Читать книгу The Missing Husband - Amanda Brooke, Amanda Brooke - Страница 13

‘I have quite a list of things I’ll need from you,’ DS Baxter warned after Jo had taken him through David’s last known movements. ‘A couple of recent photos, a list of friends, family and any other useful contacts, and details of his employment, his mobile phone and his bank accounts so we can access them. I know it’s a lot but just as soon as you can manage.’

Jo reached over to a small table at the side of the sofa and picked up a wad of papers and a holiday brochure. ‘I think I have most of that here,’ she said handing over everything except the brochure, which she rested on her lap. ‘I’ve also included all the details of the course David attended in Leeds. He was the only delegate from Nelson’s but the course coordinator should be able to provide you with a full list of delegates.’

DS Baxter was occupying the armchair where Jo had kept vigil the night before and she was more than happy for someone else to take her place. The policeman was younger than she expected; his deep voice over the phone had suggested a heavy smoking and careworn detective but despite the receding hairline and deep-set laughter lines, the man in front of her looked the right side of forty still. He scratched at his five o’clock shadow and looked quietly impressed as he leafed through the collection of papers. He glanced briefly at the brochure on her lap then said, ‘Thank you, we’ll start making some preliminary enquiries and check CCTV footage at the train stations and local area.’

‘OK,’ Jo managed to say.

‘We probably won’t need to investigate too deeply. There’s usually a perfectly natural explanation for a grown man to go missing and more often than not they turn up of their own accord.’

‘I hope that doesn’t mean you won’t be taking this seriously. My sister needs answers,’ countered Steph who had so far been sitting quietly next to Jo. ‘She’s five and a half months pregnant and this kind of stress can’t be good for her.’

‘What do you mean by a natural explanation?’ Jo asked.

With Steph’s words still ringing in his ears, DS Baxter gave Jo an apologetic smile but he spoke bluntly. ‘There are people who simply choose to step out of their lives and for a variety of reasons. Even our closest family members are capable of surprising us, no matter how well we think we know them. I can assure you we will be taking this seriously and we will investigate, but I have to warn you that if all the evidence then suggests David elected to disappear, I’m afraid there’s not much more we can do.’

Jo made a point of swallowing hard as if she had a raging thirst. ‘I think I could do with that cup of coffee you offered,’ she said to Steph. ‘Are you sure you don’t want one, DS Baxter?’

The policeman sat back in the armchair. ‘Please call me Martin,’ he said, ‘and yes, I think I do. Milk, one sugar if it’s not too much trouble,’ he said, offering a smile to Steph as she stood up.

Jo watched her sister leave the room and held off speaking until she had closed the door. ‘I’ve gone through every possible reason why David didn’t come home last night and I keep asking myself the same question that I know you’re asking yourself right now. Has my husband left me?’

‘Is it possible?’

Jo played nervously with the corner of the holiday brochure. ‘I met David when I was twenty-one, a week after starting at Nelson’s,’ Jo began, choosing to concentrate on the birth of their relationship rather than what might turn out to be its death throes. She briefly closed her eyes as the memory of their first meeting came to mind. She had been a fresh-faced trainee, sitting meekly in the corner of what had been her first professional meeting. David admitted later that he hadn’t even noticed her until she interrupted him mid-sentence to announce he didn’t know what he was talking about. In truth, she hadn’t been quite so abrupt, but the story was all the better for his retelling. ‘I’m not sure if it was love at first sight but it didn’t take long for both of us to realize that we were soul mates. We married three years later and have spent the last seven years building our lives together.’ She paused as she saw the flicker of a thought cross Martin’s face. ‘What? You think this is the dreaded seven-year itch?’

‘It happens more often than you’d think,’ the policeman said and probably wasn’t aware that his thumb stroked the flesh around the third finger of his left hand where perhaps a wedding band had once been. ‘Given that he didn’t go to his family, is there anyone else he could have turned to?’

