The Missing Husband

‘Will it?’ Jo asked, preparing to grasp even the most tenuous thread of hope.

‘Have you thought about phoning the police … or the hospitals?’

Steph’s words were soft and gentle but they stabbed fear into Jo’s heart. ‘No, I don’t want to look like a complete idiot when David turns up alive and well.’

The pause that followed was excruciating. ‘Steph?’

‘Could your argument last night have been more serious than you thought? Have you checked his things?’ she said. ‘Is anything missing?’

It took a fraction of a second for Jo to catch up with Steph’s train of thought. She laughed nervously. ‘I think I would have noticed if he’d packed a suitcase before he left this morning,’ she said, immediately dismissing the theory, not because she didn’t think it possible but because it was perhaps the most plausible – and that terrified her. She glanced towards the stairs, measuring the need to check his closet against her fear of what she might find. She tried to corral her thoughts. ‘Do you think I should phone the police?’

‘Maybe. Do you want me to come round?’

‘No, Steph, it’s late and blowing a gale again outside. Besides, you’ve got work in the morning.’

‘It’s not as if I’ll be able to get back to sleep now.’

‘But you have Lauren to look after,’ Jo protested, even while hoping deep down that Steph might overrule her.

‘That’s what husbands are for.’

Steph didn’t need to be in the same room to know that Jo had flinched at the remark.

‘Sorry,’ she said.

‘It’s all right. I’m sure we’ll laugh about this tomorrow. Now please, go back to bed. Keep your phone under your pillow if you have to and I’ll call you as soon as he turns up. And he will,’ she added as if the words alone would make her husband materialize.

‘I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes when he does,’ Steph offered with forced cheeriness.

Left to her own devices, Jo stared at the armchair she had been glued to for most of the evening. She couldn’t sit and stare at the clock any more but needed to keep herself occupied. Unable to resist the urge a moment longer, she rushed back upstairs to satisfy herself that David’s clothes were still in the wardrobe. They were, but the sight of his things only made her long for him more. Desperate for any kind of reassurance, Jo slipped back into the study to check one more thing. When she couldn’t find what she was looking for, the theory she had hoped to dismiss took on a life of its own.

Jo went through every drawer and file, not only in the study but in every other possible hiding place. Her search for the missing article was methodical and she left the paperwork in a tidier state than she had found it, but by the time she reached the kitchen there was nowhere else to look. Refusing to think about what that might mean Jo began clearing away the uneaten dinner.

She carefully wrapped the dried-out steak and ale pie in foil before gathering up the hardened bread rolls and throwing them in the bin along with the side salad that had been left to wilt on the dining table. The plates were returned to the cupboard and the cutlery back to the kitchen drawer, which Jo couldn’t bring herself to close again. Forks lay across knives and a couple of teaspoons were peeking out beneath half a dozen soup spoons. The disorder in the drawer set her already frazzled nerves into a fresh jangle, but at least this was something she could fix. As Jo removed every item from the drawer, an image of David standing behind her, came unbidden. He rested his head on her shoulder, the warmth of his sigh caressing her neck. His breath smelled of coffee and dark chocolate from the cake she had made him for his birthday.

‘What are you doing?’ he asked.

‘Tidying up your mess.’

She was grouping the stainless steel soldiers into regiments, laying them in tight formation. Knife-edges facing left, fork tines pointing upwards and spoons – well, they simply spooned.

‘There was nothing wrong with it.’

‘I need to tidy it,’ she persisted. She could feel the anxiety constricting her chest although it had been there long before she had opened the drawer. It had been building ever since she had missed her last period and she was now about to miss the next, but she wasn’t ready to tell David yet. It was still early days and anything could happen, or at least that was the excuse she was using to put off making her announcement.

‘And what exactly do you think would happen if, God forbid, you threw the cutlery into the draw and left things where they fell?’ he asked.

Jo’s eyes narrowed in concentration as she tried to apply David’s logic. Perfectly ordered cutlery wasn’t going to have even the slightest effect on his reaction when he found out what she had done. ‘Nothing,’ she offered.

David kissed her neck, unaware of her deceit and simply enjoying the sport of challenging his wife’s compulsions, which had been increasing of late. ‘Make a mess. I dare you.’

She leaned back against the man she knew so well and felt their bodies meld into one. He was going to love the idea of becoming a dad once he had got over the shock, she was sure of it. Putting aside her troubles for another day at least, she let a soft laugh tickle her throat as she picked up a single fork and turned it on its side.

‘Nah, not good enough.’ David leaned over and when the thunderous clank of metal subsided, the drawer was in more of a mess than ever.

‘I’m going to make you pay for that,’ Jo warned but David was already wrapping his arms around her and pulling her away.

The sound of their laughter faded and Jo’s eyes began to sting as she stared unblinking at the cutlery drawer where the tight formations had been reformed. ‘What was the worst that could happen?’ she asked herself, but without David holding her, she shrank in terror from the answer.

