My Husband's Son: A dark and gripping psychological thriller (7 page)

The following week I had a window of free time before my last meeting of the day, and I took my chance. I drove to the off-licence, parked across the street and grabbed my bag. Inside were the photofits I’d taken from Jason’s file. It had been five years, but I hoped that if the manager of the off-licence, this Keith Veitch, was one of the unidentified suspects seen in or near Ashbrook House when Barney disappeared, I’d be able to match him to a picture, no matter how much he’d changed in the meantime. More than that, I hoped to get another look at the boy. I needed to know if he would provoke the same reaction in me. I needed to know if I was imagining things that weren’t there.

Putting the composite of the woman with frizzy hair to one side, I laid the images of the three men onto the passenger seat. The bald guy with the hamster cheeks seemed to be of a similar age. Trying and failing to remember whether or not Keith had hair, I moved on to the second man, the one with the goatee. He had a slim, almost gaunt face. I thought of Keith’s hip jowls. Maybe he’d spent the intervening years gaining weight? It was possible. Finally, I studied the man with the shaved head and pierced eyebrow. He looked to be in his mid-twenties, whereas I remembered Keith as more around the forty or fifty mark.

Memorising their faces as best I could, I left the photofits in a pile, locked the car and was about to cross the road when a portly man holding a clipboard appeared in the off-licence doorway, a middle-aged couple in tow. I watched as the man with the clipboard pointed at the shop’s exterior. He seemed to be showing the couple around. I lifted my gaze up, to the blue and red Wine City sign. There, fixed on the wall above it, was a large
LEASEHOLD AVAILABLE
board.

I felt a twist of anxiety. After only nine months in the job, Keith Veitch was moving on.

Still watching the estate agent, I stepped into the road. I didn’t see the van.

I put out my hands to break my fall. As the road’s gravel made contact with the soft, private skin of my palm I twisted and hit the floor side-on. When I looked up I could see something black, its surface grooved with zigzags. It was a tyre. The tyre of a parked car on the street. Beyond the tyre I saw the scattered contents of my handbag, my business cards flapping in the wind.

I must have been in pain, but all I could think was how spongy the van’s bumper had felt against my thigh bone and how surprising that was.

The driver ran round to where I lay.

‘She came out of nowhere,’ he kept saying as people started to gather. ‘I braked just in time.’

I became aware of someone kneeling over me.

‘Don’t move her. She might have hurt her back.’

There was a growing murmur of voices. I looked in their direction. Trainers, flip-flops and slip-on leather shoes filled my vision.

I knew I had to convince everyone I was OK, otherwise an ambulance and the police would be called. They’d contact my next of kin, Jason. It wouldn’t take him long to figure out why I’d been here, on this street.

‘It was my fault. I wasn’t looking where I was going.’

It hurt, but I forced myself to sit up.

‘I think we should call someone.’ This was the driver again. ‘My insurance.’

‘I’m OK, honestly.’ I mustered a smile.

‘Are you sure?’ asked the man at my side. I looked at his face. He seemed genuinely concerned. In his fifties, with blue eyes, and cheeks crevassed with acne scars (most of which were hidden by a brown beard). His chest and shoulders were bull-solid, his arms thick with muscle.

‘I don’t want any fuss,’ I said, wincing at the searing sensation in my hip.

He didn’t seem convinced. Still, he nodded and stood up.

‘I’ll take care of her,’ he said, addressing the driver and small crowd on the pavement. ‘You can all go on your way.’

He began gathering the strewn contents of my handbag. I watched until I saw him retrieve Lauren’s silver compass and then set about finding my shoes. Somewhere during my tumble, my stilettos had fallen off.

‘How about something to warm you up?’

I looked at my arms. I was shivering.

‘And maybe a plaster for that knee?’

I let him help me to my feet and into a café a few doors down from the off-licence.

‘She’s had a bit of a bang, that’s all,’ he declared to nobody in particular once we were inside. He sat me on one of the fixed red plastic two-seaters that furnished the place. ‘Kimberley, can you bring a mug of tea?’

A chubby girl at the till responded with a nod.

The man crouched on his haunches and moved in close to look at my knee. Remembering myself, I tried to hitch down my skirt, but it was no good – from where he sat it was impossible for him not to see my underwear. He stroked the outer circle of the wound with the pad of his thumb. Beneath his greying forearm hair, I could see two tattoos. Too faint to be professional, the one on his right declared an allegiance to Celtic Football Club, the one on his left outlined a winged naked woman, a large anchor placed diagonally across the length of her body. They were the kind you do with a needle and ink from a biro. The kind you see on sailors. Or ex-cons.

