The Loving Husband

by Christobel Kent

  The dog ran off again and Derek sighed. ‘He thinks she did it,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Ali. No other reason for taking her down to interview room four and they both knew it. With a kid. A babe in arms. She’d watched Gerard opening the rear door of the vehicle for Fran Hall, acting like her knight in shining bloody armour. ‘He seems to think it being her knife clinches it.’ She set her lips in a line. ‘I don’t know if the DI’s letting him have his head with that. Craddock. Have you heard?’

  ‘Doug Gerard’s ambitious,’ he said. ‘That goes a long way, as things stand. You push hard enough, you get what you want.’

  ‘That where we went wrong, then, Derek?’ Doug Gerard with his modern flat overlooking the river, she’d seen him showing the pictures on his mobile. Balcony. Loft-style. Master bedroom, all that, just waiting for the next bird to fall for his serious look. And there was Derek smoking in the back garden of his semi, and her listening for Mum in the night.

  ‘You think she did it?’ asked Derek, jamming his hands down in his pockets and she could hear him feeling for the fag packet, deciding against it.

  ‘No,’ she said, before she knew what was going to come out of her mouth. ‘There’s something though. In her eyes, that look they get. Scared.’

  ‘Her husband’s just been offed.’

  Could you expect a bloke to understand it? Some did: Derek probably would, if he’d spend any time with Fran Hall, he was a kind man. He tried. ‘Yes,’ she said, patiently. ‘I get that, yeah, she’s scared shitless, though I don’t think Gerard cares, he tells himself she’s just scared shitless of being put away. It’s something underneath it. She’s waiting to be told she’s done something wrong. A dog that’s been hit too many times.’

  ‘He hit her?’

  She shrugged. ‘Not necessarily. Doesn’t have to be, does it? Just control. Let’s say, I’d like to talk to someone about what that marriage was really like.’

  ‘He’s got Sadie on to it,’ Derek told her, and he turned looking for the dog, restless. ‘See what she got up to. He reckons that’s a woman’s job, you know. Gossip, friends. Someone’s got to have seen her, if she was up to something.’

  DC Sadie Watts, little Sadie just out of college and itching with dissatisfaction every time Gerard chose Carswell over her. Ali had walked past her at her desk, sitting there mutinous at the computer, a fleece zipped up to her ears so Gerard couldn’t look at her boobs. Been there, done that.

  ‘Up to what, exactly?’ she said, as if she didn’t know, they thought they were all at it, didn’t they? Shagging around. Derek shifted, uneasy. ‘I want to know about him,’ Ali said. ‘Before I want to know about her. I want to know about Nathan Hall.’

  ‘You’ll have to fight Gerard for that one,’ said Derek, and he whistled into the darkness for the dog. ‘You know that, don’t you? He wants the glory.’ The dog was there, jumping up, and Derek lowered his face towards the animal, eyes shut as it tried to lick him, smiling in spite of himself.

  Sadie Watts wanted the glory too, come to that, sticking her nose in, stamping her foot at being left out.

  Ali stood there on the ridge a long time after he’d gone, in the cold. The big black fields laid out in front of her, lights here and there. There was a kitchen waiting for her, a dishwasher to be unloaded. There was Mum upstairs, spark out on her medication. She turned, measuring distances, looking for landmarks. The red eyes of the wind generators, Oakenham, the straight gleam off the big ditch that was Cold Fen, that would lead all the way to Fran Hall’s house, five miles off and out of sight.

  Somewhere out there a couple more kids without a father, and Fran Hall all there was between them and chaos. And they want glory, she thought.

  It rang, somewhere far off in the dark house.

  The sound wove through the corridors, it ran up the stairs, it pulled her through an awful tangle of dreams: a face at a window, bony hands reaching in. And she was upright, in the bed, she was turning to look for the red numerals on the alarm clock, and all the time in the dark the pattering question, Was it happening all over again?

  Fran stumbled out of bed and to the door, groping in the dark, a hand to either side on the stairwell, following the sound down through the house to the telephone that hung on the wall just inside the kitchen door. She grabbed for the receiver.

  ‘Hello?’ Her own voice echoed down the line, her own blood pounding in her ears.

