Diane flashes her ferociously white teeth. They’re dazzling under the bright lights. ‘When did you find out who she was?’
‘We went walking on the following Sunday – it was Charley’s idea. We were on this towpath next to the canal and she said she had something to tell me, that I’d find out soon enough. I didn’t know what to think, but she said she was very googlable. She said I’d probably heard of her parents, and as soon as she mentioned their names, I remembered. She didn’t have to say any more after that. We laughed about whether googlable was a real word.’
Diane nods, adjusts her glasses slightly. ‘Was it intimidating?’
‘What?’
‘The weight of Charley’s history. The family dynasty. I can see how that might weigh on a person.’
I take a second, not sure how to phrase it. ‘I figured there was nothing either of us could do about it, even if we wanted to. Your past is your past. We liked spending time together, so that was all that mattered.’
Pamela told me to sit as still as possible. Hand movements are fine but full-on fidgeting makes a person look shifty. The more I think about not moving, the more it feels like I need to. My body is doing its best to betray me by creating itches that I’m trying hard to ignore.
‘I understand you met around two years ago,’ Diane says. ‘Some might say it is a little quick to meet, move in and marry within that period. What would you say to that?’
Before I sat down, Pamela told me not to shrug. ‘Use your hands,’ she said, so I do, offering both hands palms up.
‘Everything felt right. She asked me.’
Diane leans in, mock surprised. She already knows this. ‘Charley asked you?’
‘About a year ago. It wasn’t all one knee and tears, that’s not what we’re like. We were talking about her moving in and she said perhaps we should get married, too. Simple as that.’
It’s time to get serious now, which is indicated by Diane taking off her glasses. I’m not sure if she needs them at all. Perhaps the lenses are plain glass and the whole thing is for show? She doesn’t fold back in the arms, dangling them off to the side instead as she leans in to look me directly in the eyes. Regardless of any advice Pamela gave, it’s impossible not to wilt under Diane’s gaze.
‘Moving on to Charley’s family,’ she says, ‘has she ever spoke to you about that horrible day when she was thirteen?’
‘I’ve never asked and she’s never said.’
‘Are you not curious?’
‘Not really. I’m in love with the person she is today. Whatever happened then is gone. If she wanted to talk about it, she would.’
A nod. ‘I’m sorry to ask this, but with all the talk after what happened to Martha Willis and now your wife’s disappearance, do you believe in the so-called Willis Curse?’
I almost ask her to repeat herself. Of all the questions we ran through in the kitchen, this wasn’t on the list. I blink at her, turn slightly to glance towards Pamela, who is sitting close to the camera. Or she was. She isn’t there now. I’m searching for the words.
‘I don’t believe in curses,’ I reply, although I stumble slightly over the words.
Diane reaches for and touches me on the wrist. ‘That’s probably a poor choice of words. I don’t think we’re talking about a curse in a horror movie sense. Do you believe that bad luck can perhaps follow a family? That misfortune can run through generations?’
She removes her hand and sits back, locking me into her stare.
‘I think that, for the most part, we’re the sum of our own decisions.’
‘Does that mean that, for whatever reason, your wife might have made a decision to leave?’
I blink again. We’ve completely veered from the script.
‘I can’t believe that,’ I manage.
‘So you think she’s been taken through force…?’
I open my mouth, stumped momentarily until the words come: ‘I don’t know what to think. I just want her to come home.’
Twenty-Six
It’s twenty to six in the morning.
Technically, that means I’ve had a lie-in, although I have no idea what time I actually got to sleep. I’m on the sofa and the television is flashing away as the news channel regurgitates the same stories on a loop.
The bonus questions of Diane’s interview were apparently agreed with Pamela because they wanted an authentic reaction. The pair of them were delighted with everything and the interview aired last night. I watched myself over and over, all the while listening to my phone ping with messages of support. Until I watched myself, I had no idea my voice was like that. It doesn’t sound that deep to me, but as soon as the TV me opened his mouth, it was like the bass had been turned up. That would be fine if I had anything like the frame to pull it off, instead I sound like I’ve had some sort of body transplant.
None of the texts were from Charley but the missed call count is up to a whopping (193). It’s Wednesday morning, so that’s approximately eighty-three hours since she disappeared. That is two-point-three-two-five calls every hour or, to put it another way, one call every twenty-five minutes and forty-eight seconds.
I’ve had a lot of time on my hands.
I find myself trying to decide whether one call every twenty-five minutes and forty-eight seconds is still a bit stalkery. Then I get lost in trying to calculate how much the average would be brought down if I called right now. Or, if I were to wait for, say, an hour and then call, how much would that drag the average out?
I think I’m going slightly mad.
I got three texts from my sister.
8:04 p.m.: Did u steal that suit?
* * *
8:51 p.m.: Have u eaten today?
* * *
11:32 p.m.: Seriously have u eaten today? Don’t make me come over!!!
I text her back, managing to get two lies into one short message as I tell her I was asleep when her final message arrived and that I did eat.
If toast counts, then the second part of the message isn’t technically untrue.
