The Loving Husband (10 page)

And with one word she had let it all go: the bus to work and the heads turning in the office, Katrina’s face, Jo’s face. Her own thin, sleepless face in the mirror and the doctor looking up from her notes and seeing her still there, saying, ‘Was there anything else?’

‘Yes,’ she had said to Nathan, her face still muffled in his shirt, and she had felt his arms tighten around her.

She should be grateful to have them there, shouldn’t she? The two policemen. If there’d been anyone there when they drove slowly through the village and turned in at the house, anyone watching from across the field among the poplars, a police car and two men climbing out of it would have sent the message, she was protected, wouldn’t it? Stay away.

Lunchtime was long gone. They’d offered her a sandwich in the police station as they climbed the stairs from the interview room: egg and salad cream that she could hardly get down. It must be past two, though the white sky offered no clue, it could be five, a day that already seemed like it had lasted a lifetime.

As they climbed out of the police car, there was a break in the cloud and the pale, low sun came through it, slanting down and flooding the wide plain beyond the barn, sending a silver gleam off the standing water. ‘You should see the skies,’ Nathan had said, dreamily, thinking of some time far off. ‘The sunsets, sunrise. Seems like the edge of the world.’ He’d wanted to bring her to the edge of the world.

The advantage, she thought as she stood there scanning the horizon, holding the fear down there somewhere in the pit of her stomach, was that she’d be able to see him coming.
Just leave, just leave, just gather the kids up and leave, don’t wait for him to come back, are you nuts?
Just as soon as she worked out where to go. For now, she had to watch.

Gerard turned to look too, his hands in the pockets of his jacket, shoulders hunched. ‘Snow. They say, anyway. Snow by Saturday.’ He looked at her. ‘Hope your boiler’s been serviced lately.’ He locked the car. ‘I’ll see you inside.’

They all crowded into the kitchen, and she was lifting Ben out of his seat, damp and straining himself to a fury. Hungry. ‘Sorry about that,’ Gerard said easily. ‘I know it must have seemed like we were just going over the same thing, again and again.’ He laughed, reassuring. ‘It’s not like we’re trying to catch you out.’ Carswell was at the door, peering through the glass into the yard, his narrow shoulders hunched, and his head turned a fraction at that.

‘It’s the timing, we can’t seem to work it out. Your husband said nothing when he came to bed, you said.’

He had murmured into the hair at the back of her neck, but she hadn’t heard. She wanted to tell the truth, she wanted to be on the right side, she wanted to give this man what he wanted. She couldn’t see how he would need to know, that her husband came into bed and put his hand between her legs from behind, even though she could remember in that moment precisely how that had felt, where he’d positioned his index finger, his forefinger, his thumb. Her mouth opening, yes.

‘I was fast asleep when he came in,’ and she wondered then, when would this stop? ‘I told you. I’d been dreaming.’ His head turned slowly at that and for a moment as she wondered if he was going to ask her about her dream she felt a rush of heat, of shame, what if she had volunteered that information?
He hadn’t fucked me in a year and then he did and then he died and I had been dreaming, I had been dreaming of—

Why would that be of interest?
Shut up.

‘I’ve got to change him,’ she said, turning to Ben, and quickly she was across the room and at the door.

‘All right,’ said Gerard staying where he was, mild. ‘Well, how about we take a look in his study while you’re up there, how would that do? Would you be happy with us doing that?’

All she wanted was to be out of the room. ‘Yes,’ she said, and she was climbing the stairs. She could hear a murmur behind her in the kitchen but she kept going.

Ben’s backside was red from sitting too long in the nappy and she was careful with him as he arched his back, sore and angry. She leaned to kiss his little round stomach, the popped belly button. A bit of kip, Ali Compton had said: it seemed a long way off.

She was on the edge of the bed feeding when there was a soft knock at the door, and she pulled her sweatshirt down so nothing was visible. It was Gerard. ‘Ed’s made a cup of tea,’ he said, frowning.

‘I’ll be down in a minute,’ she said wearily, but he didn’t move.