  In her head she saw blood smeared on the wall, the black glass of a window and she swung back, out of the kitchen and into the hall, she pressed herself against the wall. All around them, around the house that sat up too tall, too visible in the vast flat plain, she felt the dark thicken and gather itself, not empty, not empty at all, it was whispering to her, down the line. And then there was a tiny gentle sound, a soft click, and the line was dead.

  Chapter Twelve

  Tuesday

  Two days. Less: thirty-six hours.

  ‘I want to know what’s going on,’ she said into her mobile phone, standing stiff-legged in front of the pub with Ben strapped to her. The bitter cold hurt her head, it froze her feet in her boots. ‘With the investigation. What did they find on the … murder weapon?’

  ‘DS Gerard is out on a call, I’m afraid, Mrs Hall,’ said DC Sadie Watts stiffly. ‘I believe he’s on his way to you. With DC Carswell.’ Disgruntled.

  Young, thought Fran. What did she know about the world? What did she know about what this was like? ‘I want to talk to my Family Liaison Officer,’ she said. ‘To Ali. No one seems to want to tell me anything. That’s what she’s for, isn’t it?’

  ‘Part of it, yes,’ said DC Watts. ‘I think DS Gerard, as far as I know he’s … he’s instructed Ali to meet him there.’

  Fran hung up.

  The pub might once have been pretty but it wasn’t any longer. A cramped building with a low roof dwarfed by a stockade of dark Leyland cypresses. There was a big car park, untidy, a pile of something under stained tarpaulin and crates stacked against the pub’s back wall, and Fran stood at one end of it, with Ben strapped to her in the sling that brought her out in a sweat. It was just past nine, and the pub was closed. Fran was watching the back door.

  Emme had come into her bedroom at seven as she was changing Ben. Although Fran hadn’t heard a sound from her room she was fully dressed in her uniform.

  Is it time yet?’ she said. ‘I want to be early. I want to see Harry.’ There had been an urgency in her voice that had made Fran take hold of her hands.

  ‘Emme,’ she had said. ‘Emme. What is it? Did Harry … did you have a nice time with Harry last night?’

  ‘Yes,’ Emme had said, frowning, pulling a little against Fran’s hold on her and Fran let go. ‘I want to go to school. Miss Bates is teaching us football today. It’s numeracy first lesson.’ Her hair had been brushed but the parting was wonky. Fran pressed her lips against it, waiting for Emme to ask about Nathan, but she didn’t: she pulled away, instead.

  The puddles had frozen overnight as they walked to school, Ben in the sling for warmth, Emme stamping on the ice, over and over, to hear the sound, to see every puddle crazed. The police hadn’t said when they’d be back, but they had her mobile number.

  The head teacher, June Rayner, had frowned, disapproving, as Fran stood across the desk from her, under the literacy posters, and a collage. ‘Your daughter should be at home,’ she stated.

  Fran had held her ground. All she knew was, she had to keep things steady. ‘School is a safe place for her at the moment,’ she said, and there was a stand-off, the teacher compressing her lips. Then Rayner had sighed.

  ‘I’ll do my best, but I’m going to call you. If there’s anything—’

  ‘That’s what I want. I want you to call me. Emme’s safety is what matters.’

  A light went on in one of the pub’s lower windows. Lounge bar, it said on the door.

  So where did Nathan go on those evenings when she heard him whistling under his breath, when he le
ft the bathroom smelling of aftershave and called cheerily to her from the back door, if not here?

  She’d left London to atone for something, it was why she’d agreed to come here. For messing it up. For making a mistake. She hadn’t admitted it, certainly not when she was saying her goodbyes at the office.

  But Nathan? He’d come because it was his childhood home, he wanted to recreate something here. That was how she’d understood it at least, when he’d talked about the frosted fields in the mornings, the wide glassy river, lads swimming in the reservoir. Until she saw the mangy thatch of the cottage he’d grown up in, and put it together with the angry text from Miranda and understood that there had been no happy childhood.

  A woman came out of the door carrying a crate and set it down. She was middle-aged and heavily made-up for the early morning and the flat Fen light. The landlady, who knew her husband was a liar. What else had he lied about?

