by TM Logan
I avoided talking to Jacob’s mum again when the children trooped into the dining room for birthday lunch. As always happened at these parties they all reached first for the hula hoops and chocolate fingers, leaving the carrot sticks and cherry tomatoes untouched in the middle of the table.
Mel was in the kitchen when we got back home. Drinking coffee and dressed for tennis again. She kissed me and handed me a cup, asked me about the party, and how was swimming, and did William manage a length of the pool? A normal Saturday. Normal stuff happening. Not for the first time, I wondered if I had just dreamed the whole of Thursday evening: Ben and my wife, the hotel car park, the aftermath. All just a dream, a fiction conjured from fitful sleep.
‘A courier came,’ Mel said, indicating a small plastic-wrapped package on the kitchen worktop.
I opened it. A replacement mobile phone sent out on the insurance. God forbid we should ever have to go offline for more than twenty-four hours. I took the phone out of its box and unspooled the power cable.
‘Your phone didn’t turn up, then?’ Mel asked.
‘Nope.’
‘You sure it’s not in the house somewhere?’
‘Pretty sure.’
‘Wills has started getting a bit obsessed with phones and gadgets, remote controls, that sort of thing. He puts them in with his cars, maybe you should go and have a look.’
I plugged the new phone in to start charging it.
‘Bit late now.’
‘Have you tried ringing it?’
It occurred to me that in Thursday night’s panic, I had not even tried once to ring my mobile to see if anyone answered. And now it had been disconnected.
‘You’re right, that’s the first thing I should have done. Wasn’t thinking straight, think I was distracted by the Facebook stuff.’
She frowned.
‘What Facebook stuff?’
‘A couple of weird posts on my account, from my mobile.’
‘You think Ben did that?’
‘Don’t see who else it could have been.’
She picked up her phone and went to Facebook.
‘What did he post?’
‘Oh, I deleted them the other night. Just some stuff about seeing me at the Premier Inn. A bit weird.’
‘Maybe it wasn’t him, maybe your account got hacked.’
There was something odd in the tone of her voice. Something slightly unnatural.
‘Maybe,’ I said.
‘Sounds weird, though.’
William appeared in the doorway, three cars in each hand.
‘Can you play airport car park with me, Daddy?’
Airport car park involved bringing all of his toy cars downstairs – maybe a couple of hundred, although I’d never counted – and lining them up in rows on the lounge floor, according to make and model. The end result resembled an airport car park in miniature, hence its name.
‘Need to have lunch first, big man. Then I’ll play.’
He held out one hand.
‘You can do Beamers if you want.’
I took the three little BMWs from him, the metal warm from his small fingers.
‘Thanks, matey.’
He trotted off back to the lounge.
Mel said: ‘You should change your password on Facebook.’
‘Done that already.’
‘You OK?’ she asked.
‘Of course,’ I smiled. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
‘I mean about the Facebook thing, someone posting as you. It happened to Marie at work last year, really shook her up. Getting fraped, they call it.’
‘Fraped?’
‘Facebook raped.’
I shook my head.
‘Never heard that one before. Who thinks this stuff up?’
‘Are you OK, though?’
‘It’s no big deal. Really.’
‘I thought I might go for a few sets at the tennis club this afternoon,’ she said. ‘You boys are all right together, aren’t you?’
‘Sure. We still on for tonight?’
The phone rang on the worktop next to me, the landline for once. I picked it up.
‘Hello?’
Silence.
‘Hello?’ I said again.
‘I need to speak to Mel, is she there?’
It was Beth, Ben’s wife, a wobble in her voice like she was trying to hold it together and only just managing. Mel mouthed a silent question at me. Who?
I realised I was still holding the three toy BMWs, and put them down on the kitchen worktop.
‘Beth? Are you OK?’
‘No. I don’t know.’ She paused and I thought I heard a half-sob in the silence. ‘Can I speak to Mel, please?’
