My Husband's Son: A dark and gripping psychological thriller (18 page)

It had started to rain. Holding my coat over my head, I ran to the car and got in. Tesh had told me to come to a building site based out by Seal Sands. On the other side of the river, it should have been no more than a twenty-minute journey, but the roads were slick with spray. I drove only as fast as I dared.

Reaching the track that ran alongside the site, I scanned the wooden hoardings that fenced its perimeter and headed for the tall white cement cylinder Tesh had said marked the entrance.

Pulling inside, I found Tesh standing by the cylinder, waiting to greet me. I got out of the car and he led me to the shelter of a nearby overhang.

‘Thanks for coming so quickly,’ he said, water dripping off the tip of his hard hat.

‘Where is he?’

‘Up there.’ He pointed to the half-built power station on the other side of the site. ‘He’s been on his own for the last half-hour.’ Tesh’s cheeks reddened. ‘I had to bring the other lads in because of the weather.’ He nodded at the Portakabin to his left. Muddy puddles were already forming in front of its doorway. Not everyone though, it seemed, had retreated indoors. A single figure paced up and down next to a gap at the side of the cabin. A man wearing heavy blue overalls. The back of his neck, head and underside of his chin were decorated with a tattoo of leaved branches and fruit that originated somewhere beneath his overalls. Every now and again he would glance up towards the top of the power station, as if he were checking Jason was still there.

Tesh tugged at his fluorescent yellow jacket. ‘Our insurance, it doesn’t really … I shouldn’t really …’ He coughed and tried again. ‘Jason is an old mate. I didn’t think it would do him any favours to go and make it all official.’

‘What happened?’ I asked, looking up to where the structure’s end met the sky. Already its metal skeleton of rivets and bolts reached a hundred feet. The thought of him alone up there made me dizzy.

‘He must have sneaked his way in when we were on lunch. When we went back on shift one of the lads saw him.’ He handed me a hard hat. ‘I realise he knows his way around a site, but still – do you think you could persuade him to come down?’

‘You want me to go up there?’ I’d been expecting to talk to him on a radio or to wave at him from the ground.

‘I’ll clip you to the guard-rail. You’ll be safe.’

‘I’m not great with heights.’

‘It’s you or the Old Bill.’ He crossed his arms. ‘You decide.’

I took another look at the power station roof. Rain bounced from its clean horizontal lines.

‘I’ll do it.’

Immediately, Tesh took charge. He led me over to a small lift fixed to the side of the structure, opened the door and gestured for me to go inside. Following behind, he bolted us in and pressed a button. As the lift stirred into action, there was a low rumble of thunder in the distance. I shivered. My coat was already drenched through and I could feel how the hard hat’s clumsy plastic shell had flattened my hair into a damp mess.

‘Has something happened?’ broached Tesh as we made our ascent. ‘I know things are always difficult, but has something upset him recently?’

‘That kid out in Turkey,’ I said, as the ground grew further and further away. ‘He got his hopes up. We all did.’

We reached the top and Tesh pressed a red button. The lift came to a halt. We were now on the roof of the power station’s main burner. Aside from the box we stood in, we were totally exposed. Oblong in shape, every side of the roof boasted a sheer drop down to the ground below. My legs felt like they were about to buckle. Resisting the urge to turn and go back the way we had come, I looked out to where the river’s mouth met the North Sea. The water’s surface was fat with the incoming tide, its expanse a slurry brown.

Putting a harness over my coat, Tesh pulled the straps tight and hooked me onto a safety wire that connected to metal runners bolted to the length of the roof floor.

‘I’ll leave you to it,’ he said as he swung the gate open. He handed me a radio. ‘Shout when you want to come back down.’

Squinting against the rain, I saw a figure sitting on the corner edge of a girder, legs dangling. The figure was not wearing a safety wire. Jason.

I didn’t want to shout and scare him, so I followed the path prescribed by my wire’s metal runner. My knees were liquid, but still I forced myself to put one foot in front of the other. Once I was close enough for him to hear me over the weather, I said his name.

