What My Husband Did: A gripping psychological thriller with an amazing twist Read online

  What My Husband Did

  A gripping psychological thriller with an amazing twist

  Kerry Wilkinson

  Books by Kerry Wilkinson

  Standalone novels

  The Child Across the Street

  After the Accident

  Close to You

  A Face in the Crowd

  The Wife’s Secret

  The Death and Life of Eleanor Parker

  Last Night

  The Girl Who Came Back

  Two Sisters

  Ten Birthdays

  The Jessica Daniel series

  The Killer Inside (also published as Locked In)

  Vigilante

  The Woman in Black

  Think of the Children

  Playing with Fire

  The Missing Dead (also published as Thicker than Water)

  Behind Closed Doors

  Crossing the Line

  Scarred for Life

  For Richer, For Poorer

  Nothing But Trouble

  Eye for an Eye

  Silent Suspect

  The Unlucky Ones

  A Cry in the Night

  Short Stories

  January

  February

  March

  April

  The Andrew Hunter series

  Something Wicked

  Something Hidden

  Something Buried

  Silver Blackthorn

  Reckoning

  Renegade

  Resurgence

  Other

  Down Among the Dead Men

  No Place Like Home

  Watched

  Available in Audio

  The Child Across the Street (Available in the UK and the US)

  After the Accident (Available in the UK and the US)

  Close to You (Available in the UK and the US)

  A Face in the Crowd (Available in the UK and the US)

  The Wife’s Secret (Available in the UK and the US)

  The Death and Life of Eleanor Parker (Available in the UK and the US)

  Last Night (Available in the UK and the US)

  The Girl Who Came Back (Available in the UK and the US)

  Two Sisters (Available in the UK and the US)

  Contents

  *

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  *

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  *

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  *

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  *

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  *

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  *

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  *

  Chapter 26

  *

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  *

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  *

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  *

  Chapter 35

  *

  Chapter 36

  *

  *

  *

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  *

  The Girl Who Came Back

  Hear More from Kerry

  Books by Kerry Wilkinson

  The Killer Inside

  The Child Across the Street

  After the Accident

  Close to You

  A Face in the Crowd

  The Wife’s Secret

  The Death and Life of Eleanor Parker

  Last Night

  Two Sisters

  Ten Birthdays

  What My Husband Did publishing team

  *

  SUNDAY

  Richard puts the car into reverse and edges backwards until he’s out of sight from anyone inside the shop. He’s at the rear of the forecourt and there are no vehicles at the petrol pumps.

  Alice is in her big red coat and she stops to look across to the far side of the road. The dewy fields lie beyond, with the hazy lights of Leavensfield glowing from the bottom of the valley. On evenings like this, when the sun sets early and frost clings to the verges, the wintry scene from the top of the hill is like a painting.

  Alice tightens her jacket’s zip – but it won’t be much of a match for walking home over the fields in this weather.

  Richard pulls up the handbrake and leaves the car idling as he gets out and then beckons the girl across. She glances quickly at the shop, takes one step towards the road – and then seems to change her mind as she crosses to where Richard is standing. He reaches a hand towards her shoulder but she shuffles a couple of paces away, her arms crossed.

  ‘I can give you a lift home,’ he says.

  ‘But Mum—’

  ‘Don’t worry about your mum.’ Richard glances towards the shop, where, because of the angle, there’s no chance of Alice’s mother spotting him. ‘If she says anything, I’ll deal with it. She doesn’t have to know.’

  Alice bobs from one foot to the other. The cold, dark walk home across Daisy Field can’t seem too appealing. She’s only twelve.

  ‘She’s told me not to get into a car with strangers.’

  Richard forces a smile, but the icy, needly wind scratches at his face and he ends up offering something closer to a grimace. ‘Come on… I’m not a proper stranger, am I?’

  Alice eyes him and he can see the conflict within her. She should say no – except nobody wants to walk home on a night like this. Besides, what mother lets a twelve-year-old walk home in the dark? Even in a place like Leavensfield?

  ‘It’s only down the hill,’ Richard adds, nodding towards the village in the distance. ‘Not far.’

  A car passes on the way down to the village. Alice watches it go and then nods shortly, before slipping into the vehicle.

  Richard moves quickly as he returns to the driver’s seat. Just a short ride, he tells himself. Just a short ride.

  One

  Harriet Branch is a massive cow.