My phone pings right away with her reply.
5:52 a.m.: You lie.
I’ve not touched the food that Emily cooked. I had some toast last night while TV me was busy scaring young children with the deepness of his voice. I put a couple of slices into the toaster and sit watching them. I’ve never noticed it before but the toaster makes a really low clicking sound. Like a pair of crickets chatting to each other.
I really am going mad.
When the toast pops, I take a photo and send it to Emily with a caption that reads: ‘No need to come over – I don’t need anything turning off and on again’.
She fires straight back: ‘Dickhead.’
As much as she’s been rock-like since Saturday, I really don’t want to see her today. I’m not sure I want to see anyone except Charley. I’m hoping that after the interview last night and the subsequent clips on the news shows that somebody’s memory will be jogged. Either that or Charley herself has seen it and will get in contact.
My mind is full of conflicting thoughts. I told Diane I couldn’t believe she chose to leave – and that’s the truth. But there’s a part of me that hopes she did because the alternative would be so much worse. If she left through choice, that’s something we could be able to work out. Perhaps it was some sort of emotional flashback and she needed time by herself? Maybe she was caught up in the sentiment of the day and it all became too much for her? She might have run off along the hotel’s service lane and found a car and… I don’t know. But anything like that is better than thinking somebody snatched her.
It’s precisely six o’clock when my phone starts to ring. Pamela the publicist.
‘How are you this morning?’ she asks.
I mumble something about getting a good night’s sleep but can tell she isn’t listening to the answer. She has other things to discuss.
‘Have you seen the story in the Mirror this morning?’ she asks.
‘What stor
y?’
‘I tried to stop it, but they’d already done some deal and didn’t want to lose the money. Rest assured I’ll be taking it up with the powers that be.’
‘What story?’ I repeat.
There’s a slight pause. ‘You’re probably better looking it up yourself.’
They say you should never search for your own name on the internet, but when I hang up, I commit the cardinal sin. A lot of the stories have me as an aside. They’re about Charley and the fact she’s missing. Either that or another rehash of the endless Willis Curse stories, where I’m a throwaway name. All of that is fine.
It’s almost worrying how close Emily was to the truth. The plus point is that no one’s calling me a dog rapist. What they are calling me is a dog killer.
‘Is Willis hubby a dog killer?’ to be precise.
Even the headline manages to be inaccurate, considering I’m not a Willis. I suppose, strictly speaking, I am a dog killer – but the same could be said of any vet. If a pet is put to sleep for humane reasons, that’s technically one animal killed by a human. It’s a normal part of the job, though. To put a creature out of its pain and suffering is surely the kind thing to do?
They’ve found some bloke whose bulldog died after having a seizure at the clinic a little over a year ago. It wasn’t long after I’d started working there. One of those truly unavoidable things. The dog was epileptic and had a history of seizures. The owner had brought him in for precisely that reason. When the animal had another fit, this time while on the operating table, it suffered a brain haemorrhage. Truly awful. It’s shocking, but, at its core, one of those things that couldn’t be avoided.
According to the owner, that makes me a dog killer.
There’s more too. Another paper has been speaking to the farmer who found Charley’s wedding dress in his field. The police hadn’t released the information – and I’d not spoken about it on-air to Diane for precisely that reason. Now it’s out there anyway.
The farmer says he knows Charley because her shop buys dairy products from him. ‘She always seemed so friendly,’ he says. His name is Jan Astley and he runs Astley Farm. I don’t know him, but his signs are all along one of the country roads leading towards the motorway. There’s a small farm shop tagged onto the side of a house that sells cheese, butter and meats. Charley and I have visited a couple of times before. From those two instances he manages to say: ‘…they always seemed like such a happy couple’.
It’s extraordinary. He’s said something which, in essence, is friendly and flattering and yet I still read the sentence over and over, slowly becoming angrier. It’s probably the word ‘always’ that does it. Always. He saw us twice when we bought things from his shop and yet that means we ‘always seemed like such a happy couple’.
The longer this goes on, the more I can understand why Charley has done everything she could to keep away from such attention. Who would want this life?
I spend much of the rest of the morning reading everything that’s been written about Charley in the past few days. It ranges from the relatively tame – straight stories with phone numbers for information – to the delusional. There are conspiracy blogs that say her parents were part of the illuminati. Charley is apparently a lizard and her ‘so-called’ disappearance is simply a case of her reverting to her true form and then having to hide. If the articles aren’t bad enough, there are the comments underneath, with at least one person ‘confirming’ the theory. ‘TruthTeller1214’ says they once saw her reverting to her lizard form in the disabled toilets of a Waitrose.
All the while, the text messages buzz through: Raj, Emily and Alice asking if I’m okay. I don’t reply. Not yet, anyway.
It is a little before midday when the doorbell goes. I get up from the floor and look through the window. Pamela was right about one thing – the journalists have disappeared since Diane got her story – and the only car parked on the road outside my house is a battered people carrier. Its owner is at the door: Mason.
