by John Marrs
ALSO BY JOHN MARRS
Welcome to Wherever You Are
The One
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2014, 2017 John Marrs
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Previously self-published as The Wronged Sons in Great Britain in 2014.
Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781611097511
ISBN-10: 1611097517
Cover design by Mark Swan
CONTENTS
START READING
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE CATHERINE
CHAPTER TWO CATHERINE
CHAPTER THREE SIMON
CHAPTER FOUR SIMON
CHAPTER FIVE CATHERINE
CHAPTER SIX CATHERINE
CHAPTER SEVEN CATHERINE
CHAPTER EIGHT CATHERINE
CHAPTER NINE CATHERINE
CHAPTER TEN SIMON
CHAPTER ELEVEN SIMON
CHAPTER TWELVE CATHERINE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN CATHERINE
CHAPTER FOURTEEN SIMON
CHAPTER FIFTEEN CATHERINE
CHAPTER SIXTEEN CATHERINE
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN SIMON
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN SIMON
CHAPTER NINETEEN SIMON
CHAPTER TWENTY CATHERINE
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE CATHERINE
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
‘There are some things one can only achieve by a deliberate leap in the opposite direction.’
—Franz Kafka
‘Life always waits for some crisis to occur before revealing itself at its most brilliant.’
—Paulo Coelho
PROLOGUE
Northampton, today
8.20 a.m.
The thick tread of the Mercedes’ tyres barely made a sound as it pulled over to the curb.
The passenger sat nervously in the rear, tapping his lips with his forefinger as his gaze met the cottage.
‘That’s twenty-two pounds, mate,’ muttered the driver in a regional dialect he couldn’t place. Most of the accents he’d heard in the past few years were those of commentators on the British sports channels his satellite dish picked up. He fumbled with his deerskin wallet, separating the euros and the sterling that were bunched together.
‘Keep the change,’ he replied as he offered a ten- and a twenty-pound note.
The driver responded, but the passenger wasn’t listening. He opened the door and carefully placed both feet on the pavement, steadying himself with his hand on the frame before settling the door closed and stepping away from the vehicle. He patted out the creases in his bespoke suit while the security blanket of the car disappeared as silently as it had arrived.
Minutes passed by but he remained rooted to the ground. Hypnotised by the white cottage, he allowed waves of long-buried memories to wash over him. This had been their first and only home together. A family home. A home and a family he’d relinquished twenty-five long years ago.
The pink rosebushes he’d planted for her beneath the kitchen window had gone, but for a second he imagined he could still smell their sweet scent in the air. Where once there lay a sandpit he’d dug for the children, now stood a shed adorned with swirls and speckles of jade-and-white ivy slowly changing its form.
Suddenly the front door opened and a young woman appeared, bringing him back to the present with a start. He’d not anticipated another visitor.
‘See you later!’ she shouted, closing the door behind her. She threw the strap of her handbag over her shoulder and smiled as she passed him. It wasn’t her though – this girl could only be in her late twenties. For a moment he wondered if it could’ve been her daughter and he reciprocated with his own polite smile, then watched her until she walked out of view. But the sight of her had given him butterflies.
James had told him that she’d remained living in the same home, but that conversation had been a year earlier, so there was a chance her circumstances had changed. There was only one way to find out. His heart raced as he drew a deep breath that he didn’t release until he reached the end of the gravel path. He raised his head to look up at what had once been their bedroom.
That’s where you killed me, he thought, then closed his eyes and knocked on the door.
CHAPTER ONE
CATHERINE
Northampton, twenty-five years earlier
4 June, 6 a.m.
‘Simon, tell your dog to bugger off,’ I mumbled, and brushed away a moist tongue burrowing its way into my ear.
They both ignored me so I pushed Oscar’s wiry head to one side. Then he plonked his bum defiantly on the floorboards and whined until I gave in. Simon could have slept through World War Three – or worse, our kids jumping all over us like we were trampolines and demanding breakfast. I wasn’t so lucky. My once cherished lie-ins had become a luxury dependent on the needs of three under-nines and a hungry mongrel.
Oscar’s stomach contained a built-in alarm clock that woke him up at six on the dot every morning. Simon could walk him and throw tennis balls for him to fetch, but it was me he wanted to feed his greedy belly. It wasn’t fair.
I rolled towards my husband and realised his half of the bed was already empty.
‘Oh, do it yourself, Catherine,’ I grumbled, and cursed Simon for going on one of his insanely early morning runs. I dragged myself out of bed, threw on my dressing gown, shuffled across the landing and quietly opened bedroom doors to check on the sleeping kids. However, one door always remained closed because I still couldn’t bring myself to open it. One day at a time, I told myself. One day at a time.
I went down to the kitchen and filled Oscar’s bowl with that hideous-smelling tinned meat he’d wolf down in seconds. But when I turned to put it on the floor, I was alone.
‘Oscar?’ I whispered, not wanting the kids to barrel downstairs just yet. ‘Oscar?’
