His Other Life

by Beth Thomas

  She shakes her head. ‘Nothing, nothing like that. I’m only guessing here. Matt will be able to—’

  ‘Guessing about what?’

  She takes a deep breath.

  ‘What Ginge? What is it?’

  ‘Thepoliceprobablythinkyoudidit!’

  There’s a brief but grotesquely tense silence as her words and all their ramifications make their way into my brain.

  Ginger is shaking her head, plucking at my arm. ‘No, no, that sounds awful. I don’t mean … What I mean is, it will be one of their lines of enquiry. That’s all.’

  The police probably think I did it. That’s what she said. They think I did it. But Adam has disappeared, so what do they think I … did …? If anyone did something, the thing they think someone, anyone, did, must be … I feel all the blood drain from my face and head, and sway a bit where I’m standing. They think Adam is dead.

  ‘Oh God, Gracie, I’m so sorry …’

  I shake my head and frown at her. ‘No no. That’s not … He isn’t …’ I look up frankly into her face. ‘You think they think he’s been … done in? And that I was the one who … did … him?’

  She shakes her head again. ‘No, no, I don’t think they think that. It’s just one of the possibilities they have to consider, when someone—’

  ‘Is that what you think?’

  ‘Oh my effing God, no way!’ She flies at me and seizes me in a tight hug. ‘You think I’d be here right now, calmly eating caramelised onion sausages if I thought you were a violent, psychopathic killer capable of ending your own husband and coolly vanishing the body?’

  ‘No, no, I suppose not.’

  ‘Damn straight.’

  I think for a few seconds. ‘So you don’t think I killed him.’

  ‘I do not.’

  ‘But you do think he’s dead?’

  She looks at me sidelong and gives a wry smile. ‘Of course he’s not effing dead. Although he sodding well deserves to be, after this. Little shit.’

  I close my eyes and release a breath. ‘It’s such a massive relief to hear you say that. I mean, I’ve been feeling so sure he’s alive, but if the police think he’s dead, and then if you did …’

  ‘Don’t worry. Matt’s told me it’s fairly standard for the police to think along those lines when someone is inexplicably no longer around. They have to think worst case scenario, don’t they?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Yeah. But that doesn’t mean that they necessarily really actually think it.’

  A sudden loud bang on the front door makes us jump and we both turn to stare wide-eyed in the direction of the hallway. Goosebumps rise on my arms and shoulders.

  ‘Who. The fuck. Is that?’ I breathe, reaching out blindly to grab Ginger’s arm. I can almost believe it’s murdered Adam, head caved in and dripping with gore, returned from the grave to seek revenge on the one who ended him.

  ‘It’s Matt,’ she says, and gets up to let him in.

  I eat the last piece of sausage then put my knife and fork down on the plate, and the plate on the floor. It’ll be nice to see Matt again. Haven’t seen him for years and I was always fond of the kid, in a big sister kind of way.

  ‘Here he is,’ Ginge is saying, coming back in. And filling the doorway behind her, even without his hat on, is a giant policeman. I stand up, because my neck is aching looking up at him. It doesn’t make much difference.

  ‘Is this … Matt?’ I ask the room, sounding painfully like an ancient auntie who hasn’t seen him since he was four. He’s recognisable, with the same black hair, brown eyes and large chin, but now there’s stubble where before there was only razor burn. His piercings are gone, as is the eyeliner, and his neck and shoulders look vast. It’s as if he’s been in a grow bag since I last saw him, and reconciling the two images is almost impossible.

  ‘That’s me,’ he says in a very deep, proper man’s voice. ‘Hi Grace. Long time no see. How are you these days?’ He closes his eyes briefly. ‘I – I mean, obviously I know that you’re not … That is, you know, of course, you must be absolutely …’ He stops. Takes a deep breath. Tries again. ‘I’m so sorry about … you know, what’s happened.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Sit down, Matt,’ Ginger says suddenly. ‘Grace and I’ll make a cuppa.’

  She grabs my arm and practically drags me out of the room into the kitchen.

  ‘I can’t believe that’s the same gawky lad I used to know,’ I’m saying as she bustles around getting cups out and filling the kettle. ‘He’s a lot taller in black, isn’t he?’

  ‘Look, I want to say something,’ she says really quickly, rooting through the cupboard to find some tea bags. ‘It’s about Matt.’

