What My Husband Did: A gripping psychological thriller with an amazing twist Page 7

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  TWELVE YEARS OLD

  The car vents are blowing so loudly that I can’t properly hear the sound of the radio. It’s cool air now and I don’t have to sit so tall in the front seat any longer in order to see through the window.

  It’s such a bright day, with the sky so strikingly blue that it’s almost white. Dad glances momentarily towards me before turning back to the road.

  ‘Not long now,’ he says.

  He reaches and turns down the cooling air a little, which allows the voice from the radio to come through louder. It’s cricket and, almost as soon as he does this, he thumps the steering wheel gently.

  ‘What?’ I ask.

  ‘Another England collapse.’

  ‘Oh…’

  I’m not completely sure what this means – but Dad doesn’t seem too happy about it.

  The sun is pouring through the glass and, even with the cool air, I can feel my skin prickling. If this weather continues, I’m going to ask if we can go to the beach tomorrow or the day after that. Dad might let me take a friend.

  It’s as we come over the top of the hill that I spot a shape on the side of the road. It’s a man in jeans and a long top – which has to be much too warm for the conditions. He’s under the shade of a tree with his thumb out and there’s a bag at his feet.

  There’s the moment from when this happened before, where it felt as if Dad was teaching me something. When we felt close.

  ‘Can we stop, Dad?’ I ask.

  There’s no immediate slowing to the car and it feels like we’re going to be past the man too quickly. Just as I’m thinking that, Dad glances sideways and then brakes. He indicates off and then pulls in a little past the man.

  ‘I’ll find out where he’s going,’ Dad says. He starts to open his door but, at the same time, the door behind me clunks open and there’s some sort of scuffing sound.

  Dad puts an arm around the back of his seat and twists to look behind me. ‘You all right, mate?’ he says.

  There’s a grunt, although I don’t think the man actually says anything. There’s a thump and then a bag appears on the seat behind Dad.

  It feels different to the last time we did this. When it was raining and cold, and Dad chose to stop for that man, I felt something swelling within me. There was a pride and happiness that we’d made someone’s day better. This isn’t the same. There’s a smell of something horrible that I can’t quite make out. It’s like when the bins have been left out in the morning but the binmen don’t come until the afternoon. Dad seems uncomfortable, too. He glances at me twice although quickly looks away both times.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Dad asks.

  The man doesn’t reply, although he does let out a long, retching cough. When he’s done, Dad asks him again and there’s a mumbled ‘Bristol’.

  ‘I’m not really going that way,’ Dad says. ‘I can drop you at the services. You might find a lift there.’

  ‘Whatever.’

  Dad sets off again but he turns down the radio and he keeps peeping up to the mirror. I want to say something but I’m not sure what would be best. I shouldn’t have asked Dad to stop.

  We’ve only been travelling for a couple of minutes when there’s a big bump in the back of my chair. I jolt forward and back as Dad turns sideways to look at me.

  ‘You okay?’ he asks.

  ‘Yes.’

  We continue for a while, with only the sound of the radio as a distraction. It’s hard to focus on that, though, because it feels like the smell from behind my chair is getting stronger. I can feel it on my tongue.

  ‘What’s your name?’ Dad asks.

  The only reply is another mumbled grunt. Seconds later, there’s a new smell that I do recognise. Dad must sense it too, because he immediately slows and pulls over to the side of the road. He unclips his seat belt and turns to face the man behind us.

  ‘You can’t smoke in here,’ he says.

  I don’t understand the reply but can feel my heart thundering as I watch my dad from side-on. There’s a vein over his eye that has started to throb.

  In a flash, he opens his door and marches around the front of the car. He moves quickly past me and then there’s the sound of the door behind being opened. I hear him say ‘Out’, and then there’s a scuffling sound.