I looked around to see who else was in the café. There was only one customer. An old man eating his full English and reading the racing pages. Every now and again the long multi-coloured ribbons that hung above the entrance would fly up and brush him lightly on the back and he would tut at them as if they were a naughty child. A blackboard spelt out the daily specials in chalk and a clear-fronted Coke fridge hummed in the corner, dust balls dancing around the air vents where its bottom met the floor.

‘Is this place yours?’

‘It’s not mine, but I’m in charge here, if that’s what you mean.’ He wiped his fingers on his black-and-white-checked chef’s trousers. ‘I’m Tommy.’ He squeezed my hand. ‘Tommy Bibbings. Nice to meet you.’

‘Heidi,’ I said, not giving out my surname. I always did this. I didn’t like to tell strangers anything that might help them recognise me in case they started offering their sympathies about Lauren or Barney or both.

‘I was at the counter when I saw him hit you,’ he explained. His accent sounded Glaswegian but had blurred around the edges, suggesting he hadn’t lived there for some time.

I decided to go with a half-lie.

‘I wanted a cold drink,’ I said. ‘I’ve been driving all afternoon. I’m a sales rep.’

‘Got distracted?’ he asked, staring at my knee.

‘I suppose.’

He looked up, studying my face for a second before he spoke again. I wondered if he thought I might be concussed.

‘After what just happened, I think you should call it a day on the sales front.’ He sat back on his heels, his eyes now perfectly level with the gap in my skirt. He didn’t even pretend not to look. ‘You should get someone to come and pick you up.’ He nodded at my wedding ring. ‘Maybe your husband?’

I sipped my tea and tried to work out my next best move. The estate agent and leasehold sign were worrying. How long did I have before Keith and the boy disappeared, possibly never to be seen again? This afternoon was clearly a write-off and, although I’d come back another time soon, I didn’t want today to go completely to waste. Maybe my rescuer knew something that would help?

‘I stop at that shop quite often,’ I said, trying to steer the conversation. ‘The bloke in there is really friendly.’

‘Keith? Yes, he’s quite the chatterbox.’

He knew him. Good. Realising it would seem odd if I started quizzing him on Keith straightaway, for the moment I decided to change the subject.

‘You don’t sound like you’re from round here?’

He paused before answering, smiling in a way that suggested we were both playing at some game.

‘Neither do you.’

‘I’m from down south originally. Kent. You?’

‘Clydebank. Just outside of Glasgow.’

We were both quiet then. Like awkward teenagers.

‘When did you move here?’

‘Do you miss home?’

We spoke at the same time, our sentences colliding into each other.

I realised the girl behind the counter, Kimberley, was watching us. I caught her eye and she pretended to be engrossed in wiping down the work surface.

‘I don’t think it will scar.’

‘What?’

‘Your knee, the cut.’

‘Oh, good. That’s good.’

We seemed to have reached some kind of an impasse and, not sure what else to say, we stared at each other. Tommy was the first to look away.

‘I’ll get the first-aid kit.’

As he retreated towards a cupboard at the back of the kitchen my phone rang. It was my boss, Yvonne.

‘Where are you?’ she asked before I could say hello. ‘The meeting is in five minutes.’

My final pitch of the day. Shit. My stomach lurched; a sudden, rollercoaster drop. In the chaos I’d forgotten all about it.

‘I was about to call,’ I lied. ‘I’m not going to make it.’

I noticed Tommy half-turn towards me, trying to listen in. I cupped my hand over my mouth and lowered my voice.

‘Upset stomach,’ I said, offering the first excuse that came to mind. I didn’t want Yvonne or, indeed, anyone to know where I was in case the information somehow found its way back to Jason. ‘I ate one of those garage sandwiches at lunch. I’m in a public toilet now waiting for it to stop. Can you get him to reschedule?’

‘He wants to see you. You’re the one he has the relationship with.’

I held my silence.

‘OK, I’ll try,’ said Yvonne eventually, not happy but unable to argue. In two years I’d called in sick all of once. ‘I’ll let you know how I get on. Feel better soon, Heidi.’

I used my thumbnail to worry at a whorl of dried ketchup on the table. I felt terrible about missing the meeting, but I’d make it right with the client. Take him out for dinner somewhere nice as an apology.

I turned back to see Tommy returning with a green plastic box, a white cross on its side.

‘Everything OK?’ he asked, clicking it open.

