‘I’m so glad I asked you to fetch that money out the bank. That really put the icing on the cake. You really thought I wanted to go get a new car?’
Yes, I really had thought that. She begged me to take the day off and go car shopping with her. I regretted that I wouldn’t get to see Wendy, but I was already feeling guilty for my emotions even though I haven’t done anything wrong.
I returned from fetching the money and was hit with something heavy as I walked in the door. When I woke, I was down here, tied up and drugged in a space I’d recently cleaned out.
‘I wonder if your work whore has got the message yet?’
The thought of Wendy brings fresh sorrow to my heart. We clicked. I looked forward to our lunches together. I sent her a text. My wife checked my phone.
And now I’m pretty sure I’ll never see her again. I don’t know how long I’ve been down here, but I don’t think I’m going anywhere. To everyone else I’m dead, and now I wish I was.
‘So it’s just us again. Just like it’s always been. We don’t need…’ Her words trail away as a noise sounds at the top of the stairs.
Suddenly there is a woman, a black woman with a satchel, surveying the scene with horror. I don’t know what’s real any more. Is she a dream?
My wife’s face turns vicious.
‘You can’t just come down here without—’
‘Oh yes I can, Mrs Denton, when I fear for someone’s safety. And after seeing you load the dishwasher, I remembered you were doing the same thing this morning. Too many plates, cups, saucepans for one person, and you told me yourself you have no family or friends. You knew he was growing away from you. You’ve managed to isolate him over the years and get rid of anyone he was close to so that it was just the two of you. Your failure to conceive a child prompted you to pull him even closer. That was bearable as long as you had each other. Just the two of you, but then you saw his text message to Wendy and that was the final straw. You knew you were losing him.’
As she speaks, she looks at me and then back at my wife.
‘How could you treat him like this?’
‘He’s my husband,’ Beth spits. ‘No one is taking him away from me.’
‘No, but we’ll be taking you away from him.’
The woman steps further into the space to reveal a police officer behind her.
‘Take her upstairs and cuff her,’ the woman says.
My wife makes all kinds of protest but the officer is having none of it.
When they’re gone, the woman kneels on the cold ground beside me. I still don’t trust that she’s real.
‘Gabriel, my name is DC Stacey Wood and I’ve been looking for you.’
She’s been looking. Someone has been looking. The emotion gathers in my throat.
She takes the gag from my mouth. ‘It’s okay, Gabe, you’re safe now,’ she says, touching my arm.
Again the tears want to come, and this time I make no effort to stop them.
EIGHTY-THREE
‘Well, that was a week and a half,’ Kim said to her brother’s headstone. She’d come every Sunday morning since she’d got out of hospital, seeking the same answer every time.
The week had exhausted her and not just physically. From the very first minute of re-entering the workplace, she’d had to hold her tongue, stifle her irritation and stare at a living, breathing reminder of what had happened to her. In addition, she’d watched as he’d started to mess up yet another investigation. And if that hadn’t been enough, he’d tried to jump her in the station car park.
Go slowly, Woody had said. Chance would have been a fine thing.
Her first real task had been to visit Jamie’s parents. The anger still rose within her when she thought of their bigotry and how that had affected their son. She had not graced them with a personal update. She had delegated, unable to be in their company again without the real risk of violence or a formal complaint.
She had taken the time to visit Sarah’s parents, especially as Sarah’s child had been the key to unravelling it all and getting the charges finalised.
Kim had taken over the questioning of Eric on Saturday morning when both siblings had been firm ‘no comment’ interviewees on the back of advice from the clinic’s notorious legal team.