The Missing Husband: a tense psychological suspense full of twists

by Natasha Boydell

  But it was when he mentioned the girls that she finally snapped. It was her raw spot and he’d hit it bang on. The idea of this other woman being a better mother than her – of the girls adoring her, of them loving this ‘C’ more than her. And he seemed so smug about it, the bastard. And something inside her snapped. As he turned to leave, to walk away from her and the life she had worked so hard to build she was seeing red, she was so furious, so she grabbed the first thing she could find – a stone ornament of a naked woman that she had bought from an art gallery and Pete had rolled his eyes at when he heard how much it cost – and she had whacked him over the head with all her might. And then again, and then again.

  But she hadn’t wanted to kill him. She had just wanted to hurt him, the way that he had hurt her with his horrible words. And when he fell to the ground with a sickening thud and lay motionless in the hallway, all the anger deflated from her like a burst balloon and she sat down on the floor next to him and stared at the unresponsive body of the man she had loved for half her life. She knew she should call an ambulance but she couldn’t move. Her body was cemented to the floor. And surely she hadn’t done much damage, she’d only hit him a few times and she wasn’t particularly strong, he’d wake up any moment with a headache and be on his way. Time ticked on but still she sat and stared, unable to process the seriousness of what had just happened, completely incapable of accepting that she had just killed her husband.

  Eventually the sound of the post being shoved through the letterbox and landing on the tiled floor, just centimetres from Pete’s head, brought her back to reality with a sickening jolt. This time she looked at Pete, really looked at him, and finally understood that he was dead. Suddenly her body came back to life and she started scrabbling around in a panic and trying to slide her body backwards along the floor, to get as far away from him as possible. She put one hand to her mouth and stared at him in horror. What had she done?

  She stood up and paced around the house, frantic, trying to work out what to do next. Perhaps it is all just a nightmare, she thought, but every time she went back into the hallway, there he was on the floor. What had she done? What did she do now? Should she call someone? Erin? The police? Of course she had to call the police. But then they would arrest her and what would happen to the girls? They’d just lost their father and now they would lose their mother, too. They would be known forever as the girls with the murderer mother. Had she actually done this? Had she actually killed her husband? No, surely that wasn’t possible. She walked slowly back up to him, peering at his face, still clinging on to the hope that he was just unconscious. Gingerly she put two fingers to his neck. No pulse. He was definitely dead. She backed away again, staring at him in fresh horror.

  She ran up the stairs, desperate to get away from him. Thundering into their bedroom she sat on the bed, her heart pounding. Something on the pillow caught her eye and she turned to look at it. It was an envelope with her name written on it. She grabbed it and opened it, reading the words quickly. It was a note, telling her he was planning to leave her. He must have put it up there knowing that she wouldn’t see it until later that day, after he was long gone. He was a bastard, a coward of a man. But still, he didn’t deserve to die.

  Think, she told herself, think! But she couldn’t, her mind was a complete mess, suspended somewhere between reality and disbelief, unable to comprehend that less than a couple of hours ago she was having breakfast with her husband and now he was dead on their hallway floor. She went to the kitchen and poured a glass of whisky to try to calm herself down. As the liquid coursed through her body her breathing began to slow down and she started to focus again. She had to think.

  What were her options now? If she called Erin right now to tell her what had happened what would she tell her to do? She’d say to call for an ambulance. But it was too late for that now, he was dead. The only option was the police but how could she explain what had happened? Even if she could convince them it wasn’t premeditated, she was still a killer, there was no doubt about that. She would go to prison. Their private lives would be splashed all over the newspapers, there would be a court case. Her life would be over, her children’s lives would be ruined. Where would they live? Would Erin have them? Her new boyfriend Scott seemed lovely but would he agree to take in two damaged children who weren’t even Erin’s, let alone his? And she wouldn’t cope in prison, she knew she wouldn’t, she couldn’t hack it. And why should she go to prison anyway, for an accident? She hadn’t meant to kill him, it had been a terrible, tragic accident.

  Should she kill herself? She deserved to die, after all she had taken someone else’s life. Death seemed a better option than prison right now. But then what would happen to the girls? Robbed of both their parents in one day, having to grow up with the knowledge of what had happened. No amount of counselling would ever be enough. She would ruin their lives, too, with her cowardice.

  And whose fault is this really? she thought, suddenly, angrily. This is Pete’s fault. He drove me to this with his lying and his cheating and his cruel words. If it wasn’t for him, this would never have happened! I’m not going to let him ruin my life, why should I? And although she knew that what she had done was inexcusable, it made her feel better. She felt the blame shifting to him and it comforted her immediately.

  And then she thought again of her girls, her beautiful, sweet girls. She had to protect them, she had to do whatever it took to protect them. She had done a terrible thing and she would have to live with that for the rest of her life, that would be her punishment, but now she had to make this go away. For everyone’s sake.