‘There’s something we’d like you to have a look at,’ he told her. ‘In your husband’s study.’ Spreading his hands in a gesture of helplessness that didn’t convince her. ‘Technology not my strong point, I’ve got to say. Ed’s on the case, though, new generation. You got a computer yourself?’

‘No. Well, yes, but—’ and then from somewhere outside she heard the door open and there was a rattle, an exclamation.

‘Jesus,’ he said, and called, ‘Carswell!’ then, under his breath, ‘Christ, that kid…’ But then it came back to her, with the distinct sound, the sound of bins disturbed, the acoustic of the yard’s enclosed space.

‘I did hear something outside,’ Fran said. ‘As I was going to sleep, so I suppose around ten thirty, eleven. I thought it was some animal, you know. After the wheelie bins.’

Arms folded, legs apart, it felt like he was towering over her. ‘Did you see anything? An animal?’ She shook her head. ‘I didn’t look. It was just one sound, a sort of scuffle, then I didn’t hear anything else.’ He pursed his lips, examining her.

‘Right. But you hadn’t heard anything else, a car, say?’

‘I was in bed. We’re at the back of the house here, you can’t really hear … Why?’

‘Just working on timing,’ said Gerard, reassuring, but she wasn’t reassured, it wasn’t an answer. ‘That’s all, trying to work out who was where.’ He turned to look at the stairs. ‘Well, when you’re ready?’ And when she didn’t move, ‘Your husband’s computer?’ he said, and then she was on her feet, Ben over her shoulder.

When she came into the kitchen Carswell was on the back doorstep, righting the bin in the yard; he gave her a sheepish look.

Gerard looked at her, his head on one side, and when he spoke his voice was soft, though the words jumped at her. ‘I know we’d ruled out a break-in,’ he said, stepping out of the kitchen and into the dim hall, where the door to Nathan’s study was open. She followed him, Carswell bringing up the rear. ‘And it’s not the usual sort of thing a burglar goes for, but…’ She stopped in the door. Gerard was squatting at the side of Nathan’s desk, where his computer sat.

‘Hard drive’s gone,’ said Carswell, at her ear. She could heard his breathing, coming and going excitedly as he bounced on the balls of his feet.

‘What?’ She felt stupid.

‘Someone’s cleaned it out.’ Gerard’s head on one side, examining her. ‘The computer. There’s a big hole where the data used to live.’

‘Cleaned out. You mean someone, the man who … you mean it was taken last night?’ Silence.
Inside? He came inside?
‘Is that what you’re saying?’

Gerard glanced at Carswell. ‘We’ll get the machine dusted for prints,’ then ‘Listen,’ looking back at Fran, ‘I know your feeling so far has been that whatever has gone on here, this is your home, I can understand that.’ And it sounded like something rehearsed, to entice her, and she began shaking her head, even though the warning patter had set up inside her, the fear.

‘You’re not keen on alternative accommodation,’ Gerard said, and before she even said it he spread his hands again, as if absolving himself, a look across at Carswell again that said,
I tried
.

‘No,’ she said, and swallowed. ‘This is our home.’ She looked from door to window, gauging what it would take. To make it safe.

He nodded. There was a pause. ‘We can give you a panic button, if that would make you feel more secure. Staying here.’

And she saw it reflected in Carswell’s face, the flicker of excitement at her fear, the black gleam in his eyes of the outside, trying to get in.

Coming here had been a joint decision, of course it had. They’d talked about it.

Mostly Fran had listened while he talked, with Emme under his arm on the sofa under the high vaulted space of their flat’s one lovely but impractical room, Emme playing with something but listening too, Fran could tell by the way she went still when he mentioned certain things. What they might do with the space, a playroom, a nursery, the attic space. He talked about Emme exploring in the fields, learning to swim in an old flooded quarry; he talked about the place as though he knew every inch of it. He talked about creeping out of the dismal cottage before dawn to go and lie in reed beds waiting for the ducks to rise, whispering to his little sister to keep quiet as she begged to come too.

‘You shot them?’ Emme’s voice uncertain. He just squeezed her against him absently, his eyes focused somewhere else. ‘The ducks, Daddy.’

