Margot made a noise, almost choking on her Coke.
‘I am perfectly sure that would be the case,’ he replied, sitting down next to me as Margot slipped away. ‘So, what got you into all this?’ he asked. His voice was treacle, his black skin equally as tantalising. With his kind eyes and broad shoulders, Will’s proximity seemed to take away my ability to speak. Normally I prided myself on quick wit and banter when it came to guys. But I’d not had a proper relationship since finishing college in London several years ago, and I was suddenly wondering if I’d left my confidence back there, too.
‘Oh, you know. I always just made things. Dresses for my Barbie dolls. Clothes for me when I was a teenager and had no money. I’d buy jumble sale bargains and cut them up, make something new. That kind of thing. And then I ended up training professionally. So how about you? Why an actor?’
‘Why not?’ Will replied cryptically. ‘I can be anyone I want, which, more often than not, is better than being me.’
I thought about this, inwardly agreeing and disagreeing with him. Everyone needed to escape themselves occasionally but the way he said it sounded almost… ominous, as though there was something wrong with him that even he needed to avoid. But I brushed it off. I barely knew the guy and wasn’t about to judge him on a throwaway comment.
‘But acting isn’t my full-time job, sadly. Since I left college, I’ve also been working as a drama teacher. Bit of a baptism of fire at the school I’m at, but hopefully my wit and charm will win the little buggers round.’
‘Wow,’ I said, impressed, thinking that must be a tough job, especially as I guessed Will was only in his mid- to late twenties himself. While I’d had huge respect for the staff at my school, whatever their age, I remembered how some of the kids gave the younger teachers a hard time.
‘Meantime, I’m hoping my semi-pro acting will get me spotted. My agent has high hopes.’
‘You have an agent?’ I was even more impressed.
‘Yeah, and I’ve had a couple of small TV parts. Holby, EastEnders, a couple of period dramas. But theatre is my main love.’
I smiled, looking at him sideways, not knowing what to say. There was something between us – a spark, perhaps – I felt sure of it, but it wouldn’t be the first time I’d had a leading-man crush and that had never ended well. I may as well have not existed with the last one – he’d barely noticed my shaking fingers as I stitched up the braiding on his jacket at close quarters, let alone the rest of me. I should listen to my gut this time, I decided. Listen to what sensible-and-together Louise would tell me now that we were back in touch. I’d always admired my oldest friend’s wisdom, boundaries and sense of self. And I should definitely not listen to Margot, who was hovering nearby, giggling and making gestures to me from behind the wing curtains. I forced myself not to look, suppressing the laughter.
‘Do you fancy getting a bite to eat after we’re done here, Miss Langham? Maybe at that new pizza place around the corner? I’m starving.’
I thought for a moment. It was Monday and there was no performance tonight. Usually, I’d go home, get an early night, or perhaps work on some new patterns. Margot and I had been designing and making bridesmaids’ dresses to sell at bridal fairs. Everything we’d made so far had sold instantly.
‘You know what?’ I said, sliding off the crate and building up to the I’m going to get an early night excuse. But I paused. Looked into Will’s large, deeply dark eyes and swallowed. Well, I tried to swallow but it was hard, as if every automatic function in my body now needed forcing or overthinking. ‘That would, well I’m, um… that, actually that would be lovely,’ I said, going against what the voices in my head – mainly Louise’s – were screaming at me. I knew my closest friend only had my best interests at heart, remembering how I’d been hurt and messed about one too many times, even at the age of twenty-six, but right now I was simply listening to myself. What I wanted. ‘I’d love that. I’d really love to have pizza with you after I’ve stitched up your breeches, Mr Othello.’
And that was that.
Six
Now
On Monday nights, Jo used to do Pilates. Often Will would have a script run-through or, if it was term time, he would sometimes schedule a school play rehearsal if there was one in production, and Jo would let herself into an empty house after work. She knew Will liked to go out for a drink either with work colleagues or other cast members. ‘Helps our onstage chemistry,’ he explained. ‘If we know what makes each other tick.’
