‘You’re wrong, Kenneth.’
Then I leaned across the table to whisper something in his ear that no one else in the room could hear. I sat back on my chair while he scowled at me, confused and dismayed.
‘So now you know the only good thing you ever did isn’t just a little like his father,’ I said. ‘He’s worse.’
‘You fucking monster,’ he muttered.
‘Like father, like son. Keep your watch and I hope they bury you with it sooner rather than later.’
Then I turned my back on my father and left the room.
CATHERINE
Northampton, twenty-five years earlier
6 June, 8.45 a.m.
I unscrewed the lid from a bottle of wine and poured it into a dirty mug, which had been lying in the kitchen sink along with the rest of the unwashed dishes. I opened the kitchen cupboard, took three aspirin from a bottle on the top shelf and swallowed them in the hope they’d get rid of the pounding headache brought on by a second sleepless night. The bottle rattled when I shook it. It sounded nearly full, and for a moment I wondered how many pills it might take to kill a person.
I glanced wearily around the room and sighed at the mess it had so quickly become. It was in good company. The rest of the house was a mess, the past two days had been a mess and I was a mess.
I tried so hard to be positive in front of everyone else, but when I was alone, the doubts set in. I couldn’t tell anyone how sick I felt each time I thought about what might have happened to Simon, that I jumped with every ring of the phone or footstep on the path, or how I was surviving on adrenaline and caffeine, my brain fighting against a body begging to go back to bed.
The only part of me keeping sane was the part that put the children’s needs before mine. Everyone knew Simon was missing except for his own flesh and blood, and it was my job to keep it that way. But it was hard, because many of their friends’ parents had taken time off work to join the second day of the search. It was only a matter of time before the kids found out. Then what would I tell them? Parents are supposed to be the ones with all the answers, but I had none.
According to Roger, the first seventy-two hours are the most important in the search for a missing person, as that’s the time frame within which most turn up. Any longer than that and hope begins to fade. Simon’s clock was ticking.
So I clenched my fists and prayed it would be the day they found him. I swear WPC Williams had stifled a smile when she warned me that if they’d not turned up anything by nightfall, they’d have to call off the search. I wondered how many loved ones I’d have to lose in my lifetime before God gave me a break.
Suddenly I was aware I still had hold of the aspirin bottle, so I threw it back in the cupboard, ashamed of something I’d never do. I finished the rest of my wine, put the mug back in the sink and headed upstairs to shower.
As I stood under the warm jet, I crumbled. I cried and cried until I couldn’t tell whether my body was wet with water or tears.
3.35 p.m.
It may have been inevitable but it still caught me off guard.
‘Amelia Jones says Daddy’s lost,’ cried James as he ran to meet me at the school gates. ‘Is he?’ His green eyes were wide and troubled. Robbie, too, looked as anxious as I’d ever seen him. I knew they deserved my honesty.
‘When we get home, let’s find your fishing nets from the garage and we’ll go to the stream,’ I replied calmly. ‘And then we’ll have a chat.’
The late-afternoon sun hid behind a large dragon-shaped cloud as the four of us and Oscar walked in single file towards a wooden bridge over the water.
I chose a place they associated with their daddy, as if it might soften the blow a little. It was somewhere he’d taken them many times to pretend to fish. They’d catch imaginary minnows and crayfish, throw them inside pretend buckets and bring them home to me, where I’d play along and pretend to be amazed by their haul.
We sat down, cast our imaginary lines and skimmed the surface with nets while I gently explained we might not see him for a while.
‘Where has he gone?’ asked James, his brow narrowing like his father’s did when he couldn’t make sense of something.
‘I don’t know.’
‘When will he be back?’
‘I can’t tell you, honey.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I can’t. All I know is that Daddy’s gone away for a bit and hopefully he’ll come home soon.’
‘Why don’t you know?’ pushed James.
‘I just don’t, I’m sorry. We don’t know how to find him. But I know he’s thinking about us all.’
‘But when we don’t tell you where we’re going, you tell us off,’ reasoned Robbie. I nodded. ‘So are you going to tell Daddy off?’
‘Yes,’ I lied, but I wouldn’t tell him off. Instead I’d wrap myself around him and hold on for dear life.
‘Has he gone to see Billy?’ asked Robbie, his face beginning to crumple.
I swallowed hard. ‘No, he hasn’t.’ I knew he hadn’t. I prayed he hadn’t.
‘But how do you know?’ scowled James.
I looked into the distance where the stream melted into the fields and said nothing. The fishing continued in silence and they caught nothing while their little brains digested what I’d said, as best they could. None of us wanted to imagine a life without him.
8.10 p.m.
I sat on a patio chair, wrapped in Simon’s navy-blue chunky Aran sweater, and waited for the day to merge into dusk. The cordless phone I’d asked Paula to buy for me was never more than a foot away. But it was as silent as the world around me. Only the moths clamouring around a candle’s flame in the Moroccan lantern kept me company. Directionless and unsteady, we had a lot in common.
I tried to cheer myself up by thinking about all the silly things he used to do to make me smile, like giving the dog a voice, dancing around the kitchen with me to old Wham! songs, or putting on one of my dresses to make our friends laugh in the middle of a dinner party. He could be so silly sometimes, and I desperately wanted that man back.
I poured the last trickle from a bottle of red wine into my glass and waited. That’s all I’d done for three days – wait.
When I was inside our house I was homesick for a place I’d never left. But it had become claustrophobic without Simon, and I dreaded the nights. Because without the interruptions of friends stopping by or me trying to put a smile on the glum faces of the confused kids, I had even more time to think about him. I missed him, yet inside I raged at him too, for leaving me like this.
I didn’t care what WPC Williams had said: I knew Simon too well to ever consider he’d walked out on us. The strength and support he’d shown me during the worst thing that could ever happen to a parent had proved he was a fantastic husband and dad, and I desperately needed to believe that he was still alive. Fifteen months had passed since we’d last been united in grief, and there I was again, but this time I was on my own and grieving for a man whose fate was unknown.
Northampton, today