The Missing Husband (36 page)

The task didn’t take long at all and soon the only envelope left in the tray was the one from the police that her mum had wafted in front of her but which Jo had refused to look at. She picked it up now, took a deep breath and removed the contents.

It was another black-and-white image of a man standing in front of a cash machine. Because of the camera angle and the way his head was bowed, the man’s face was mostly hidden by a baseball cap. It could have been David, she supposed; he was the right build and there was some sense of familiarity, particularly about the coat, which she knew would be olive green, one of Nelson’s corporate colours. She was surprised how little emotion the photo evoked. With a sigh, she pulled open a drawer and took out a manila-coloured file so she could add the photo to the rest of the police evidence she had acquired. Opening the folder, she smoothed it out until her hand came to rest next to a faint smudge on the inside cover. She traced it with her finger. It was yellow paint.

Pulling out the contents of the file, Jo quickly found another smudge. The paint was the exact same shade as that in the nursery and she knew
she
would never have been so careless, but then she hadn’t painted the nursery, Steve had. She turned over the smudged piece of paper and stared at another black-and-white image. This one was the first cash withdrawal and she found herself lining up both photographs side by side. Her eyes darted from one to the other. The man withdrawing cash the second time had used his right hand to take the money, not his left, as she would have expected David to do. She took a closer look at the tantalising glimpse of his face beneath the peak of his cap until her nose was almost touching the paper. She couldn’t be sure, but as she sat back she let her mind summon up a third picture, the image of a man shivering against the cold in a flimsy white T-shirt and pulling a baseball cap out of his pocket. It was the same man who had stumbled into her house smelling of stale beer before taking her in his arms and telling her how sorry he was and how guilty he felt. That man was not her husband.

When Irene opened the door, she had to take a quick step back as Jo pushed past her mother-in-law into the house.

‘Is Steve here?’

‘He’s on nights,’ Irene said. ‘Why? What’s wrong, Jo?’

‘He’s in bed?’

‘Jo, what’s wrong? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost. Are you ill again? Do you want me to call the doctor?’

Jo didn’t have time to explain; Irene was going to have to catch up as the drama unfolded.

Taking the stairs two at a time, Jo reached the landing and stormed straight into the second bedroom where she found Steve sprawled out on the bed in a mess of linen and limbs. Lying on his back with his mouth wide open, he had one arm dangling over the edge of the mattress, the other tucked beneath a pillow. Jo launched herself on to the bed and grabbed hold of his T-shirt. He cried out in shock and reflexively shoved away his unknown attacker. Jo almost lost her balance as Steve scrambled up so fast that he fell out of bed. He kept moving until his back thumped against the bedroom wall. Jo had been lucky his first reaction hadn’t been to throw a punch.

‘What the f—’ he began and then recognized his assailant. ‘Jo?’

‘It was you!’ she screamed, kneeling up on the bed with the envelope clenched in her fist.

Steve was still too groggy and confused to make any sense of the accusation. ‘What was me?’

Gasping for breath, Jo struggled to open the envelope. Her body shook so much she was in danger of toppling off the bed herself.

Irene was standing behind her. ‘Jo, why don’t you try to calm down so we can sort this out? I don’t know what’s going on but we’re all here to help you. If you don’t want me to phone the doctor yet then maybe I could phone your mum or your sister. They can help decide what to do.’

The gentle, sympathetic words were meant to placate Jo but instead they fuelled her anger. ‘Shut
up
, Irene. I’m not going mad! Look!’ She had ripped the photograph from the envelope and snapped it straight so Irene could have a clear view of her son’s betrayal. ‘It’s Steve!’

She turned back to her brother-in-law who was wide awake now and looking just as terrified as his mother, although Jo suspected for completely different reasons.

‘
You
withdrew the money! Look at the date stamp, Steve! It was the day Sally kicked you out, the night you turned up drunk at my house. Remember? You were wearing a T-shirt in the freezing cold. Where was your coat? Was it this one?’ she asked waving the photo at him. ‘Did you borrow David’s coat that night so you could do his bidding and withdraw more money?’

‘Please, Jo,’ Irene was saying, ‘Steve only had a T-shirt on when he arrived on my doorstep too. There was no coat. There’s only one person it could be in that photo and that’s David, it has to be.’