  There. I said it. Okay, I didn’t say it, but I did think it. It sounds like something that should be written on the wall of a toilet cubicle. Maybe I’ll write it on the wall of the pub toilets. I would if I had a pen. Okay, I wouldn’t – and not only because of the pen thing. It’s because I’m almost forty.

  I’d like to write it on the wall, though.

  Harriet claps her hands together and turns to take in the group of women who are sitting in a circle around the back room of the pub. I bet those hands have been treated with something expensive until they’re as smooth as the marble countertops with which I imagine her kitchen to be filled. She probably imports the moisturiser from somewhere in Italy, where it’s a few hundred quid a tub. That would be very Harriet Branch.

  ‘Winter magic, people!’ Harriet says. ‘That’s this year’s theme for the masked ball. We need to be thinking winter magic at all times.’

  She speaks in exclamation points, with short, snappy, barked instructions. It wouldn’t be as bad if it wasn’t done with such a smug smile on her face. There are strings of tinsel draped half-hear
tedly around the corners of the room and she glances up to those, making the point that she wants much more than the tat they have on display here.

  Nobody questions what ‘winter magic’ entails, because of course we don’t know. Does it mean I could throw a pack of cards in her stupid face and ask her to guess which one I’m thinking of? If she got it right, there would definitely be magic – and it’s winter.

  Theresa catches my eye a moment before Harriet turns to her. She knows what’s coming and gives a mini eye-roll unseen by anyone except me. I suppress the grin but we both know what the other is thinking. Theresa’s great at maintaining her cool in these situations. An absolute trouper.

  ‘How are the food preparations coming along for the ball?’ Harriet asks.

  ‘Looking good,’ Theresa replies. ‘It’s all in hand.’

  ‘Can Atal make it this year?’

  This might seem like a reasonable question but the passive aggression isn’t lost on me, nor, I suspect, Theresa. Her husband owns a restaurant on the edge of the village, which is why the food for this year’s Winter Festival Masked Ball has been assigned to him. Or, more to the point, to Theresa. It’s an all-women planning committee, after all.

  ‘He does have the restaurant to run,’ Theresa replies, ‘but we’ll see.’

  Harriet writes something on her pad and finishes with a firm full stop that might have punctured the paper. We’ll see is not an adequate reply for a woman who deals in firm yeses or nos.

  ‘I’ll mark him as a yes,’ Harriet says. ‘Then if anything changes, it can be switched to a no.’

  Theresa nods and smiles through it, managing not to say anything. Nobody talks back to Harriet. She’s a professional wife and, in Leavensfield, that’s a woman’s primary occupation. Up the patriarchy and all that.

  Being a professional wife isn’t enough for anyone, though. How could it be? Harriet is never going to have a real job – but that means she invents other roles. That’s why she set up something called the Lovely Leavensfield Committee, which is as horrendous as it sounds.

  Part of that committee’s responsibilities involve organising a fundraising winter ball every year. The reason for this is roughly twenty per cent to raise money for charity, twenty per cent to give Harriet something to do, and sixty per cent to give her an opportunity to order around the group of volunteers who are also on the committee.

  That includes me.

  Although she’s chairwoman of this committee, Harriet’s exact role in the planning for the winter ball is unclear. All the jobs have been assigned to other people.

  After Theresa’s confirmation that there will be food at the ball, Harriet continues through her list. It’s largely to herself that she mutters ‘Sarah’s working on the tickets…’ – although it’s clear to everyone that Sarah isn’t at the meeting.

  If it was anyone else, there would be offhand remarks about ‘needing to fully commit’ – but Sarah and Harriet, along with their respective husbands, are the village’s power couples.

  Harriet taps her pen on the pad and then turns to me. I feel the eyes of the other women in the circle upon me as it becomes my moment in the spotlight.

  ‘How are the bouquets, Maddy?’ she asks.

  There’s a pause as I realise she’s done me here. I glance sideways, wondering if she’s talking to someone else, but no, Harriet is talking to me.

  ‘Bouquets?’ I say. ‘I thought I was doing dessert catering…? Didn’t we agree that last time?’

  I look around the circle, although everyone is tactically avoiding any sort of eye contact. Textbook. Only Theresa catches my stare, although even she gulps before replying. It’s like the gestapo around here.

  Theresa speaks softly: ‘I’m pretty sure that is what was agreed last time.’

  Harriet turns, nods at Theresa, and then twists back to me.