‘Jason?’

Nothing.

The thunder was overhead now and as it boomed there was a whip-crack of lightning that divided the sky in two. My insides rolled. His boots seemed way too heavy to be hanging over the side like that.

I needed to get nearer to him and so I got down on my bottom and shuffled forward until we were side by side.

‘Jay?’ The wind pushed his name back into my mouth and I coughed. ‘Look, I’m sorry about yesterday, about the folder. But I hadn’t gone looking for it on purpose, I promise.’

Still nothing.

I followed his gaze down, to the ground below. Its pull surprised me. There was an inevitability to the drop. It made me feel strangely calm. It would be so easy for us both to surrender to it. So easy for me to unclip my wire, take Jason’s hand and let ourselves fall off the edge. I wondered how the concrete would feel against our skin as we landed. I thought it would probably be like jumping into a cold pool; the way the pain was hardly noticeable if you just dived in without thinking and swam a lap to get warm.

‘I hit him. Did I ever tell you that?’

It took me a while to tune into the fact that he was telling me what was wrong. I rewound his words in my head, tried to process their meaning.

‘If you’re upset we can talk about it. Just not here. It’s not safe.’

‘It only happened the once. I smacked him on the bum.’ He used his thumb to rub at the girder between where we sat. The join in the weld was slightly raised and bumpy, like the keloid flesh of a scar that had healed. ‘We were crossing the road together and he let go of my hand. He almost ran into the traffic.’ He continued to rub at the girder, oblivious to everything but his need to recount what had happened. ‘I grabbed him just in time, but I was so scared. I don’t know why I did it. I was angry, I guess. You should have seen the look on his face. Pure betrayal. He never forgot.’

‘Oh, love,’ I said, wrapping my arm around his shoulders. He rested his head in the crook of my neck.

‘I miss being on-site. The lads. The weather.’

‘You do?’

I’d always been under the impression that the first aid had been a welcome escape. That he was a reluctant participant in the family trade. But then, maybe I’d never asked.

We sat there like that for a while, huddled together for warmth.

‘I don’t want to go on holiday. To Gran Canaria,’ he said eventually. ‘We’ll probably lose our deposit but I can’t face it. Not right now.’

‘Is that what all this is about?’ I said, relieved. ‘Why didn’t you say something sooner? Of course we can cancel. We can go some other time.’

He buried his head deeper into my shoulder and I put my arm around him, trying to shield him from the wind and rain.

‘What if we never find him, Heidi?’ His hair was sodden and as he pressed himself close, some of the droplets dripped onto my neck and down my back. ‘I don’t know how much longer I can do this.’

‘I know,’ I said, holding him close.

We were both soaked through, but we stayed together like that for a while yet, the river ribboning out to the sea below and nothing else around us but the roar of the wind and the constant pellets of rain, clanging hard against the steel.

At home the next morning, I woke to find myself lying on my side, my hands gripping the top of Jason’s arm.

I eased out of bed, tiptoed over to where my suit hung on the back of the door and tested the fabric between my thumb and forefinger. Still damp from the storm we’d sat through. The rain had mingled with my perfume and it smelt bad, like flowers that have been too long in their vase. I’d need something else to wear today. I opened the wardrobe and ran my hand along the line of suits sheathed in dry-cleaning bags, the thin plastic clicking against my nails before shushing back into place. Selecting a navy skirt suit, I set about freeing it from its cover.

All dressed, I went to shut the wardrobe, but the door was caught on something. A quick rummage revealed a bag bulging with bikinis, sandals and sarongs. I’d been accruing them ever since we booked the holiday back in June. One of the sarongs had exploded over the side, its floral turquoise print loud against the murk. I shoved it back into the bag, my fingers lingering on the soft cotton. When I’d found it in the shop I’d imagined wearing it over a bikini to lunch, my skin sea-salt tight after a morning at the beach.