I’ve not seen him since the wedding and can’t remember a time when we’ve ever been alone. He’s Charley’s brother-in-law, so we only meet if he’s brought Dillon and Daisy over, or if we’re visiting them. Mason and I are really good at the whole nodding-at-each-other thing. We’ll mumble the odd ‘all right’; ‘how are you?’, that sort of thing, but that’s it. We’re world-class at the nodding, though.
It’s probably indicative to how many actual friends I have around here that I was considering asking him to be my best man.
When I open the door, he smiles weakly. ‘I thought I’d see how you were doing,’ he says.
‘Oh, right…’
It’s a little awkward, but I invite him in and then, because we’re British, I offer him tea. He’s milk, no sugar.
The kettle is busy bubbling away as we sit tongue-tied in the kitchen.
‘Where are the kids?’ I ask.
‘At Mum’s. They’ve been helping out during the holidays.’
‘Right…’
‘I saw you on TV,’ he says.
‘It wasn’t really my choice to do it.’
‘Hopefully she’ll see it and come home…’
We sit silently for a minute or so and though it could be awkward, it genuinely does feel like a moment of support. It’s odd how two men sitting in close proximity not talking can actually be a heartening glimmer of help.
‘I met Liam a couple of days ago,’ I say.
‘Charley’s brother?’ Mason seems genuinely surprised.
‘Right. He called and asked for a chat. I thought he might know something about where Charley had gone, but he put me in touch with a woman who set up the TV interview.’
The kettle clicks off, but neither of us move.
‘Martha never had any time for him,’ Mason says. He stops and twitches slightly. ‘Did he ask you for money?’
‘No… Should he…?’
‘Martha used to say he was always going on about money. He’d pop up in magazines and on TV shows every now and then with snippets about their parents. Martha and Charley didn’t want anything to do with it.’
‘I never knew. Charley never really talked about him.’
Mason nods. ‘He didn’t come to Martha’s funeral, but he came to the house a few days later. He was all friendly and apologetic, saying he was too upset to be at the funeral. Then he ended up asking for money.’
I’m not sure how to reply at first, so get up and fill a pair of mugs with hot water instead. ‘Why did he think you’d give him money?’ I ask.
‘Liam, Martha and Charley got around a million each after their parents died. They were supposed to divide the house between them, too – but that got caught up in a dispute over the ownership. Did you know that?’
I dribble in the milk and pass Mason his tea. ‘Yes. Charley gave away most of her money. She kept enough to set up her shop and that was it.’
‘Martha bought our house outright with hers and put the rest into these high-interest bonds that will mature when Dillon and Daisy each turn eighteen. I couldn’t access that money even if I wanted to. She wanted to make sure it’s a legacy – but Liam didn’t know that. After she died, he wondered if she’d left any for him in her will. She hadn’t, of course – they barely even spoke. She left it all to Dillon and Daisy.’
I sit back on the stool with my own mug. ‘Why did he think Martha would leave him money?’
‘I have no idea. I’ve not seen him since then. I’m surprised he didn’t ask you.’
‘He sounded like he wanted to help. Said we should go for a pint in the future.’
Mason holds a hand up. ‘All I know is that Martha wanted nothing to do with him.’
‘Charley as well…’
We both take a moment. We’ve said more to each other here than in the previous two years we’ve known one another.
‘Did Martha ever say why they fell out?’ I ask.
Mason shakes his head. ‘Did Charley?’
‘No.’
He sucks on his lips, glancing towards the window and then back. ‘I suppose I always got the sense that with whatever happened to their parents…’ He tails off, unsure how to phrase it and then looks directly at me. ‘I always thought Martha was hiding something.’
He delivers the line like a sledgehammer and I can sense what’s behind it. He’s thought this for years but never said it out loud. He didn’t bring it up with Martha and it’s not the kind of thing he’d talk about to Charley. All this time, all those years, it’s lingered at the back of his mind. Now, finally, he’s actually said it.
I don’t know how to reply.
‘I know that’s a horrible thing to say about your wife,’ he adds. ‘I wanted to ask her about it, but I could never put the words together. And then it was too late…’
He turns away and puts the mug down, staring off through the window towards the back garden.
‘Have you ever been to the house?’ he adds.
‘The Willis house?’
A nod.
‘Never,’ I reply.
‘I go once or twice a year. After what happened to Martha, I guess I feel close to her there.’ Another pause and then he looks back to me again. ‘Do you want to go?’
It’s something that’s never occurred to me. You read about the shrines that people create. Where fans might go on a pilgrimage to see Graceland, where Elvis died; or to stand on the street where John Lennon was shot. If Charley had wanted to go, I’d have been with her, supporting her, but she never mentioned it.
I stay silent too long.
‘It was only an idea.’
Mason smiles sadly and I can see a flicker of what he’s gone through since what happened to his wife four years ago.
I put my mug down on the side and push myself up from the stool. ‘Let’s go.’
Twenty-Seven
3 Years Ago
Charley Willis, 25 years old
The Wife’s Secret: A gripping psychological thriller with a heart-stopping twist Page 15