‘Do you think she knows more than she’s letting on?’
‘About Pete? No, definitely not. I spoke to her after he first went missing and she was absolutely distraught. There’s no way she could have been pretending, she has no idea where he’s gone – that I know for sure. If that’s what you think, Claire, you’re barking up the wrong tree, I’m telling you now.’
‘Where do you think he went?’
‘I really don’t know. I’ve tried and tried to think but I just can’t.’
‘Do you think he’ll ever come back?’
‘I like to think so, I mean, he’s got two children for goodness’ sake. Surely he’ll see sense eventually and turn up. I really wouldn’t be surprised.’
And that was when she had realised the truth of it all. She was alone – it was Kate who would get everyone’s sympathy and support, not her. And if Pete ever did turn up again it wouldn’t be for her, it would be for his children. All this time she had been waiting for him but she would always be second best. And she didn’t want to be second best. It was time to close the book on the whole sorry story and start afresh. Screw Pete Garland and his midlife crisis. Screw his wife. Screw them all.
So she had put the house on the market and started planning her new life, starting with a one-way ticket to Australia. She was going to go travelling for a while and see where the world took her. She had a very healthy bank balance now thanks to the sale of the house and she had no ties to anywhere. She was done with trying to settle down, it always ended in heartbreak. She had been right all these years to rely only on herself. Pete had been a temporary blip in her life but she was on her own again now, as she had always been. Perhaps she’d bump into him somewhere – maybe on a beach in Thailand or surfing in Byron Bay. Maybe he was living the dream somewhere after all. Maybe she’d always be looking for him, deep down, in every country she visited, in every new place she went to. Perhaps she’d scan the tables of every bar she went into, looking for the man she had loved with all her heart sipping a cold lager and reading a torn paperback, hoping that she would find him. Or maybe he didn’t want to be found. She didn’t know and she didn’t think she’d ever really find out.
She left the estate agent with nothing but her passport, wallet and backpack, got into a taxi and headed for the airport. It was time to say goodbye to the past – to France, to Pete and to the life that had remained a fantasy. It was time to let go of her doubts and theories about what had happened to him. It was time to look to the future. And for the first time in months, she felt excited again.
Kate was in the park with the girls when she got the call from the police to tell her that the investigation into Pete’s disappearance had been downgraded to low priority. It was the summer holidays and London was in the grip of a heatwave that had lasted for weeks without a drop of rain. There was talk of a hosepipe ban for the first time in years. The house pulsated with heat and they had fans in every room to keep themselves cool. The girls had been in heaven, splashing about in the paddling pool in the garden all summer and sitting on deckchairs eating ice lollies on the new decking that she’d had installed over the old ponds. She’d finally got the garden renovated and it looked amazing. She’d made it into a real entertaining space, perfect for playdates with friends and drinks with her school mum friends in the evening, with fairy lights twinkling in the trees and a big firepit for cooler nights. They had people round the house all the time now – the girls loved inviting their friends home to play and she had a gang of pals who came over for barbecues and drinks at the weekend.
Rachel stopped by from time to time for a catch-up and Karen visited once a month. Erin was pregnant after a whirlwind romance with her boyfriend Scott and the girls were so excited about meeting their new niece or nephew. Kate, who knew how overwhelming it was to become a mother for the first time, was already on standby, ready to help her sister out and make sure that she never felt alone like she had.
When the police had first told her that Pete had been reported missing, her life had been turned upside down all over again. She had been a nervous wreck and spent countless hours racking her brain, looking for the possible things she could have missed all those months ago, anything that could incriminate her. Had she finally reached her day of reckoning? The police had searched the house from top to bottom and contacted everyone Pete knew.
Karen had called her full of concern the minute officers had left her house. ‘I can’t believe this, Kate, what’s going on?’
‘I’ve got no idea,’ she replied. ‘All these months I thought he was with another woman in France and now I have absolutely no idea what happened to him.’
‘It’s exactly what his own dad did,’ Karen said sadly. ‘He just ran away from it all – from his life, from his responsibilities. It’s like history repeating itself. I’m so sorry that this has happened to you and the girls, Kate, you deserve so much more.’
Of course she’d felt even worse then, but she’d come too far to give up now. She’d worked so hard to rebuild her life and she had to keep playing the part, now more so than ever while the police’s gaze was on her. Did I miss anything? she kept asking herself. Having had a taste of a better, happier life she was more desperate than ever to get through this. She was terrified of losing everything she had.
But days turned to weeks and then to months and nothing happened. She waited for the police cars to pull up outside her house, for them to handcuff her and walk her out but they never came. Erin and Lottie, who had flocked around her protectively when she first told them the news, started mentioning it less and less. Everyone was simply getting on with their lives and as time went on, she started to breathe again. But still, she fretted. She tried to throw herself into work, and the children, and life. She tried to forget about the investigation. But she couldn’t. Each day she plastered on a smile and carried on playing her part as the abandoned wife trying to put her life back together. Inside she was falling apart, living in a state of constant fear. It wasn’t until that moment in the playground, when the police told her that the investigation hadn’t unearthed anything suspicious, that she finally felt herself relax. She hadn’t missed anything. She’d got away with it, for now at least. She could look to the future again.