I handed the phone to my wife.
‘Hi, Melissa speaking.’
She turned away from me and took the phone into the conservatory. I was about to follow her when William appeared at my side again.
‘Daddy, can you get my cars down?’
‘Which ones, Wills?’
‘Um, all of them?’
I followed him to his bedroom and brought down the two wicker boxes of cars. They were heavy and I had to carry them one at a time. When I returned to the conservatory, Mel was putting the home phone back in its cradle. She was frowning. She looked downcast, genuinely worried.
‘What’s up?’ I said. ‘Beth didn’t sound good.’
Mel looked away from me. She blinked, checked her mobile, put it back in her pocket.
‘Mel, what is it?’
She tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear, the way she always did when she was agitated or stressed.
‘She wants to come over. It’s about Ben.’
13
If there was one word to describe Beth Delaney on a normal day, it would be serene. She had a calmness, a quiet elegance about her that never seemed to waver. I couldn’t recall a single time when I’d seen a ripple of anxiety disturb the perfection.
Until today.
Today her eyes were shadowed dark from lack of sleep and she looked brittle, like fine china that might shatter at the slightest touch. Tall and willowy, dressed in a cream roll-neck and grey trousers that accentuated her long legs; dark hair falling to her shoulders, only the subtlest of make-up to disguise the fact that she was working hard to hold herself together.
I had met her maybe half a dozen times over the past year, at dinner parties and barbecues, since she and Ben had left Manchester and bought the big house in Hampstead. She was beautiful, for sure, but never wanted to talk about herself and I had never managed to break down her reserve to find out anything meaningful beyond. So even after a year I knew little about her, beyond the basics. She and Ben had a daughter, Alice, a very level-headed fourteen-year-old who had babysat for William a few times. Mel knew her from school and had stayed in touch through university, before jobs and careers took them to different parts of the country. Their friendship from school had stayed strong despite – or maybe because of – the differences between them: Mel the extrovert, the leader, the sporty alpha female; Beth the clever, kind, quiet counterpoint, but just as much an achiever in her own way. They had stayed in contact in the years since, and when she and Ben moved to London, Mel insisted we have them round to dinner and help them get settled in. Ben had invited me to join his fortnightly poker game, where I had gone once, lost £75 in two hours, and decided poker wasn’t the game for me.
We sat in the conservatory at the back of our house, the three of us. A freshly made cup of apple and elderflower caffeine-free tea infusion sat steaming, untouched, on the table in front of Beth. She didn’t drink regular tea or coffee. No caffeine. No meat, no dairy, no sugar, no non-organic either.
She looked as if she was going to begin to speak, then closed her eyes, took a deep breath, let it out. Then another. She seemed to be meditating.
Mel put a comforting hand on her arm.
‘It’s all right, Bee. It’s going to be all right. Just take your time.’
Beth glanced
at me for a second, dropping her gaze as if she was embarrassed.
Mel said: ‘Do you want Joe to go somewhere else?’
In normal circumstances I would have taken the hint and made myself scarce. But these weren’t normal circumstances, and I wanted to hear what Ben might have told her in the last thirty-six hours. She was torn between a desire for privacy – to keep this wives-only – and the desire to avoid causing offence. On a normal day Beth would rather die than give offence.
‘No, it’s fine,’ she said in a small voice. ‘It’s fine.’
‘What happened, Beth?’ I said, as gently as I could manage.
Mel shot me a sharp look that said, Let me handle this.
‘Take your time, Bee,’ she said.
Beth took a sip of herbal tea, setting the cup carefully back down on the glass-topped table as if she was worried both might shatter with the slightest force.
‘It’s Ben. He’s . . . I don’t know.’ She always spoke quietly, and I’d never heard her raise her voice. But today she was almost whispering.
‘Nothing goes further than this room, Bee. You’re among friends here, we’re on your side.’
Beth crossed her arms tightly across her stomach, shoulders hunched.
