Authors: Rachel Abbott
‘I’ll do that,’ Tom said.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Absolutely. Nothing can reduce the pain, but at least when you get this kind of news from somebody you know it feels slightly less intrusive.’
‘Okay. We need you suited up even though we’ve done the external examination.’
Tom reached down to a pile of plastic bags, each containing a clean white suit. He slipped one over his clothes. Becky and Philippa did the same.
‘Are you ready?’ Philippa asked, her voice quiet.
Tom nodded, and Becky felt a lurch in her gut. In a way she felt she had no right to witness Tom’s grief, because she knew better than most how much he had suffered – silently, but without a doubt deeply – when he and Leo had split up. She didn’t look at him. She focused on the room in front of her.
A woman lay on a table, her body covered in a white sheet. The contusions around her neck were obvious, but even in death this woman was beautiful. Her dark hair had been neatened and pulled back from her face.
As they entered the room, Becky heard a small gasp from Tom. He stood at the doorway staring, and she drew her eyes away from the body to look at him. After a second, his eyes narrowed and he started towards the body. He stood looking down at the lovely face and for a moment it seemed as if he was going to reach out and touch her. Philippa made a move to get closer, clearly prepared to stop him before he did, but his arm dropped to his side and he just stared.
His head dropped, and Becky swallowed a sob but couldn’t stop the tears streaming from her eyes. So intent was she on controlling herself that she almost missed his words.
‘It’s not her,’ he said quietly.
‘Sorry, Tom. Can you repeat that?’ Philippa said.
‘This woman looks very like Leonora Harris, but it’s not her.’
Tom turned to face them both, his mouth smiling, but his eyes frowning, as if he didn’t know what to feel.
‘Oh God, Tom, I’m so sorry,’ Becky burst out, tears now flowing freely down her cheeks. ‘I was so certain. I even found her picture online and showed it to Jumbo and he agreed. I don’t know what to say to you.’
Tom closed his eyes for a moment and then turned to Becky.
‘It’s okay, Becky. You did the right thing. If I’d turned up at the scene, I’d probably have thought this girl was Leo too for a moment. It’s an uncanny likeness, but there are lots of differences. The nose isn’t right, and this girl’s a bit broader in the shoulders than Leo. To me, now I’m looking properly, they look nothing like one another. But that’s because I know Leo’s face so well.’
‘Is there anything more specific, Tom?’ Philippa asked. ‘It would be useful to have something more tangible than “not right”.’
‘Leo has a small scar on her chin from a childhood accident. I’d completely forgotten about it. I only noticed it now because it’s not there – if that makes sense. I knew the moment I saw her, but if I’d had any doubts, the lack of the scar would have confirmed it.’
For a moment, the room was almost silent, the only sound an occasional sniff from Becky.
Then Philippa straightened her spine and turned to Tom. ‘Right,’ she said briskly. ‘Let’s get on then, shall we. She’s all yours now, DCI Douglas. Let’s find out who the poor woman is and discover what happened to her. Get an artist to do a picture wearing the shirt she was found in. It’s very striking. I’d like a report by the end of the day, please.’
With that, she turned and marched purposefully out of the door, leaving behind her a room rocked by emotion. Tom looked dazed, and Becky could only imagine how he must have geared himself up for the pain of seeing somebody he cared about on that table. She felt an immense weight of guilt – she had caused this man so much distress and didn’t know how to put it right. She stared at him, waiting to see his reaction.
Tom held out an arm. ‘Come here, Becky,’ he said. ‘I think we both need a hug.’
He gently pulled her towards him and held her close. She buried her head in his shoulder, slowly putting her arms round his waist, gradually tightening them to try to stop the shaking.
13
The snow provided Maggie with a perfectly valid reason for not going to work, and she was relieved that it hadn’t been necessary to invent some lame excuse. She certainly didn’t want to tell her colleagues what had
really
happened.
She almost fooled herself into believing that Duncan’s absence was down to the weather too – that he had gone out to deal with some emergency or other and hadn’t been able to get back. Perhaps his phone was dead so he couldn’t call her.
