My Husband's Son: A dark and gripping psychological thriller (8 page)

I crossed my arms.

‘You could?’

Mistaking my response for enthusiasm, Mark continued with his spiel.

‘Absolutely, people are so interested in the unusual bond you two must have.’

I shook my head.

‘Lying your way into our home aside, how could you do this to Carla?’ He shrugged and pushed back his hair. ‘What am I talking about? You don’t have a conscience. Your sort never do.’

As I went to close the door, he reached into his jacket and produced a card.

‘If you ever want to talk,’ he said and slotted it into the small pocket at the front of my blouse.

He was lucky I didn’t catch his fingers in the jamb.

I went into the kitchen and slumped against the wall.

‘Are you OK?’ asked Martin. ‘Maybe you should have a sit-down?’

Unable to process what had just happened, I didn’t respond, and soon I felt the detective’s flat, heavy paws on my shoulders. Gently, he pulled me forward, back up to standing and led me through to the living room.

‘Stay there,’ he instructed once I was on the sofa. ‘I’m just going to check on Jason.’

Grateful for a few minutes to compose myself, I sank back into the cushions. Fiddling with the edge of the plaster attached to my knee, I gave the living room a once-over, trying to see if there was anything out of place. I knew Mark would have seen the photos in the hall but hopefully he hadn’t managed to snoop in here. Not that we had anything to hide. There were no shrines with candles and offerings or anything like that, nor did we have any more pictures of our respective children on display than any other mum or dad. Still, the thought of him staring at the private pictures, the ones we’d deliberately never released to the press, made my stomach turn.

The kids were different ages in the pictures. Some were snaps of them as tiny tots in the bath or paddling pool while others were posed, uniform-clad photos from when they first started at nursery or infant school. Lauren and Barney in their square pine frames, made brother and sister by their absence.

If Mark had made it as far as the living room then he would almost certainly have noticed Barney’s fire engine in pride of place in the centre of the coffee table. Jason and Vicky had given the toy to Barney for his second Christmas and it had instantly become his favourite plaything. Made out of metal, its red paintwork was battered and the cab at the front where the miniature model drivers sat still had bits of old biscuit encrusted in the windows. Jason had told me how, when Barney disappeared, he and Vicky had slept with the toy between them every night, its sharp metal edges prodding them in the hips. He’d said that it had been losing access to the fire engine – far more than making sure he got his half of the house or the furniture – that was the thing that had worried him most. Vicky had felt the same way. Somehow, he explained, they had come to an agreement where they promised to share it between them until Barney was found. Every two weeks, one of them would take custody of the fire engine, jealously holding it in their possession until they had to give it back to the other person by 6 p.m. on the allotted Monday.

My gaze went back to the photos. We only had one wedding picture out. We’d placed it right in the centre of the windowsill. Taken in the gardens of the registry office, it showed us walking together, holding hands. The photographer had caught the moment at which Jason was about to reach round and give me a kiss, his right foot still in the air, about to step forward.

I thought back to what Mark had said about wanting to do an article on us. What was it that horrible website had said when they’d first found out Jason and I were in a relationship? Some horrible joke about where we must have met – the Dead Kid Club, the Dead Kid Dating Agency – something like that.

Martin appeared in the doorway.

‘Jason’s upstairs and your guests will soon be on their way.’ He paused, weighing up whether or not to relay the next piece of information. ‘Your friend’s in a pretty bad state. I think she’d like to apologise.’

Before I had the chance to reply, Carla elbowed her way into the living room. At some point during the course of events she had removed her earrings. Holding them together, she was pushing her fingers against the edges of the silver hoops as though she was trying to crush the circles in on themselves.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, her voice shrill. ‘I should have realised someone like that would never be interested in me.’ She spoke without making eye contact. ‘He was so keen to come tonight, I thought it was because he wanted to meet my friends. I thought it meant things were getting serious, that he wanted to become part of my life.’ She shifted from foot to foot. ‘I am such a fucking idiot.’

‘It’s not your fault.’ My words came out as a shout and she jumped. ‘It’s just –’ I tempered my tone. ‘You brought him into our house, Carla.’

‘I know.’ Her eyes went to the pictures of the kids on the mantelpiece. She retreated towards the hall. ‘I should probably go.’

With Carla gone, Martin came into the living room.

‘How are you doing?’ he asked and sat back on the sofa without looking, straight onto my handbag. ‘Sorry,’ he said, trying to stem the tide of purse, keys and make-up spilling out over the cushions.