  ‘It is my job,’ I say. ‘It’s what I do for a living…’

  Harriet gives me the sweetest of sweet smiles, though she’s so full of Botox that the creases have to fight to form. It’s a middle finger without the finger. Is it really? she doesn’t say.

  ‘Everyone needs to be checking the group emails,’ Harriet says, punctuating the words with a gentle thump on the table. ‘We’ve got money to raise and it’s vitally important that we’re all on the same page.’

  I try to sit tall, but it’s hard not to shrink under comments that are clearly meant for me.

  ‘The desserts are now taken care of,’ Harriet adds, as if talking to a child. She turns to take in the circle. ‘I was at a charity dinner last week and met someone who was on Bake-Off. I don’t want to name any names because it’s not been advertised yet – but she’s going to do the desserts.’ By the time she focuses back on me, a sinking sensation is growing in my stomach. ‘This change was outlined in the last email.’

  ‘I must have missed it,’ I reply.

  That or deleted it without reading every word. Harriet’s emails can make a university dissertation look short.

  ‘You’re now on flowers,’ Harriet says firmly. ‘If you check the email, it’s all there.’

  ‘I don’t know anything about flowers or arranging.’

  ‘So it’s a great time to learn! That’s what we always say, isn’t it, ladies? You have a whole week. I’m sure you’ll be fabulous.’

  Harriet’s grin remains fixed and I consider letting her know that I’ll spend the week learning about flowers so that I can pack them into a neat bundle and find somewhere creative to shove them.

  ‘How does that sound?’ Harriet adds.

  ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

  ‘Wonderful.’ She holds her hands up. ‘Aren’t we all so blessed to be surrounded by such strong and talented women…?’

  There is a mumbling of approval, but I catch Theresa’s eye and, even though her face doesn’t twitch, I know she’s vomiting on the inside.

  Harriet continues around the circle, checking on everyone’s progress. With the winter ball only a week away, things are getting tight for time. I’m the only person who has had a new job dumped upon them and have surely been set up to fail. This is entirely in keeping with the projects organised by Harriet. Whatever it is, at whichever time of the year, there is always someone who comes out of her schemes looking as if they’ve messed up their role. It’s never Harriet’s fault, of course. She has an incredible ability of identifying the hardest part of a venture and then palming it off on someone else. If that’s not her greatest talent, then it’s the way she can manipulate the village into doing whatever she wants. It’s impossible to know why this happens. I’m certainly not immune to her. I am here, after all.

  Almost ninety minutes have passed by the time Harriet has finished going around the circle. She repeats that we need to be keeping an eye out for the group emails and then she shows her merciful side by letting us leave.

  There’s a scratching of chairs as everyone stands and then an orderly line forms as we pick up those chairs and stack them into the corner. It’s like being back at school.

  People start to drift outside in ones and twos, while others head through the connecting doors into the main part of the pub to have a glass of wine and a natter about the real world. Harriet is still packing her papers away into a designer leather bag.

  I’m outside and almost at my car when Theresa taps me on the shoulder. It feels as if winter has landed tonight. The sky is clear, with a speckling of stars winking through the black. Frost is starting to crust along the base of the wall that rings the car park and there’s a bristling breeze that leaves me wishing I’d brought a hat and scarf.

  Theresa nods back to the pub. ‘Fancy a quick drink?’

  ‘I don’t want to leave my car here overnight.’

  ‘Only a little one…’

  I shake my head. ‘Maybe another time? I think I need a break from Leavensfield tonight.’

  That gets a slim, knowing smile. The politics of this stupid little place can be exhausting.


  We say our goodbyes and then I get into the car and crank up the heat while waiting for the mist on the windows to clear. When it does, I set off onto the narrow road that leads up and away from the centre of Leavensfield. It is lined with low drystone walls which have been here for as long as the village. There’s barely a year that goes by without someone misjudging a corner and smashing into the barrier. It usually happens in the summer, largely because of the sheer number of people who pass through the village on their way to the seaside or the motorway. Leavensfield is the type of village that creeps up on a person. One moment they might be driving on comfortable A-roads; the next it’s down to narrow lanes with no dividing line and these claustrophobic walls.

  Leavensfield itself is a collection of central buildings, with scattered houses along the roads that lead in and out. It’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it Christmas card among an emerald wash of farms and fields.

  I continue driving up the winding hill until the rows of houses end and the walls become hedges. Overgrown branches from the wilting trees sway across the road, as it narrows to little more than a car’s width.