  Gerard had said, the name will come back to you, and she’d wanted to slap him. Who was it? Someone connected to construction and who might be useful. She closed her eyes.

  Scaffolding, Nathan had said, pouring her a glass of wine in the kitchen one evening, months back, both children finally asleep. Of course, they’re a rough lot, scaffolders. Nostalgic. He never was that presentable, either.

  She couldn’t remember the name. Fran stood there with Ben’s small hands in hers where they hung to either side of the sling and tried to remember, but she couldn’t. If she had a name to tell the police, anything, perhaps things would be different. Would they trust her, then?

  She’d only gone to the pub with Nathan once, early on. They’d sat outside with Emme, and she’d been pregnant and drinking tomato juice.

  Fran turned and headed away from the pub and the woman’s stare, towards the edge of the village.

  She had been drunk, that night that had led to this, all this. Drunk on an empty stomach, cheap cocktails and the sight of herself in flattering lighting and art deco mirrors. Was that her excuse?

  Against her in the sling Ben was hot and heavy. She began walking past the houses strung out along the high street, one after the other curtained and silent.

  Karen’s house was a straggler on the extreme edge of the village, a bungalow down a lane that led nowhere. Neglected hedging on either side of the lane had turned into overgrown spindly trees, and it was dripping and dark. Karen’s was the only house. As she approached it she realised it wasn’t even a house, it was a mobile home that had been bricked in but there were window boxes.

  She hadn’t really mentioned Karen to Nathan, had she? She’d been in the house once or twice but Fran had made sure Nathan wasn’t around, because she knew he wouldn’t like her, she could admit that now. And a small shock came with that realisation, that now he wouldn’t know, Nathan wouldn’t ever be able to frown at Karen’s purple fur collar, at the music she played in her car, country ballads and show-tunes. Now there was no Nathan.

  The little car was in the driveway, and a light was on in a net-curtained window. It was ten but the sun was still low on the horizon, a pale disc coming up over the line of cloud that stretched like a mountain range. She knocked, feeling her breathing, quick and shallow, as she waited and then the door opened. For a second Fran thought, she doesn’t want me here but then Karen’s face relaxed, and she started to say something, half a joke, half a question.

  But Fran was already unstrapping Ben, not knowing this was what she’d come for until she was on the doorstep, and Karen stopped talking and held out her arms to take him, instead.

  ‘Could you just take him for a bit?’ she managed finally. ‘Just have him for me, could you? Not long. I won’t be long, I just need to…’

  And Fran had a problem with the words because it all rushed up inside her, the same reel of images. Her knees in the mud, her hands feeling for Nathan’s face in the dark, a man silhouetted against headlights with his arms down by his sides.

  Karen took the baby from her.

  There was a car Fran didn’t recognise at the house when she came around the bend back from Karen’s and she slowed her step, but it was a woman climbing out, stamping her feet, a woman in a parka. Thick bottle-blonde hair, and as she turned, as Fran came up close she saw the faded blue eyes, crow’s feet. Ali Compton.

  Karen had said it, on the doorstep, with Ben tucked effortlessly into the crook of one arm and sound asleep. ‘Don’t look so flaming guilty. Don’t let them make you feel like that. Bloody coppers, act like they’re God. They’re just men.’ Not this one: a woman was different. This woman.

  ‘Where’s the baby?’ said Ali, and for a second Fran felt a surge of resentment: what she wanted to say was, Mind your own business. ‘I left him with a friend, I was going to…’ She hesitated. Would Ali Compton understand? ‘I wanted to get out for a bit. Clear my head.’

  Nathan had never liked her running. In London he’d told her it was dangerous, on the roads there were cars; in the parks and on the towpaths there were muggers and addicts. She had always had the sense, too, that he wanted her in sight, somehow, even if he wasn’t there he wanted her in the house. He wanted to know where she was. Just like this woman, like the police. They’d try to stop her, they’d judge her. At a time like this. But she had to do something.

