If Richard lived alone, I can imagine it wouldn’t take too long before his house would end up in a similar state to this. Before I moved in, I know he got in a cleaner to help tidy the place.
We sit in a pair of leather armchairs that are firm and uncomfortable. I explain that Richard told me he was off to visit Keith on Sunday – and I’ve not seen him since. I don’t mention anything about the woman with whom he was seen at the pub.
As I tell him this, Keith pulls at his errant, greying hair, while crossing and uncrossing his knees like a demented Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct.
‘We’ve not spoken in probably two years,’ Keith says breathily. ‘Why did Dickie say he was coming here?’
‘I have no idea. I thought we might be able to figure it out between us…?’
If there’s one thing that Keith can do with astonishing ability, then it’s frown. His face isn’t particularly wrinkly until he objects to something, at which time it turns into a dropped cauliflower.
‘What would you like to know?’ he asks.
‘I suppose we could start with how you know each other.’
He crosses and recrosses his legs while wagging a finger. It feels as if I’m about to be told off, although he answers normally.
‘We taught in the same department for about five or six years until I retired a couple of years back.’
‘Have you been in contact since?’
‘Not really. We might have swapped a departmental email or two – but nothing major. We’ve not spoken.’
‘Not at all?’
He snaps back with: ‘That’s what I said, isn’t it?’
There’s such annoyance that it leaves me temporarily silent.
It’s Keith who speaks next, only marginally softer this time. ‘Were you a student of his?’
‘Yes.’
‘What was your maiden name?’
‘Evesham. Maddy Evesham.’
‘Did I ever teach you?’
‘No. We’ve never met.’
Keith picks up an e-cigarette from the table at his side. It’s one of those with a pouty plastic nib and a long tube. He sucks on the tip, making a popping noise with his lips, before he blows a bluey haze into the air. It only takes a few seconds until I can smell the fruity grimness. I’ve never smoked – but I’d take tobacco over this any day. He sucks on the cylinder a second time and then puts it back on the table.
‘Dickie always had an eye for his students…’
Keith speaks deliberately, his words chosen with purpose. It doesn’t sound as if there’s malice, only truth. I suppose I’m the greatest proof there could be.
‘Did you tell the police that?’
‘I told them everything they wanted to know.’
Of course he did. Why wouldn’t he? I wonder if he said these words to the police in the same way he did to me. ‘An eye for his students’ sounds so brutal.
‘It was usually the older ones,’ Keith adds. ‘I’m not entirely surprised he married one of you.’
A shiver whispers its way around the back of my neck.
One of you.
‘How many others?’ There’s a quiver to my voice that I didn’t know would be there. I don’t know why I want to hear this and realise I’m gripping the arms of the chair so tightly that my knuckles have turned white.
Keith pouts his bottom lip. I don’t think it’s deliberately mean, but it is dismissive. ‘I don’t know. I’d heard Dickie had been in trouble a couple of times over the years.’ He licks his lip and then adds: ‘Not trouble, I suppose. That’s the wrong word and I apologise. We’re all adults, after all. Let’s just say that observations were made.’
He leaves it there and I wonder if there’s more to come. Perhaps I suspected this all along? Maybe the true reason I came here is that I needed someone to say it?
‘We got together about four years ago,’ I say. ‘We were married three years ago. Do you know if there were any, um… observations after me?’
Keith smiles, though there’s nothing kindly there. I suddenly realise that he’s finding this amusing – and that’s why he invited me in. I thought I was leading the conversation but now he has me where he wants.
‘I don’t know you,’ he says. ‘And I definitely don’t know what Dickie did and did not get up to in his private time.’
‘Did you know his first wife?’
Keith picks up his e-cigarette again and wags it towards me as if it’s an extension of his finger. ‘I didn’t know he had a first wife, let alone a second.’ He has a puff on the device and then holds it in his palm. ‘I didn’t want anything to do with this. I didn’t want the police to come here and ask questions – and I did not invite you here either.’
‘I didn’t mean—’
‘It doesn’t matter what you meant.’ He’s loud now, shouting. ‘Why do you think I live in a place like this? It’s not so I can have police knocking on my door.’
He stands abruptly and I mirror him instinctively.
‘You should go,’ he says, ushering me towards the front door. ‘And please don’t contact me again. If Dickie does turn up, make sure he knows that he should do the same.’
Seventeen
I sit at the opening to the lane that leads to Keith’s house with the car engine running. The sea is in front of me and it’s raging with a fury I can understand.
It’s not necessarily the implication that Richard might have cheated on me, it’s more that the last few years of my life feel like some sort of inevitability.
I’m not entirely surprised he married one of you.
It makes me feel like I had no choice in the relationship. That I was one in a line. Everybody wants to feel special, or unique – not one of many.
Can it be true?
Keith was annoyed at having his privacy invaded, so perhaps he was trying to hurt me? The worst thing is that, after everything that’s happened, I don’t know what to believe. Do I still trust my husband?
My phone rings, jolting me away from those thoughts. Even though it’s an unknown number which I would usually ignore, I answer it.
