The Loving Husband Page 7

  ‘Just one though, right, when you moved out here?’ Fran Hall’s eyes were wide, and Ali went on, ‘Just the one child. Or were you expecting him already?’

  ‘No, I, no—’ But before Fran could finish her answer, Doug Gerard had pushed back his chair with an impatient scrape and was nudging Carswell to switch off the recorder. He was on his feet and Fran Hall got up too, only looking sideways at Ali a second, a flash of something there then gone, but Ali had seen it all right.

  She looked frightened. That look that would turn a jury against her. She looked guilty.

  ‘Let’s get you home,’ said Doug Gerard, and leaning to lift the baby seat Fran Hall looked at him as if the word meant nothing.

  Chapter Eight

  ‘We’ll take her back,’ Gerard had said to the female officer outside the police station. The FLO. Then he’d turned back to Fran. ‘This is DC Compton’s first day back off leave, a half-day by prior arrangement, there’s a certain domestic situation needs some sorting, I believe.’

  Bewildered, Fran said, ‘But she … I…’ Then she caught the look Ali Compton gave him and in that flash she recognised the situation: she had heard it enough times when she’d had a job of her own to go to, like domestic meant sitting by the fire with your feet up.

  ‘If you need me,’ said Ali Compton, quickly, so close Fran could see her roots showing, the mesh of fine lines at her eyes, ‘I’ll be right over. That’s all you need to know.’ She looked strained and tense.

  ‘All right,’ said Fran, reluctant to surrender her.

  ‘You try to get some kip this afternoon,’ said Ali, holding on to her at the elbows. ‘When the baby sleeps, you sleep. All right?’

  Gerard had made an impatient noise but Ali Compton ignored him. ‘If I hear nothing from you I’ll be there in the morning.’ A glance at Gerard, then back at Fran. ‘Is that all right? We can have a bit of a talk then. Go over things.’

  Ben was stirring in the car seat. It had seemed to Fran that she had no choice, so she’d said, ‘Yes. That’d be good.’

  It occurred to her in the back seat of the police car, looking at the back of Gerard’s square head, the rash on Carswell’s neck where he’d gone too close with the clippers, that if Ali Compton had been the first to arrive on the scene last night it would have been very different. She felt as though she was tangled tight in what she’d already said, she’d left out things she couldn’t begin to explain.

  Sacrifice, that was the word Ali Compton had used, looking at her that way. But they said that was what it was all about, having a baby. You had to give things up. Feeling like a woman a man might look at in the street, for starters. Feeling like someone wanted you.

  It wasn’t like she needed it, that’s what Fran had told herself. There was plenty to tire her out, lugging big cheerful Emme in and out of the buggy, to the swings, to toddler group, in a sling to the supermarket, Fran seemed to be running a sweat from the moment she got up anyway. She would climb out of bed to give Emme a feed in the dead hours of the pre-dawn, letting the baby fog drift over her, enveloping them while Nathan moved to and fro out there in the real world. In a sweat and forever wiping stuff, the rim of the bath, smears of mush from the baby’s chin and her own tired body.

  And then Emme stopped breastfeeding. She turned her face away one day and reached instead for the bowl of yellow mush sitting on the table, and that was it. No more than a day later it felt different, things looked sharper, less forgiving. Her sore, unused breasts were just the start; in bed her nerve endings seemed to prick and she would shift, restlessly, feeling the quilt like a weight.

  She had gone back to work, part-time.

  Nathan had seemed keen: it had been his idea. ‘Get your life back,’ he had said. His arms were gently around her when he said it, he had been stroking her back like a father. She’d been on her knees rooting stuff out from the sofa one evening, Emme finally asleep after an hour of patient grizzling. She wasn’t a difficult baby, Fran had come to realise, this was just how it was. Anyway, kneeling there with her backside in the air and her unwashed hair falling in her face she had felt his hand on her hipbone from behind and she had twisted away from him.

  ‘This isn’t working, is it?’ he said, mild, and she felt her heart race, eager in expectation of what came next. But she’d been wrong. He took her hand in his. ‘You need to get back out there. To work.’ The West End a bus ride away, all this time.

  She sat back on her heels. ‘Seriously?’