Telling herself this was realistic and an obvious answer, she had used the time before the children woke up to phone around the hospitals and check if there had been any accidents. There had been plenty of bumps because of the snow, but Duncan hadn’t been involved in any of them. She had asked a friend in the police to break a few rules and see whether Duncan had perhaps been arrested for driving without due care and attention, or maybe he had been drinking and tried to drive home. But there was nothing.
Maggie knew there was no point in reporting him missing. She could recite the questions she would be asked verbatim, and she would have to admit that he had left of his own volition, that he wasn’t a vulnerable adult and that he had been carrying a bag of clothes – so he might not be at home, but he could never be defined as a missing person.
The certainty that he had left her for another woman punched her once more in the gut. How long had it been going on? Did he love this woman, or was it a fling? Why choose somebody who looked just like her – wasn’t she enough for him? Once again hot tears stung her eyes and she fought off the ache of loss, trying to convince herself that he would be back, that he would have a perfectly valid excuse. Try as she might, though, it was a hard sell even to herself.
She had nothing to tell the children – no answers to give them. She didn’t like lying to them, but she didn’t want them to be upset so she said she had had a call from Daddy while
they were asleep. If he had left them for good, she would have to find a way of explaining that to them, but for now she needed them – particularly Josh – to stop worrying.
‘Daddy said he was fine, but he’d had to rush out to help an old friend – where we used to live. He said to give you both a big kiss from him.’
‘He left us on our own. He’s not supposed to do that, is he?’ Josh wasn’t going to be diverted so easily, now he’d had time to think about it.
She ruffled his dark curls as if everything was all perfectly normal. ‘He was worried about the weather, sweetheart. He knew if he didn’t go straightaway, he would be stuck in the snow.’ Her story seemed to calm the children down, and the snow provided another useful distraction. Both of them were now outside in the back garden building a snowman.
She had time to think.
She had nothing to go on, though, no starting point. All she had was Josh’s story of a photo on Duncan’s phone and a scrap of newspaper. She had tried to work out what the tops of the letters told her, but they were just black marks. She pulled her laptop towards her and typed ‘British newspaper masthead’ into a search engine and selected ‘Images’.
Even if she found the paper and the date, what would it tell her? It could be any story. And he might just have had some tool or other wrapped up in the paper. It was hopeless. She pushed the laptop away from her, sick of clutching at straws. He had left her. That’s all there was to it. But more than anything in the world, she wanted to know
why
.
Maggie had never had the slightest inkling that Duncan was interested in anybody else, and she knew all the signs – she remembered them from when Suzy’s partner, Ian, had been having an affair that ultimately resulted in him leaving her sister and their children. When you knew what to look for, it was obvious: the name introduced into the conversation with unnecessary frequency; the phone calls taken in the locked bathroom; the trips to the gym to ‘tone up’; the nights he was ‘out with the boys’ wearing his best clothes and aftershave; the fact that he would never leave his mobile unattended in the room.
Duncan hadn’t behaved like that. But then he had always said that his job as a plumber gave him freedom. She didn’t know what he did all day and she never questioned his earnings. He had always put whatever he could afford into the joint account.
Fighting hard to keep control, Maggie got up from the table. She needed to make some lunch for the children, although raising the necessary enthusiasm was going to be difficult. Her mind miles away, she grabbed a pan and was filling it with water when the phone rang, jolting her back to reality.
‘Oh crap!’ she shouted as she dropped the full pan on the floor, soaking the bottom of her jeans and her bare feet. Scared of slipping on the wet tiles, but equally terrified of missing the call, she slid across the floor to the phone.
‘Duncan
?’ she said. ‘Oh, thank God. Are you okay?’
‘Maggie? I thought you were going to phone me back. What the hell’s going on?’
‘Oh shit, it’s you. Sorry, Suze. I should have called you, but I’ve got a bit of a situation here, and I need to keep the line free.’
‘What’s the matter? What’s happened to Duncan?’
For some reason, she couldn’t tell Suzy. Not yet. It would make it real; she would cry again; the children would see her. She made every excuse she could to herself, but deep down she knew that she couldn’t at this minute tell anybody – even Suzy – that her husband had left her without saying goodbye.
