The Loving Husband

by Christobel Kent

  ‘You’re the one who introduced us, anyway,’ Fran said there on the rooftop, arms folded, trying to laugh, ‘I hold you responsible for my happiness.’ But Jo’s face was stubbornly serious. ‘It’s just – it’s just so soon,’ she said, beginning to shake her head. ‘You hardly know him.’

  ‘It’s what I want,’ said Fran, but Jo still wouldn’t smile.

  Had she felt sorry for Jo, who had so little faith? And her thinking she did know. Thinking her future was safe, at last.

  The policemen had to stoop to come through the back door. There were two of them, an older and a younger. They told Fran their names but she couldn’t keep the information in her head.

  Lights moved beyond the kitchen door, refracted through the thick bottle glass. They asked her questions, and she mumbled answers. Yes, he came home. She tried to remember times, to construct sentences, but all she could hear was her own voice saying, over and over, ‘I don’t know.’

  They’d told her. They’d told her, and even though she already knew, even though she had knelt in the mud and felt his cold skin, however many times they patiently repeated their phrases, the words just wouldn’t go in. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Hall. It was too late. We were too late to save him.’

  Her mind jumped and raced, there was a hum in her ears; only at moments did the room come into focus, plates on the dresser, unwashed dishes on the draining board. The policemen talking to each other, one mumbled the strange word, ‘Weapon,’ as they both turned their backs on her and she saw a head shake from behind. Then ‘His mobile?’ Muttered in reply, ‘Nothing on the body.’ And they turned to face her.

  He spoke to her. ‘We can’t find your husband’s mobile, have you any idea…’ but all she heard was on the body.

  On the body. And she found herself rising to her feet, the room swam, the two faces looking back at her, men she didn’t know in her kitchen. Looking down at her, the older one about her age, about Nathan’s age. The younger one was just a kid, he looked like he might be slouching out through the school gates. Go away, go away, where’s Nathan? I want Nathan.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Hall. Your husband’s—’

  ‘He’s dead,’ she said, blank, trembling as it sank in, all over again, worse this time, new layers to it. She suddenly remembered Nathan coming through Jo’s front door and smiling, Nathan with his hands on her hair as she knelt in front of him in the dark, Nathan late, then pacing and unable to look as Emme was born, stalking out of the delivery room. ‘Oh, God, oh God. Nathan.’

  From upstairs she heard Ben start to cry and as she moved, breaking for the door she heard the older policeman say behind her, sharply, ‘Bring him down.’

  The nightdress had buttons down the front, for feeding. She’d bought it at random, she hadn’t thought till now that it was too short, it had too much cheap lace. She sat at the kitchen table and pulled up the sweater and manoeuvred Ben across her exposed breast, her eyes down as she heard something tapping: the younger man’s foot, his knee jiggling nervous below the table. Under the layers, invisible, Ben latched on and with that tiny trigger something loosened, oxytocin or whatever hormone it was, and she felt exhaustion lapping at the edges. Her shoulders dropped and she heard one of them clear his throat. There was a silence that grew, and she kept her head down for as long as she could. When she looked up the younger policeman was looking at Ben across her body, openly curious. It was the older man that spoke.

  ‘You’re going to need a bit of sleep, an hour or two at least,’ he said, averting his eyes. ‘There’ll be someone outside. The examiner will need at least twelve hours with the body.’ Patiently, but in a second of clarity she saw something else in the man’s eyes. That cool look, that judging look, that was there then it was gone. ‘There’s evidence, you see,’ he told her, ‘physical evidence that won’t be there in the morning. This time has to be used to collect it.’

  ‘There was a man out there,’ she said, sitting up straight. ‘When I was with Nathan, there was a man, on the other side of the field. I saw him, just for a second. Where there’s a road, on the far side, there are some trees. The only trees for a long way. That’s where I saw him.’ She saw a glance exchanged between them, excitement.

  ‘That’s very important information,’ said the older man carefully. Was it that he didn’t believe her?

  ‘I’ll show you,’ she said, wildly, and on her lap Ben made a noise of protest. ‘He came after me, he was at the window.’

  ‘Did you see his face?’ said the younger man, eager, in a nasal accent.