  It made sense: she needed something else to think about. Not just them. She knew he wanted the flat back to himself now and again, too; he’d been used to working there during the day when he had no office or site to be occupying and it wasn’t the same with her and Emme crashing in and out, the baby talk and clatter in the kitchen.

  Fran found a nineteen-year-old Lithuanian girl to do twenty hours a week minding Emme. Katrina was pale and stolid, but her face at least softened when she picked the baby up, and she lived with her mother round the corner, in local authority accommodation, she could have Emme there if Nathan needed the flat. She could do evenings too, she said hopefully but Fran told her that wasn’t really necessary, they didn’t go out much.

  Except then there was a do, and Nathan was going to be away, a conference on new methods in concrete, he said. Manchester. She supposed she had thought, when she went back to work, their evenings and weekends would be more precious, but instead Nathan seemed to feel easier about spending time away. ‘It’s obvious,’ he said, reasonable, when she asked. ‘You’ve got help now. There’s Katrina.’ Head cocked. ‘What is it, anyway? The do.’

  Fran didn’t know why she played it down, answering him, why she said, ‘Oh, just a thing, work thing. It’ll be full of advertisers, men in suits.’

  When in fact it was the magazine’s ten-year anniversary party, and champagne till midnight in a club. Fran had been surprised even to be on the list and since the email had dropped into her inbox she had been fretting. Whether she could even remember how to put make-up on, never mind who she’d talk to.

  She could have declined; Jo had. She would be on holiday, she said dismissively when Fran had asked her if they could go together, and Fran had faltered. It had been Carine from work who’d chivvied her back on board, full of problem-page wisdom about not losing touch with yourself as a woman, the benefits of social interaction, about dopamine release on the dance floor.

  ‘You are so elegant,’ Katrina told her with a bewildered expression Fran couldn’t quite figure out, when she came out ready to leave – she could only hope it was because the girl had only ever seen her unkempt in jeans.

  ‘I wish,’ she said, but they smiled at each other. Emme on the floor beside her looked up, wide-eyed, then tipped forward to stroke a shoe, which was dark red suede, a high heel, too impractical for anything but a party. The dress – it was silk, a long-ago present from Nick and she’d never worn it with Nathan out of anxiety that somehow he’d know – was looser than before but as far as she could tell not shapeless, a deep slit in the back.

  The magazine had done a deal with the management of the vast art-deco hotel off Piccadilly Circus with a newly refurbished club in its basement, cavernous and gleaming with gold tile and mirrors, dark polished rails, mahogany and velvet. It had been so long since she’d walked into a scene like this, the glitter of jewellery swinging from women’s ears, in their hair, the tight little groups, the trays of tall shining glasses skimming the crowd, but even as she stepped into the soft dark at the bottom of the stairs it came to greet her, folded itself around her, warm and familiar as if she’d never been away.

  She took a passing glass and a man in a suit turned to look at her. ‘Do I know you from somewhere?’ he said, serious, and tipping the drink to her lips Fran had laughed.

  ‘No, really,’ he said, turning away from the man he’d been talking to. ‘I’ve seen you. Not for a while, though.’ His eyes wandered, from the earrings that dangled by her collarbone, up to her face
, looking for something.

  ‘Oh, I’ve been very busy,’ she said, letting her life blur behind her, nappies and washing up. Fun, she thought, I remember that, and she tipped the glass again.

  It was almost three when she roused Katrina on the sofa and told her to go home, the girl’s moon-face rising up from the cushions pale and shocked in the dark sitting room. ‘Go,’ said Fran, pushing money into her hand, scrabbling in her purse for more to stop the girl looking at her.

  She had slept no more than an hour before it woke her, shame as cold as the slap of seawater, and she was scrambling out of the bed to get to the bathroom.

  By the time Nathan got back thirty-six hours later with a stack of brochures about concrete and cheerful anecdotes about wine bars and dodgy hotel rooms, the dress had been put out with the rubbish and she’d cleaned her teeth so many times her gums were bleeding. He didn’t ask her about the party so she didn’t remind him, and if he noticed the way Katrina avoided her eye on the Monday morning, he didn’t say anything.

  Fran should have let the girl sleep, shouldn’t have put her out into the street, but she hadn’t been able to stop herself.