‘You mean was he having an affair?’ Jo had questioned her entire belief system in the last twenty-four hours but in this one regard she had come back with the same answer time and time again. She shook her head and said, ‘No, I won’t believe that of him, not David. And apart from the fact that I trust him implicitly, we work together. Yes, he goes out with his friends and his brother, but I really don’t see how he’d have the opportunity, not without me knowing or at least suspecting.’

‘You understand why I have to ask,’ Martin said by way of an apology.

‘Of course. You’re not asking anything I haven’t already asked myself. We were happy.’ The use of the past tense had been an unconscious slip and one that frightened Jo and made Martin raise his eyebrows so she hurried on, ‘I’ll admit it hasn’t been easy of late but I’ve never doubted my love for my husband and before now I never doubted his love for me. I questioned why he loved me often enough, but I never doubted it.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘David and I are complete opposites. He’s spontaneous, daring, a bit of a risk taker while I’m more measured, less impulsive. He adds the colour to my black-and-white world while I …’ Jo’s mind stalled as she tried to think exactly what it was that she added to David’s life. Why had he put up with her?

There was an uncomfortable pause and Jo imagined the policeman losing interest in the case by the second. She had spent the last twenty-four hours searching for answers and was slowly and painfully coming to the conclusion that David must have abandoned her, and now she was convincing Martin of the same thing.

‘You said there have been issues recently. Was there something in particular putting a strain on your marriage?’

Jo lifted the brochure up but only enough to hide the gentle mound of her stomach. ‘As my sister was keen to point out, I’m pregnant. We’d agreed to start a family when I was thirty. It was David who came up with the plan but then he is the planner – or at least that’s what’s written on his job description,’ she added bitterly. She was repeating a well-worn argument that was no stranger to those same four walls. ‘And me, being the one who follows policies and procedures to the letter, I thought once we had a plan we would stick to it. I was looking forward to being a mum. I really wanted to start a family with the man I loved.’

Her voice softened as the dream she had spent years creating came so vividly to mind. As if sensing her excitement, FB made her stomach flip; then the colour faded from her imaginary world. ‘But David changed his mind and at first I couldn’t blame him. He was affected by his dad’s death quite deeply and I didn’t push, but after a year of prevaricating, I told him that I’d had enough. I didn’t exactly tell him I was coming off the pill, but I didn’t say I wasn’t, either.’

‘So he wasn’t happy when you told him you were pregnant?’

Jo’s laugh was hollow. ‘It was more a matter of him being in shock and OK, maybe a little angry too. He didn’t agree with how I’d gone about things, but he didn’t blame me either.’

‘It sounds like you wanted different things,’ he said.

‘No, I think we wanted the same things – just at different times. He wanted to see more of the world before settling down, that’s all. If things had gone his way then we would have been in America this week.’

‘Ah …’ Martin said and took the brochure which Jo was finally ready to relinquish.

‘I’m finding it impossible to believe that he would hop on the next plane to America,’ she said, ‘but there are pages torn out, pages that David was poring over just before I dropped the bombshell. And now I can’t account for where those pages might be or, more importantly, his passport … It doesn’t look good, does it?’

‘It’s one line of enquiry,’ Martin agreed but wouldn’t commit himself further. ‘So tell me more about how things have been lately. Was he getting used to the idea of becoming a father?’

‘He was more subdued than anything. It was as if he wanted to be excited but was afraid to be,’ Jo said hesitantly. ‘But then I wasn’t much better. I felt guilty about trapping him – if you can trap someone you’re already married to.’ Her voice tightened as she finished her sentence and she looked away, out of the window, blinking back tears.

‘So you would have told him about the baby around five months ago?’

Jo’s guilt was showing on her face when she turned back to Martin with a wavering smile. ‘I took my time telling him, so it was more like three or four months ago. Still enough time to plan his escape, do you think?’

Rather than answer her, he pursed his lips then said, ‘Had anything happened more recently that might have made him want to up and leave now?’