‘Will,’ she’d replied with a grin, holding onto his arm. ‘You don’t have to justify going out for a beer with your mates. It’s fine. If anyone at Pilates was under the age of sixty and up for it, I’d probably do the same.’ She’d kissed him then, grabbed her mat and headed out.
‘Another normal Monday night, then,’ Jo says to herself now, dumping her bag and keys on the kitchen table, knowing things are far from normal. ‘Alone.’ Automatically, she heads to the fridge, pulls out the remains of a bottle of wine, pours a glass, wondering why she’s even bothering with the glass. She hasn’t turned on the light in the kitchen and the peachy dusk casts an eerie glow in the room.
Shivering, though not cold, Jo heads to the little sitting room, taking her laptop with her, and curls her feet under her legs on the sofa. She opens it up, hardly daring to look at the website again. If she hadn’t taken the screenshots on her phone, looked at them disbelievingly several times throughout the day, she’d have gone the last twenty-four hours thinking that she’d dreamt it or had perhaps taken one too many sleeping pills or antidepressants, and that her mind was playing tricks. She was still struggling to come to terms with what she’d seen – photos of Will in someone else’s house. How could it even be possible?
She picks up her phone, turns it round and round in her hands. Goes into her contacts and pulls up PC Daniels’ number again. Should I call? Should I tell the police what I’ve seen? She takes a large sip of wine, shaking her head, sighing heavily. It’s the right thing to do, but how can I? Her thoughts knot into a tangle. What if it’s to do with… She shudders again, dropping her phone onto the cushions. She can’t do it. Not yet. Not until she knows more. Will would not be happy…
Jo logs onto the House Angels website, her fingers trembling as she types the silly password Louise cooked up. Which reminds her – she hasn’t replied to Louise’s earlier text.
Ted wants your number. You OK with that?
No, no I am not OK with that, Jo thinks, tapping out a quick reply to the same effect, grateful at least that Louise has asked first. While she knows her best friend’s attempts at getting her back ‘out there’ and dating are well intentioned, they’re unwanted. Jo does not want to date. She does not want to meet another man. She just wants Will back. And now she has a lead. The most solid lead since he disappeared.
‘Can you think of any reason at all why your husband may have had to take off and leave? However insignificant it may seem,’ the officer, PC Logan, had said at that first meeting nearly a year ago, after she’d made the call to the police. Will had been missing twenty-four hours by the time they came out. The officer had cleared his throat. ‘Including personal reasons.’
Jo had sat silent, thinking, tearing her mind apart in search of anything helpful she could tell the police. She shook her head. ‘I mean, we’re not up to our eyeballs in debt or anything like that,’ she said softly. ‘There’s the mortgage, but it’s just about manageable. The car’s bought on tick but we really need it, and again, it’s budgeted for, though… there are a few repairs that need doing. But we have the emergency fund for that.’ Jo dug her nails into her palms, not wanting to discuss the car. ‘Will refuses to have credit cards or personal loans, and we don’t owe any family members money. There’s not a lot left over at the end of the month, but we’re OK. Will is not running away because of debt.’ Jo was sure about that.
‘What about gambling, or drinking? Is it possible your husband has run up a secret debt and has tak
en off because he’s scared?’
Jo was already shaking her head before he finished the sentence. ‘No, no, that’s ludicrous. Will doesn’t gamble. He won’t even buy a lottery ticket. Sometimes we’ll have some wine, and he likes a few beers, but he’s not an alcoholic. Far from it.’ She was uneasy that the two officers were sitting in her living room, laboriously handwriting notes, taking her statement, wasting time. You should be out there looking for him!
‘I’m afraid the next couple of questions might seem intrusive, but they could help us with the inquiry. How was your husband’s mental health, Mrs Carter? Did he suffer from low mood at all, or depression? Has he ever self-harmed or taken drugs – prescription or otherwise?’