  The sound of Pete’s phone beeping made her jump. She reached into his coat pocket and pulled it out. It was a message from C.

  Where are you?

  This was it, this was the moment that would define her future and her girls’ future. And in that moment, she made her decision. She was thinking sharply, concisely, for the first time in years. She quickly typed back:

  Sorry, I can’t do it. I can’t leave my wife and children, they mean too much to me. You have to understand. Please don’t contact me again. I’m changing my number. I’m so sorry. Goodbye x.

  The phone rang almost immediately. And then again. She stared at it, willing it to stop ringing and eventually it did. She took another big gulp of whisky and felt better. That was the first problem solved. What did she do now?

  The solution was almost too easy, she thought, after all he was leaving her anyway, the evidence was plain to see in the note that he had left her that morning, written in his own hand. Perhaps other people even knew about it. So why not act like it had happened just as he had planned it? How would anyone know any different? The only person who knew was this C person. But if there was no way of contacting him, she’d have to give up eventually. After all, it couldn’t be the first time a man had chickened out of leaving his wife at the last minute. Would she come to their house? She doubted that Pete would have told her where they lived. It was risky, but it was her best option. And she might even get away with it. She felt a surge of relief that she had a plan.

  So now she just had to work out how to get rid of the evidence. This would take some more doing. As she necked more whisky, she almost laughed at the ridiculousness of the situation. A useless housewife trying to work out how to dispose of her cheating husband’s body. Her life was more unbelievable than the soaps she loved to watch because of their ridiculous storylines. There was no way that she could get him out of the house without being seen. They didn’t have a garage and she wasn’t strong enough to carry him out to the car and shove him into the boot without making a scene. Even if she wrapped him up in bags, it would look suspicious. The children would be home in just a few hours and she had to get rid of him by then. How was she going to do it?

  She went into the kitchen and reached for the secret stash of cigarettes she kept in a high up cupboard for emergencies. Stepping out into the garden and lighting one she inhaled deeply with shaking finge
rs and looked around. Could she bury him in the garden? Was she even strong enough to dig a hole herself? She didn’t think so. And one of the neighbours might see her from their window, too. What if she hid him in the house and did it late at night? But then where would she hide him? As she smoked, she looked at the tarpaulin that covered the old ponds. They had drained them years ago and had been meaning to fill them with soil as part of the garden renovation project but still hadn’t got around to it. Suddenly she realised the answer was staring at her in the face. Stubbing out her cigarette she walked over to the tarpaulin, lifted it and peered down into the two holes beneath. They were big enough and deep enough, she thought. All she would need to do was to put him in one of them and cover it up with soil. Then she could build something over it and no one would ever know. It almost seemed too simple.

  Before she could change her mind, she grabbed her keys and went next door to knock on her neighbour’s door. She would pretend that she needed to borrow some milk, she thought. But no one answered. Then she went to the other side but again, no answer. They were all out at work or school. Now was her chance.

  She grabbed Pete’s legs and pulled him through the house, out of the sliding doors and on to the patio. It was exhausting and she was panting and sweating but adrenaline kept her going and she pulled and pushed until he was next to the hole. One last push and he was in. Then she ran back into the house, grabbed a bin bag and shoved his holdall into it, leaving only his coat, phone and the letter. She ran to the shed where they had bags of soil and started ripping them open and throwing the soil down the hole as quickly as she could so that she no longer had to look at his lifeless body. But it wasn’t enough so she ran around the garden looking for old tiles and stones, anything that she could throw down there too.

  When she was done, she looked down and all she could see was soil and rubble. It wasn’t enough but it would do for now. She quickly covered it back up with tarpaulin and lit another cigarette. When she was done, she went back inside, washed her hands and picked up his phone. There were four missed calls, all from C. She deleted them and put the phone into his coat pocket along with his letter. She’d deal with them later. Then she scrubbed the floor and walls, removing all traces of blood like she was on autopilot, as though it was crayon marks or food stains from a toddler’s grubby little fingers. She took the ornament to the kitchen sink and cleaned it thoroughly before putting it back on the sideboard, exactly where it had been before. Finally, she showered, dressed, and sat at the kitchen table waiting for the children to come home from school.

  She just about made it through the rest of the day but as soon as the girls were in bed, she had quickly worked her way through a bottle of red wine until she passed out on the sofa.

  When she woke up in the early hours of the morning and the terrible reality of what had happened came back to her, she had realised that she needed to keep up the pretence of being the abandoned wife if she wanted to get away with it. There could be no loose ends. So, she had done what she thought she would have done under different circumstances – and she had played the role perfectly.

  Even though no one was looking, she had checked their bedroom, called his phone and eventually discovered the note that she had already read, re-reading it over and over again. In the days that followed she had called his friends and family. She had emailed him even though she knew he would never read her messages. She felt that if there was ever an investigation into his disappearance then she had done everything right – but she lived in fear that she had missed something.