  She shook her head, she tried to explain. ‘It wasn’t him, it was a stone, I heard it, he threw something at the window.’

  His superior was sitting back in his chair. ‘Why didn’t you tell us this before?’

  She stared at him. ‘I didn’t … I…’

  He sighed. ‘Look, Mrs Hall,’ he said, and she heard something in his voice, no more than a trace, something not friendly, ‘we’re going to have to talk to you some more, when you’re … You’re clearly in shock. Are you going to be able to get some sleep, now?’

  She stared, trying to make sense of what he was saying and with the word sleep she felt a rush of longing like hunger, she wanted a clean pillow, she wanted darkness. She wanted to wake up and this wasn’t real. ‘I … yes,’ she said obediently, and heard her voice shake.

  He nodded, approving. ‘In the morning we can sort out alternative accommodation for you,’ he went on but before she knew what she was saying it was out, too sharp, too sudden, ‘No,’ she said. Alternative accommodation: social services.

  His eyebrows went up. ‘Well,’ he said, and they were on their feet. ‘We’ll talk about it again. In the morning.’

  She could hear them moving about outside as she set Ben in his cot and walked, almost catatonic, from room to room, pulling curtains closed, checking bolts, going back to do it again. She went in to the bathroom.

  His razor sat on the basin, in a small puddle of soap not yet dry. He must have shaved before he went out and the sight did something to her. Because not knowing how she got there, suddenly she was on her knees, she was crouched under the basin, shaking and retching and it was there, folded into a foetal crouch, that she finally let go and slept. She woke some time later to creep on stiff, cramped legs into their bed and as she drifted back her last thought was that everything was changed, even the air in their bedroom, even the sheets, he was gone.

  Chapter Four

  Monday, still

  Pregnant with Emme she’d had bad nights, long, long nights with strange dreams. One morning when she rolled out of bed tetchy and spoiling for a fight, as big as a cow or so she felt, as swollen and shapeless as a field animal, Fran had heard a cool warning note in his voice, his back turned to her as he made her tea.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Patiently.

  If she opened her eyes Nathan would be there now. He was standing with his back to her in the corner of the room.

  It was light, and Emme was tugging at her shoulder. Groggily she surfaced, she tried to smile into Emme’s anxious face, then suddenly she was wide awake, and bolt upright, she was at the window. The day had come.

  Just visible through the skeleton of the barn was a tented structure, gleaming blue-white in the thin grey morning. ‘Mummy, is it late?’ she heard from behind her, and her hand to her head she turned.

  ‘Ben,’ she said. The red lights on the clock said 8.20. ‘What’s happened to Ben? He should—’

  Her face still crumpled from sleep, Emme looked confused, ‘Mummy?’ she said, head on one side. Then frowning, ‘You covered him all up, you silly.’ Fran turned to look to where Emme pointed, to the bed, and for a heartbeat she didn’t understand, then she did.

  Under the quilt Ben was flushed, but with the cool air he stirred. He was breathing. Her throat constricted, Fran stopped herself snatching him up and shaking him awake. ‘Silly,’ she said, trying to smile, calm, but in her head it whirred, calculated, recalculated. How, when. She must have
woken in the night, gone and got him more or less in her sleep and brought him back to bed with her. She remembered standing at the window, but she couldn’t remember getting Ben – had she already got him? She tried to recover a single detail but she couldn’t: the thought was frightening. And if she’d been that oblivious she could have smothered him. He stirred on the pillow and she whispered to Emme, ‘Go and find your school clothes, baby, go on.’

  She saw Emme, as she retreated to the doorway, small as she was, taking in all the altered detail of their life without knowing it until she paused, solemn, and settled on her question.

  ‘Where’s Daddy?’

  From outside there was the sound of footsteps on the gravel; it gave Fran the smallest opportunity to look away, anywhere but at the small frown line between Emme’s pale, wide-set eyes. She got up from the bed and knelt close to her, putting her cheek against Emme’s. ‘He hurt himself, darling. He fell over and hurt himself and he had to go in the ambulance. He was very poorly.’

  She felt Emme pulling away, and released her.