  ‘Shame,’ said Ali, ‘I’d have liked a cuddle. Not that I’d say that in front of DS Gerard, of course.’ She pushed her hands down in her pockets. ‘You’ll find people step up to the mark, situations like this. They’re not all bad, out here.’ Then blowing her breath out in a cloud, ‘I hope the council’s got the gritters out.’

  ‘Come in,’ said Fran, resigned. ‘Not that it’s much warmer inside.’

  ‘These old houses,’ said Ali Compton once they were in, standing at the foot of the stairs and looking around. ‘Draughty.’ She gave a quick shiver. ‘Nice place, though.’ Curious.

  ‘You want to have a look?’ said Fran, hesitant.

  ‘Sure,’ Ali said, straight away.

  Fran walked ahead of her stiffly, past the stairs, although she had seen Ali Compton pause and peer up. Gerard hadn’t needed an excuse, had he, to go up her stairs. Into her bedroom. She pushed open the door to the study, the little clean, cold room, the curtains he always kept drawn. They went along the passage. Ali Compton stood looking, up at the high ceilings Nathan had marvelled at, the carved plasterwork, the black and red tiles and the big empty fireplace.

  ‘Handsome, my old dad would have called it,’ she said. ‘Funny, I was born twelve miles away but I don’t really know this place at all. Cold Fen. Which is a good thing, isn’t it?’ Chatty. Friendly. ‘And to my knowledge we haven’t had a call-out here in years so it must be … well. Must have been a safe enough place.’ She hadn’t taken off her coat. ‘All this space, it must have felt like you were rattling around in it for a bit,’ then, quickly, ‘Let’s have a coffee, shall we?’

  Ali Compton took her coffee strong, milk and two sugars. Fran stirred, handed it to her. ‘You’ve got to call me Ali,’ and Fran nodded.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, ‘Ali.’

  ‘We had a briefing this morning,’ Ali went on. ‘They’ll be along shortly. DS Gerard and DC Carswell.’ Her mouth set; she didn’t like them, that came as a revelation. ‘This is our time to talk. We need to make the most of it.’ She cupped her hands round the mug.

  ‘I don’t like having them in my house,’ blurted Fran. ‘Nathan wouldn’t have … he’d have…’

  ‘It’s our job,’ said Ali, wearily. ‘It’s murder, love,’ and Fran found herself moving off round the room just at the sound of the word, the sickening sound, found herself moving stuff, setting books in a pile, that plastic bag, wiping down the draining board, putting plates away, cups, but the clatter didn’t drown it out. She stopped, and Ali laid a hand on the table. ‘Sit down,’ she said, and Fran sat.

  ‘I shouldn’t have said it,’ she said. ‘About men round here being like dogs. In the interview.’

  Ali Compton gave her a
smile. A real one. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ she said. ‘Gerard’s a big boy. Sometimes I think he needs a bit more barracking, to be honest. Just between you and me.’

  ‘Nathan did go outside, sometimes, in the evenings. Just stood in the yard looking – that’s what I thought, anyway. He liked having a big place, a field.’ She spoke haltingly. ‘What did they find on the knife?’

  Ali Compton looked at her, a long moment. ‘It looks like it was certainly the murder weapon,’ she said. ‘It was his blood. The handle had been wiped.’ A pause. ‘Was your husband a violent man, Fran?’ she said, and Fran froze. ‘Did he hurt you?’

  ‘Why are you asking me that?’ And something flickered, at the corner of her vision, at the back of her brain. ‘Do you think I … because it was my knife, I’d used it a hundred times. Do you think I—’

  ‘Look, this is just you and me, DS Gerard isn’t here. I haven’t got my notebook out, I’m not recording anything. You and me, talking. I’m asking because … well. Call it an instinct.’ Very quietly. ‘Did he hurt you?’

  ‘No,’ she said, and there it was in the corner of her eye, still flickering. But. ‘He…’ and she stopped.

  ‘All right, if you tell me he didn’t, he didn’t.’ She leaned a little towards Fran, and staring down at the table Fran saw her bitten nails, her roughened hands. ‘It’s our job to consider everyone a suspect, you know that, don’t you?’ she said, looking into Fran’s face. ‘And if things don’t add up, if people don’t tell you everything, then you have to keep pushing until they do.’