  She had almost given up the pretence so many times. There were many moments when she didn’t know if she would be able to keep it up. When Erin came around the next day she almost confessed to the whole sorry thing. Several times she picked up her phone to call the police and then changed her mind. And then Lily breaking her leg had thrown the whole thing into further disarray. Lily needed her more than ever now, there was no way Kate could hand herself in. In a way, it was a welcome excuse. By the time Lily was better, she had convinced herself it was all for the best after all. Everyone believed that Pete had left her; this C person hadn’t materialised so she was in the clear and could finally get on with her life.

  In the early days she was a mess. She couldn’t eat, she couldn’t sleep but she had to hold it together for the girls. She grieved for him, every day, but for the Pete she used to know, not the Pete who had lied to her, cheated on her and said all those mean things to her. They had become like two strangers, they didn’t love each other anymore, not like they should have done. And, slowly, as time went on, somehow she found a way to cope. With each day that came and went she felt stronger and more capable. The resolve in her grew stronger and stronger. She was doing the right thing, she was protecting her family.

  Every day she waited for the police to turn up on her doorstep but they never came. And as time went on, she began to relax a little more. She began to rebuild her life, telling herself that she had to make it count because she didn’t know how much longer she had left. She had to be the best mum possible to the girls, she was all they had now.

  She started seeing a therapist, navigating the tricky path of working through all her issues without ever discussing the biggest, most horrific issue that she would ever face.

  She let Rachel go, she relaunched her career, all the things that Pete had wanted her to do but until now she hadn’t had the strength to do. And despite everything, she actually started to feel better. She really felt like she was getting her life back on track and she could actually see a future for her and the girls.

  Keeping up the pretence and lying to everyone, especially Erin and the girls, broke her heart but she kept telling herself it was the right thing to do. When Karen came into their lives she knew it was stupid to encourage it but she couldn’t help herself. Despite everything she still wanted the girls to have a piece of Pete in their lives. She didn’t want them to forget their dad. They would grow up thinking that he had abandoned them. When they were older and understood life a little more the realisation of that would hurt even more, perhaps they would even go looking for him. But they would never find him. No one would ever find him.

  Still, her life sometimes felt like a ticking time bomb and she owed it to herself and her children to make the best of what she had, while she had it. The fear stayed with her, every day and worse at nights, but it got easier with each day that went by. She’d done what she had to do, to save her family and that was all there was to it. And, as time went on, she had almost made peace with it, had almost found happiness again despite everything, when that knock on the door finally came.

  And now she had no idea what she was going to do.

  28

  Claire and Kate

  Six months later

  Claire shook the estate agent’s hand. He smiled warmly at her and pocketed the keys that she had just given him.

  ‘Bonne chance, mademoiselle,’ he said, and she smiled back and turned away.

  She had got a decent price for her dad’s house in France. A British couple had fallen in love with it at first sight and had made an offer that same day. They wanted to relocate from London and start a B&B. They were going to live the life that Claire had dreamed of for herself and Pete. But that dream hadn’t come true and she had finally come to accept that it never would. It was time to let go.

  At first she had waited for news from the police, convinced that Pete was out there somewhere and would come back to her. She had stayed in that crappy little hotel in north London for three weeks, waiting for answers, but there was nothing. She kept calling for updates, only to be told the same thing each time. They would be in touch if there were any developments. In a moment of madness, she even considered getting in touch with Kate but she knew that it would be pointless – she doubted that she would agree to talk to her. Eventually, she decided to go back to France and wait there instead. Every day she had willed the police to call and say that they had found Pete, that there w
as an explanation for his disappearance. They had been very kind to her but they had no leads, no clues as to where he might be. He had disappeared off the face of the planet. Eventually they had contacted her to tell her they had not found any suspicious circumstances surrounding his disappearance. He was a grown man who had chosen to disappear. It happened. The case would remain open, they said, and they would be in touch if there were any developments.

  Up until then she had still clung on to the hope that he would simply turn up one day and knock on her door, with some crazy explanation for what had happened. Perhaps it had all got too much for him and he needed some time out to think it all through. In her dreams, he always came back to her, not to Kate.

  Something still niggled at her, something not quite right about the whole story. She couldn’t put her finger on what it was. Was it the wife? Did she know more than she was letting on? The police didn’t seem to think so. Dan definitely didn’t think so. They had spoken on the phone a few times and she had called him to tell him that the investigation had reached a dead-end for now.

  ‘Thanks for letting me know, Claire,’ he’d said. ‘What will you do now?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she’d replied. ‘It still doesn’t feel right, there has to be an explanation. A man can’t just disappear off the face of the planet like this.’

  Dan had sighed heavily. ‘I understand how you feel, Claire, but I think Pete was a troubled guy, way more troubled than any of us really knew, and he had been living with the guilt of this double life for so long. Perhaps he just ran away from it all.’