Jo ignored Irene’s infuriating attempt to pacify her and continued to stare at Steve. Her eyes were wide and she could feel the sting of tears. ‘What about the baseball cap! That’s yours, isn’t it, Steve? You’ve seen him, haven’t you? Were you out together drowning your sorrows? Did you get David caught up in something to do with your gambling debts? Is that why he left?’ Steve was shaking his head but Jo wouldn’t give in. Sally was right; she couldn’t take anything he said at face value. ‘You’ve been letting us suffer all this time while you’ve known what happened and why he left! Where is he, Steve?’

Steve squirmed with each accusation. ‘I swear to God, Jo, I don’t know where he is! You’re not well and you’re going to make yourself worse if you carry on like this.’

‘Steve’s right,’ Irene said. She had come closer to Jo in a bid to encourage her off the bed. ‘You’re not in the best frame of mind right now. I know you want answers, we all do. But screaming and shouting won’t get you any nearer the truth.’

‘Look at it, Irene!’ Jo demanded but the fight left her with a sob.

Irene started rubbing Jo’s back in much the same way as she might to soothe Archie.

‘Look at it, please,’ Jo begged but the tattered photograph had blurred from view and she began to cry. She had been so certain when she stood in the study looking at the photo with the sunlight streaming through the window. She hadn’t stopped to think it through but had gone with her instincts just as she had done a few days earlier when she had accused Sally of an affair, and yet again, she was making outrageous accusations that were utter nonsense and made her look a fool. Why had she been so sure?

It didn’t make sense, of course it didn’t. Why would Steve be the one to withdraw cash if David was there? She was still crying as Irene guided her out of the room. Steve stayed where he was.

‘Why don’t I phone Steph?’ Irene was asking. ‘You shouldn’t be on your own now.’

Jo wasn’t listening as she made her way downstairs and into the living room where Archie had been sleeping soundly throughout his mother’s latest histrionics. It was only when she began collecting up his belongings that she realized what Irene was suggesting. Her mother-in-law put her hand protectively on the bassinet. ‘You can’t possibly look after Archie while you’re this upset.’

‘I’m fine, Irene.’

‘Do you really believe that after what’s just happened? Please, Jo, you’re not ready.’

Irene’s gentle voice was hypnotic and before Jo knew what was happening, her mother-in-law had pulled Archie’s changing bag from Jo’s hand and guided her to the sofa. ‘I’ll make us a nice cuppa and then phone Steph. She can come and pick you up. I don’t think you should drive in your current state.’

Or look after a baby, Jo added silently. She had failed to keep her husband and now she was losing her son. She was lost. The answers to David’s disappearance eluded her like shadows in a lightless world. The police photograph had been a lone spark but now she wondered if she had only imagined it. While Irene disappeared to make the tea, Jo couldn’t bear to look at the baby so took one last look at the crumpled piece of paper she had continued to clutch in her hand. She could see only the man’s right arm, which was draped in deep shadow. No, something
was
wrong and she angrily wiped away the tears so she could focus on the coat sleeve. Was it really shadow or was it possible that the material had been blackened by some other means? A half-formed idea blazed across her mind and more lights flickered into life. Jo jumped up and stormed back upstairs.

‘It’s not David’s coat at all!’ she yelled, launching herself at her brother-in-law for the second time. Steve had been standing in the middle of his bedroom but once again found himself pinned against the wall. Jo wasn’t going to back down this time and thumped her fist against his chest before he had a chance to answer. ‘You were wearing my coat! You said you threw it on the fire but you kept it so you could impersonate your brother and take his money!’ The photo was balled up in her hand but she didn’t need to see the charring where the sleeve had caught fire and from the look on Steve’s face, neither did he.

‘Don’t, Jo,’ Steve begged.

For a split second, Jo wanted to listen to him. If Steve had used her coat then he hadn’t necessarily seen David. And if he had access to David’s account to withdraw cash that second time, then why not the first? Those two sightings were the only tangible pieces of evidence she had that David was alive and well. She didn’t want to do this because then she would have to face her worst fears – which by Jo’s standards, would be off the scale – but she could no longer run and hide. ‘You’ve been stealing off your own brother!’

