My Husband's Son: A dark and gripping psychological thriller

by Deborah O'Connor

  ‘What about the husband?’ I asked. ‘Where is he now?’ I wondered if Keith had told Tommy about Robbie banging on the door that night.

  ‘He’s inside. Not for what he did to her,’ he said, anticipating my next question. ‘Though he would have more than deserved it. No, he’s just one of those bad lads, into all sorts.’

  I thought of the fear I’d heard in Keith’s voice in the alley, how he’d tried to cover for his sister. He was clearly a good person and the story he’d given me was looking more and more plausible. His sister was real, as was one of her other children, Kimberley. Had I got this whole thing horribly and completely wrong?

  My eyes began to close. The last twenty-four hours were finally starting to catch up with me. I let my gaze rise up, beyond the fire, to a framed picture of the Angel of the North on the wall. With its rusty-red steel and wings spread wide, the sculpture looked majestic, magical even. It reminded me of something, but I couldn’t think what. Then I remembered. I looked down at Tommy’s forearm and the winged siren woman he had tattooed there. The anchor draped across her body had a tangle of roses running along the width of its crown.

  ‘One for the road?’ He gestured at my empty glass.

  ‘I’m driving.’

  ‘We could always stay here.’ He motioned to the floor above.

  ‘Nice try.’ I smiled. ‘But I don’t think so.’

  He reached for my hand. Slowly, he curled each one of his fingers through mine. His palm was papery dry. I looked down to where our hands now lay, intertwined on his leg, and was struck by the memory of Jason’s face just before he’d walked out. His lips had been half-pursed, his eyes soft. At the time his expression had made no sense. But now I knew what it meant. Pity. That was it. He’d felt pity for me.

  I looked back at our hands, still together. I could feel the heat of Tommy’s skin through the fabric of his jeans. I waited a beat. I didn’t move my hand away.

  The bell rang for last orders and then time. People began gathering their things, ready to leave, and we joined the exodus into the car park.

  Outside, the cool night air was a shock to the system. I was wearing a jacket made out of thin cotton and, almost immediately, my teeth began to chatter.

  ‘I don’t want to go home just yet.’ He motioned to a jeep in the far corner. ‘Shall we talk in my car?’

  I hesitated, but then I reminded myself that the whole purpose of my coming here tonight had been to make him trust me. The things I’d learnt about Keith and his sister were useful, but I’d need more to be truly satisfied.

  ‘I should be getting back.’

  ‘Go on.’

  I gave him a shy smile. It would serve Jason right if he got home and discovered I wasn’t there. Let him worry.

  ‘Just for a bit.’

  I followed him over to the jeep and, after opening the passenger door for me, he went round and got in the driver’s seat.

  Inside, the jeep was immaculate and had that chemical, pine smell cars get when they have just been cleaned. My teeth were still chattering and so he turned the heating on high. It blared loudly from the vents and soon the car was sickly warm.

  ‘That’s better.’

  We sat there in silence, watching the other cars leave. The earlier cloud cover had given way to thin, wispy contrails, and the crescent moon shone through them, high and white in the sky. I knew I should try and find some way to bring up the topic of Keith and the boy again, to use my time here to my best advantage, but every question or opener I framed in my mind sounded too weird or obvious.

  ‘I’m glad you decided to come tonight,’ said Tommy, sliding his hands up and down the outside of the steering wheel.

  I watched them turn out the lights in the pub one by one and was trying to work out how to respond when I felt him reach over and stroke my left cheek.

  I went to protest, only to discover I’d already moved my face in close to meet his hand. I pulled my head away.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Depends. What do you want me to do?’ he asked, lowering his hand to my chin. He turned and tilted my face so that I was looking at his lap.

  He had an erection. Part of me registered that, alone with him in his car like this, I’d left myself vulnerable. For a brief moment I let myself imagine how Jason would feel if something bad were to happen to me.

  Using one hand to keep my face turned towards him, with his other hand, he began stroking himself through his jeans, making me watch, daring me to take over.

  When I didn’t, he stopped what he was doing and reached his hand in between my thighs. Spreading his fingers out against my flesh, he paused and looked at me.

  ‘What do you want?’ he asked again.

  Apart from the odd few stragglers, the car park had now emptied.

  He moved his hand up towards my knickers and, as he made contact with the cotton, I gasped at the realisation of my own wetness. He’d just started to edge my underwear to the side when a car swung past in the lane to our right, their headlights flashing directly through the windscreen. I startled and squeezed my legs together. Patting my hand against the car door until I found the lever, I grabbed it and pulled hard. When it didn’t open, I tried again and again. He must have put the auto-lock on.

  ‘Open the door,’ I said, wriggling away from him. ‘Please!’

  ‘Fine,’ he said, withdrawing his hand and bouncing back into his seat. He pressed a button and, as soon as I heard the doors click, I stumbled out into the dark.

  Sobbing, I collapsed onto the grass and mud, my dress tangled up around my waist. I got to my feet and began walking towards my car, trying to make it back before the clouds covered the moon and cast everything into darkness.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  I drove home slowly, my head clotted with filmy images of Tommy’s fingers on my thigh. Pulling up outside the house, I saw the hall light was on. I felt a rush of happiness. Jason was back. But then, thinking about what had happened tonight, what I’d let happen, the rush was replaced with a sharp, cringing shame.