We’d been on the roof of that power station for nigh on two hours before Jason had let me help him over to the lift. I’d driven us home, guided him upstairs and, after peeling off his soaked jeans and shirt, pushed him back onto the pillows. The duvet had been where we’d left it that morning, scrunched at the foot of the bed. As I’d brought it up to his waist, his eyes were already closed.

I looked over to where Jason lay. His arms were on top of the quilt, tucked close to his body, his palms surrendered upwards. It reminded me of a yoga class I’d tried once. At the end of the session the teacher had made us get into exactly this arrangement and had told us it was called the dead man’s pose. I pushed the bag as far back into the wardrobe as it would go.

I slipped on my heels and scooped up my handbag. I wanted to stay home and keep an eye on him, but after failing to come good on my promise to return to the office yesterday, there was no way I could ask Yvonne for any more unplanned time off.

Giving Jason a kiss, I headed downstairs and out the door. My stomach rumbled. I was hungry, but breakfast would have to wait. I wanted to get into work early and there was an important stop I needed to make on the way.

My breath clouding white on the morning air, I got in the car and started the engine. As far as I was concerned, Jason going up on the roof like that had changed everything. I was no stranger to the dark days that both of us dipped in and out of from time to time. They were an inevitable part of life without our children. But being with Jason on top of that power station was the first moment I’d ever felt like I might lose him to them. And so, last night, as I’d lain there listening to him breathe, I’d decided that I needed to do something, anything to help. Even if that something meant going back on my word.

I approached the small bridge that would take me over the river from Thornaby to Stockton and found myself caught in a line of rush-hour traffic. Before long I came to a complete standstill. From where I sat, I could see the river’s edge. A single swan was floating near the bank, hard white on the black water. Suddenly, it took off and flew away downriver. I wondered what had disturbed it and then, in answer to my question, the nose of a pleasure cruiser emerged from underneath the bridge. Gulls were racing alongside its starboard side, so close to the water that the tips of their claws skimmed the surface.

Somewhere ahead the lights changed and I was on the move again. Reaching the roundabout, I drove past my usual turn-off, taking the one that would lead to the end of the high street nearest the police station instead.

No matter how many weeks had passed and whatever I might have seen to the contrary, I’d never dropped my suspicions about the boy from the off-licence. I’d been just about able to live with it, but then yesterday had happened. I could no longer in good conscience continue to ignore those suspicions. If there was even a sliver of possibility that I could put Jason out of his misery, then I had to try.

Taking everything into consideration, I’d decided my best bet was to once more ask Martin for help. He and his team were the only people who could find out, quickly and cleanly, if there was anything more to my hunch than mistaken identity. I’d give a statement to the investigating officer on the case and make it official. I knew they’d ask to interview Jason and that he would be angry with me for going behind his back but so be it. I was resolute. They had to look into the background of the boy and his supposed uncle, and they had to do it soon.

I parked up, got out and buttoned my coat. The road was lined with chestnut trees drooping with conkers and apart from a tabarded street cleaner sweeping drifts of rotten leaves, the pavement was deserted. I could just see the corner of the station in the distance. A squat two-storey Victorian building that had long since had its sash windows replaced with thick white uPVC, the station’s entrance was marked by grey stone steps ballasted on either side by low walls that curved down and out to the pavement below. Hoping to catch the detective at the start of his day, I set off towards it at a trot.

I’d almost reached the beginning of the low wall when I noticed a small figure approaching in the opposite direction. Veering from side to side, he or she seemed to be looking for something. As I got nearer and the features of the person came into focus, I stopped dead. Wearing a beige mackintosh over what seemed to be pyjamas and mumbling to herself in urgent little whispers was someone I knew. Vicky.

Instinctively, I hid behind the nearest tree and peeped out from its trunk. Stripped of her usual mascara, lipstick and blusher, her tiny features had been swallowed up by the white expanse of her face and her hair hung in greasy panels down her back. She shuffled towards the stairs that led to the station entrance and it was then I saw she was clutching something red and blue to her chest. A child’s fleece dressing-gown. I’d seen it once before, a few days ago, hanging on the back of Barney’s bedroom door. Cuddling it into her face and saying words I couldn’t make out, she trudged up the stairs and went inside.