‘I just can’t work out what I did wrong,’ she said. ‘What I did to set him off.’
‘Tell us what’s happened, Bee.’
‘It’s like a nightmare. Like Jekyll and Hyde.’
‘Take your time.’
‘OK. So two nights ago, Ben came home really late. I was in bed asleep and he woke me up. He never normally tells me when he’s getting home, but this was out of the ordinary, it was almost midnight. He was drunk, I think. Goodness knows how he managed to drive home. You’ve never seen him like that. Sometimes he gets . . .’ She tailed off.
Mel sat forward, her voice soft.
‘How does he get, Bee?’
‘Sometimes when he’s upset with things at work he gets drunk, and when he’s really drunk, he gets angry. He breaks things.’
‘At work, or home?’
‘At our house,’ she said in a small voice. ‘At home.’
‘What else does he do?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Does he hurt you as well?’
Just like my Mel. Straight to the point.
Beth closed her eyes, her chin quivering.
‘Has he done this before?’ I asked.
She looked away, lips clamped together. A tear ran down her cheek and she wiped it away quickly with the heel of her hand.
‘This last year, since we left Manchester and moved to London, a lot of the time he’s seemed so distant. Angry sometimes. Refuses to talk to me about it. Mood swings, all the time. One minute he’s absolutely fine, the next minute . . .’
‘But has he hurt you before?’ I said.
Beth nodded, taking the tissue Mel offered her.
I felt the ache in my back from where Ben had slammed me against his car. He was pretty strong for a smaller guy. I supposed domestic violence was more common than people thought, but I had never actually known anyone who’d been an abuser. Jesus.
And another thought, which made my anger flare: Did he take his anger out on Mel too, when they met on Thursday evening?
Her voice quiet, Mel said: ‘What happened after he came back, Bee?’
‘I heard him moving around, slamming doors, breaking things. I thought he’d come up, but he didn’t. So I just lay there waiting, waiting. I couldn’t move.’
Mel got up and sat next to Beth on the couch, put an arm around her shoulders.
‘Try not to worry. You and Alice are both OK, that’s the main thing.’
‘What a mess, Mel. Oh God, what a mess.’
I tried to catch Mel’s eye, but she wouldn’t look at me.
Beth dabbed at her cheeks with another tissue.
‘Next morning his Aston Martin was gone. And some of his clothes, an overnight bag and a laptop.’
‘Oh Bee, you poor thing, I can’t imagine what it’s been like. Have you tried calling him?’
Beth nodded.
‘Twenty times at least. He’s not been answering his mobile. I waited for him to come home all yesterday, worried sick. I checked work, he wasn’t there and had missed various meetings. Called his mum, she hadn’t heard from him. I waited up half the night for him last night, but no sign of him. And then today I suddenly thought, I wasn’t sure I want to be there when he finally gets home. So I called you.’
Mel said: ‘What time did Ben get home on Thursday night?’
‘About a quarter to midnight.’
‘I don’t understand this.’
‘Neither do I. When he’s done this before it’s been triggered by work problems. But he seemed quite happy about the way things were going with the company.’
‘No, I don’t understand how he can go from being fine and talking business, to getting drunk and storming out of his house a few hours later.’
Beth frowned.
‘How do you mean, talking business?’
‘His company.’
‘When were you talking to him about his company?’
‘Thursday night, after work.’
‘You saw him?’ Beth said, her voice rising slightly.
‘Yes,’ Mel said. ‘Before I went to tennis. He seemed OK then.’
Not entirely true, I thought.
‘I saw him too,’ I added. ‘We both did.’
Beth sat up straighter, frowning first at me and then at Mel.
‘Why?’
Mel gave her friend a summary of what she’d told me last night, leaving out the details of my encounter with Ben.
‘But if you left him just after 5 p.m.,’ Beth said, ‘that still leaves seven-plus missing hours. Where was he? Where did he go?’
