The Missing Husband Read online

  Jo looked at Steve as she considered her answer. His face was the picture of innocence but she didn’t doubt he had his own suspicions. ‘We had an argument on Tuesday night.’

  ‘About?’

  ‘Something and nothing. I wouldn’t give him a lift to the station, that’s all,’ she said although she was beginning to believe that less and less.

  ‘Something and nothing,’ Steve repeated as if he was getting a feel for the words.

  She had no idea how much David had told Steve about the surprise pregnancy and the friction it had caused in their marriage but she knew from experience that they would protect each other to the hilt. ‘Unless you know otherwise, Steve. If you have even an inkling of why he would do this deliberately then please, please tell me,’ she begged but Steve was already shaking his head. He reached over to give her arm a reassuring squeeze.

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m as much in the dark as you are, but I will say this: I don’t believe for a minute that Dave would ever leave you, certainly not like this and that’s a hard thing for me to say because right now I’d rather believe that he had. It has to be better than considering other possibilities. No offence meant.’

  Jo cleared her throat and gave him a weak smile. ‘None taken.’ The deep breath she took tasted of buttery pastry. ‘What in God’s name is your mum up to now?’

  The dining table had been set and three plates of warmed up steak and ale pie awaited them along with replenished cups of tea.

  ‘Irene, I’m really not hungry.’

  ‘You need to keep your strength up, if not for you then for the baby.’

  Jo wanted to say she didn’t care. Nothing else mattered except finding David but she kept her voice level and said, ‘Thank you, but what I really need is some sleep so I can gather my strength for the police interview later.’

  ‘But …’

  It would never cross Irene’s mind that Jo wanted to be left in peace. If there was a family crisis then the Taylor family pulled the yarn of their tightly knit family tighter still. It was Steve, on his best behaviour now, who took the hint. Jo could almost forgive him his previous indiscretion as he now persuaded his mum that they could make better use of their time by conducting their own investigations. Steve wanted to walk the route that David would have taken home so they could check for any signs that he might have been there. What those signs might be Jo didn’t dare imagine but she was glad of the reprieve.

  ‘OK, we’ll leave you to it, Jo,’ Irene agreed. ‘Once I’ve seen you clear your plate.’

  ‘Irene, really …’ Jo began but then pulled herself up short. There were tears welling in Irene’s eyes and in a matter of seconds she was a wreck. Her sobs were heart wrenching and she grabbed hold of Jo and clung to her for dear life.

  ‘I want my son home,’ she cried. ‘I want him home safe. I’ve lost Alan – I won’t lose David too. It isn’t going to happen. I want this to be over – now!’

  Jo had comforted Irene often enough in the long painful days after her husband’s death but as she felt the trembling, limp body of the widow in her arms, she knew she didn’t have the strength to help her now. Just the sound of Irene’s sobs was sending her emotions into free fall. She was being sucked back into the dark abyss she had struggled to emerge from the night before. She simply couldn’t bear to go through that again and looked imploringly towards Steve. He pulled his mum off her.

  ‘We’ll leave you to get some sleep,’ he said.

  Irene was still sobbing but managed to say, ‘We’ll come back later when the police are here.’

  ‘I’d rather you didn’t, Irene,’ Jo said, looking again to Steve for support. Her in-laws would begin to dissect her marriage soon enough and if she had to reveal more to the police – if she had to reveal everything they’d been through in recent months – then she didn’t want them there. ‘Right now all they need is for me to give a statement. Steph promised to come over when she finishes work so I’ll have someone with me, but I’ll be the one doing all the talking. I think that works best, don’t you?’

  ‘Jo’s right, Mum. Look how upset you are now, it’s not going to be easy tonight and like Jo says, she’ll have her sister there for moral support.’

  Except for the occasional hiccup, Irene had regained her composure. ‘Tell them to check the airports. If he’s taken his passport …’

  Jo cast her eyes down to avoid the look Steve was giving her. She felt guilty for not telling him when, in the absence of any other evidence, he had been taking her side, but then guilt was something she was more than used to.