  ‘Can we go and see him?’ said Emme, her mouth stubborn, and as for a long moment they looked at each other, Fran realised she was hoping, waiting for her to work it out for herself. She thought of Nathan and Emme, side by side on the sofa, staring up at her.

  ‘Not at the moment,’ she said. Fran didn’t want control of this moment, this pivotal moment in Emme’s small life, but she had no choice. ‘We’d be in the way. And you have to get to school, don’t you, sweetheart?’

  For a long moment Emme just looked at her, and then she turned and padded towards her room, and suddenly Fran could remember the feel of Nathan’s shirt, sticky and matted, the horrible softness under it and, wobbly, she rose to her feet. A sweat broke on her forehead. She got to the bathroom in time, holding the door closed behind her with her bare foot as she vomited, trying to do it silently and failing, yanking at the flush to cover the sound.

  Unsteadily she came back into the room. On the pillow Ben was breathing evenly, pale now, his eyelids just fluttered as she watched him and she thought of all the new chemicals in her system, the panic, the adrenalin. The nausea churned, but there was nothing left in her stomach. She picked Ben up, and still he didn’t wake. Carefully she took him along the corridor, past Emme wide-eyed in her door. She set him down in his cot and then heard a little shuddering sigh as he shifted, and he was back to sleep.

  Walking back along the dim angled corridor in the sudden quiet Fran wondered for one moment of surreal, horrible hope, was it all a dream? But then she was in her bedroom and the flat white light of the new morning was flooding in from across the broad watery plain.

  The policeman would be coming back to talk to her, and with that thought the panic rose inside her, those men in her kitchen. Staring. She wasn’t supposed to be frightened of the police. They just felt like two men she didn’t know, in her kitchen. She felt sweaty, suddenly.

  The bed: still now, on Nathan’s side, the quilt was smooth and flat. She sat, abruptly, where she’d slept, she felt her body threaten to fold and collapse and she leaned forward, her face in her hands. In this room, just hours ago.

  He’d picked up his phone, he’d got dressed. They hadn’t been able to find his phone.

  It occurred to her that she didn’t know where she’d left her own phone. It was as if a flashbulb had gone off on what happened last night, blinding her. Some of it stood out, stark: the policemen in her kitchen, Nathan’s body head-down in the ditch, blood all over him. But all the small things had gone. Had she put her phone away? The drawer on her side of the bed was open, just a crack. But she couldn’t remember the last time she’d looked inside.

  ‘Mummy?’ It was Emme, hovering in the door, watchful. She was half dressed, a vest and mismatched socks. ‘Clever girl,’ said Fran. ‘Now skirt. I’ll be there in a minute.’ Emme stood there a minute before turning, dragging her feet along the corridor. Fran leaned down and opened the drawer.

  No phone. But there was something.

  It was an envelope, not stuck down, a card inside. A heart, a thorned rose, old-fashioned lettering. Baby, It’s You, it said. She opened it, but it was blank. Not quite blank: the faintest trace, where a ballpoint had rested, as if he’d taken out the pen to write and not known what to say, when it came to it.

  Nathan, Nathan, Nathan. She hadn’t thought he would. Why was it on her side, not on his, waiting to be sent, when had it been put there? Her head ached. She closed the drawer, she didn’t even want to touch it. She would leave it there, where he’d left it. They were words from a song, weren’t they? Baby, It’s You.

  Her phone must be downstairs. She’d taken to putting it out of sight, on a shelf, under a pile of magazines, because Nathan always seemed to turn his head to examine her when she picked it up.

  She could hear Emme in her room, talking to her dolls in a busy monotone. Don’t, she told herself. Don’t cry. She got up and went to the window, feeling like she was made of stone.

  Below her a man was standing quite still as if he’d been there for some time, a dark stocky man. He was looking straight up at her.

  He stood in the kitchen as she boiled the kettle; he could have been an ordinary guy, weatherproof jacket, a dark fleece, scuffed shoes. Aftershave. But policemen had power, they weren’t ordinary.

