My Husband's Son: A dark and gripping psychological thriller (6 page)

I reached the incline at the bottom of the street and the car strained against the gradient. Changing down to first gear, I pressed on the accelerator and began the slow climb. Most people were home from work and the slope was dense with parked cars, every windscreen alight with the setting of the soft September sun.

As intended, since my morning ritual the day had vanished in a haze of meetings and calls. I planned to dispose of the rest of my waking hours with a light supper, hot bath and early bed. Jason wouldn’t mind. He taught an evening class on Thursdays and wouldn’t be back till late.

I reversed into the nearest space I could and was locking the car when I noticed Mum. Parked further up the hill on the other side of the street, she was sitting with her hands clamped to the steering wheel, her arms out straight as though braced against some impending collision. I crossed the road and knocked on the window.

‘Mum?’ She startled out of her reverie and opened the door.

She studied me for a second and then creased her mouth into a smile.

‘Heidi, sweetheart.’

Wearing a green wax jacket over a cream polo neck, I realised that in the months since I’d last seen her she’d had her hair cut. Where before there had been a neat swing of brown caped low on her shoulders, there was now a short, sleek bob, parted in the middle. Tucked behind her ears, the new style exposed her delicate jawline and plump, diamond-studded earlobes. It suited her.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘I didn’t mean for you to see me. I just wanted to check you were OK.’ She put her key in the ignition. ‘I’ll go now.’

‘You drove all the way from Kent to check on me?’

She gave me a look.

‘Shall we talk about what happened last year?’

‘That was a misunderstanding.’

‘I called you five times this morning. Five.’

‘I was at work. If you can’t get hold of me and you feel worried, you should phone Jason.’

She blinked fast and reached up to fiddle with the diamond in her left ear.

‘Do you want to come inside?’ I removed my hand from the car door and saw that I’d left a smudge on its buffed black paintwork. ‘Jason’s teaching. I could make you something to eat.’ At the mention of his name she looked down at her lap. ‘Or there’s a park at the top of the hill.’ I gestured behind me. ‘Stretch your legs?’

She took a few moments to consider and, after buttoning up her wax jacket, got out of the car.

We embraced briefly, Mum squinting at the houses to her left and then, across the road, to my front door.

‘It doesn’t bother you?’

‘What?’

‘Coming straight out onto the street like that. Just your hall, your door, the step and then the pavement?’

I made a start up the hill. Mum scurried to catch up and we walked the rest of the way in silence, the low sun pushing our shadows forward onto the path. I looked at the collection of spindly grey limbs forging ahead. Stretched out like this, my shadow seemed to be holding Mum’s hand, our arms swinging in perfect time.

We reached the park and headed for a row of metal benches in the corner. A long, narrow scrub of grass overlooking a children’s play area, the space was full of people throwing sticks for a variety of skittish, twirling dogs. We took a seat and almost instantly the cold began to seep through my skirt. As it hit the back of my thighs I shivered. Mum pulled her wax jacket close.

‘We went to visit her grave first thing and then your dad spent the rest of the morning in the garden.’ She pulled her jacket even closer and the fabric made a crumpling, cardboard sound. ‘You know he’s taken to finishing off the edges of the lawn with my nail scissors?’ She clicked her tongue and I tried not to flinch. ‘They’re so clogged with grass, I think I’m going to have to buy a new pair.’

When I’d first realised Lauren was missing, I’d run into the caravan’s small living room to raise the alarm with Mum and Dad. Clicking her tongue, Mum had dismissed my panic and instead had offered benign theories about where she might have gone. After asking neighbouring holidaymakers to help us search the park section by section, we’d walked around, calling Lauren’s name; Mum, all the while, was certain that she’d wandered off in search of one of the collie dogs that belonged to the family in the van next to ours.

I wrapped my arms around my chest and looked at the children’s play area, empty except for a gaggle of teenagers packed into a small, dark space underneath the slide. The dropping sun had spread a buttery glow over the swings, climbing frame and roundabout. The teenagers were smoking and talking in low, serious voices; the tips of their cigarettes pinpricking the gloam, orange against black.

‘I never noticed before. There aren’t many trees. Not like home. The orchards. Is that why you moved?’

‘Orchards? What have orchards got to do with anything?’

‘It is hard to imagine her in a place like this. Does that help?’

‘Mum, can we talk about why you’re here?’

