Beth’s hand covered her mouth but not before a startled cry escaped.
‘They will be questioned extensively about Gabriel, but so far they’re admitting nothing.’
‘You think they’ve hurt him? Or worse?’
Stacey opened her hands. ‘It certainly looks that way, but right now we can’t say for sure.’
Beth seemed to get the gist of what she was saying. ‘Are you telling me that I might never know for sure what happened to my husband?’
‘We won’t ever stop trying to find out,’ Stacey assured her. ‘Gabriel’s details will remain on the missing persons list until—’
‘Until you find his body is what you’re telling me?’
Stacey had no answer. She really was beginning to wonder if another officer would have handled this situation a whole lot better than she had.
‘I’ll never give up looking for him, even if you do.’
‘Beth, I wish—’
‘Please don’t be offended but I’d really like you to leave. I have a lot to process and quite frankly you’re just a reminder that I have no resolution.’
‘Call me if there’s anything you need,’ Stacey said, heading to the door.
‘Thank you for your kind words, officer, but I think we both know that from this point on I’m on my own.’
The front door closed behind her.
Stacey walked slowly down the path. It had been a good day. They had caught bad people and yet she’d rarely felt as shitty as this in her life.
She feared even Devon’s home-made special chow mein wasn’t going to cheer her tonight.
EIGHTY-TWO
The muscles are contracting in my arms. They’ve been tightly pulled behind my back. My legs are straight out in front of me, tied at the ankles. The slightest movement rubs against the blistering sores. I can’t see beyond the darkness. My mouth is dry, my throat is sore. I feel ulcers on my lips and tongue.
I think I know where I am.
The drugs don’t feel as strong today, but around me it’s silent. I hear nothing. There’s been no sound for hours or days. I’m not sure any more. I want to cry. I feel stupid, but I want to let it all out – the fear, the sadness, the hate. I want to bawl it all out of me, but I hold the tears back, still praying that this is some kind of nightmare and that soon I’ll wake up. If I feel the hot salty tears rolling over my cheeks, I’ll have to accept that this is real. I try to pretend it’s not.
There’s a noise. It’s familiar – a low humming sound.
The light goes on and it’s real. My suspicion is true.
I am in my own cellar and it’s my own wife who stands before me. She’s smiling.
‘Oh, sweetheart, you’re never going to believe what’s happened now. They actually think you’re dead.’
I let the hate fill my eyes and growl through the gag.
‘Don’t be silly, darling. You know I can’t take it out quite yet. I have to be sure they’re gone. Then you can have this nice cup of tea. Anyway, as I was saying, my plan exceeded my own expectations. First, they come and tell me that you’ve gone away to get your head sorted. That’s all I wanted. In a couple of weeks, I would have called them and told them that you’d contacted me and asked for a divorce. But now they’re not even looking for you. How cool is that? We’re never going to be disturbed again.’
My heart drops into my stomach. My last hope dashed. How can a man just disappear? I know exactly how. I know that my wife has gradually isolated me from my family and friends until I had no one. Over the years I’ve wondered if Craig had actually been as guilty as I’d been led to believe, but I’d fought away the doubts, feeling disloyal to my wife for even letting the thoughts into my head.
‘We don’t need anyone else, do we, my love?’ she asks, sitting on the stool four feet away from me.
‘You may have thought so for ten minutes when that slut at work threw herself at you, but I think you see now that she was just trying to break us up, get between us; but we’d never allow that, would we?’
I should have seen the signs years ago. Any friends we made she found a reason to dislike within days. If we got talking to another couple at a restaurant, we would never go there again. The migraines when there was a work social event, the onset of anxiety attacks when I said I wanted a hobby outside of the house.