  ‘Right?’

  ‘I don’t want him to …’ She breaks off, looks round, then steps lightly over to the kitchen door. She peers out into the hallway then silently closes it and turns round again to face me. ‘Matt’s already told me that the first thing the police will do is try to work out whether or not Adam is dead, and that they’ll be looking principally at you.’

  ‘Oh, yeah. I’d almost forgotten about being a murder suspect. Thanks for reminding me.’

  ‘The thing is, he probably shouldn’t even be here, let alone tell you anything.’

  ‘Oh. Really? Why not?’

  She widens her eyes. ‘Coz you’re a suspect. Matt’s not directly involved in the investigation, it’s not his section. But even if he was, he couldn’t be because he knows you personally. And of course he’s my brother and I’m the best friend. It’s a link that could be used by a good solicitor to muddy the waters in the event of a prosecution.’

  ‘Oh right. I see what you mean.’ I pause. ‘No I don’t. Are you talking about if they prosecute me?’

  ‘Well, yes, but it won’t happen because …’

  ‘Of course it won’t happen because he’s not dead and even if he was – AND I HOPE HE FUCKING WELL IS – I didn’t kill him.’

  ‘I know …’

  ‘So this scenario you’re talking about, where my link with the police, through you and Matt, is used by a solicitor to … what was it again?’

  ‘Muddy the waters.’

  ‘Right. What you’re actually talking about is my solicitor. Getting me off.’

  She shrugs. ‘Yeah. But we all know that’ll never happen because you didn’t do anything.’

  I stare at her and the absolute horror of what she’s saying starts to sink in. The police could somehow, in some monstrous, inconceivable twist of misunderstanding, misdirection and mistake, decide that Adam is dead; and by disastrous coincidence after shocking inaccuracy, could find me responsible for it. And then, in an almost unimaginably horrific runaway trial involving spurious witnesses and mistaken identity, I could actually get sent down for it.

  ‘Grab the digestives,’ Ginger says, heading back towards the living room.

  As we walk back in, Matt stands up and his bulk practically fills the room.

  ‘You don’t have to stand up whenever we come in, Matthew,’ Ginger says, handing him a mug.

  ‘No, hah, I know. Sorry.’ He sits.

  ‘So,’ she says. ‘Tell Gracie what’s going on.’ We both sit down facing Matt, as if he’s the entertainment.

  He nods at Ginger, then looks over at me and lowers his chin. ‘There really isn’t much to tell you,’ he says, his voice reverberating around the room. It’s the deepest voice this room has ever experienced. Adam’s voice was much lighter. Not feminine, but much less … manly. He was more refined; but there was less of him.

  Why am I thinking of him in the past tense?

  ‘Right,’ I say, to encourage Matt. So far, it seems like a waste of time him being here.

  ‘But I can find stuff out for you, pop in on my way home if there’s anything.’

  ‘Great. Thanks.’

  ‘Is that it?’ Ginger demands. ‘I thought you said you’d heard something interesting this evening.’

  ‘Oh yes, I
did. Sorry, I was forgetting you hadn’t heard it yet.’ He turns to me again and assumes a funeral face. ‘They found the car, Gracie.’

  The shock of this hits me almost physically and tea slops over the side of my mug onto the floor. For a second my throat seizes, but my brain can’t formulate a coherent word anyway.

  ‘Where?’ I finally manage.

  ‘Church car park in a little place called Linton. About three hundred miles from here.’

  ‘Linton? Where the hell is that? I’ve never even heard of it.’ I look at Ginger helplessly but she just shrugs. I turn back to Matt. ‘What does this mean?’

  Matt shuffles forward on his chair a little, bringing himself an inch nearer to me. ‘Look, it’s OK, it doesn’t necessarily mean anything. All it tells us for sure is that the car is there.’

  I raise my eyebrows. ‘Oh, right. OK.’

  ‘Matt,’ Ginger hisses at him.

  He glances at her and she rolls her eyes towards me, so he looks back. ‘What I mean by that,’ he says hastily, ‘is that that is all it tells us definitively. I mean, yes, it could mean that he drove it there himself and abandoned it. Or he was taken there. Or he was meeting someone there and never got back to the car. Or is still intending to return to it, but something is preventing him.’