‘Will?’ Jo said, sounding almost surprised, as if she’d never considered the possibility. ‘What, you mean you think he might have…?’ She bowed her head and sighed. She couldn’t bear the thought… Will alone at the edge of a cliff or on a high bridge. Sitting in his car with a hosepipe inserted through the window from the exhaust – it was unthinkable. Except the car was left at his work car park, and his keys, wallet and phone were found on his desk in the small office he shared with the other drama department staff.
‘It’s something we have to consider,’ PC Logan replied. He was a big man, probably only late twenties, and his thick upper arms bulged out of his short-sleeved shirt. Jo thought he looked trussed up in his police garb, things attached to him everywhere, his radio crackling intermittently until he turned it down.
‘Well, I… I…’ Jo had stared out of the window then, praying for Will to walk down the street and up their short garden path. If nothing else, it would end this grilling. ‘He was fine, as far as I know.’ Jo swallowed. Should I tell them? she’d thought. Should I tell him he’d been distracted and nervous ever since… But then they’d ask her ‘ever since what’, and that she couldn’t possibly answer. ‘He seemed absolutely fine. He wasn’t depressed as far as I know. Everything was just… normal.’
‘OK, thank you,’ the officer said, tapping his pen on his pad. ‘And what about the possibility that he’s taken off with…’ PC Logan glanced at his colleague as she gave Jo a sympathetic look. ‘Well, someone else? Do you think there’s another woman in your husband’s life?’
‘No!’ Jo said, feeling even more indignant about that than the thought of Will committing suicide or having a gambling debt. ‘Absolutely not. No more than I would run off with anyone else.’ It was unthinkable. They’d been together twelve years, married for eight. Will would not do anything like that. He was a talker, a sharer, a caring, kind and decent man. And they trusted each other implicitly. ‘Why did you even have to ask me that?’ Jo said, whispering, on the verge of tears.
‘I’m so sorry, Mrs Carter. It wasn’t my intention to upset you, but we do have to cover all bases.’
‘Yes, yes… I understand. It’s just… I just can’t take the not knowing. It’s been twenty-four hours now, and it’s so out of character.’
Twenty-four fucking hours, Jo thinks now, swigging her wine, reminded of the debt racking up on her credit card – the one she’s had to take out to keep her head above water now she’s surviving on just her salary. It’s getting harder each month. What I wouldn’t do for the sheer hope that a mere twenty-four hours brought back then, she thinks, staring at the house-sitting home page absent-mindedly.
Back then, it was still plausible that he’d perhaps suffered a bump to the head and had forgotten his way home – yes, she could have convinced herself of that. Or maybe he’d had a bit of a session with his mates down the pub and felt guilty for staying out all night, intending on slinking home the next evening to face the music. Or perhaps he’d had one too many after rehearsals and got behind the wheel, been pulled over by the police and arrested. He could have been making his way home from twenty-four hours in custody just as she was speaking to the police in their sitting room.
But not now. Not nearly a whole year in custody, Jo thinks, mustering the courage to click on the house with Will in it again. Not a whole bloody year of wandering the streets lost or feeling sheepish and sofa-surfing between mates.
Jo breathes out a sigh she didn’t realise she’d been holding. Will is still there. On photos five, seven and eight of the house-sit page.
Strangely, it’s somehow comforting, seeing him there. Knowing where he is, even if it is just the internet. She imagines it might feel the same if she’d spotted his face on one of the many missing persons sites she’s signed up to. Or glimpsed him on a bus, or getting on a train, the doors closing before she could follow. There, but not there.
After touching Will’s face on the screen, Jo browses through the other photos of the house looking for clues, for remnants of Will. The kitchen looks nice – homely in a muddled, eclectic kind of way, as if someone artistic lives there. The cat is in many of the photos, with a couple including the dog, one outside of him charging for a stick, his silky ears flapping. Then the bedroom (she pauses on that one, wondering if Will has slept in the bed, and if so, who with), the bathroom, a few exterior photos and pictures of the village, the little tea room nearby, the coast… as well as a list of chores to be done and the local facilities. But there’s nothing else to suggest Will’s presence, apart from the three pictures on the mantelpiece.
Jo sighs, knowing she has no choice.