I found him in the porch, pacing in an agitated fashion by the front door. I opened it to let him out for a wee, but he stayed by the doormat, staring out towards the woods down by the lane.
‘Please yourself,’ I sighed. Annoyed he’d woken me up for nothing, I traipsed back to bed to steal another precious hour of sleep for myself.
7.45 a.m.
‘Leave your brother alone and help me feed Emily,’ I warned James, who roared as he chased an excited Robbie around the kitchen table with a plastic Tyrannosaurus Rex. ‘Now!’ I warned. They knew they were treading a fine line when I used that tone.
Moving the kids from bedroom to bathroom to kitchen was like chasing reluctant chickens back into a henhouse – as frustrating as hell. Some of the school mums claimed to love the chaos of family breakfasts together. I just wanted my rabble out of the house and into the classroom for some peace and quiet.
James poured his younger sister a bowl of cornflakes as I cut the crusts off their Marmite sandwiches and packed their lunch boxes. Then I slathered Simon’s in Branston Pickle, sliced the bread horizontally – as requested – and wrapped them in cling film and left them on the fridge shelf.
‘You’ve got fifteen minutes until we go,’ I warned, and stuffed their lunches into the carelessly hung satchels on the coat rack.
I’d long given up leaving
the house with a full face of make-up on just to take the kids to school, but to make sure I didn’t look like a scarecrow, I scraped my hair into a ponytail and stepped back to check myself in the mirror. Oscar yelped as I trod on his paw – I hadn’t noticed that he’d been oblivious to the breakfast bedlam and hadn’t moved from the doormat.
‘Are you feeling poorly, boy?’ I asked, and bent down to scratch under his beardy chin. I’d give him until the afternoon to perk up, and then perhaps I’d call the vet, just to be on the safe side.
9.30 a.m.
With James and Robbie at school and Emily quietly playing on the sofa, I was up to my elbows ironing Simon’s work shirts and singing along to Boyz II Men’s ‘End of the Road’ on the radio when the phone rang.
‘Simon’s not here,’ I told Steven when he asked to speak to him. ‘Isn’t he with you?’ I’d presumed he’d taken his work clothes with him in a backpack and gone straight to the office after his run like he often did.
‘No, he’s bloody not,’ Steven snapped. He could be a real grumpy sod when he wanted to be. ‘I’ve been trying to convince the client I’ve been stalling for half an hour that even though we’re a small company, we’re just as professional as the majors. How can he take me seriously when half of us can’t even turn up for a hotel breakfast meeting on time?’
‘He’s probably lost track of the time. You know what he’s like sometimes.’
‘When you see him, tell him to get his arse down to the Hilton quickly before he screws this up.’
‘I will, but if you see him first, could you ask him to call me, please?’
Steven muttered something unintelligible and hung up without saying goodbye. I was glad I wouldn’t be in Simon’s shoes when he did turn up.
11.30 a.m.
Seventeen ironed work and school shirts and two cups of coffee passed by before I realised Simon hadn’t called me back.
I wondered if Steven and I were mistaken, and that he hadn’t been for a run but actually had a meeting of his own to go to. But when I popped my head around the garage door, his Volvo was still parked there. Back in the living room, his house keys sat on the record player lid; above them, a montage of photos from our tenth-wedding-anniversary party hung from the wall.
As another hour went by, a niggling doubt began to irritate me. For the first time in almost twenty years, I couldn’t feel Simon’s presence around me. No matter where he was or how far we were apart, I always felt his presence.
I shook my head to make the doubts disappear and scolded myself for being daft. Too much coffee, Kitty, I told myself, and vowed decaf was the way forward. I put the coffee jar back in the cupboard and sighed at the mountain of washing-up waiting for me.
1.00 p.m.
Three and a half hours after Steven’s phone call and I felt jittery.
I’d called the office, and when Steven admitted he still hadn’t heard anything, I began to panic. Before long, I’d convinced myself Simon had been out for a run and had been hit by a car. That he’d been carelessly tossed to the side of a road by a hunk of metal and a driver without a conscience.
I strapped Emily into the stroller she was too old and too big for, as it was quicker than walking with her, attached the lead to Oscar’s collar and dashed off to find my husband. I asked in the newsagent’s if Simon had popped in earlier, but he hadn’t. Neither had our neighbours, nor Mrs Jenkins from behind her twitching net curtains.
As we walked the route Simon normally ran, I made a game of it, explaining to Emily we were hunting for snaggle-waggles – the mythical bedtime creatures he’d created to ease them to sleep. I told her they loved to hide in wet muddy ditches, so we’d have to look carefully in each one.
We covered a mile and a half and found nothing before we began walking towards Simon’s office. Steven was no longer angry with Simon, which bothered me further. It meant he was worried about him. He tried to reassure me Simon was probably okay, and suggested that maybe he was on a site visit. But when we checked his diary, his day was clear of all appointments.
‘He’ll come home tonight pissed as a fart after being at the pub all afternoon, and we’ll all be laughing about this later,’ added Steven. But with no definitive proof as to where he was, neither of us was really convinced.