  ‘All right,’ Ginger interrupts, putting her hand up.

  ‘Or,’ Matt goes on, regardless, ‘it could also mean that someone stole it, and has abandoned it there. I mean, it’s unlikely that someone else drove it there, with him in it. That’s quite a risky thing to do, if you’re abducting someone …’

  ‘Because of the DNA,’ I whisper reverentially.

  ‘It’s more to do with the CCTV cameras actually. They’re everywhere these days. And speed cameras. You can be caught dozens of times every day, more if you’re going a long distance. Now they know roughly what route it was on, the face of whoever drove that car to that car park will soon be coming out of a full colour printer in the station. And if it’s not your husband, things will … change.’

  ‘What if he wasn’t abducted? I mean, someone else was driving, but Adam went along willingly?’

  Matt nods. ‘Of course that’s another possibility. They’ll be considering it. They’ll know much more when they get the photo of the driver.’

  ‘What was in it?’ Ginger says quietly. ‘I mean, in the car. Was his wallet in it? The passport? Money, jacket. You know.’

  Matt turns to her and shakes his head. ‘Nothing, that I know of. I don’t know everything of course. This is just what I’ve managed to pick up, chatting to people in the station. But no one has mentioned anything being left in it.’

  ‘What about a curry?’ I ask faintly. ‘Was there any take-away curry in the car?’

  Matt frowns and smiles at the same time. ‘No, no, I don’t think so. Why?’

  I shake my head, then drop it into my hands. For some reason, that’s the most upsetting thing about the car being found. If there had been cold take-away boxes in there, I’d know that he had been planning to come home again, but events had somehow prevented that. But the absence of even a whiff of steam or a splash of korma sauce on the upholstery means only one thing. He left the house that night knowing he wasn’t coming back.

  FOUR

  ‘I get it,’ Ginger says, reaching across and rubbing my arm. ‘I totally get it.’

  Matt’s mystified. ‘Well I don’t. What’s the curry got to do with anything?’

  ‘I’ll tell you later,’ she says quietly and I can feel some movement above me, as if she’s shaking her head emphatically, or making cutting motions across her throat to shut him up.

  ‘Oh,’ he says, ‘right. OK. Listen, Gracie, I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you this, but in these sorts of cases they almost always come back.’

  I raise my head to find him staring at me earnestly. ‘Really?’

  He nods, slowly and sadly. ‘Oh, yes, definitely. He’s driven himself off, he took his passport and wallet, that was forethought. It’s incredibly unlikely that he’s been taken under duress.’ He smiles encouragingly, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. ‘I’m sure he’s fine.’

  I move my head slowly from him to Ginger, lock eyes with her briefly, then turn and look back at Matt. ‘I arsing well hope not.’

  Matt stifles the flicker of a smile when he hears this. ‘Oh … kay. Well, I suppose that’s an understandable reaction.’ He looks over at Ginge. ‘OK to use the loo?’

  When he comes back in a few minutes later, he doesn’t sit down again but says goodbye from the doorway. ‘Work in the morning,’ he says. ‘Really great to see you again, Gracie. I’m sure everything will turn out fine.’ Ginge gets up to show him out, even though it’s a very simple journey straight through the hallway to the door, and he’s a policeman so really ought to be able to find his own way. There’s some loud whispering from that direction for about half a minute, but I can’t make out any of the words.

  I stay in a state of – I don’t want to say shock; let’s say, severe disappointment – for the rest of the evening. Everything that I thought I knew about my marriage, everything I’d felt, was turning out to be absolutely true. My feelings of unease and lack of faith, feelings that I had tried to squash, telling myself I was being ridiculous because of my own insecurity, were spot on, it turned out. The mystery surrounding my husband, the lack of information, the apparent absence of friends or colleagues, was not just me being paranoid and could not simply be discounted. Who knew?

  Ginger dumps our cold tea in the sink and opens a bottle of wine I didn’t know I had.

  ‘Get some of that down you,’ she says, handing me a large glass.

  ‘Are you sure it’s the best idea in the world at this point to give alcohol to someone whose beautiful husband has buggered off to who knows where?’

  She barely pauses. ‘It’s Merlot, not meths,’ she says, ‘chillax.’ Then she tips her head back and pours in the wine.