  Inside the hall I felt a draught. The back door was open. Heading through to the kitchen, I saw that the garden’s security light had been triggered. Fixed above the window, its sensors were designed to respond to any kind of movement – burglars, foxes, squirrels – and would switch on for a brief, timed period before switching off again. Moving to the open door, I saw Jason. Sitting on the bench underneath the apple tree, he had his head bowed low.

  I stepped out onto the gravel path that cut down the middle of the lawn and as my heels crunched against the tiny stones, he looked up. Wearing an oversized T-shirt, and tracksuit bottoms that looked borrowed from someone else’s wardrobe, he blinked a few times as if to make sure it was really me.

  ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘I went out with Carla.’ With my make-up and mascara smeared all over my face I knew I must look a fright. Hopefully he’d put it down to the tears I’d cried in his absence. ‘Are you OK?’ I asked. ‘I was worried.’

  He didn’t respond and so I took a seat next to him. Together we stared at the back of our house: the arrangement of the bedroom windows and kitchen door like eyes and a nose that had been cut into the flat, red brick. Drawing down my gaze, I saw that the security light had attracted a group of floury-winged moths. I watched as they battered their furred bodies against the bulb’s hot glass.

  ‘I’m not proud of that file,’ said Jason eventually. ‘When the papers used to say those things about Vicky …’ He stopped, unable to voice the actual allegations. The garden had been free of movement for a few minutes and so the security light clicked off. We found ourselves in darkness. ‘I was so desperate to know what happened. I wanted an answer. Any answer.’ He shook his head in rebuke.

  ‘And what did you find?’

  ‘Nothing, I found nothing.’

  He dipped his head to his chest.

  ‘Maybe you did find something? Maybe you just didn’t realise it? Have you
told Martin about any of it? He and the team might pick up on something you thought was unimportant. We could talk to him and –’

  ‘But I did. I did mention it,’ he said, cutting me off at the pass. ‘He took one look and said there was nothing in the file they weren’t already aware of.’

  I remembered the way the detective had left Vicky’s house that morning, checking over his shoulder before he ventured out into the dark.

  ‘What was it exactly you were suspicious of?’

  ‘Certain things. They didn’t make sense.’ He took my hand. ‘Look, I’m embarrassed enough. Can we just leave it at that?’

  I thought about the length of the kiss I’d seen Vicky and the detective share on the doorstep. Martin had known and supported her through the worst five years of her life. No doubt he cared for her very deeply. He’d already risked his job by starting a relationship with someone involved in an ongoing high-profile case. If anyone found out, he was liable to be suspended, or worse. So how far would he go to protect her? How far would he compromise himself to stop her from being hurt?

  I leant in and pressed Jason’s cheek against mine. My nose filled with his sweet, glandular tang. It was wonderfully familiar but then, almost instantly, I reached for the memory of Tommy and his cinnamon musk. I felt like I was about to disintegrate, but then Jason squeezed me into an embrace so hard and so tight that all the air was pushed from my lungs. He started to rock me, backwards and forwards. The movement activated the security light and still he kept rocking, our eyes shut against its hard, yellow glare.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The following week, despite the fact that it hadn’t gone down well with work, I’d taken a day’s leave to come and observe Jason teach.

  While I took a seat at the back, apart from the rest of the students, Jason shut the door, sealing us all in for the morning. A mixed bunch, the room spanned everyone from Kappa-clad adolescents to eager pensioners.

  ‘So,’ he began with a clap. ‘You’re here because you want to learn how to be a good first-aider. You want to know how to help, and possibly even save, those in need.’ He was wearing an old denim shirt, rolled up at the sleeves, and my eyes kept being drawn to his forearms. Wide and solid, they were seamed with fat veins: his wrists thick and strong. ‘I’m going to start by talking to you about the most important piece of information I want you to take away today. I want to talk to you about how important it is to not help someone.’

  He raised his hands in front of his chest.

  ‘I know. Not helping someone. It sounds strange doesn’t it? It goes against all your natural instincts, but what I want to drill into you is how vital it is to make sure you yourself are not in any danger before you even think – even think,’ he repeated, emphasising his words by slicing the side of his hand through the air, ‘of going anywhere near someone in need.’

  His voice took on a mysterious tone.

  ‘Enough of me yapping. I always think the best way to learn anything is to put it into practice in the real world.’

  At this, he got up and walked out of the class. Everyone watched him go, puzzled. The students looked at each other nervously and then Jason began shouting from the corridor.

  ‘Help! There’s someone hurt out here!’

  They waited a few beats more before two of them got up and ran out. The rest soon followed in their wake. After watching them leave, I got to my feet and made my way into the corridor, where the class were gathered around a stairwell.

  As I got near, I could see what they were all looking at. On the floor was a man. Covered in blood, his limbs were splayed out at different angles, his skin pallid, eyes closed. A rickety-looking stepladder had been staged next to his right leg and a set of frayed electrical wires dangled from the ceiling.