‘No!’ Steve yelled back but he didn’t push Jo away. ‘I wouldn’t take anything from Dave without his permission! I probably deserve to be hated, but not for that Jo, not for that.’

Jo was glaring at him but for a second or two she said nothing. Her mind was sharper than it had been for months and the connections she made terrified her. ‘Sally told me about the bailiffs and about the house being repossessed,’ she said, surprisingly calm. ‘That doesn’t happen overnight, Steve. You must have been in arrears for a long time. How much did you owe? Did £3,000 keep your head above water a few months longer? Was it David who bailed you out before he went missing?’

‘Stop! For God’s sake stop! Isn’t it better to believe that he’s still out there?’

Steve tried to push her away which reignited Jo’s anger. ‘I want the truth!’ she screamed as she hit his chest again, determined to beat the confession out of him. She was within touching distance of knowing what happened if only she could hold her nerve and she had to: for her sake, for Archie and for her marriage. She wasn’t sure she was going to like the answers she would find but it had to be better than living with the questions.

‘I may be losing my mind but I’m not stupid, Steve! That
was
you in the photo. Did you already have David’s cash card so you could withdraw the money? Did he trust you with his pin number? Of course he did, you’re his brother! Why wouldn’t he be that foolish? Well I’m no fool and I don’t trust you,’ Jo snarled. ‘David gave you the £3,000 and once he wasn’t there to give you any more you took it – you took the rest all by yourself. It was you, all along.’ Jo’s voice was trembling with emotion that exposed a vulnerability that she didn’t want Steve to see. It made her all the angrier and she vented it with another blow to the chest that Steve didn’t even try to deflect. ‘I can’t believe you’ve stood by and let everyone think he was safe and well. You stopped the police searching for him, you let us all abandon him!’

Countless memories of David flooded Jo’s mind, ones she had replayed over and over again in search of hints of deceit and betrayal, but the one she clung to now was the one Sally had forced her to confront: the one of the man who had brought love, light and laughter to her world.

‘You let us all hate him!’ she cried, her words strangled and full of pain. ‘You made me believe—’ she broke off with a tortured gasp. ‘You made me believe that he was still out there, that he was watching me! You made me think he didn’t want Archie, and because of that I was prepared to push my child, my last link to David, away! How could you?
How could you?
’

‘Stop this, Jo. Please,’ he begged.

Jo shook her head. Despite knowing it was perhaps too little, too late, she was determined not to let David down now and her eyes darted across the room. Steve had been staying with his mum for over a month but he was still living out of the bin bags Sally had dumped on Irene’s doorstep. Jo presumed it was to fool his mother into thinking it was only a temporary arrangement. She shoved against Steve and flew towards the bags, tearing open the nearest one and scattering clothes across the room. Steve rugby tackled her.

‘Get off me!’ she screamed. Her fingers clawed through the second bag she had been trying to open as Steve pulled her away, leaving a trail of black plastic ribbon and crumpled T-shirts. Unable to reach the bags any more, Jo turned on Steve and released months of pent-up anger and frustration as she punched and clawed at him.

‘Steven!’ a voice boomed.

Steve and Jo both froze then turned as one towards the door. Only minutes earlier, Irene had looked at Jo with eyes brimming with sympathy, now there was only pain. She looked from one to the other and then let her gaze fall to the floor where the detritus of Steve’s life lay scattered. The bin bag Steve had been pulling Jo away from lay gaping with the arm of a waterproof coat reaching out towards them, the cuff partly melted and the sleeve a mangled mess of charcoal black and olive green.

The colour drained from Steve’s face as Irene stepped purposefully across the room. The sound of the slap was a thunderclap that heralded a cloudburst.

26

When Jo returned home the sun was obscured by a curtain of grey, but there was enough light left in the day to see Steph’s car parked outside the house. Jo wanted time on her own to think and considered driving past and parking somewhere out of sight until her sister went away. She had been haunted for months by unfathomable questions that might explain why David had left her only to have them swept away by a single, pathetic confession. But Jo’s momentary euphoria had been eclipsed by the one question that Steve couldn’t answer and she asked it over and over again: if you didn’t leave me, if you haven’t been shadowing me all this time, then where are you, David?