Quickly closing the drawer, Jo pulled up her sleeves and set to work scouring the grey granite surface of the kitchen counter until it sparkled. Next she mopped the floor, not limiting herself to the porcelain tiles in the kitchen but moving on to the timbered floor in the dining room, even moving cupboards to reach hidden nooks and crannies. And she didn’t stop there. She swept the mop in wide, purposeful strokes out into the hallway and then continued through to the living room.

The smell of industrial strength bleach had completely obliterated the more homely smells of cooking. It had started to burn the back of Jo’s nostrils but she couldn’t, wouldn’t stop. She returned the mop to the store cupboard under the stairs and picked up a duster and a can of polish. In no time at all, the black marble fire surround in the living room was so shiny it reflected an image of the clock she was refusing to look at. She was in the process of polishing the coffee table when there was a knock at the door.

Not daring to consider who might be calling at half past one in the morning, Jo’s heart thudded against her chest as she rushed out of the living room. The hallway lights reflected brightly against the glass panes in the front door but she could still make out a vague silhouette. Unconsciously, Jo checked for the outline of a helmet or the reflection of a hi-viz jacket. Relieved that it wasn’t a policeman calling, she flung open the door expecting to see David standing there, looking sheepish and apologetic. The realization that it wasn’t David hit her with the full force of a body blow. Her knees buckled and she dropped to the floor.

‘I can’t bear this any more, Steph. Why is he doing this to me?’ she sobbed.

The tears that came wracked her entire body; Jo had never known pain like it in her life. She had thought she had experienced heartache and grief before but everything else paled into insignificance. The loss of grandparents, the demise of a beloved pet or the kind of teenage angst she thought she would never survive couldn’t compare. Even the sudden death of David’s dad after a massive stroke two years ago hadn’t felt like this. But why was she even thinking of it as grief? What was she grieving for?

When Jo felt able to lift her head and face the world again, she was hunched up in the armchair in the living room, still clutching the yellow duster she had been holding when she answered the door. It was sopping wet with tears and there was the taste of beeswax in her mouth. Steph was perched next to her, rubbing her back. Jo sniffed and tried to give a watery smile, taking in Steph’s anxious face.

‘Sorry about that.’

Steph smiled back and, as she did, the tears in her eyes reflected Jo’s own. ‘It is allowed, Jo. It might not be like you, but normal people do this all the time.’

Jo prided herself in being the staunch one; hard as nails Steph might say and often did. But it didn’t mean she didn’t care or feel things just as deeply as anyone else. And what she needed to feel right now was her baby move. She placed a hand on her stomach, worried that her histrionics might have harmed him or her.

Steph noticed her concern. ‘Is everything all right?’

Jo’s hand paused as she felt a soft but unmistakeable kick. ‘Yes, we’re fine.’

Not giving her sister time to enjoy even a moment’s relief, Steph asked, ‘Did you phone the police?’

‘No,’ Jo said quickly as she rubbed her eyes, which were dry and flaky. Her tears had stopped flowing long before she had finished crying. She stared hard at Steph as she built up the courage to speak again. ‘His passport’s missing.’

Steph’s laugh was more a result of shock than amusement. ‘You think he’s gone on the run and left the country?’

‘We would have been on holiday in America now if … If I hadn’t been pregnant.’

‘That’s still a pretty big conclusion to jump to. He’s only been missing a few hours, Jo. Maybe he’s gone to his mum’s or maybe he’s with Steve?’

If it turned out that David had left her then Jo didn’t think for a minute that he would turn up on his brother’s doorstep. Steve’s six-year marriage to Sally was hanging by a thread and if anyone were about to leave their wife then Jo would have laid bets on it being Steve. No, Jo thought, if David had gone anywhere, it would be to his mum. But if she phoned Irene and David wasn’t there then she would be drawing her mother-in-law into the mix and Jo wasn’t ready for that yet. Irene had once been a formidable matriarch but the death of her husband had affected her deeply and Jo dreaded to think how she would handle this latest development. Steph was right; it had only been a few hours. ‘I’ll speak to them tomorrow if I need to.’

‘So phone the police then.’

Jo shook her head. ‘Not yet.’ She had to swallow hard before she could get the next words out. ‘But could you check the hospitals for me?’ she asked.

Unable to listen as Steph made the call, Jo escaped to the kitchen. If David hadn’t willingly left her, if he had become embroiled in some major incident, then it would have to be something serious enough to prevent him from phoning her during the six hours that had elapsed since her marriage and her life had been suspended. If he hadn’t physically been able to get a message to her, then surely by now someone would have been able to identify him and … Jo’s brain disengaged as the images she had unwittingly created in her mind became too much to bear. She began mopping the floor for the second time that evening.