  ‘And they’ll want to speak to me too,’ Irene continued.

  ‘They can do that later,’ Steve said, scrutinizing Jo’s face as if that act alone could help locate his brother. ‘Let’s just take it one step at a time.’

  Irene nodded. ‘And David could still walk through that door at any moment.’

  And it was to the front door that they all headed, each one peering longingly through the stained glass window for a familiar silhouette. But when the door was pulled open, the step held no greater treasure than sodden autumn leaves that squelched underfoot as Irene and Steve said their goodbyes.

  Jo’s blouse was still wet from Irene’s tears but her cheeks were dry as she watched them drive off. She closed the door, sealing up her home and containing the emptiness that filled every corner of the house, mirroring the growing void inside her. She returned to the kitchen where three plates remained untouched at the table, the steak and ale pie congealing and cold. Picking up a plate, Jo had to stop herself from launching it against the wall. She didn’t have the strength to face an afternoon clearing up the mess and she knew she wouldn’t be able to leave it. Instead she had to satisfy herself with hurling the uneaten dinner into the kitchen bin, the plate included and to the accompaniment of a choked scream. The second and third plate followed in quick succession, her scream louder and more satisfying each time, heightened by the sound of china shattering into smithereens. It reminded her of her life.

  7

  ‘I have quite a list of things I’ll need from you,’ DS Baxter warned after Jo had taken him through David’s last known movements. ‘A couple of recent photos, a list of friends, family and any other useful contacts, and details of his employment, his mobile phone and his bank accounts so we can access them. I know it’s a lot but just as soon as you can manage.’

  Jo reached over to a small table at the side of the sofa and picked up a wad of papers and a holiday brochure. ‘I think I have most of that here,’ she said handing over everything except the brochure, which she rested on her lap. ‘I’ve also included all the details of the course David attended in Leeds. He was the only delegate from Nelson’s but the course coordinator should be able to provide you with a full list of delegates.’

  DS Baxter was occupying the armchair where Jo had kept vigil the night before and she was more than happy for someone else to take her place. The policeman was younger than she expected; his deep voice over the phone had suggested a heavy smoking and careworn detective but despite the receding hairline and deep-set laughter lines, the man in front of her looked the right side of forty still. He scratched at his five o’clock shadow and looked quietly impressed as he leafed through the collection of papers. He glanced briefly at the brochure on her lap then said, ‘Thank you, we’ll start making some preliminary enquiries and check CCTV footage at the train stations and local area.’

  ‘OK,’ Jo managed to say.

  ‘We probably won’t need to investigate too deeply. There’s usually a perfectly natural explanation for a grown man to go missing and more often than not they turn up of their own accord.’

  ‘I hope that doesn’t mean you won’t be taking this seriously. My sister needs answers,’ countered Steph who had so far been sitting quietly next to Jo. ‘She’s five and a half months pregnant and this kind of stress can’t be good for her.’

  ‘What do you mean by a natural explanation?’ Jo asked.

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p; With Steph’s words still ringing in his ears, DS Baxter gave Jo an apologetic smile but he spoke bluntly. ‘There are people who simply choose to step out of their lives and for a variety of reasons. Even our closest family members are capable of surprising us, no matter how well we think we know them. I can assure you we will be taking this seriously and we will investigate, but I have to warn you that if all the evidence then suggests David elected to disappear, I’m afraid there’s not much more we can do.’

  Jo made a point of swallowing hard as if she had a raging thirst. ‘I think I could do with that cup of coffee you offered,’ she said to Steph. ‘Are you sure you don’t want one, DS Baxter?’

  The policeman sat back in the armchair. ‘Please call me Martin,’ he said, ‘and yes, I think I do. Milk, one sugar if it’s not too much trouble,’ he said, offering a smile to Steph as she stood up.

  Jo watched her sister leave the room and held off speaking until she had closed the door. ‘I’ve gone through every possible reason why David didn’t come home last night and I keep asking myself the same question that I know you’re asking yourself right now. Has my husband left me?’