  The office was full of aftermath stories: she told herself hers wouldn’t even have registered if she’d tried to join in. Besides, it had been dark enough for no one to have noticed one more of them steadying herself against the wall in heels too high, teetering into a taxi, flushed and glittering. Jo got back from her holiday a week later and only said, ‘You’re looking skinny,’ impatient still, with an undertone of anxiety. ‘Are you OK?’

  To which the answer was, no. ‘Fine,’ she’d said, brightly unconvincing. ‘Running around, you know.’

  ‘If you say so,’ said Jo, and as she turned away Fran had the sense of watching something she wanted slipping out of her grasp.

  She began to have panic attacks, obscurely triggered: the way Nathan looked at her or a rising querulous note in Emme’s babble in the highchair. At night she would lie in bed while the trembling rose from her legs, assailed by thoughts that Emme was ill, that she was ill, that she would hear Emme calling in the night and she wouldn’t be able to go to her. She went to the doctor – a harassed woman who had little time for the worried well in the inner city – and was given a brochure on relaxation techniques. ‘We don’t prescribe tranquillisers any more. Have you tried swimming?’

  So when, four months later, Nathan came back from another course (Lincolnshire this time, and eco-building methods) and announced, looking at her warily – because he knew how she felt about the countryside, she’d always said that living there must be like being buried alive – that he thought they should move out of London, she had gone up to him and buried her face in his chest as if he had offered her salvation.

  And with one word she had let it all go: the bus to work and the heads turning in the office, Katrina’s face, Jo’s face. Her own thin, sleepless face in the mirror and the doctor looking up from her notes and seeing her still there, saying, ‘Was there anything else?’

  ‘Yes,’ she had said to Nathan, her face still muffled in his shirt, and she had felt his arms tighten around her.

  She should be grateful to have them there, shouldn’t she? The two policemen. If there’d been anyone there when they drove slowly through the village and turned in at the house, anyone watching from across the field among the poplars, a police car and two men climbing out of it would have sent the message, she was protected, wouldn’t it? Stay away.

  Lunchtime was long gone. They’d offered her a sandwich in the police station as they climbed the stairs from the interview room: egg and salad cream that she could hardly get down. It must be past two, though the white sky offered no clue, it could be five, a day that already seemed like it had lasted a lifetime.

  As they climbed out of the police car, there was a break in the cloud and the pale, low sun came through it, slanting down and flooding the wide plain beyond the barn, sending a silver gleam off the standing water. ‘You should see the skies,’ Nathan had said, dreamily, thinking of some time far off. ‘The sunsets, sunrise. Seems like the edge of the world.’ He’d wanted to bring her to the edge of the world.

  The advantage, she thought as she stood there scanning the horizon, holding the fear down there somewhere in the pit of her stomach, was that she’d be able to see him coming. Just leave, just leave, just gather the kids up and leave, don’t wait for him to come back, are you nuts? Just as soon as she worked out where to go. For now, she had to watch.

  Gerard turned to look too, his hands in the pockets of his jacket, shoulders hunched. ‘Snow. They say, anyway. Snow by Saturday.’ He looked at her. ‘Hope your boiler’s been serviced lately.’ He locked the car. ‘I’ll see you inside.’

  They all crowded into the kitchen, and she was lifting Ben out of his seat, damp and straining himself to a fury. Hungry. ‘Sorry about that,’ Gerard said easily. ‘I know it must have seemed like we were just going over the same thing, again and again.’ He laughed, reassuring. ‘It’s not like we’re trying to catch you out.’ Carswell was at the door, peering through the glass into the yard, his narrow shoulders hunched, and his head turned a fraction at that.

  ‘It’s the timing, we can’t seem to work it out. Your husband said nothing when he came to bed, you said.’

  He had murmured into the hair at the back of her neck, but she hadn’t heard. She wanted to tell the truth, she wanted to be on the right side, she wanted to give this man what he wanted. She couldn’t see how he would need to know, that her husband came into bed and put his hand between her legs from behind, even though she could remember in that moment precisely how that had felt, where he’d positioned his index finger, his forefinger, his thumb. Her mouth opening, yes.

