when you’re a single mum.’

I thought back to the exchange I’d witnessed between Keith and the man that night in the alley. Robbie, that’s what Keith had called him. He must be the ex-husband.

‘Does she have just the one kid then, his sister?’

‘She’s got two others. You’ve met Kimberley already, I think. She works for me. In the caff.’

The chubby girl behind the counter. She’d been there the day I got knocked over by the car.

‘Then there’s Jake. He’s still at school. Mikey is the youngest.’

‘Three?’ I said, failing to hide my surprise. ‘She has three kids?’

‘That’s right.’ Tommy stopped and considered me with a strange half-smile.

That night in the alley Robbie had mentioned two children: a son and a daughter. Where had this third child come from? Of course, it was entirely possible that Keith’s sister had had a baby either before or since her marriage to Robbie.

‘Being a single parent is tough.’ I thought back to how it had been raising Lauren on my own. Even with Mum and Dad to help, it was hard and often lonely. ‘Divorce?’

‘More complicated than that. She was married but he used to knock her around, whether the kids were there or not. Social services got involved. She stuck by him and in the end they took the kids off her, into care.’

‘That’s awful.’

‘It was a long time ago, now. Being without them messed her up. You can imagine.’ He paused and, even though I was certain he had no clue who I was, I felt myself bristle, suddenly paranoid that this was some reference to how I’d coped without Lauren. ‘But then she managed to sort herself out. She left him and moved away, somewhere he’d never find her. Then she fought to get her kids back.’

‘What about the husband?’ I asked. ‘Where is he now?’ I wondered if Keith had told Tommy about Robbie banging on the door that night.

‘He’s inside. Not for what he did to her,’ he said, anticipating my next question. ‘Though he would have more than deserved it. No, he’s just one of those bad lads, into all sorts.’

I thought of the fear I’d heard in Keith’s voice in the alley, how he’d tried to cover for his sister. He was clearly a good person and the story he’d given me was looking more and more plausible. His sister was real, as was one of her other children, Kimberley. Had I got this whole thing horribly and completely wrong?

My eyes began to close. The last twenty-four hours were finally starting to catch up with me. I let my gaze rise up, beyond the fire, to a framed picture of the Angel of the North on the wall. With its rusty-red steel and wings spread wide, the sculpture looked majestic, magical even. It reminded me of something, but I couldn’t think what. Then I remembered. I looked down at Tommy’s forearm and the winged siren woman he had tattooed there. The anchor draped across her body had a tangle of roses running along the width of its crown.

‘One for the road?’ He gestured at my empty glass.

‘I’m driving.’

‘We could always stay here.’ He motioned to the floor above.

‘Nice try.’ I smiled. ‘But I don’t think so.’

He reached for my hand. Slowly, he curled each one of his fingers through mine. His palm was papery dry. I looked down to where our hands now lay, intertwined on his leg, and was struck by the memory of Jason’s face just before he’d walked out. His lips had been half-pursed, his eyes soft. At the time his expression had made no sense. But now I knew what it meant. Pity. That was it. He’d felt pity for me.

I looked back at our hands, still together. I could feel the heat of Tommy’s skin through the fabric of his jeans. I waited a beat. I didn’t move my hand away.

The bell rang for last orders and then time. People began gathering their things, ready to leave, and we joined the exodus into the car park.

Outside, the cool night air was a shock to the system. I was wearing a jacket made out of thin cotton and, almost immediately, my teeth began to chatter.

‘I don’t want to go home just yet.’ He motioned to a jeep in the far corner. ‘Shall we talk in my car?’

I hesitated, but then I reminded myself that the whole purpose of my coming here tonight had been to make him trust me. The things I’d learnt about Keith and his sister were useful, but I’d need more to be truly satisfied.

‘I should be getting back.’

‘Go on.’

I gave him a shy smile. It would serve Jason right if he got home and discovered I wasn’t there. Let him worry.

‘Just for a bit.’

I followed him over to the jeep and, after opening the passenger door for me, he went round and got in the driver’s seat.

Inside, the jeep was immaculate and had that chemical, pine smell cars get when they have just been cleaned. My teeth were still chattering and so he turned the heating on high. It blared loudly from the vents and soon the car was sickly warm.

‘That’s better.’

We sat there in silence, watching the other cars leave. The earlier cloud cover had given way to thin, wispy contrails, and the crescent moon shone through them, high and white in the sky. I knew I should try and find some way to bring up the topic of Keith and the boy again, to use my time here to my best advantage, but every question or opener I framed in my mind sounded too weird or obvious.

‘I’m glad you decided to come tonight,’ said Tommy, sliding his hands up and down the outside of the steering wheel.

I watched them turn out the lights in the pub one by one and was trying to work out how to respond when I felt him reach over and stroke my left cheek.

I went to protest, only to discover I’d already moved my face in close to meet his hand. I pulled my head away.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Depends. What do you want me to do?’ he asked, lowering his hand to my chin. He turned and tilted my face so that I was looking at his lap.

He had an erection. Part of me registered that, alone with him in his car like this, I’d left myself vulnerable. For a brief moment I let myself imagine how Jason would feel if something bad were to happen to me.

Using one hand to keep my face turned towards him, with his other hand, he began stroking himself through his jeans, making me watch, daring me to take over.

When I didn’t, he stopped what he was doing and reached his hand in between my thighs. Spreading his fingers out against my flesh, he paused and looked at me.

‘What do you want?’ he asked again.

Apart from the odd few stragglers, the car park had now emptied.

He moved his hand up towards my knickers and, as he made contact with the cotton, I gasped at the realisation of my own wetness. He’d just started to edge my underwear to the side when a car swung past in the lane to our right, their headlights flashing directly through the windscreen. I startled and squeezed my legs together. Patting my hand against the car door until I found the lever, I grabbed it and pulled hard. When it didn’t open, I tried again and again. He must have put the auto-lock on.

‘Open the door,’ I said, wriggling away from him. ‘Please!’

‘Fine,’ he said, withdrawing his hand and bouncing back into his seat. He pressed a button and, as soon as I heard the doors click, I stumbled out into the dark.

Sobbing, I collapsed onto the grass and mud, my dress tangled up around my waist. I got to my feet and began walking towards my car, trying to make it back before the clouds covered the moon and cast everything into darkness.