‘Twelve years old today.’ She pulled a fingernail across the needlecord on her jacket collar. The ridged material vibrated dully. ‘You were awful at twelve. Answering back, kissing boys, shortening your skirts.’ She nodded at the teenagers under the slide. ‘Smoking out of your bedroom window.’

I did a double take. All these years and she’d not once let on she knew. When I was fourteen I’d gone through a phase of lighting up a sneaky fag every night before bed. I’d fancied myself as Madonna in
Desperately Seeking Susan
and used to blow the smoke out the side of my mouth, taking care not to inhale too deeply as it made me feel sick. We’d lived in a modernist, seventies bungalow, the same bungalow occupied to this day by Mum and Dad, and my bedroom window, facing out onto the back garden, had been perfectly positioned, or so I’d thought, for acting out my Madonna fantasies.

‘Don’t be so naïve,’ said Mum, registering my surprise. ‘You used to reek of fags. Thank God you grew out of it. Disgusting habit.’

I smiled at the memory. I used to hide the butts in a pencil case, depositing them in the rubbish bin at the end of our street on my way to school. That street. That bungalow. I’d spent more time living there then I cared to admit.

I’d moved back in when I was six months pregnant. It had seemed to make sense. People ask about Lauren’s dad, but I only ever knew the bloke’s first name: Shaun. Lost to the blurry memories of stand-up sex in a nightclub toilet – unsurprisingly, I never saw or heard from him again. And so, my meagre salary barely able to support myself, let alone a child, I’d jumped at the chance when Mum and Dad had suggested the idea. Still, after nearly a decade of renting with friends, living back with my parents had taken some getting used to. Lauren had spent her first few months in the Moses basket in my room, below the same window I used to smoke out of. Then, when she was old enough, she’d moved into a cot in the bungalow’s third, smaller bedroom. Situated down the hall, it had once been earmarked by Mum and Dad for a sibling that never came. The day I claimed it for Lauren, Mum had been thrilled.

The last sliver of sun disappeared from sight. The park was cast into a thick, purply dusk. I looked at Mum. She was staring at the darkening sky, the nub of her chin tucked into the top of her polo neck.

‘I like your hair.’

She reached up and, misjudging her new length, found herself grabbing at her jacket collar.

‘I thought it more befitting a woman of my age.’

‘Don’t be silly. You looked great; you still look great,’ I said, nudging her gently.

She smiled and nudged me back.

‘I had the radio on during the drive up.’ Her voice was bright, as though she’d sensed an opportunity and was glad to act on it. ‘They were talking about how long women leave it to have a baby these days.’

I stiffened.

‘They said once you get to forty your chance of getting pregnant in any given month is just five per cent.’ She stopped and turned to face me. Her thoughts seemed to have jack-knifed in some other direction. ‘Did you have to go into work today?’

‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘When I couldn’t get hold of you …’ She tailed off. ‘It was like last year all over again.’

‘When are you going to stop obsessing about that? I was away, at a sales conference. You couldn’t get hold of me because I was busy.’

‘They had to break down the door.’

‘I have a bad back. I took one too many painkillers on an empty stomach.’ I slapped my chest. ‘I’m fine. As fine as I can be. Just like you and Dad.’

She slunk a little lower into her polo neck.

‘Look,’ I said, dropping my voice an octave. ‘It’s been a hard few weeks and today is always difficult but Jason takes good care of me.’ I searched for something I could use to reassure her. ‘We’re going on holiday soon.’

‘Oh?’

‘Gran Canaria. The hotel is lovely. It overlooks the beach. We’ll be there out of season so it should be nice and quiet.’ I imagined the blue seas and sand to come. I realised I wasn’t just saying it to make Mum feel better. Jason and I needed this holiday. It would give us a chance to relax and get back on track.

I reached for her hand.

‘Stay tonight. I don’t want you driving all that way here and there in one day.’ I squeezed it hard. ‘Please.’

She screwed up her eyes and leant forward, towards the skyline.

‘It really is quite odd. I keep looking and looking and still, I haven’t been able to spot a single tree.’

I released her hand back into her lap and got to my feet.

‘It’s getting late. Come on. I’ll walk you back to your car.’

I waved Mum off and continued down the hill to our front door. Inside, the house was dark. I was about to turn on the hall light when I heard the squeak of chair against floor tile.

‘Jason?’

‘Back here,’ he shouted. ‘In the kitchen.’

I made my way down the passage and found him sitting at the table.

‘Has there been a power cut?’