  We go back into the living room and Ginger curls up round her wine glass. She looks at me frankly. ‘You do know why Matt’s secretly pleased that your husband’s gone, and secretly miserable that he’s probably completely fine, don’t you?’

  I frown, trying to make sense of this. ‘Not sure I do, actually.’

  She shrugs. ‘Well, if you don’t know by now, I’m not telling you.’ She takes another large slug of wine. ‘I think you need to see Adam’s parents.’

  I’m still wondering about what she said about Matt, but the notion of seeing Ray and Julia sweeps it away completely. ‘Yes, I know. And mine. Don’t really want to phone them about this, better in person. I’ll do it tomorrow. Is Penny in tomorrow?’

  She shakes her head. ‘Nope. Still in Italy.’

  ‘Great. Do you mind if I don’t come in? I can’t believe I’ve left it this long.’

  ‘Course not, no problem at all. Take as long as you want, I can manage on my own in the shop.’

  I think it was the wine talking.

  Ninety minutes later, she’s in the recovery position in my spare bed, and there’s a strategic bucket on the floor directly beneath her face.

  ‘I’m sorry, Gracie,’ she says quietly with her eyes closed. ‘I’m really really sorry …’

  ‘S’OK.’ More to myself, really. She’s already unconscious.

  Finally I’m on my own. Back downstairs I open up my laptop and Google Linton to see if I can work out why Adam went there. Why he would blithely disinter himself and heartlessly abandon the life we built together to go off on his own for some foul, selfish and probably illegal reason, the lying, deceitful little—

  Oh, it’s lovely! A completely beautiful, picturesque little village in North Yorkshire, not far from Skipton, apparently. There’s a stream with stepping stones, cottages everywhere, pretty little bridges and even a waterfall. I lean closer to the screen and narrow my eyes at the photos. This quaint, rural scene, full of sheep and fields and really wholesome bread, is hiding something evil. Lurking som
ewhere underneath, just around the corner, out of sight, are ugliness; treachery; pain. And possibly violence. I click on the map and print off directions; then shut down and go to bed.

  My dreams are full of breaking glass and squealing tyres but when I wake up I can’t remember anything specific. The clock says it’s 06:34 so I definitely need at least another week of sleep, but apparently my body has decided it doesn’t want to go through any more dreams like that so it actively refuses to go back under. After half an hour of trying, I pull the covers back, swivel myself round and stand up. I feel achy and unrested, as if I’ve spent the whole night tensed up and anxious somewhere. It reminds me of that old fairy tale about the princess whose shoes are always worn out when she wakes up in the morning because she’s been secretly dancing all night without waking up. Except I feel more like I’ve spent the night waiting for surgery than at a party.

  I trudge downstairs in my dressing gown and put the kettle on. I’m not looking forward to today at all. First thing I’ve got to do is ring both sets of parents and make sure it’s OK to visit today. Then I’ve got to visit them. It’s day five, and the ramifications of Adam’s disappearance just keep on growing.

  Adam’s mum and step-dad are only a fifteen-minute drive away, but we hardly ever see them. I think they were last here for dinner about two months ago, and before that it must be a year. Adam is obviously not close with them, and that suited me just fine. His mum, Julia, is a bit odd, somehow. Like she’s not really there. Or you’re not. I was never quite sure which one of us she was oblivious to – it varied. Sometimes she would hardly acknowledge my presence and pay more attention to the blank wall behind me; sometimes she would be over-the-top gushing with affection and enthusiasm. ‘Lovely Gracie, fabulous Gracie.’ Made it very uncomfortable for me, on every occasion; I couldn’t work out whether to try to interact with her or not.

  ‘Is your mum OK?’ I stupidly asked Adam after the first time I met them. That time she had been almost entirely silent and extremely distractible. Adam’s step-dad, Ray, had cooked a lovely roast lamb and was serving it at the table while Julia threw three glasses of wine into herself. She was leaning for the bottle to refill again when her hand suddenly froze, mid-reach. I glanced at Ray and Adam, to see if they’d noticed, and they were both locked in position – Ray carving the joint, Adam pouring drinks – but had turned their heads to stare at her. Ray had even said, ‘Julia,’ quietly, almost like a warning. Eventually she dropped her hand, and the two men relaxed again and continued with what they were both doing.