How much had he heard? What would he make of my lie?

‘Work,’ I said, shoving my phone into my bag.

As he dabbed at my knee with cotton wool, I picked up the plaster he’d set out. Decorated with a forlorn-looking Eeyore, a bandage over his right ear, it hailed from an Elastoplast multi-pack that included Pooh, Tigger and Piglet.

‘How come you have these?’ I asked. ‘Do you have kids?’

‘I don’t,’ he said, ‘but we have lots of wee lads and lassies coming in the café and they like to put them on.’ He chuckled. ‘Whether they’ve hurt themselves or not.’ An expression I couldn’t quite get a handle on flickered across his face.

I was trying to come up with another question, something that would give me the information I needed, when he patted my leg.

‘All done.’

I examined the Eeyore plaster now covering my knee.

‘Thanks for your help. I appreciate it.’

He got to his feet and looked down at me, as though he wasn’t sure how to respond.

‘I better get back to my kitchen,’ he said, eventually. ‘Nice to meet you, Heidi.’

Back home, I dumped my handbag on the front step and rootled around in it for my keys. My hip was already throbbing and now, as I returned to standing, I blanched at the pain. Hoping it was nothing a few tablets and a night with my feet up couldn’t sort, I was about to put the key in the lock when the door opened.

‘Thank God,’ said Jason, pulling me inside. ‘There’s already loads of people here.’ He wiped his hands on the blue-checked apron tied around his waist.

I looked at him blankly.

‘The barbecue.’ He waited for me to respond. When I didn’t, he shook his head. ‘You forgot.’

‘The barbecue, of course,’ I said. We’d talked about it only this morning, but I’d been so focused on my plan to go back for another look at the boy that, as soon as I’d left the house, it had vanished from my mind.

Jason was about to return to the kitchen when the doorbell rang.

‘More guests,’ he sighed, squeezing past me.

‘Carla!’ He greeted her with an exaggerated bow.

My ears pricked up. This was an unexpected bonus. If there was anyone I could talk to about what I’d seen this afternoon, it was her.

‘Jason, Heidi,’ she said, giving me a wave hello.

Wearing red lipstick and hooped silver earrings that brushed against her neck, I saw her hair streaks had been re-dyed a vivid, electric blue. A young man stood next to her.

‘This is Mark.’ She squeezed the man’s arm and beamed like he was a prize she had just won at the fair.

‘Glad to meet you, Mark,’ said Jason, pulling him close to shake hands so he could give Carla a secret thumbs up behind his back.

I smiled and widened my eyes to show her how impressed I was with her new catch. At least twenty years younger, I now understood the source of her giddiness. Wearing jeans, an open-necked shirt and navy suit jacket, he was even taller than Carla and had wavy black hair swept back from his forehead, green eyes and a rosebud pout.

‘Hope you don’t mind me gatecrashing?’ he said and, without waiting for Jason to answer, followed Carla inside.

While Jason went to tend to the barbecue, I stowed my handbag on the sofa in the living room and headed through to the kitchen. Mark was still there, alone.

‘Drink?’ I asked, hobbling over to the fridge. I needed to take some ibuprofen and soon.

Distracted, he didn’t respond.

I followed his gaze as it fell upon the portable defibrillator and two fire-blankets Jason had fixed to the wall, a list of printed instructions stuck up beside them. The defibrillator was the kind you normally only see at emergency points in train stations. Everything you needed to stop a fire or start someone’s heart, all in one convenient mounted spot.

‘Mark? Lager?’ I asked in a diversionary swoop. I was now standing right in front of him. I didn’t wait for a reply and put the can in his hand.

‘Thanks,’ he said, belatedly.

He still hadn’t made eye contact with Jason or I. But then we were used to this. It often happened with new people. They felt that perhaps they should say something, some words of condolence or sympathy, and sometimes they did. Having to chat to people we’d only just met about how well we were or weren’t coping with the loss of our children was always hard and, when I and Jason would talk about it in private, we would always snip at how, though well intentioned, most folk were thoughtless and needed to learn how to keep their mouths shut.

Carla had been in the garden but now she re-entered the kitchen, went over to Mark, whispered in his ear and giggled. Smiling benignly, he let her lead him outside and over to the bench we kept pushed up against the back wall. I watched through the window as she motioned for him to take a seat. Once he was settled, she arranged herself on his knees, wrapped her arms around his neck and nuzzled her cheek against his.