He smiled down, vaguely. ‘And then we went and lived in a magic house. We slept on the floor and we never washed and we cooked in the garden on a fire.’ Emme had settled back then, nodding, as if she knew exactly the place. ‘It was called Black Barn,’ he said. She’d shivered at the name and he’d smiled. ‘After a big barn there’d been behind the farmhouse, though it had burned down long since.’

Had Fran said anything? She couldn’t remember now, she’d concentrated hard on seeing things through his eyes. That’s right: at one point she’d asked,
Where’s the nearest station? For work?
He’d stopped abruptly, impatient, she had watched him controlling it.
Twenty minutes to the nearest station, but everything’s online, isn’t it? And if you go back to work, you might be travelling, London’s not the be-all, these days.

The station was in fact more like forty minutes away but she didn’t find that out until they’d been there two months. Never mind the school, Nathan’s trump card, the village school that made her nostalgic for the place on the dangerous corner of their London street, with its screaming hordes and harassed teachers.

It had happened more quickly than she had expected, that was all. One minute they were driving back to London and she was going over it all in her head, cloud-cities scudding in white light and the emptiness, the ghost-roar across the plain. And the next he was in the kitchen on his mobile phone, making an offer. Two days after they’d viewed it. She had been on her feet in the doorway open-mouthed when she heard, ‘So you’ll put it to the vendor?’

Hanging up he had just smiled at her. ‘Come on,’ he said, easy.

‘It’s not set in stone, is it? We can pull out at any time.’

Shrugging. ‘But the way the market is…’ She’d hesitated, then Emme, almost on cue, had tripped over a box of toys because they’d run out of space to store the stuff and begun to wail.

‘Sure,’ she said. ‘Right.’

To judge by the number of For Sale boards in Oakenham and the villages, it turned out, the market wasn’t going anywhere fast, but by then they’d jumped, their boats had burned. And it meant they’d got the place cheap and just as well, now she wasn’t earning.

She tried calling Jo the night before they left, a hot night in the almost empty flat and Emme perched on the bed watching a DVD because Nathan was out somewhere, farewell darts in a pub in Tufnell Park with a builder. ‘You’ve got to keep them on-side,’ he said in the doorway, a quick cool glance round the empty space. ‘It’s all about the contacts book.’ He’d had an energy about him since they’d come back from the viewing, heightened when contracts had been exchanged, a restlessness. The door had swung closed behind him even as she was saying, ‘Fine.’

She’d told Jo, when the offer was accepted, over a stiff drink in a park somewhere, Emme in tow because she had been nervous and with good reason. Jo’s stare had been blank with incomprehension that looked like hostility. ‘I don’t know what makes you think that’s a good idea,’ she’d said. ‘I mean, where does that leave you? In the middle of nowhere. If it all goes tits up?’ And Fran had shrunk into herself at that because her only answer was, ‘It won’t.’

Sitting among the boxes, the walls and shelves all bare, she listened to Jo’s number ring, on and on. There’d been no answer, and she’d hung up.

The weather broke as the removal van’s rear door rattled down and they – Nathan and Fran with Emme under her arm – were forced abruptly inside, under sudden sheets of rain so heavy it blurred the horizon, the poplars, even the outline of the chicken barn. It was as though they had stepped through a waterfall and found themselves standing in a dank cave, among cardboard boxes.

From the door Fran watched the driver run for his soaked seat, hunched under the downpour with his jacket pulled up at the neck and then the door banged behind him and he was off without a wave, the faded lettering on the shutter disappearing into the grey, and they were on their own. The kitchen smelled, of mildew, mouse and cooker grease. Overhead thunder cracked, astoundingly loud, and Emme, already shivering in the sudden chill, began to whimper. Fran had had to galvanise them then and there, to avert anything worse.

‘Your room first,’ she said to Emme, identifying a box of toys and clothing, pushing Emme ahead of her on the narrow back stairs. Below them Nathan stood, stock-still. She didn’t turn to ask him why, not now, not yet.