  ‘Is it possible?’

  Jo played nervously with the corner of the holiday brochure. ‘I met David when I was twenty-one, a week after starting at Nelson’s,’ Jo began, choosing to concentrate on the birth of their relationship rather than what might turn out to be its death throes. She briefly closed her eyes as the memory of their first meeting came to mind. She had been a fresh-faced trainee, sitting meekly in the corner of what had been her first professional meeting. David admitted later that he hadn’t even noticed her until she interrupted him mid-sentence to announce he didn’t know what he was talking about. In truth, she hadn’t been quite so abrupt, but the story was all the better for his retelling. ‘I’m not sure if it was love at first sight but it didn’t take long for both of us to realize that we were soul mates. We married three years later and have spent the last seven years building our lives together.’ She paused as she saw the flicker of a thought cross Martin’s face. ‘What? You think this is the dreaded seven-year itch?’

  ‘It happens more often than you’d think,’ the policeman said and probably wasn’t aware that his thumb stroked the flesh around the third finger of his left hand where perhaps a wedding band had once been. ‘Given that he didn’t go to his family, is there anyone else he could have turned to?’

  ‘You mean was he having an affair?’ Jo had questioned her entire belief system in the last twenty-four hours but in this one regard she had come back with the same answer time and time again. She shook her head and said, ‘No, I won’t believe that of him, not David. And apart from the fact that I trust him implicitly, we work together. Yes, he goes out with his friends and his brother, but I really don’t see how he’d have the opportunity, not without me knowing or at least suspecting.’

  ‘You understand why I have to ask,’ Martin said by way of an apology.

  ‘Of course. You’re not asking anything I haven’t already asked myself. We were happy.’ The use of the past tense had been an unconscious slip and one that frightened Jo and made Martin raise his eyebrows so she hurried on, ‘I’ll admit it hasn’t been easy of late but I’ve never doubted my love for my husband and before now I never doubted his love for me. I questioned why he loved me often enough, but I never doubted it.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘David and I are complete opposites. He’s spontaneous, daring, a bit of a risk taker while I’m more measured, less impulsive. He adds the colour to my black-and-white world while I …’ Jo’s mind stalled as she tried to think exactly what it was that she added to David’s life. Why had he put up with her?

  There was an uncomfortable pause and Jo imagined the policeman losing interest in the case by the second. She had spent the last twenty-four hours searching for answers and was slowly and painfully coming to the conclusion that David must have abandoned her, and now she was convincing Martin of the same thing.

  ‘You said there have been issues recently. Was there something in particular putting a strain on your marriage?’

  Jo lifted the brochure up but only enough to hide the gentle mound of her stomach. ‘As my sister was keen to point out, I’m pregnant. We’d agreed to start a family when I was thirty. It was David who came up with the plan but then he is the planner – or at least that’s what’s written on his job description,’ she added bitterly. She was repeating a well-worn argument that was no stranger to those same four walls. ‘And me, being the one who follows policies and procedures to the letter, I thought once we had a plan we would stick to it. I was looking forward to being a mum. I really wanted to start a family with the man I loved.’

  Her voice softened as the dream she had spent years creating came so vividly to mind. As if sensing her excitement, FB made her stomach flip; then the colour faded from her imaginary world. ‘But David changed his mind and at first I couldn’t blame him. He was affected by his dad’s death quite deeply and I didn’t push, but after a year of prevaricating, I told him that I’d had enough. I didn’t exactly tell him I was coming off the pill, but I didn’t say I wasn’t, either.’

  ‘So he wasn’t happy when you told him you were pregnant?’

  Jo’s laugh was hollow. ‘It was more a matter of him being in shock and OK, maybe a little angry too. He didn’t agree with how I’d gone about things, but he didn’t blame me either.’

  ‘It sounds like you wanted different things,’ he said.