  ‘I was fast asleep when he came in,’ and she wondered then, when would this stop? ‘I told you. I’d been dreaming.’ His head turned slowly at that and for a moment as she wondered if he was going to ask her about her dream she felt a rush of heat, of shame, what if she had volunteered that information? He hadn’t fucked me in a year and then he did and then he died and I had been dreaming, I had been dreaming of—

  Why would that be of interest? Shut up.

  ‘I’ve got to change him,’ she said, turning to Ben, and quickly she was across the room and at the door.

  ‘All right,’ said Gerard staying where he was, mild. ‘Well, how about we take a look in his study while you’re up there, how would that do? Would you be happy with us doing that?’

  All she wanted was to be out of the room. ‘Yes,’ she said, and she was climbing the stairs. She could hear a murmur behind her in the kitchen but she kept going.

  Ben’s backside was red from sitting too long in the nappy and she was careful with him as he arched his back, sore and angry. She leaned to kiss his little round stomach, the popped belly button. A bit of kip, Ali Compton had said: it seemed a long way off.

  She was on the edge of the bed feeding when there was a soft knock at the door, and she pulled her sweatshirt down so nothing was visible. It was Gerard. ‘Ed’s made a cup of tea,’ he said, frowning.

  ‘I’ll be down in a minute,’ she said wearily, but he didn’t move.

  ‘There’s something we’d like you to have a look at,’ he told her. ‘In your husband’s study.’ Spreading his hands in a gesture of helplessness that didn’t convince her. ‘Technology not my strong point, I’ve got to say. Ed’s on the case, though, new generation. You got a computer yourself?’

  ‘No. Well, yes, but—’ and then from somewhere outside she heard the door open and there was a rattle, an exclamation.

  ‘Jesus,’ he said, and called, ‘Carswell!’ then, under his breath, ‘Christ, that kid…’ But then it came back to her, with the distinct sound, the sound of bins disturbed, the acoustic of the yard’s enclosed space.

  ‘I did hear something outside,’ Fran said. ‘As I was going to sleep, so I suppose around ten thirty, eleven. I thought it was some animal, you know. After the wheelie
bins.’

  Arms folded, legs apart, it felt like he was towering over her. ‘Did you see anything? An animal?’ She shook her head. ‘I didn’t look. It was just one sound, a sort of scuffle, then I didn’t hear anything else.’ He pursed his lips, examining her.

  ‘Right. But you hadn’t heard anything else, a car, say?’

  ‘I was in bed. We’re at the back of the house here, you can’t really hear … Why?’

  ‘Just working on timing,’ said Gerard, reassuring, but she wasn’t reassured, it wasn’t an answer. ‘That’s all, trying to work out who was where.’ He turned to look at the stairs. ‘Well, when you’re ready?’ And when she didn’t move, ‘Your husband’s computer?’ he said, and then she was on her feet, Ben over her shoulder.

  When she came into the kitchen Carswell was on the back doorstep, righting the bin in the yard; he gave her a sheepish look.

  Gerard looked at her, his head on one side, and when he spoke his voice was soft, though the words jumped at her. ‘I know we’d ruled out a break-in,’ he said, stepping out of the kitchen and into the dim hall, where the door to Nathan’s study was open. She followed him, Carswell bringing up the rear. ‘And it’s not the usual sort of thing a burglar goes for, but…’ She stopped in the door. Gerard was squatting at the side of Nathan’s desk, where his computer sat.

  ‘Hard drive’s gone,’ said Carswell, at her ear. She could heard his breathing, coming and going excitedly as he bounced on the balls of his feet.

  ‘What?’ She felt stupid.

  ‘Someone’s cleaned it out.’ Gerard’s head on one side, examining her. ‘The computer. There’s a big hole where the data used to live.’

  ‘Cleaned out. You mean someone, the man who … you mean it was taken last night?’ Silence. Inside? He came inside? ‘Is that what you’re saying?’

  Gerard glanced at Carswell. ‘We’ll get the machine dusted for prints,’ then ‘Listen,’ looking back at Fran, ‘I know your feeling so far has been that whatever has gone on here, this is your home, I can understand that.’ And it sounded like something rehearsed, to entice her, and she began shaking her head, even though the warning patter had set up inside her, the fear.