‘I’m sorry, Suzy, but I can’t talk now. We’ve got thick snow, and both the children are at home, so now isn’t a good time.’
‘But what about last night? Why were the kids alone?’
‘Please, sis, don’t ask me to explain right now. I promise I’ll call you tonight when the children are in bed. If you don’t hear from me, everything’s okay. I’ve got to go – Lily’s shouting.’
Lily was in fact about to open the back door. She didn’t know how to enter a room quietly, and Maggie knew she would notice the tears running down her mummy’s face, and shout it out for Suzy to hear.
Maggie disconnected before her sister could say another word, and quickly scraped the sleeve of her jumper across her eyes.
‘Was that Daddy?’ Lily said, skipping across the kitchen floor in her socks, having discarded her wellies at the door. Maggie was excused the need to reply as Lily shouted, ‘Ooh, the floor’s all wet. Oh yuk, Mummy. I’ve got soggy feet.’
The phone rang again. It was bound to be her sister with some more questions. Maggie was about to ignore it, but Lily was heading towards it with great glee. She loved answering the phone, but Maggie didn’t want Suzy questioning her niece so she grabbed the phone.
‘Look, Suze, I promise I’ll call you back if I need you. Please, can we keep the line free?’
There was a silence at the other end, and for a moment it felt as if ice was blowing down the wire. Maggie shivered.
‘Hello, Maggie?’ a voice said. It was a voice that she didn’t recognise, but the tone was oily, slick.
‘I’d like to speak to your husband. Get him for me, would you?’
‘May I ask who’s speaking?’ she answered, hearing a slight tremor in her voice.
‘No, you may not. Is he there?’
‘I’m sorry, he isn’t. Can I take a message?’
‘He’s not answering his mobile, and that’s not good enough,’ the man said, his words clipped. There was an undercurrent to the voice that she had heard so many times in the voices of her clients. It was the sound of threat.
‘Well, maybe I can ask him to call you,’ she said, trying to pretend that this was all perfectly normal.
‘He’s not coming home, though, is he Maggie. He’s run – run from his obligations. Again.’
Maggie didn’t respond. She didn’t know what the man was talking about, and she stared down at Lily, her gaze fixed, her heart pounding. She was waiting. For what, she didn’t know, but she knew it wasn’t good.
‘I’m glad I’ve found you, Maggie. It makes it all so much more worthwhile. Your husband has had his first warning. If he calls, remind of that, and be sure to tell him we know where you live. Do you understand? We know where you live. Tell him.’
The phone went dead.
14
It was minutes since the call had ended, but Maggie was still holding the phone, looking at it as if the answer lay there. What did the man mean?
He had said, ‘I’m glad I found you.’ Did that mean he had found
her
. Or found
them
? Or did he mean he had found
Duncan
?
‘If he calls…’ he had said.
What did he mean about running away from his obligations – again? Did the man mean he had run away from her? Was she – or his family – an obligation?
Finally, Maggie slowly replaced the receiver, and without conscious thought made her way across to a chair and sat down heavily, her eyes unfocused.
Vaguely she was aware that Lily had been saying something, but the little girl had obviously given up on her mummy and gone back outside because the kitchen was now quiet. Quiet enough for her to think.
She grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil and wrote down what she remembered of his words. The words themselves seemed fairly innocuous. They could almost have been the words of a disgruntled customer. But it wasn’t the words that had made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end; it had been the tone of his voice.
There was no doubt at all in Maggie’s head that this was a threat, and she sprang to her feet, rushed to the back door and called the children into the house. She didn’t want them out of her sight for a moment.
The children didn’t understand why they couldn’t stay in the garden, but she silenced them by saying Josh could download a new game for his console and plug it into the TV in the study and Lily could watch
Frozen
for about the fiftieth time in the sitting room after lunch. Bolting all the doors, including the one from the garage into the house, her mind spun through all the different options.
What had Duncan done?
From nowhere, an answer hit her. If Duncan had run off with another woman, it must have been the woman’s husband on the phone. And he was after Duncan. It was the only thing that made sense.