  I can’t see properly but I strain against the seat belt and twist to see through the window as Dad drags the man out of the car by the collar of his top. When the man has been dumped on the verge, Dad reaches into the back seat, grabs the man’s bag, and then throws it down on the ground. The man doesn’t move from where he’s slumped.

  Dad slams the door behind me and then charges back around to his side before starting the car and setting off. His chest is rising and falling so quickly and there’s sweat dribbling along the side of his face.

  ‘Are you okay, Mads?’ he asks.

  ‘Yes…’

  As he goes to change gear, I notice there’s blood on his hand.

  ‘What happened?’ I ask.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘You’re bleeding.’

  He holds his hand up and then licks it away. ‘It’s nothing,’ he says.

  ‘Sorry for asking you to pick him up…’

  I watch as my father gulps. He glances momentarily away from the road, catching my eye before turning back. ‘Never be sorry for wanting to help,’ he says. ‘It’s what makes us human, Mads. It’s just that, sometimes, the odd bad one spoils it for everyone.’

  Nine

  The blue of the police car lights illuminates the row of hedges that are far up on the hill above where I live. There are no roads that far away from the main route. It’s around a mile from my house in a straight line. There is a densely filled copse of trees at the very top of the hill – and then a series of tracks and trails that link back to the main road.

  I grab my coat, hat and gloves and then walk on the verge up towards the lights. If I was to keep going, I’d end up at the petrol station where Harriet says she saw Alice getting into Richard’s car. Instead of going that far, I clamber over a stile and follow a slim, muddy trail that tracks a line of trees up towards the woods. The one thing that everybody living in Leavensfield has in common is that we all own a decent pair of walking boots.

  The tree branches hang low at this time of year, like spindly, muscle-free arms swaying back and forth. It’s colder under the wooded canopy. There is a crystallised mash of leaves from the autumn that have partially mulched into the undergrowth, with a wide slick of mud that stretches over the trail. When it rains hard, an impromptu river will form along here as the water flows down towards the stream in the gully below.

  As I reach the top of the hiking trail, it merges with a rocky track that’s used by farmers to get their tractors onto the furthest fields. There are wide metal gates on both sides of the track and more further back towards the road. This is more or less the furthest any vehicle can get. There’s a dead end – and then nothing but miles and miles of fields.

  There is one police car blocking the gate on this side and another a little further back, preventing anyone from coming along the track. The blue lights are no longer spinning. If I’d walked up the way the tractors come, I’d have been turned around. Sometimes, a little local knowledge goes a long way.

  I slip unnoticed around the front of the police car and then cross the deserted track to the gate on the other side. There are two uniformed officers standing a little inside the second field, though both have their backs to me.

  It’s immediately apparent why.

  Parked at an angle and hidden in the corner of the field is Richard’s black Toyota.

  I stare at it, barely able to believe it’s actually here. The bottom half of the car is caked with mud and the front wheel has sunk to the point that it’s almost entirely buried in the sludge. Because of the positions of the hedges and the way the car is almost wedged into the corner, the car isn’t visible even from a few paces away on the track. It
certainly can’t be seen from the road.

  I wonder who found it. It must have been someone like a rambler or a farmer. Without that, the car could have been hidden in plain sight for days or weeks. Maybe even months.

  There are tyre tracks that lead from the gate through to where the car now sits. The number plate is obscured by the spray of mud.

  I’ve moved closer to the scene without realising I’ve done so, almost as if I’ve sleepwalked across the mud.

  Over the back of the hedge, out of sight but barely steps away, is a steep drop to the stream. The water runs further down the hill towards where Atal found Alice.

  One of the officers turns and jumps at the sight of my presence. With the other police car blocking the track, there’s no way they’d be expecting someone to be up here. He’s tall and starts walking towards me with his arms wide.

  ‘You have to turn around,’ he says.

  The second officer has noticed now. She reaches towards the radio on her lapel and says something into it that I don’t catch.

