‘No, of course I don’t, but we have to follow up all leads, even if they come from crackpots.’
‘Tell me who this crackpot is, Roger,’ I demanded.
‘I’m not allowed to say.’
‘This is me you’re talking to. I have a right to know.’
‘I’m sorry, Catherine, I can’t.’
I paused. ‘Wait a minute, you said crackpots, as in there’s more than one. Who would . . . ’
My voice trailed off and I shut my eyes when I realised who was responsible.
‘Arthur and Shirley!’ I fumed. ‘I’m going round there now to sort this out once and for all.’ I’d vowed never to speak to them again after our last confrontation, but I was furious enough to make an exception.
‘No, you’re not,’ Roger replied firmly. ‘You’re going to stay in the house and let me do my job. We’re not going to find anything, but the quicker we can get this over with, the quicker we can leave before your kids and neighbours wake up.’
I glared at him in both frustration and disgust, scared that even a tiny piece of him might believe my poisonous in-laws. But there was nothing but embarrassment in his eyes.
‘Just do it, then go away,’ I fired back, and left him to it. Then I hid, ashamed and humiliated, behind the dining room curtains as officers silently searched the rear garden, Simon’s shed, and prised up random patio slabs around the pond.
They bagged samples of ashes from his bonfire heap, trawled through the boot of his car using special sticky tape to lift fibres, and sieved earth in the borders by the front lawn. But when they focused their attention on the pink rosebushes he’d planted for me during the depths of my depression, I couldn’t contain my anger any longer.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ I yelled, running towards them. ‘You don’t know what they mean to me!’
‘The ground’s freshly dug, so we have to check,’ a faceless man in uniform replied.
I grabbed the spade from his hand and threw it across the lawn. ‘That’s what you do in a garden – dig soil and plant things, you bloody idiot!’
I stomped back into the kitchen and finished off a half-empty bottle of wine in the fridge, then hurled it against the wall. A frightened Oscar scarpered for safety into the living room.
I let the children sleep in longer than normal, and two and a half hours after their arrival, the police put their tools in the back of the van and Roger reappeared on the doorstep.
‘We’ve finished. As I said, we didn’t expect to find anything. I’m so sorry for putting you through this, Catherine.’
‘So am I,’ I replied, and slammed the door on him.
14 August
‘Simon is not dead,’ I told my reflection in the bathroom-cabinet mirror. ‘He is not dead. He is not dead.’
Each time a shadow of a doubt crossed my mind, I’d say the same thing out loud over and over until I believed it again. But as each week passed, it was getting harder and harder to believe.
I peered inside the cabinet to make sure everything was where it should be for when he came home. I did that a lot. His razor, shaving cream, brush, comb, cotton buds and deodorant stick were still lined up neatly, and all as redundant as me.
I closed the doors and commiserated with the haunted face staring back at me. I asked myself if I’d been unfair by offering the kids false hope that he was still alive. I may have stopped feeling his presence, but intuition told me he wouldn’t be gone forever. Was that enough? And besides, what lessons would I be teaching them if I gave up on their dad so quickly?
Simon was my first and final thought each day, and probably every other thought in between. Each night in bed I’d tell him about my day, but he never replied. Still, I was sure he was out there somewhere, waiting to be found. But I felt like I was in a shrinking minority.
It was subtle at first, but I began to see a change in our friends. No one actually had the guts to put it into words, but I began to pick up on little signs of doubt when I brought his name up. Steven seldom mentioned his name unless it involved the business. Baishali would tug awkwardly at the dark curls touching her neck and then change the subject. Even my ever-reliable Paula began to look at me like I was naive for not considering he could’ve just walked away.
Without her knowing it, she hurt me more anyone else because we were so close and she didn’t trust my instincts. And it made me ask myself if I shouldn’t be talking about Simon so much. But why should I stop? He was my husband and it wasn’t his fault he’d been taken away from us. Why couldn’t everyone else see that?
I became resentful towards anyone whose sole focus wasn’t to help find him. I knew people had their own lives to live and I envied them, but their doubt frustrated the hell out of me. I wanted to tell them all to sod off. But I needed their help to keep myself together, so I got my support from a bottle of red wine instead. It understood what I needed more than any friend did.
I led a double life as one foot sank in quicksand and the other flailed around desperately, seeking enough solid ground to keep myself stable.
Family dinners became subdued affairs. I’d entice the kids into talking or give them something to focus on like empty promises of fun holidays, and birthdays and Christmases to come. But it didn’t matter what I said. All they wanted was their father. So, most nights, we’d sit quietly, shuffling chicken Kievs around our plates like chess pieces, trying to stop ourselves from staring at the empty chair at the dining room table.
In the end, I moved the chair into the garage. It made no difference. We’d gawp at the empty space instead.
2 September
It took an eight-year-old boy to shame his mother into action.
‘Look what I’ve made, Mummy,’ said James proudly as he pushed a piece of paper into my chest.
My heart bled when he showed me a drawing of his dad with a reward of his fifty-pence pocket money for the person who found him.
‘We can put it in the window,’ he suggested helpfully. It was the kick up the backside I needed.
Three months after Simon’s disappearance, Roger admitted the police investigation had drawn a blank. I’d let them do their job, even if it meant searching my house or digging up my garden for his remains. But there was only so much I could take of feeling stupid when the children and neighbours asked me for updates and I couldn’t give them answers.
I’d fallen into a vicious circle of feeling sorry for myself and relying on others to find him. And then I’d get frustrated when they hadn’t. James’s reward poster reminded me there was nothing stopping me from finding Simon myself.
I sprang into action with a second wind and called our local newspaper, which sent a reporter to the house for a renewed appeal. And once the interview made it to print, regional news programme Countywide asked to come to our house and film a segment. I can’t say I was proud of it, but I used our children’s anxiety to tug at viewers’ heartstrings.
‘Mummy’s trying to make people feel sorry for us,’ I whispered to James and Robbie out of earshot of the cameraman.