On our way home, Emily and I took the dirt track past Harpole Woods, where Simon sometimes ran. I hid from Emily how worried I was, but when she dropped Flopsy, a now-threadbare toy bunny he’d bought her, onto the path, I’m ashamed to admit I lost my temper and shouted at her for being careless. Her face scrunched up and she bawled, refusing to accept my apology until I carried her home.
Even Oscar had grown sick of being walked, and dragged his heels behind us. I must have been a strange sight: a perspiring mother with a screaming child in one arm, dragging a knackered dog and a stroller behind me, all the time searching for snaggle-waggles and my husband’s dead body.
5.50 p.m.
Six o’clock, I told myself. All will be okay at six o’clock because that’s when he always comes home.
It was Simon’s favourite time of the day, when he could help bathe the kids, put them to bed and read them stories about Mr Tickle and Mr Bump. They were too young to sense the distance and sadness that remained between Simon and me. I’d come to terms with the fact things might never get back to how they’d been, no matter what we did or said. Instead, we were adjusting to a new kind of normal in the best way we could.
I’d picked up James and Robbie from school earlier. As I threw some breaded fish under the grill and set the table for dinner, James tried to explain something about his friend Nicky and a Lego car, but I wasn’t listening. I was too on edge. Every couple of minutes, my eyes made their way towards the clock on the wall. When six o’clock came and went, I could have cried. I left my food untouched and stared out of the window, into the garden.
In those gorgeous summer months, we often finished the day on the patio, poured ourselves a couple of glasses of red wine and tried to enjoy the life we’d made for ourselves. We’d talk about the funny things the children had said, how his architectural business was coming on, and how one day we’d have enough money to buy an Italian villa and live half our year here and half over there. In fact, we’d talk about anything except for what had happened that day over a year ago which had left our relationship so exposed.
I hurried the children through their bedtime routines and explained that Daddy was sorry he couldn’t be there but he’d gone away for work and wouldn’t be home till late.
‘Without his wallet?’ asked James as I tucked him in.
I paused.
‘Daddy’s wallet is on the sideboard. I saw it,’ he continued.
I tried to think of a reason why he wouldn’t need it. There wasn’t one. ‘Yes, silly Daddy forgot it.’
‘Silly Daddy,’ he tutted, before wrapping himself in his sheets.
I dashed downstairs to check if he was right and realised I must have passed it countless times throughout the day. It was always the one thing Simon took before leaving the house, even when going out for a jog.
And it was in that moment I knew for sure something was wrong. Really, really wrong.
I called his friends to see if he’d gone to one of their houses. I was sure the click of each receiver was followed by me being the subject of their pity once more, even if it always came from a place of kindness. I flicked through the phone book for the numbers of local hospitals. I called all twelve of them, asking if he’d been taken in. It pained me to think he could have been lying in a hospital bed all day without anyone even knowing who he was.
I anxiously tapped my pen on my thigh as receptionists trawled though admittance forms in search of his name, but there was nothing. I left them with his description, just in case he turned up later, unable to speak for himself.
My last resort was to phone his dad and his stepmum, Shirley. When she confirmed he wasn’t there either, I made up another excuse and told her I must have mixed my
days up, as I thought he was popping over. Of course, she didn’t believe me. Simon wasn’t the ‘popping over’ type, at least where they were concerned.
I was so desperate I even contemplated trying to contact . . . him. But it had been three years since his name was last mentioned in our house, and I wasn’t even sure how to find him, anyway.
My fears were interrupted by the phone’s ring. I banged my elbow on the sideboard and swore as I raced to pick up the receiver, and then let out a disappointed sigh when Steven’s wife, Baishali, spoke.
‘Is there anything I can do? Do you want me to come round?’ she asked.
I said no, and she told me she’d call in later. But it was my husband I wanted to hear from, not my friend. All I could think about was that Simon had been gone for the whole day and nobody knew where he was. I was angry with myself for not being alarmed when Steven had first called in the morning.
What kind of wife was I? I hoped Simon would forgive me when we found him.
9.00 p.m.
By the time Roger and Paula arrived soon after my call, the day had suddenly caught up with me. My body and brain were frazzled.
The first thing they saw when the front door opened was me bursting into tears. Paula hugged me and walked me back into the living room, where I’d spent most of the evening waiting by the phone. Roger had known Simon since infant school but had switched hats from family friend to his job as a detective sergeant in the police force. Even so, it was Paula, who’d always been the bossy type, who led the way as we tried to piece together how he might have spent his final moments in the house.
‘Right, let’s start at the beginning and work out where that bloody idiot’s been all day,’ she ordered. ‘When I see him again I’m going to give him hell for what he’s putting you through.’
We exhausted every possible scenario as to where he could have gone and who with. But when it came down to it, none of us had the first clue. Reluctantly, we resigned ourselves to the fact he’d vanished.
Thinking that on my own was hard; hearing his friend echo my thoughts was harder. And making it official made it all the worse. Police protocol meant we had to wait twenty-four hours before we could report Simon missing, but Roger was willing to bend the rules and called his station to explain.