‘The electric’s fine.’ He got up, came round to where I stood and kissed me lightly on the mouth. Easing my bag off my shoulder, he unbuttoned my coat, slipped it away from my body and offered me a chair. I let myself sink down onto the wooden seat and sniffed. The central heating was on full and its warmth had mingled with something sweet and vaguely familiar. I took another sniff, deeper this time. The air was thick, syrupy almost.

Jason pulled up a chair opposite.

‘I know you like to mark today in your own way but this year I wanted to do something for you.’ He cleared his throat. ‘And for her, for Lauren.’

He twisted round and reached towards the sideboard. Holding whatever it was with both hands, he brought it forward and placed it on the table in front of me. I squinted in the gloom.

‘I had to order it special.’ There was the rasp of a lighter being struck. ‘It was tricky to track down, but then someone on the internet pointed me in the right direction.’ The lighter’s yellow flame bounced and once it had settled he held it next to a pink birthday candle. As the wick caught and flared, a weak disc of light spread out onto the table below. I looked down and saw that the candle was wedged into the middle of a small, triangular biscuit. The biscuit was golden brown and decorated with tiny strips of orange peel and granules of sugar that twinkled in the light.

I recognised it immediately.

‘Infar-cake.’

Jason smiled and reached for my hand.

‘Dreaming bread,’ he said quietly.

I moved my face in close to the plate and breathed deep. I’d come across infar-cake only once before, on holiday on the Isle of Mull. Its salty-sweet tang was unique. I broke away a corner of biscuit and placed it in my mouth. Rolling the crumbs around on my tongue, I felt the sharp granules of sugar soften and dissolve.

‘Is it OK?’ asked Jason. ‘I spoke to the lady on the phone. She told me this was the right type.’

I squeezed his hand.

‘It’s perfect.’

Lauren and I had gone to Mull with Mum and Dad when Lauren was three. Dad had always wanted to go and so one week in May we’d rented a cottage and set off for the Hebrides. A few days in, I’d suggested Lauren and I explore the rock pools on a nearby beach. We’d had a great morning looking at the tiny fish and crabs that populated each enclave of water and had got so into it that we’d walked from one end of the beach to the other. By then it was lunchtime and so, instead of returning to the cottage, I’d led us into a village in search of a café. We soon discovered that the village contained nothing but a few fishermen’s houses and a small shop that sold basic groceries. We were both starving and so, instead of trekking all the way back to the cottage, I’d decided to improvise.

Inside the shop I grabbed some bread, cheese and crisps and as I waited to pay I noticed a plate of what looked like flat triangles of some kind of bread for sale on the counter next to the till. They resembled a more solid version of an Irish potato farl. The shopkeeper noted my curiosity and explained that it was homemade infar-cake, a kind of shortbread, and that it was a local specialty. I added two of the odd-looking biscuits to my basket, and while the shopkeeper bagged them up she winked at my empty ring finger and told me that some people called the biscuits dreaming bread and that it was tradition to break the cake over a bride’s head on the threshold to her new home.

Outside the shop, sitting on a low wall overlooking the Atlantic, Lauren had surveyed the strange, crumbly biscuit with suspicion. But then her hunger had got the better of her and after tentatively nibbling a corner, she had devoured the whole thing in less than three bites. Licking her lips, she had pushed her fingers back inside the greasy paper bag in search of leftover crumbs and had declared it the most delicious thing she had ever tasted, more delicious even than Phish Food ice cream.

I’d told Jason about that meal when we’d first started seeing each other. He’d taken me away for the weekend to a tiny stone house in Windermere. The first night there, the weather had blustered at the windows the same way it had in Mull. I’d told him that, despite the rain and being stuck in a small cottage with Mum and Dad, it had been a great holiday. The best.

The pink candle wax had started to drip and harden onto the biscuit.

‘Thank you.’ I blew gently.

With the light gone I blinked, disorientated. Sitting on that park bench earlier had left every muscle packed tight against my bones but now I felt them start to loosen. I thought about telling Jason how Mum had been there waiting.

He seemed to sense the change in me. He got up, came round to where I sat, lifted my arm and put it around his neck. Then, placing his hands underneath my legs, he scooped me up off the chair and carried me out into the hall.

I let my head fall heavy on his shoulder. His flannel shirt was soft against my cheek, his chest beneath it warm and firm.

He reached the bottom of the stairs and slowly turned sideways on. Taking care not to bang my feet on the walls or banister, he began his ascent, hushing and soothing me with tiny words and noises that formed a language all our own and before we reached the top of the stairs my eyes were already closed, asleep.