I have to apply for the house-sit, she thinks, her voice clear inside her head. ‘Someone’s got three pictures of my missing husband on their mantelpiece,’ she adds in a whisper when she looks at the owner’s profile – which has a 99.8 per cent approval rating from other site users. Jo wonders what the lost 0.2 per cent was for. ‘Stealing other people’s husbands, perhaps?’ She glares at the generic grey outline of a head. She’s not uploaded a profile picture – not all members have.
Jo’s fingers hover over the keys, the mouse pointer positioned on the ‘Begin Application’ button. Should I? she thinks. Should I make contact with this woman – SusiQ19? Should I ask her why she has pictures of Will in her living room? I’m going to sound mad, deranged, like a stalker, and perhaps she’ll even report me, have me thrown off the site before I’ve begun.
‘Or perhaps I should anonymously report her to the police,’ Jo says to herself, setting down her glass. ‘But for what?’ She needs to keep a clear head. Her hand reaches out for her phone again. PC Daniels would be all over this, she thinks. But she quickly puts it down again. She needs to deal with this the right way. The only way. The way Will would want.
Jo is familiar with the website now – knows where her profile is located, how much information Louise has filled in on her behalf – which is not much. Louise, she thinks, picking up her phone again just as it pings. Always trying to help.
Why not? You can’t hide away forever, Jo.
Jo thinks about this; wonders, for a second, if Louise is right. But then she shakes her head and puts her phone down again, turning back to her laptop. Because there are more important things to worry about right now than giving Ted my number, she thinks. Like filling in the blanks on my profile. She knows that the site is reviews-based, that many homeowners are looking for verified house-sitters only, with positive feedback. And of course, she has none. The phrase ‘0 per cent New Angel’ is displayed beneath her own greyed-out profile head. She needs to add substance to her application.
‘Upload your passport or driving licence to help us identify you. The blue tick gives confidence to property owners… all information remains confidential and real names are never revealed until you’re ready…’ she reads, scanning the small print.
Half an hour later and her profile is complete, including identification checks and a brief bio about herself, who she is, what her interests are, why she is trustworthy, responsible, good in a crisis and far and away the best person ever to look after your house. But she isn’t ready to put up a photograph of herself yet. She ends with, And if you need any mending doing while I’m looking after your home, then I’m your woman!
I’m a professional seamstress. She hopes it will help, go some way to securing her ten days at Hawthorn Lodge, East Wincombe as she hits the ‘apply’ button. She prays SusiQ19 finds her appealing.
‘Right,’ Jo says, stretching back her neck and closing her laptop, suddenly feeling nervous. Her eyes track across the room. Will is standing there, leaning against the chimney breast, shirtsleeves rolled up, an appreciative look on his face.
So, he says in that drawn-out way of his, wearing his suggestive, lopsided smile that always meant he wanted to take her to bed. Are you done on your laptop for the night?
Hi… Jo replies softly, so grateful he’s there. Yes, yes… I’m done, and yes, I’m—
Done interfering, you mean?
Jo turns cold.
She stands up, walks a couple of steps towards him, her hand outstretched, her heart on fire, just wanting to make everything OK again. She loves him in those jeans, that shirt… She can even smell him – his musky aftershave. But when she reaches out for him, when she takes hold of his hand, he’s gone.
Seven
Jo wakes early: 4.24 a.m. She knows she won’t sleep again before it’s time to get up for work. Rolling onto her side, she clicks on her bedside lamp and opens the drawer in the little painted cabinet beside her, her hand fumbling as she pulls out her notebook and pen. Sometimes, in the early hours, she reads back through her jottings and notes and sometimes she adds to them. It’s not really a diary; rather a place for random thoughts and feelings to be held captive. To get them out of her head.
‘If you write your feelings down,’ her counsellor had said, ‘then it’s almost as if they’ve been taken prisoner. Isolated. The negative thoughts, anyway. Feel free to keep the positive ones flowing outwardly.’
The Happy Couple: An absolutely unputdownable and gripping psychological thriller Page 4