I noticed a flash of silver about to disappear down the back of the sofa – Lauren’s compass – and grabbed it quick.

‘It’s OK,’ I said once I’d returned it to my bag. I picked up a lip gloss that had rolled onto the floor and offered it to him. ‘Unless, of course, Candy Shine is your particular colour?’

We both laughed, relishing the light relief, but then as our laughter disintegrated we found ourselves in silence, Lauren and Barney staring out at us.

‘That journalist,’ I said after a few minutes had passed. ‘He said people are starting to forget Barney. Do you think that’s true?’

Martin turned to face me and, not for the first time, I was reminded of a schoolboy who had yet to adapt to his new, adult-size body.

‘I can’t speak for the general public, but I can tell you that I and the rest of the team have not forgotten and will not forget. We take every lead, no matter how small, very seriously; that is to say, I mean –’ he said, going red in the face. ‘What I’m trying to say is we follow them up as best we can with the resources we have available.’

‘That’s good to know,’ I said, realising I was circling around what it was I actually wanted to talk to him about.

‘When you say every lead’ – I knew I’d promised not to mention anything to Martin about the boy, but after seeing that estate agent today, I was terrified that if I waited too long they’d disappear, leaving me unable to ever find them again – ‘what exactly do you mean by that?’

He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing out over the top of his T-shirt.

‘Some of the biggest cases in history were cracked because someone made sure to follow up on what was an apparently minor detail. Whether it was Peter Sutcliffe and his broken tail light or Dennis Nilsen and the blocked drains.’

‘How easy is it for you to get the team to do a background check on someone? I mean, do they need just cause, or can they do them on whomever they like?’ I fished.

‘If you’re asking me to check out that journalist from today then I can’t help you.’

‘Not the journalist.’ I stopped, not sure whether to say any more.

‘What is it Heidi? What’s bothering you?’ He pressed a hand down on his sprout of hair, flattening it against his skull. ‘You know you can trust me.’

‘Jason would kill me if he knew I was even talking to you.’

‘Come on, spit it out,’ he encouraged. He removed his hand and his hair sprang back up on end.

‘I saw this kid the other day, a boy.’ I stopped, trying to gauge his reaction. He was listening intently. Reassured, I decided to carry on. ‘There’s no other way to put it,’ I said, ‘except to say he looked like Barney.’

I waited for his eyes to narrow and readied for the polite yet sceptical response I was sure would follow.

‘What does Jason think?’ he asked quickly. I relaxed. He was taking me seriously. ‘Has he seen the child?’

‘This is it,’ I explained. ‘I was so sure, I took him there immediately. He’s certain it wasn’t him.’ At this admission I saw a small shift in the detective’s face, his excitement gone. ‘I know it doesn’t make sense,’ I said, trying to maintain his credulity, ‘but I can’t get this kid out of my head and now it seems that he and the bloke I saw him with might be moving on.’

‘What is it you want me to do?’ he asked evenly.

‘At the very least, I wondered if you could get the team to do a check on the guy looking after him? Find out his name and history, if he’s on the sex-offenders’ register, that kind of thing.’

He sat up straight and cleared his throat.

‘If you think there is a genuine likeness then I have an obligation to report this to my senior investigating officer who in turn will have an obligation to investigate. If you want to do that then I can put the wheels in motion. I’ll need you to make a formal statement and Jason will have to do the same.’

‘Does Jason have to be involved? It can’t be done on the quiet?’

‘In order to begin the investigation we would need to get you both on record.’ He was about to continue when something seemed to catch his eye.

‘Get us both on record about what?’

I turned to see Jason standing on the threshold to the living room. His shoulders were slumped, his chest concave. He looked like a punctured balloon. The crackle that had surrounded him these last few weeks was gone. The journalist showing up today seemed to have broken the storm.

‘Heidi was telling me about a child you saw the other day. Heidi thought he looked like Barney?’

Jason looked at me.

‘I keep thinking about him,’ I said, scrambling my defence. ‘I was asking if they could look into it.’

‘I thought we’d agreed. You were just …’ He faltered and turned to Martin. ‘Judgements were definitely clouded.’ He turned back to me, his voice gentle. ‘Investigating is a waste of time. It would divert manpower away from valid leads. We’d have to get Vicky involved. Think it through.’

On reflex, Martin looked at me. Embarrassed, even after all this time, to talk about the old wife in front of the new.

‘Have you told Vicky?’ asked Martin. ‘Has she seen the child?’ And there it was again; the apologetic eye flicker.

‘Heidi?’ Jason looked to me for a response.