  ‘DS Doug Gerard,’ he said, holding out a hand, and Fran’s gaze flicked to Emme sitting head down over her cereal, in her school uniform. ‘I did introduce myself last night.’ An apologetic cough. ‘I don’t think you were in a state to take it all in.’ Understanding: he sounded understanding. Gerard had shadows under his eyes as he looked at her and, with him back in the kitchen, last night loomed, terrible. The smell of the standing water and the mud was in her nostrils.

  At the table Emme carefully lay down her spoon.

  ‘Emme, Mr Gerard needs to talk to me,’ said Fran. ‘Will you just run upstairs and make sure your room is all tidy?’ Fran saw Gerard’s eyes settle on the smear of blood at the sink, another one on the wall beside the phone. ‘And could you have a peep at Ben? Make sure he’s still asleep?’ Emme gazed at her unblinking, opened her mouth to protest and seemed to change her mind. She slid off her seat and ran to the door.

  There was no sign of the younger man.

  ‘Ed’s outside,’ the policeman said. ‘Detective Constable Ed Carswell.’ She just stared. ‘May I?’ Touching a chair. She nodded and Gerard sat. No milk, no sugar: she set the mug in front of him. ‘Your husband’s body has been taken to the police mortuary,’ he said. ‘We’ll assign an FLO to you.’ His voice was steady, calm.

  ‘FLO?’ Fran felt herself stiffen at the initials, at the thought of the ranked police officers with their grades and insignia, waiting on her doorstep.

  ‘Family Liaison Officer,’ Gerard said as he slipped his arms out of the waterproof jacket and took a sip of the tea. What would Nathan have thought, this man at her table? ‘She’s there to keep you informed on the progress of the investigation, to help out however she can, she works for both sides. The family and the police.’ It sounded like he’d said all this before, the professional reassurance. There was an edge of something else, an itch to be out of there, leaving her to someone else. ‘She’s very experienced.’

  ‘A woman,’ she said, grasping at the fact, and he nodded.

  ‘I’d have liked to have had a female officer along last night but…’ He smiled. ‘It’s not like visiting your GP. We can’t guarantee … in an emergency situation.’ He hesitated, eyeing her over the mug and then Fran felt a tremble, as if her body was getting away from her.

  ‘I told you there was a man there,’ she said. ‘I did tell you, didn’t I?’ The tremor grew, her hand on the table shook. ‘Let me show you, now, I can show you where.’ She pushed her chair back, wanting to get up, but he held up a warning hand. ‘He wasn’t afraid,’ she said, urgent. ‘He was just watching me. He came after me to the window.’

  ‘Yes.’ Gerard didn’t m
ove. ‘You said you didn’t see his face.’ She subsided.

  ‘Did you find anything? The man. There was a man.’ She tried a different tack because he didn’t seem to be registering. ‘Do you have any … he was at the pub. He came back from the pub. The Queen’s Head.’

  ‘We’ll talk to them.’

  ‘What about … criminals?’ She didn’t know what she was imagining, someone recently released from prison. The world was full of violent people, and she hadn’t known it, until she found herself in the field. Ghosts roaming the dark. ‘Is there anyone known to you?’

  Gerard’s gaze was steady. ‘Well, we’re considering a number of possibilities. That’s part of the job, yes. There are hardly any itinerants this time of year, though, there’s a spike in crimes associated – seasonal workers, that kind of thing, although we can’t, we don’t draw any automatic conclusions—’

  ‘That’s not what I meant,’ said Fran, desperate. ‘Are you talking about … traveller communities? Or … or … migrants? I’m not racist, I’m not suggesting—’

  His expression was flinty, and she stopped.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  He nodded. ‘We look at burglaries in the area, we’ll find a trail that way often, a spate of them, they go from house to house but in this case…’

  She looked around, wildly. ‘Were we burgled?’ Someone in the house. ‘I don’t … I don’t … nothing has gone, that I can see…’

  DS Gerard lifted a hand. ‘As I was about to say,’ he said, mildly, ‘there was only one report of a break-in last night and that was the other side of Oakenham, likely enough only kids anyway, by the sound of it.’

  Fran stared at the table, head down. ‘Right,’ she said, almost a whisper. ‘So you haven’t caught anyone.’

  ‘The first few hours are crucial, for gathering evidence,’ he told her and she felt him examining her face. ‘You’ll have heard that.’