I could not stop thinking about what I’d seen earlier. That estate agent showing people around did not bode well. What if Keith were to move on before I was able to establish the child’s identity? I looked at Carla and Mark. I was itching to talk to her, but I decided I’d be better off trying to get her on her own at some point later in the evening.

Placing a couple of painkillers on my tongue, I washed them down with a mouthful of cold rosé and wondered how I’d go about explaining my injuries to Jason. There was one very simple excuse I knew
he’d
buy without question: high heels. Regardless of the sometimes ankle-twisting consequences, they were the one wardrobe staple I couldn’t be without. I wore them all the time: to work, to the supermarket, to long walks in the country. Most people assumed it was because I was so short and, while this was true to a certain extent (stilettos allowed me the dignity of being able to reach the higher shelves of the supermarket without asking for help), in reality, there was more to it.

It was hard to explain, even to myself, but by wearing heels – things that by their very nature made it difficult to walk – I found I could force myself to stay conscious of the act of putting one step in front of the other. Yes, they hurt and, yes, sometimes they made life more difficult but, for me, that was kind of the point. Wearing them meant I never switched off to the sensation of the ground striking my ball, sole and heel; wearing them meant I never grew complacent about going forward, onward, towards whatever the future might bring.

I considered the Eeyore plaster on my knee. It was conspicuous. Jason would ask where it had come from. I reached for the first-aid kit. It would be easy to replace it with something anonymous and flesh-coloured.

As the anti-inflammatories began to dull the ache in my hip, I emptied a tub of coleslaw into a serving bowl and looked out at the crowd already here. We didn’t have a huge space, but it was enough to comfortably host about twenty people, roughly the amount that seemed to have turned up tonight. It had been a concreted wasteland when we moved in, and Jason had set about renovating it immediately. Fitting a small deck outside the kitchen door, he’d used a thin gravel path to divide the rest of the rectangular space into two, laying lawn on the left and a row of raised beds on the right. I looked towards the end of the garden and the gate that led out to the back alley. A small group of Jason’s first-aid-instructor pals had segregated themselves there and were nursing cans of lager, their bodies turned into each other, in some kind of huddle. Tesh and Anth meanwhile, welders Jason used to work with, were busy tormenting him while he tried to tend to the barbecue. Taking turns to run up and steal the tongs he was using to dish out the sausages and burgers, they would strut around the garden, brandishing them in the air like castanets, briefly returning them to Jason’s grasp, only to steal them again the second he wasn’t looking.

In the early days, when we’d first got together, normal stuff like inviting our friends round for a barbecue had never felt right. We’d both agreed it felt like some kind of admission. That it was as though we were saying that we accepted what had happened. But, back then, participating in anything more than the bare essentials of breathing, eating and sleeping had felt wrong.

Lately though, I’d started to realise that remembering our children and carrying on with our lives didn’t have to be mutually exclusive. That we didn’t have to live in self-enforced purgatory. Still, despite that, I couldn’t get away from the feeling that taking part in these ordinary things felt fake. Like we were playing dressing up with a cardboard sword and a curtain for a cape.

Jason had set up his iPod and speakers on the wall near the raised beds and I noticed someone squatting down in front of them, fiddling with the buttons. He was finding it difficult to balance, with his knees veering so far out to the side that he looked like he might topple to the floor at any moment. Even from behind I recognised who it was instantly: Martin. Or, to use his proper title, DS Martin Gooder.

Jason and Vicky’s family liaison officer (FLO) since the day Barney went missing, the detective had been the main point of contact between them, the investigation and the media. Supposed to remain objective and professional at all times, he’d inevitably become very close to them as the years had gone by. Protocols and guidelines aside, I knew that Jason now considered him a dear friend first and a police officer second. I imagined Vicky felt the same way.

Before long the music changed and, satisfied with his choice, Martin tried to stand up. He made it up to his knees but then he wobbled and staggered backwards. It looked as though he was going to fall over but then, pushing his upper body forward with a kind of awkward, Cossack-style jump, he managed to right himself. Retrieving his drink from the wall, he ran his hand through his reddish-brown hair. Clipped short and parted in the middle, it resembled the part of a donkey’s mane that sprouts up between its ears.

I headed outside and made my way around the garden, greeting everyone I had yet to say hello to. I noticed that Carla had detached herself from Mark for the first time since she’d arrived. Sitting on the bench, she was watching him acquire another plate of sausages from the barbecue. Finally – my chance to talk to her about this afternoon. I was about to make my way over to where she sat when, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Mark gesturing to the high fences that corralled our garden.