I blushed.

‘It does sound ridiculous.’

‘So?’ asked Martin. ‘Do you want me to talk to my SIO?’

‘That’s up to Heidi.’

I met Jason’s gaze. He smiled, as though some kind of an understanding had passed between us.

‘I was seeing things I wanted to be there.’ I bit my lip. ‘I shouldn’t have brought it up.’

‘That’s settled then.’ Jason’s smile broadened. ‘Now, if we’re all done here, I could do with some help sorting out the garden.’

‘Of course.’ Martin got to his feet. He put out his hand to stop me from doing the same. ‘Don’t worry, I’ve got it.’

Alone in the living room, I collapsed back into the cushions. The sound of footsteps in the hall soon made me sit back up. It was Martin.

‘That kid,’ he said, checking to make sure Jason wasn’t loitering somewhere behind. ‘What you said about following up every lead.’ He hesitated. ‘I shouldn’t be doing this, but if you can get a photo then I might be able to pass it on to our forensic artist. It’s not an exact science, but they could compare him with the age progression images they’ve already done.’ He made a camera sign with his hands. ‘It needs to be a good, clear picture of his face, otherwise it won’t work.’

I bowed my head in thanks.

‘I can’t promise anything, but maybe we can find a way to put your mind at rest.’ At this, he headed back outside, presumably before Jason could notice he was missing.

Feeling lighter than I had in days, I hugged myself and smiled. A picture, of course. All I needed was a picture.

Later, with the house to ourselves, we set about putting things straight. I focused on the kitchen while Jason kept to the garden. Every now and again our paths would cross. I’d place a rubbish sack next to the back door or Jason would transport a stack of stray plates to the sink. Each time it happened was a surprise. As though, until that moment, we had forgotten the other person was there. We didn’t acknowledge each other or even make eye contact; instead we’d weave and dip, hands in the air, hips sucked back, locked in a deft, silent tango.

The first time I knocked into him was by accident. We were in front of the fridge, going in opposite directions, and my elbow caught him sharp in the ribs. I didn’t apologise.

Ten minutes passed and I was busy veering a heavy saucepan onto a high shelf when he appeared with a clutch of dirty pint glasses. I made sure to lurch towards him, enough to make one of the glasses smash to the floor. We stared at the shattered fragments, glittering on the tile. I held my silence. He was the first to break away, in search of the dustpan and brush.

After that he left me to it and retreated upstairs. As soon as I finished tidying, I followed him. He was in the spare room. I hovered by the closed door for a moment, listening, and then went inside.

He was standing opposite the wall of Barney’s age-progression photos. I looked down. Spread out on the floor was a collage of colour photographs. Family snaps of Barney at various ages. Seeing the images positioned next to each other like this, it was easy to grasp the dislocation between the real, historical pictures of Barney on the carpet and the imagined work of the forensic artist on the wall. I watched as Jason shifted his gaze from the wall to the floor. Up and down. Back and forwards. Over and over. I could only guess at the chasm that must exist between the two sets of images and the other, third version of Barney that Jason carried around in his head. Was that what he was trying to do now, close the gap?

I slipped my arms around his waist and rested a cheek against his back. I felt him relax. He pulled me forward and hugged me into his side. I looked at the scatter of glossy photos arranged at his feet and with a start I realised he had muddled two of my Lauren pics in with his Barney collage. We kept our respective photo collections in shoeboxes on the same shelf. Both boxes were always close to overflowing. Some of my photos must have got mixed in with his.

The first imposter was a close-up of Lauren as a baby, no more than six months old, swaddled in a lemon bath towel; the other was of her as a toddler. Shot from behind, it captured her mid-air on a swing. I wanted to scoop them up immediately, to put them back with the others, but I couldn’t bring myself to point out his mistake.

He went to rest his head on my mine and as he turned I intercepted him halfway with a kiss. Close-lipped, he reciprocated, took my hand and led me out onto the landing, towards our bedroom. I dug in and tried to keep kissing him on the landing where we stood. He pulled away.

‘You don’t want to?’

I pulled him against the wall and kissed him some more.

‘Here?’ He looked down the stairs, at the front door, worried someone might see us through the frosted glass.

I turned around and, pushing myself up against the wall, arranged his hands on my body: one at the beginnings of my skirt, the other on my breast. But no sooner had I placed them there than he tried to turn me around to face him. I resisted and pushed myself back into his groin. He laughed.

‘OK, OK. But not here.’

Again he took my hand and, after kissing me gently, went to lead me away, towards our bedroom. This time I followed.