Shrugging, she replied, “I don’t know. I can’t remember.”
“That’s because I haven’t been shopping for years. You know as well as I do that the closest I’ve been to shopping is going down the road to the corner shop.”
“All right, I get your point, but…”
“But nothing. There is no other explanation. This is the real thing. This woman is in our house. And I’m not crazy.”
“I never said you were,” she assured him, clearly trying to settle the mood. “I was just concerned. I mean you come home all suspiciously, with mud on your ass.” She paused for a moment, frowning. “So where did the mud really come from?”
Richard’s stomach started to somersault. He knew full well how his wife would treat the news of his meeting with Carl. His lying eyes—his tell-tale eyes—looked down at the carpet. He swallowed hard, like dry-swallowing a pill. “I told you, I slipped,” he answered, without conviction.
“I know when you’re lying. So tell me the truth,” she demanded. “You’ve already said that it’s got something to do with this missing woman. So tell me—what really happened?”
He hesitated, still with his eyes cast down to the floor like a guilty child.
“Come on, you can tell me. I won’t get mad. I promise.”
Richard knew that she would, but he said it anyway. “I went to see Carl Jones.”
“Who’s Carl Jones?” Then her jaw dropped as she plainly remembered exactly who Carl Jones was. “Please tell me you didn’t visit this woman’s grieving husband.”
His silence spoke volumes.
“Jesus Christ, Rich, what’s the matter with you?”
He turned to her, this time looking her straight in the eyes. “I had to, all right. He needed to know the truth.”
“Needed to know what? That his wife is now a bloody ghost in our house? What the hell’s the matter with you?”
Richard angrily stood up. “Look, if it was you who was missing, then I’d want to know.”
She shook her head in astonishment. “I can’t believe you could do something so stupid. That poor man.” She rubbed her face with a palm and sighed. “So what happened then? Where did the mud come from?”
Richard started to pace nervously up and down the room, then stopped. “He sort of attacked me.”
Nicky’s face filled with horror. “Attacked you?”
Nodding, he began pacing again. “With a baseball bat.”
“A baseball bat? Oh this gets better and better. You’re lucky he didn’t call the police.”
He didn’t reply.
“Please tell me he didn’t call the police,” she asked, apprehension lacing her voice.
“No, he didn’t.”
“Well, at least that’s something. You could have been killed. Did he hurt you?”
He stopped pacing. “No, I’m fine. I got away. And you’re right—I shouldn’t have gone to see him. It was mistake. A big mistake. But I didn’t know what else to do.”
“You could have tried not going,” she sarcastically replied. “That man has lost someone close to him, and you go to his house and tell him something like that.”
Richard had run out of things to say. Thought after thought flooded his head as he gazed into his wife’s disappointed eyes. Was she right in what she said? Had it all been a coincidence? What if he had seen the same poster elsewhere? And what if he had crushed an innocent man’s hopes of finding the woman he loved alive with one ill-advised visit?
Had he lost his mind in less than two weeks?
Shaking her head and sighing loudly, Nicky left the bedroom.
“Where are you going now?” he asked, his voice filled with shame and deflation.
“Going for a bath.” She disappeared into the bathroom. “Alone.”
Richard sat on the bed, disillusioned. Suddenly, his predicament seemed less and less clear.