It’s a man’s voice: ‘Is that Madeleine?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s Detective Inspector Dini. Are you at home?’
I picture him standing outside my front door, already knowing that I’m not.
‘No.’
There’s a pause in which I suspect he’s expecting me to fill the gap by telling him where I am. Instead, I remain silent.
‘Can you come to the station?’ he asks. ‘The one at Beaconshead.’
‘Why do you want me?’
There’s another pause that I don’t realise is a break in the connection until the hairs on my arms have already stood up. It can’t be anything good. When the line kicks back in, Dini is halfway through a word.
‘…tify some clothes we’ve found.’
‘What clothes?’
‘We think they might belong to your husband.’
The wind is so strong that the vehicle is rocking from side to side. The air’s been sucked out of the car.
‘Madeleine…?’
‘I’m here.’
‘Do you want me to send a car for you?’
‘No. I’ll be there as soon as I can.’
I hang up and then stare at the screen for a few seconds, wondering if he might call back. I should set off but it doesn’t feel as if my body is able to do what I want it to. I’m shattered and my thoughts are quicksand.
When I do finally get going, I end up crawling the car along the seafront like a pervy guy in a red-light district. Nobody on foot seems to notice because they’re too busy rushing along the pavement from dry spot to dry spot.
I only pick up speed when I get back to the country lanes. The further I get inland, the more the wind ebbs away. The sky changes from the grim grey of the coastline to a glimmering silver. I pass The Willow Tree for the third time today and, now that it’s later in the afternoon, the parking area is around a q
uarter full of cars.
On and on through the lanes, following the route that Richard must have taken on Saturday. There’s so little out here, other than farms and blink-and-you’ll-miss-it hamlets. Past the petrol station and then my house, before I follow the road down into a deserted Leavensfield and then out the other side.
Beaconshead is the closest big town to Leavensfield, even though it isn’t actually that large. It’s where the secondary school sits that serves the entire area – and it’s also the location of our local police station. Long gone are the days where villages might have their own bobbies.
As I take the turn onto the road on which the police station sits, I brace myself for some sort of media scrum. There are bound to be reporters and photographers hanging around… except there isn’t.
I park on the street and walk the short distance to the station, where the only person outside is a woman in a large coat who’s shouting at a traffic warden. A police officer is there too, probably caught up in the commotion outside his workplace. He has both hands out, trying to calm the situation, though the woman then starts shouting at him for good measure. I don’t catch much but I do hear the words ‘joke’, ‘you lot’ and ‘I know my rights’.
I head up the steps and through the front door of the police station. There’s a man behind a tall glass divider that’s on top of a reception desk. He’s reading something on a computer monitor but glances up as I enter. I’m about to tell him who I am but he seemingly already knows. He calls out that he’ll be right back, before disappearing through a side door.
The reception area has a U of uncomfortable-looking blue canvas chairs with the foam spilling out. Above those are a selection of posters with slogans like, ‘Lock It Or Lose It’ and ‘Drug Drivers Are Dopes’. The second has a close-up of a man with reddened eyes sitting in a wrecked car. The ol’ sledgehammer approach.
There is another that tells people how to keep the beat of ‘Stayin’ Alive’ by Bee Gees when giving chest compressions if someone doesn’t appear to be breathing. There’s an almost identical poster next to it, offering the same advice but telling people to use the beat of ‘Another One Bites The Dust’ by Queen.
As I scan the walls, the door next to the seats opens and DI Dini appears. He has one hand in his trouser pocket and the other holding open the door. ‘Do you want to come through?’ he says.
I head through the door as he lets me pass, then he closes it and leads me off along a corridor.
‘Did you park okay?’ he asks. ‘It’s a nightmare around here.’
‘It’s fine.’ I’m not in the mood for small talk.
He takes a couple of quick turns, although the greying, bleak corridors all look the same to me.
‘I went to The Willow Tree today,’ I say.
Dini takes a couple more steps and then stops to look at me. ‘You know it, then?’
‘I didn’t: not until today. I spoke to the manager and he said he’d already talked to you.’
The inspector presses himself against the wall as someone heads towards us from the opposite direction. I follow his lead and the two officers nod to one another before Dini turns to take me in.
‘In here,’ he says, nodding towards the closest door.
I follow him inside but stop on the precipice, staring at the pair of sofas. There’s a rainbow on the wall and cuddly toys in the corner. It’s like a quiet room from a nursery that’s been transported to the police station.
‘It’s where we talk to vulnerable witnesses, or children,’ Dini says, noticing my hesitation.
‘I know,’ I reply.
‘You don’t have to come in. There’s nothing formal here – but it sounded like you had something to say…?’
I have to force myself to take the couple of steps into the room, where the door swings closed behind me. It’s not the same room as from all those years ago but it’s close enough.
Dini sits on one of the sofas and there’s a compulsion for me to do the same.
‘Did you know about the pub?’ he asks.