  Standing apart from the scene, hands on his hips, Jason watched as his class took in the drama. One of the students, a woman in her sixties wearing a jumper with a picture of a pink poodle on the front, went to ask him a question, but Jason beat her to it.

  ‘What have we got here?’ he asked the class. ‘What should we do to help this person?’

  The first time I’d ever come to watch him teach and I’d seen someone apparently hurt like this, I’d been shocked. That had soon changed into an appreciation of the special effects. I now knew Jason hired members of the local amateur dramatic society to play his various ‘victims’ and that he taped small bags of fake blood inside their clothing. These bags had little tubes that fed out to various parts of the body to make it seem like blood was leaking from their veins or dribbling from their mouth.

  Jason suggested the class role-play the situation and as they did what he asked, I marvelled at how, not that long ago, he’d been the kind of person who would struggle to apply a simple plaster, let alone teach someone else how to perform CPR. In actual fact, his interest in first aid hadn’t come about till he was well into his twenties, after Barney had first gone missing. On a contract to repair a bridge on the Tees, they’d needed an extra first-aider on-site and Jason had been one of the men sent on a course. He’d loved every second of it and by the end of the first day he was smitten. Six months on and he’d started evening classes; one year after that he’d qualified. Despite the huge drop in salary, it wasn’t long before he’d jacked in the steel and turned to teaching full time.

  The role-play exercise reached its conclusion and I watched as the actor got to his feet and went around the group introducing himself. It was funny. Even though everyone knew he’d been playing, there was still a real sense of relief he was OK.

  As the class milled around, laughing and talking about what had just happened, I took the opportunity to get some fresh air and check in with the office.

  Outside, I headed for the row of metal benches that lined the edge of the college, sat down and got out my phone. As well as a host of emails from clients, there were also a few messages from Yvonne. Written in the same curt tone, she took every opportunity to make it clear she was unhappy about my having today off. I knew she couldn’t discipline me for taking a day’s holiday, but I also knew that, as far as she was concerned, I should be working twenty-four-seven to try and get back on track.

  I answered as many emails as I could and was thinking about returning inside when I became aware of someone watching me. Looking up, my eyes locked with a tall, jacketed man loitering by the smokers’ shelter. Hands thrust deep in his pockets, he had dark wavy hair and a way of standing, with his shoulders erect and his head held to the side, that I found familiar. It was Mark, the journalist who’d inveigled his way into our barbecue.

  ‘You’ve got some nerve,’ I said, stomping over to where he stood. ‘I assume it’s no coincidence you’re hanging around on the same day my husband teaches a class.’

  He looked down at his feet and, for a moment, he seemed embarrassed to have been caught out.

  ‘I was hoping I’d bump into him.’ He scuffed his left shoe against the base of the smoking shelter. ‘But not for the reason you think. I wanted to apologise. I know what I did might’ve seemed wrong, but I stand by what I said. I really think an interview would help the search …’

  ‘Wrong! You know it seemed wrong?’

  He held up his hands in defeat.

  ‘I get it, OK? You’re angry. And you’ve every right. But, like I said, I wanted to say sorry.’

  ‘So, what? You were hoping for something juicy? Some exclusive from behind the scenes?’

  He looked off into the distance as though he hadn’t heard what I’d just said.

  ‘I’ve been looking into Barney’s disappearance. The days that followed. There are certain things, things Vicky did, that make no sense.’

  ‘You’re full of it. If this is your weird, roundabout way of baiting me into an interview, then I suggest you go back to journalism school.’

  ‘Ask him. Jason. Ask him if their marriage was as solid as they made it out to be back then.’

  I started to walk away.

  ‘
I mean it when I say that some fresh press could help Barney’s case.’

  I stopped, marched back to where he stood and pushed myself so far into his face that he had to take a small step back, away from me.

  ‘Don’t for one second try to pretend this is about finding Barney,’ I said. ‘You come here and make nasty allusions that make no sense. You don’t care about him or Jason. All you care about is yourself.’

  He crooked his lips into a half-smirk.

  ‘Why are you so worried about one silly interview?’

  ‘What do I have to be worried about? I think we all know the worst thing that can happen to a person has already happened to me.’

  He looked off into the distance.

  ‘What age are you now, Heidi? I’d have thought you’d need to get a move on if you and Jason are to start your own family together.’ He said the words as though he was making an observation about nothing more than the weather. ‘Is it because you can’t?’ He paused. ‘Or is it because he won’t?’

  It was like he’d kicked me.

  ‘I feel sorry for you,’ I said, walking away before he could see my tears. ‘Make sure you’re off the premises before Jason’s class is over or I’ll call security.’

  ‘You have my number,’ he shouted after me. ‘If you ever change your mind.’

  I waited until I was as far away from him as possible, out of sight, and crouched down against the nearest available wall. I reached in my bag for Lauren’s compass and squeezed my eyes shut. It took some time for my body to stop shaking.

  Chapter Thirty

  Back in the classroom, Jason was in full-throttle teaching mode. As I retook my seat, he caught my eye. Waving my phone in the air, I shook my head and mouthed the word ‘work’.