The hairs on the back of Jo’s neck stood on end as she felt another layer of her life being stripped away. ‘David came with me for the twenty-week scan a few weeks ago and I thought we had reached a turning point. He had even come up with a name for my bump.’ She patted her stomach and didn’t give a second thought to the blush rising in her cheeks. ‘We’d started calling it FB. Don’t ask why, because I don’t think even I followed his logic.’ There was a brief pause for a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes and then she added, ‘But anyway, when we got there for the scan, all David wanted to know was if I would be able to travel on a long haul flight.’ There was still a note of disbelief in Jo’s voice. ‘He was still more interested in going ahead with our holiday than he was about becoming a father.’

‘You argued about it?’

‘Not as such,’ Jo said. ‘I didn’t tell him how annoyed I was although I’m sure he picked up on it. I was still trying to be patient and understanding, but the comment festered, I suppose. Then, the night before he left for Leeds, he asked me to get up at an ungodly hour to give him a lift to the station. I’d been waiting and waiting for him to accept this pregnancy and our baby, to start fussing over me, and this was the final straw. What annoyed me most of all was that he couldn’t understand why I was so upset with him for asking for the lift.’ Eyes stinging with frustrated tears, Jo put her hand to her temple as if she could ease the pain of the memory.

‘How bad would you say the argument was? In the heat of the moment insults and allegations are often the weapons of choice and the cracks in a relationship can be blown wide apart. Is there anything you might have said which could have tipped David over the edge, if he was contemplating leaving?’

Jo had a feeling that Martin was talking from experience. ‘No, nothing like that and I know it sounds like our relationship was on shaky ground, but it wasn’t, not really. He loved me. Loves me.’

Martin pretended not to notice Jo wince at her use of the past tense again. ‘Was that the last time you spoke together?’

‘Yes, although he did leave a voicemail message.’

Jo tried to keep her hand steady as she held her mobile in the palm of her hand and switched to speakerphone. The ever-present knot in her stomach tightened a little as she prepared to hear David’s voice echo off the living-room walls for the first time since their argument.

Having heard the message countless times before, Jo knew every word and every sigh by heart but it was her analysis of those sounds that constantly changed.

‘So you’re still not speaking to me then?’ he clipped. The hiss from the sigh he released sounded taut with exasperation now, rather than the resignation she had first heard. ‘You’re so damn stubborn.’ There was another pause and the sound of movement. David was running his fingers through his hair. ‘You want things your way and you want them now. Well, you may not believe me but I have been thinking about the future. In fact, I haven’t been able to think of anything else and you’re in for one hell of a shock, Jo, because I’ve been making plans.’

The tone of voice was familiar; it was the one he used to tease her. It ought to have sounded playful and full of promise, but as Jo looked towards Martin, they both heard only the threat.

‘And before you say it, yes really,’ David was saying. There was another pause. Was he waiting for his wife to read between the lines? ‘I’d better go into the seminar now but I’ll see you later. Assuming you want me to come home, that is.’

After the message ended abruptly, it was Jo who spoke first.

‘Do you still think it’s worth exploring other lines of enquiry?’ she asked weakly, unsure how she wanted Martin to answer. Did she prefer to hear confirmation from a third party that her marriage was indeed in tatters or, worse still, for him to tell her there was a real chance that David was at the bottom of a ditch or floating in the Mersey?

‘At this stage, yes.’

The policeman looked around the room then shifted uncomfortably in his seat. ‘I can’t believe how spotless your house is,’ he remarked. ‘There’s a strong smell of bleach …’

Steph re-entered the room, moving so fast that the two cups in her hand slopped over her hand, but she seemed not to notice the scalding liquid as she glared at DS Baxter. ‘I hope you’re not suggesting for one minute that my sister had anything to do with David’s disappearing act! She’s bared her soul to you, for God’s sake!’

Jo gasped as the implications of Martin’s comments hit her. She wasn’t sure what surprised her more, the realization that she was one of the lines of enquiry or the unabashed look on the policeman’s face. Martin might not be the worn-out detective she had imagined but he clearly had enough years of experience to remain open-minded, if not a little cynical. What didn’t surprise her was the fact that Steph had been eavesdropping, but with her whole life about to be brought under scrutiny, her lack of privacy was something she was going to have to get used to.