  ‘It’s my husband’s car…’

  The first officer doesn’t realise what I’ve said at first. He keeps walking towards me, shooing me backwards like a naughty puppy. He’s already started to say ‘back’ when he clocks what I’ve said.

  ‘You know whose car this is?’ he asks.

  ‘My husband’s. Have you found him…?’

  He glances over his shoulder to where his colleague is still talking into her radio. ‘You should return home,’ he says. ‘Someone will be in contact.’

  I ignore him, stepping to the side as he tries to motion me away. He stands in front, trying to block my view – but that only makes me continue moving to the side in an attempt to see around him. We’re like dancing crabs as we mirror one another’s movements.

  ‘Have you found him?’

  The anguish in my voice surprises even me. The officer must pick up on it because he drops his arms, while his stony expression slips into something more conciliatory.

  ‘We can drop you home if you want,’ he says. ‘Someone will come out to talk to you as soon as there’s any news.’

  I take a step forward and he takes one back.

  ‘Has he been in a ditch this whole time…?’

  The officer doesn’t answer and I take another step ahead. I angle around the officer’s body, squinting toward the ditch that’s on the other side of the car. There are some rocks and some shattered wood, though it’s hard to work out from where it could have come. I take another step to the side. It could be that slight difference in the way the light is reflecting but I can now see something red close to the front wheel that’s sunk in the mud.

  I stretch around the officer, who has his hands out once more to keep me away. ‘Is that blood?’

  He turns to glance towards where I’m pointing. ‘If you just—’

  I push against him, edging him backwards. He stumbles slightly but keeps his balance. ‘Don’t tell me to leave. That’s my husband’s car and he’s been missing since yesterday. How would you feel?’

  ‘I underst—’

  ‘You don’t!’

  I look into his eyes and he has to turn away, towards the red. It feels as if I’m out of my body, watching myself. This manic, angry woman isn’t who I am.

  There’s a silent stand-off now. The other officer is still talking into her shoulder radio – and then, from the other side of the car, Detective Inspector Dini appears. His shoes aren’t shiny any longer as he’s caked in mud almost up to his knees. He wears a grim expression as he lifts his legs high to almost wade around the back of the vehicle before he crosses towards me. He nods at the officer in front of me and the man in uniform lowers his arms and then moves away to the side.

  ‘How’d you get up here?’ Dini asks.

  ‘Does it matter?’ He waits until I can’t resist the urge any longer. ‘It’s Richard’s car,’ I say.

  He nods shortly in that infuriating way that I suspect means he already knows. I can imagine this little tic to be the sort of thing that would drive his wife crazy over the years. It brims with a purposeful arrogance. That I-know-more-than-you head tilt which says way more than words ever could. One day, you’re madly in love; ten years down the line, you’re hurling their clothes out the window because he’s given that nod one too many times.

  I point towards the red mark on the ground. It looks different now, more solid than before. ‘Is that blood?’ I ask.

  Dini glances over his shoulder towards the front of the car. ‘No.’

  That’s one thing, I suppose. A small comfort. ‘What is it?’

  He sighs and licks his top lip. The reluctance pours from him, but he replies anyway: ‘It’s a hairband.’

  ‘A what?’

  He takes a breath and looks me dead in the eye. ‘It’s a red plastic Alice band. Like the sort little girls wear…’

  Ten

  Now he’s said it, I can see the plastic curve as clearly as if it was in my hand. I can’t understand why I ever thought it was anything other than a hairband.

  Dini reaches forward and catches my arm. At first, I wonder what he’s doing – but then I realise that my knees are crumpling and that he’s holding me up.

  ‘Have you found Richard?’ I ask as I straighten myself.

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘I know…’

  I allow him to guide me away from the car, back through the gate and onto the rocky track.

  Dini nods across to the female officer who was on her radio. ‘Any sign of the SOCOs?’

  ‘They got lost,’ she calls back. ‘Ten minutes away, tops.’