‘What’s with Fort Knox?’ he asked Jason, laughing at his own joke. Hearing him talk, I realised his voice had a jolting, public-school cadence I hadn’t noticed first time around.

I saw Carla shake her head and try to throw him a not very subtle warning look. But either Mark didn’t notice or he didn’t care.

‘Fort Knox?’ Jason put down his tongs. ‘We got them because …’

It was like watching an actor trying to remember his lines. I sprinted over to him as quickly as I could and nooked my head in under his arm. He looked down at me with a grateful smile.

‘They were quite low when we first moved in. Some might say they weren’t even proper fences at all.’ He nodded in my direction. ‘It meant that, for modesty’s sake, Heidi had to sunbathe in her swimming costume and Heidi doesn’t like tan lines. Do you, love?’

On cue, I shook my head.

‘One badly timed white stripe on the shoulder or bum can lead to A. Fashion. Disaster.’ Jason spelt out the last three words in the air with his hand. ‘Then one day I had this brilliant idea. Fences. Big massive fuck-off fences.’ He put down the tongs he’d been holding. He’d really hit his stride now. ‘Big tall fences mean Heidi can sunbathe naked, just as God made her.’

Everyone laughed and we relaxed, confident there would be no more questions about the fences, for this evening at least.

The truth of the matter was a little different. When the fences were low we could see over the sides to the neighbours’ gardens and their kids’ swing sets, slides and deflated footballs going mouldy in corners. And so, even though it meant that, when the sun moved round, it could get quite dark out there on the grass (so dark there was no way I would ever, ever get a tan), as soon as we could afford it we’d put ten-foot panels in and Jason had spent a day creosoting them.

An hour later and we were running low on glasses. I left Jason teasing Carla about Mark (‘Where did you find him? Studs.com?’) and went to get some more from the cupboard. I wasn’t gone long but when I stepped back outside I was met by the thump and splinter of human hitting wood. It sounded like someone had collided with our garden fence. Looking around, I saw Jason standing over Mark, horizontal in the flower bed. Jason’s fist was raised. Next to him was Carla, her face in her hands.

‘Jason?’ I looked around for help. ‘What happened?’

But everyone apart from Martin, who was already making his way over, remained where they were. After placing one hand on his shoulder, the detective used his other hand to ease Jason’s fist back to his side.

‘I – he – I …’ struggled Jason as Martin guided him away from the scene.

Mark went to stand up, but his navy suit jacket had caught on the bush prickles he’d fallen on and so he was left to scrabble around in the dirt alone. Martin returned and tried to help. Seeing this, Jason ran back to where Mark lay and leant in so close to Mark’s face that, when he next spoke, he speckled it with spit.

‘You sneaky lying fuck!’ shouted Jason. ‘How dare you lie your way into our house and start asking questions like that, saying things like that.’ He turned to face the rest of us. ‘He’s a bloody journalist.’

Martin had been in the middle of helping Mark up to standing but, on hearing this revelation, he let go and Mark fell back into the shrubbery.

‘Oh fuck,’ said Carla. Grabbing a half-open bottle of vodka from the picnic table, she retreated to the bottom of the garden.

Jason, meanwhile, began to pace up and down the decking.

My first instinct was to go and comfort him but I knew that, before I could, I needed to get Mark out of the house, otherwise Jason was liable to take another swing at his face.

Taking one arm each, Martin and I lifted Mark up to standing. Upright, he smoothed back his black hair, unperturbed. I realised this probably wasn’t the first time this had happened.

As we escorted him through the kitchen to the hall, he slowed down to look again at the pictures of Barney and Lauren on the walls.

‘Don’t you dare look at our children,’ I said, opening the front door and pushing him over the threshold.

After telling Martin that I had it from here, I went to close the door, but Mark put out his hand, blocking the way.

‘Do you believe them? Jason and Vicky. What they said happened that day?’

‘Don’t start with that rubbish.’ I knew he was baiting me, but I couldn’t help but respond. ‘Of course I believe them.’

He pushed the front door back open a little wider.

‘It’s just certain things.’ He paused. ‘Certain details about that day and the days after. They don’t add up.’

‘I think it’s time for you to leave.’

He wedged his foot in between the door and the doorframe.

‘I want Jason to find Barney,’ he said, trying a change of tack. He put his hand on his heart. ‘I could help with that. If the pair of you were to give me an interview, something that shows the …’ – he chose his next word carefully – ‘unique nature of your marriage, then I could do a big piece, something that would make people sit up and take notice.’