‘What did Ben actually say that night, when he came home?’ I asked, slowly. ‘It might help us find him, help him, if we know what was bothering him.’
Beth blew her nose delicately and dabbed at her reddened eyes with a tissue.
‘He didn’t say much. Just came in, got his stuff and left. The only thing I heard was actually about you.’
‘Me?’ Mel and I said in unison.
Beth pointed at me.
‘Joe.’
‘Really? said Mel, a little too quickly. ‘In what . . . context?’
‘Bad things.’
‘Really?’ I tried to sound surprised.
‘Like he wanted to hurt you.’
‘Oh. That’s weird.’
‘Why would he say that?’ Beth said, her gaze unwavering. ‘Did you two have a falling out?’
‘Well, we did have a bit of a –’
‘Joe reversed into his Porsche as he was leaving,’ Mel cut in, talking over me. ‘Not on purpose, obviously, just one of those things. But Ben wasn’t best pleased, was he, Joe?’
I stared at her for a moment.
Why did you lie?
And then it clicked.
To protect you, idiot.
Mel gave me one of her no-nonsense looks.
‘Was he, Joe?’ she repeated.
‘No. He wasn’t happy,’ I said.
‘He does love that car,’ Beth said, dabbing at her eyes with a fresh tissue. ‘Even more than the Morgan. It’s his favourite.’
‘What did Ben actually say on Thursday night?’
Beth took a sip of her herbal tea, setting the mug down delicately on the coaster as if she was scared of making any noise at all.
‘It was something like, “Joe effing Lynch. Time you were put in your effing place.” Or words to that effect. He was downstairs and I was in the bedroom. Then I heard the door slam and he was gone.’
I had never heard Beth swear. Not once. Instead she said effing and blummin’ and Lord and blimey like a little old lady. But somehow it made it more chilling, more real, to hear Ben’s threats relayed in such an understated way.
‘Jesus, Beth, are you serious?’
>
She nodded, lips pursed together.
‘Do you think he might come here, to our house?’ Mel said.
Beth shrugged. I tried to remember whether I’d locked the front door behind her when she’d arrived.
‘I don’t know where he’ll go, I really have no idea at this point. He might have gone for good, for all I know.’
‘I’m sure he hasn’t, Bee. He’ll be back.’
‘It wouldn’t be the first time.’
‘He’s done it before?’
‘Only for a few days. Work was getting on top of him and he just had to let off some steam. Last time, he drove home to Sunderland, blew some money in the casinos. A couple of nights in a hotel with his phone switched off. Then he came back.’
‘Sorry, Bee, I had no idea.’
‘It’s not the sort of thing you shout about on Facebook.’
‘No, of course. Well I’m sure he’ll be back this time as well,’ Mel said, trying to sound upbeat.
‘I hope so.’
‘He’s probably just letting off steam, like you said. It’ll be OK.’
‘Maybe.’ Beth didn’t sound convinced. ‘But there’s something else.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘The things he took with him . . .’
‘Clothes and an overnight bag, you said.’
‘That wasn’t all.’
Mel said: ‘What else, Bee?’
‘One of the reasons why I’m so worried. Especially with what he said about Joe.’
‘Tell us.’
Beth’s next words froze me in my chair.
‘One of his guns was gone.’
14
‘He has guns?’ I said, trying to keep my voice level.
Beth nodded. Took another sip of herbal tea.
‘Shotguns, mostly.’
‘What does he shoot?’
‘Wood pigeon and ducks,’ Beth said. ‘Clays as well. He’s a pretty good shot. Has quite a collection of sporting guns.’ She smiled a small smile. ‘I think he fancies himself shooting grouse on the Glorious Twelfth. He’s always wanted to be a member of the landed gentry, wear Barbour coats and Hunter wellies. He bought me a gun to encourage me to shoot, even though I’ve been a vegetarian since before we got married. I couldn’t imagine anything worse.’