‘Not when I spoke to you yesterday. Only after I checked our bank statement and saw it on there.’ I have to force myself to look away from the rainbow on the wall. ‘The manager told me Richard was there with a woman…’
Dini scratches his chin. ‘What are you asking me?’
‘Was he?’
‘I could ask you the same question.’
‘I don’t know.’
He continues to watch me and it’s like he’s trying to read my thoughts. To figure out if I’m lying. ‘I can’t talk about an active investigation.’
‘If there’s something shocking about to come out, would you tell me before everyone else?’
His eyes narrow but it doesn’t feel harsh. ‘I can’t say. It depends on what that something might be.’ He hesitates and then adds: ‘What do you think might come out?’
‘I wish I knew.’
Dini hitches up his trouser legs, about to stand, but I keep talking.
‘Did you find anything among all the stuff you took from the house?’
He settles back onto the seat. ‘I can’t comment on that.’
I hold onto a frustrated sigh. I’m in the middle of everything but appear to know the least. ‘Is there anything you can comment on?’
‘Not much.’
‘What am I supposed to do? Supposed to think? You must know what everyone’s saying about Richard and me when I’m not around.’
‘I can’t control that, Madeleine.’
‘I think…’ The words slip away. I can’t explain why I’m confiding in the man who is investigating my husband and possibly me. The only thing that comes into my head is that I know I’ve done nothing wrong. I want Dini to know that. I want everyone to.
‘What?’ he asks.
‘I think there might have been other students before me.’
He pauses for a second, eyes narrowing, but then the expression clears, as if it was never there. ‘In what way?’
‘What way do you think?’
We both know what I’m talking about and Dini doesn’t push it any further. He waits a moment before moving onto something else.
‘I was going to ask you this after you’d looked at the clothes – but I might as well do it now,’ he says.
‘What?’
‘Would you do an appeal for your husband to come home?’
It’s not what I was expecting. Not even close. If it’s a trick, then I’m not sure what it is.
‘We’re keeping the investigations separate at the moment,’ Dini adds. ‘To some degree anyway.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Your husband is a misper – a missing person. If you were to appeal for him to come home, it doesn’t have to have any link to Alice Pritchard.’
It feels odd, it is odd – but I’d almost forgotten that Richard is missing in his own context. Everything feels tied to Alice.
‘Why would you do that?’ I ask.
‘Because Richard might have some evidence. There might be a reason that he’s disappeared that has nothing to do with Alice.’
I’m expecting some sort of punchline. This is what I’ve been trying to tell myself ever since Harriet told me Alice got into Richard’s car.
‘It’s only an idea,’ Dini adds. ‘You don’t have to decide now.’ He pushes himself up and steps towards the door. ‘You coming…?’
I follow Dini back into the corridor and then he sets off into the labyrinth of identical-looking passages until it feels as if we must have done a couple of laps of the building. He eventually leads me into a small room with a table in the middle, on which sits three large transparent bags. There is an item of clothing inside each. The first thing I see is the pink.
‘Where did you find these?’ I ask.
‘I can’t say… Do you recognise anything?’
I move closer to the table. ‘Can I pick them up?’
‘As long as you don’t open the bags.’
I
go for the pink shirt first. One of the arms is caked with mud and there’s a slight rip across the cuff of the sleeve. There is a single black slip-on shoe in a second bag – and then a torn pair of dark trousers in the other. I don’t have to look any closer to know the answer.
‘They’re not Richard’s,’ I say, trying to conceal the relief.
Dini has been so good at keeping up the mask that I’m stunned when his eyebrows leap up. ‘They’re not…?’
‘No.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘The shirt is too small and the shoe isn’t his size either. Whoever these belong to has to be quite a bit shorter.’
Dini rocks on his heels and, just as it feels as if he might be about to accuse me of lying, he takes a step to the door and opens it.
‘Thanks for coming,’ he says. ‘Have a think about that appeal.’
Eighteen
I have never lived alone. Before Richard, there was Kylie and, when she was young, there was her father. I lived with my parents before that. I’m almost forty – and this is the first time.
I sit in my car on the driveway, trying to convince myself to enter the house. It should be simple – I’ve done it thousands of times – and yet I don’t think I can face the emptiness. I never realised how reliant I am on others for company until now.
Theresa doesn’t answer her phone, so I send her a text, asking if she fancies having a drink. I’d love there to be an instant ‘yes’ – but nothing comes through.
I consider driving somewhere like a cinema, or a shopping centre. There will be people and things to do that might be distracting enough to tire me out before I can face the house. I turn the key to start the car and am resting on the handbrake when I change my mind. I’ve done so much driving today that I don’t think I can face any more of that either.
Instead, I wrap myself up in my coat and scarf, grab the paperback that’s always left in the glove compartment, and then walk down the hill into Leavensfield. The light is starting to fade as the sun dips low to the horizon. There’s a crisp chill to the air again and a dampness that makes it feel like there might be overnight snow. Living in a valley makes the weather unpredictable, so little would surprise me. This time last year, we were basking in temperatures in the low teens.
What My Husband Did: A gripping psychological thriller with an amazing twist Page 13