Intrigued, I waited a minute and then I, too, climbed the steps. Looking through the glass doors, I saw Vicky standing by the reception desk. Hopping from one foot to the other, she kept showing the officer on duty Barney’s dressing-gown. The officer seemed to have realised who she was and was gesturing for Vicky to take a seat in the waiting area. Giving the bench in question a cursory glance, she went and stood by the locked door that led into the station instead. There she continued to shift her weight from one foot to the other, the dressing-gown held close to her chest.

The door next to where Vicky stood buzzed open and Martin appeared. Not wanting to interrupt whatever was going on, I stepped to the cover of the wall and, once I was out of sight, inched my head as far back as I dared.

Vicky had placed herself directly in front of the detective and was busy pushing Barney’s dressing-gown towards him. Martin looked from Vicky to the garment, confused. But then he seemed to recognise it and his face softened. Gently, he directed the dressing-gown back to Vicky, only for Vicky to once more shove it back at him. Her eyes wide, her lips began moving fast, shaping a torrent of words.

At this, the duty officer and two other reception staff stopped what they were doing and began watching the exchange with undisguised curiosity. Martin must have also found whatever Vicky was saying quite odd, because now he turned to his colleagues with a smile followed by an eye-roll that suggested he was trying to make light of the situation.

But then, when he turned back to face Vicky I was surprised to see his eyes narrow. Shaking his head so slightly that I found myself questioning whether or not I’d imagined it, he seemed to be trying to signal something to her he thought she would understand. He seemed to be giving her a warning.

What was she saying? Something about their relationship? Something that might expose their affair to his colleagues?

But Vicky didn’t register his warning or, if she did, the consequences of ignoring it did not worry her, because she continued to babble and to press the dressing-gown hard into the detective’s body. Trying to maintain a semblance of control, Martin put a placatory arm around her shoulders and began urging her towards the exit. He’d only gone a few steps when the duty officer shouted a question in his wake. Batting away his colleague’s enquiry, the detective adjusted Vicky’s mac so that it covered her shoulders and continued on his way.

It took me a few seconds to register that Vicky and the detective were now heading in my direction. I looked from the steps to the concrete path that hugged the front of the police station, trying to work out whether I should hide or escape. Deciding there wasn’t enough time for me to make it back down to the pavement without being seen, I realised my only option was to retreat to the right of the doorway and flatten myself against the wall.

I’d only just got into position when the door opened, Vicky’s chatter escalating in speed and volume as they crossed the threshold.

‘I can’t do this any longer,’ she kept saying.

‘Keep your voice down,’ said Martin, steering her towards the steps.

One backward glance and they’d see me for sure. I looked around, searching for something to hide behind. But there was nothing. I was totally exposed.

They reached the pavement and, despite Martin’s motions to move away from the police station, Vicky refused to budge and continued to jerk the dressing-gown towards him. They were too far away for me to hear exactly what they were saying, but every now and again the odd word or phrase would carry on the air.

‘… want to tell them,’ said Vicky. ‘… not right …’

She reached the dressing-gown up to her face and pressed it into her eyes. She’d started to cry.

‘… what good … achieve nothing …’ said Martin, patting her awkwardly.

Finally, Vicky seemed to give in to the detective’s coaxing. I watched as she let him lead her away from the station. Once they’d turned into a side street, I, too, made my way down the steps to the pavement.

I thought again of the text messages I’d seen on Vicky’s phone. The poor woman was obviously plagued by guilt. I recognised the feeling. Left unchecked it could destroy a person.

Yesterday, being on the roof of that power station, I’d felt like I’d been given a glimpse into a horrible potential future. A future in which I lost Jason to the hopelessness of the situation and now, this morning, I’d seen Vicky who, it seemed, was already gone.

Martin would need time to recover from this encounter. I could come in and make a statement at the end of the day. I decided to call him from work and headed back to the car.