  He peeps upwards towards the greying sky and it’s only now that I realise there’s a clinging misty rain. I’m soaked and have somehow not noticed.

  ‘How did you get up here?’ Dini asks, although it takes me a second to realise he’s talking to me.

  I point towards the gate on the other side of the track. ‘There’s a trail down there,’ I say. ‘It comes out near my house.’

  ‘Don’t you have pavements around here…?’ He laughs gently, though I don’t join in. ‘Let’s head back to your house,’ he adds. ‘You lead the way.’

  I could say no, perhaps I should, but Dini is offering something that nobody else is at the moment. Company.

  We press through the wide cattle gate and then follow the trail back towards the roads. In his suit, Dini is not dressed for this in any way – and, with his regulation black shoes, he’s constantly slipping on the mud, else trying to keep to the parts on which there is still grass. By the time we get to the road, most of his lower half looks like he’s done a Tough Mudder.

  I lead the way along the verge but do catch the moment when Dini waves towards a small white van that’s winding its way up the hill. I assume this will be more people off to check on the site where my husband’s car now sits, close to the red Alice band.

  When we get to the house, I unlock the door and take off my boots on the welcome mat, before tucking them in on the rack by the door. Dini waits patiently outside, hands behind his back.

  ‘You can come in,’ I say – and he does just that. He also removes his shoes – although they’re a good sixty per cent mud at this point, and then he rolls up his trouser legs to expose black socks and a hint of hairy, pale leg. When we catch one another’s eye, I know I’d be laughing in other circumstances. In many ways it is still funny – except that it doesn’t feel like there are any laughs within me.

  ‘Where can we go?’ he asks.

  I head through to the living room and take a seat on the sofa. Dini doesn’t wait for an invitation as he presses back into the armchair where Richard would usually sit. The record player sits on the small table at his side and there is still a small crimson stain on the carpet from where Richard spilled red wine last summer.

  ‘Nice tree,’ Dini says, nodding towards the Christmas tree in the corner, near the window.

  ‘It’s fake,’
I reply. ‘We’ve had that for years.’

  It stretches high to the ceiling and there is a winding band of fairy lights looped around. It’s a sorry sight at the moment, with the lights switched off. Like a shop window display that’s about to be torn down in January.

  ‘I need to ask you something,’ Dini says.

  ‘You asked lots earlier.’

  ‘Something else.’

  I leave it there, waiting for him to fill in the gap before wishing that I hadn’t.

  ‘Can we search your house?’ he asks.

  Even though I suspected this must be coming, the request is still a surprise. As far as I know, nobody has ever gone through my things. I’ve never been burgled and I haven’t lived with housemates in the way some people might. I’m used to privacy.

  ‘Do I have a choice?’

  ‘If you say no, we’ll ask for a warrant based upon witness reports of your husband and Alice Pritchard being seen together. There’s a very good chance that application will be accepted.’

  ‘It would take you longer to do that, though…’ I look across to Dini, hoping he’s uncomfortable or sweating. Wanting him to show some degree of being worried. Instead, he matches my stare and it’s me who has to look away.

  ‘It will be granted,’ he says firmly. ‘It might take a few hours, it might be tomorrow, but we’ll get a warrant.’

  ‘So why are you asking me?’

  ‘Because it shows good faith if you let us.’ There’s a politician’s pause. The deliberate, ponderous type that all public speakers now do, to the point that it’s lost almost all its impact. ‘Sometimes, juries like that sort of thing…’ He leaves it hanging, like the promise of a last meal in front of someone on death row. The outcome will be awful either way, but at least there’s one thing that isn’t terrible.

  ‘I’ve got nothing to hide,’ I say.

  ‘Does that mean you’ll let in a search team?’

  ‘Do whatever you need.’

  Dini pushes up from the chair and says he’ll be right back. He heads into the hall and then possibly the kitchen. I can’t tell, though I can hear a muffled voice, presumably talking into a phone.