So much had changed in a year. This time last summer they had been in Greece on that joke of a holiday where both she and Pete had pretended that everything was totally fine when their marriage, and lives, were falling apart. Looking back, she could barely recognise the person she had become. Next week they were going to Spain with Erin and Scott for a holiday and Lily and Maggie had been counting down the days. She was looking forward to some time off work – it had been hard trying to juggle work with the girls at home so much and in the end she’d decided to take the whole of August off so that she could focus on spending time with them. She would get back to work in September when school started again and she was looking forward to it. She had upped her rates and she was earning enough money to stand on her own two feet. She still dipped into their savings for big things like holidays or unexpected bills but she was becoming more and more independent. Now, when people asked her what she did for a living, she didn’t shy away from the answer. ‘I work in PR,’ she would tell them. ‘But I work part-time, around my girls.’
They were like the three musketeers now, a tight-knit trio of ladies who were joined at the hip. They even followed her to the toilet, incapable of being away from her for a second. She didn’t mind. They still mentioned Pete, but it was much less frequent now. They had accepted that he was no longer in their lives, in a way that only young children can. Kate knew that there would be more questions, as they got older and became more aware of their dad’s absence and the mystery surrounding his disappearance. She was ready to answer them, to assure them that their dad had loved them very much indeed. She hoped she would be enough for them.
Recently, Lottie had been trying to set her up with men. ‘Oh did you know that Ely’s dad is divorced? And he�
�s such a nice guy. I was thinking of inviting them over one Saturday. Maybe you could come too?’
She had laughed at her friend’s not so subtle attempt at matchmaking. ‘Thanks, Lottie, but I think I’ll pass.’ She wasn’t ready to even consider starting something with someone else. She wasn’t sure she would ever be. She would never get over what she had done to Pete; it would always be there, in her conscience, haunting her at night when she tried to sleep, and she wasn’t sure that she deserved to be with someone else. But as long as she and the girls were okay, that was what mattered.
She had thought about selling the house and moving away, to start a new life, but she couldn’t risk anyone moving into the house and discovering Pete’s body. She would need to stay here, trapped in this house forever, until either she met her maker or the truth caught up with her. But she had made the best of it, she thought. It could be worse.
After all, she had created the perfect home, filled with love and laughter which reverberated around the walls when the girls ran around, playing with their friends. When she stayed up late into the night, sitting on the deck with her new friends, drinking wine, gossiping and laughing. When Erin and Scott came round and she put her hand on her sister’s bump and felt the baby kick, feeling a surge of joy at the new life that was being created. When Karen came to stay for the weekend and sat on a deckchair with a cup of tea, playing games with the girls and beaming with pride at her beautiful grandchildren. When she took her laptop outside and worked under the umbrella, writing stories and making calls to journalists, squealing with excitement when she successfully placed a story. When, after a long day, she lit the firepit and sat close to it with the girls, toasting marshmallows and listening to Disney songs. The house was teeming with life.
It was just what she had always wanted.
THE END
Acknowledgements
They say it takes a village to raise a child. Well, this book is my literary first-born and I couldn’t have done it without a collective effort behind me.
To Alison Chandler and my writing course-mates at the Collage Writing Room, who gave me invaluable support, encouragement and feedback – and the proverbial kick up the backside I needed to turn my dream into a reality and actually put pen to paper.
To Jo Pinner and her friends who very kindly and helpfully answered my questions about missing persons investigations. And Emma and James Newall who cheerfully brainstormed the best place to dump a dead body with me over a few beers and helped me come up with the ideal spot. I literally couldn’t have disposed of Pete without you. #accessory.
A huge thank you to my sister Zoe, who read my early manuscript and gave me the encouragement and confidence to believe that people might actually want to read it. Thank you for being in my corner.
Thanks to Bloodhound Books, who took a chance on a debut novel from an unknown writer and transformed 2020 from what was otherwise a pretty shocking year into the one when I achieved my life’s ambition. And to all of the Bloodhound Books team for your support, positivity and professionalism through the publishing process. Thanks in particular to Clare Law, my editor, who spent many hours polishing up my manuscript and making it shine.
To my NCT gang who are absolutely nothing like the bunch in this book and who supported me so much in those early months of motherhood, making sure that – unlike Kate – there was always someone to talk, cry and laugh with. And not a glossy ponytail or activewear in sight.
And finally, to my husband Jon. For being my biggest cheerleader and sounding board. For reading my manuscript and teaching me some important grammar lessons (otherwise Kate’s emails would have been disappearing into the digital ethos and they’d all have been towing the line). For holding the fort while I disappeared off to write every weekend. For taking the kids to gymnastics so I could snatch another couple of hours of work. For believing in me.
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