  ‘No, I think we wanted the same things – just at different times. He wanted to see more of the world before settling down, that’s all. If things had gone his way then we would have been in America this week.’

  ‘Ah …’ Martin said and took the brochure which Jo was finally ready to relinquish.

  ‘I’m finding it impossible to believe that he would hop on the next plane to America,’ she said, ‘but there are pages torn out, pages that David was poring over just before I dropped the bombshell. And now I can’t account for where those pages might be or, more importantly, his passport … It doesn’t look good, does it?’

  ‘It’s one line of enquiry,’ Martin agreed but wouldn’t commit himself further. ‘So tell me more about how things have been lately. Was he getting used to the idea of becoming a father?’

  ‘He was more subdued than anything. It was as if he wanted to be excited but was afraid to be,’ Jo said hesitantly. ‘But then I wasn’t much better. I felt guilty about trapping him – if you can trap someone you’re already married to.’ Her voice tightened as she finished her sentence and she looked away, out of the window, blinking back tears.

  ‘So you would have told him about the baby around five months ago?’

  Jo’s guilt was showing on her face when she turned back to Martin with a wavering smile. ‘I took my time telling him, so it was more like three or four months ago. Still enough time to plan his escape, do you think?’

  Rather than answer her, he pursed his lips then said, ‘Had anything happened more recently that might have made him want to up and leave now?’

  The hairs on the back of Jo’s neck stood on end as she felt another layer of her life being stripped away. ‘David came with me for the twenty-week scan a few weeks ago and I thought we had reached a turning point. He had even come up with a name for my bump.’ She patted her stomach and didn’t give a second thought to the blush rising in her cheeks. ‘We’d started calling it FB. Don’t ask why, because I don’t think even I followed his logic.’ There was a brief pause for a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes and then she added, ‘But anyway, when we got there for the scan, all David wanted to know was if I would be able to travel on a long haul flight.’ There was still a note of disbelief in Jo’s voice. ‘He was still more interested in going ahead with our holiday than he was about becoming a father.’

  ‘You argued about it?’

  ‘Not as such,’ Jo said. ‘I didn’t tell him how annoyed I
was although I’m sure he picked up on it. I was still trying to be patient and understanding, but the comment festered, I suppose. Then, the night before he left for Leeds, he asked me to get up at an ungodly hour to give him a lift to the station. I’d been waiting and waiting for him to accept this pregnancy and our baby, to start fussing over me, and this was the final straw. What annoyed me most of all was that he couldn’t understand why I was so upset with him for asking for the lift.’ Eyes stinging with frustrated tears, Jo put her hand to her temple as if she could ease the pain of the memory.

  ‘How bad would you say the argument was? In the heat of the moment insults and allegations are often the weapons of choice and the cracks in a relationship can be blown wide apart. Is there anything you might have said which could have tipped David over the edge, if he was contemplating leaving?’

  Jo had a feeling that Martin was talking from experience. ‘No, nothing like that and I know it sounds like our relationship was on shaky ground, but it wasn’t, not really. He loved me. Loves me.’

  Martin pretended not to notice Jo wince at her use of the past tense again. ‘Was that the last time you spoke together?’

  ‘Yes, although he did leave a voicemail message.’

  Jo tried to keep her hand steady as she held her mobile in the palm of her hand and switched to speakerphone. The ever-present knot in her stomach tightened a little as she prepared to hear David’s voice echo off the living-room walls for the first time since their argument.

  Having heard the message countless times before, Jo knew every word and every sigh by heart but it was her analysis of those sounds that constantly changed.

  ‘So you’re still not speaking to me then?’ he clipped. The hiss from the sigh he released sounded taut with exasperation now, rather than the resignation she had first heard. ‘You’re so damn stubborn.’ There was another pause and the sound of movement. David was running his fingers through his hair. ‘You want things your way and you want them now. Well, you may not believe me but I have been thinking about the future. In fact, I haven’t been able to think of anything else and you’re in for one hell of a shock, Jo, because I’ve been making plans.’