The Missing Husband

  The Missing Husband

  Natasha Boydell

  Copyright © 2021 Natasha Boydell

  The right of Natasha Boydell to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance to the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  First published in 2021 by Bloodhound Books.

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publisher or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  www.bloodhoundbooks.com

  Print ISBN 978-1-913942-51-9

  Contents

  Love crime, thriller and mystery books?

  Prologue

  1. Kate

  2. Pete

  3. Kate

  4. Pete

  5. Kate

  6. Pete

  7. Kate

  8. Pete

  9. Kate

  10. Pete

  11. Kate

  12. Pete

  13. Kate

  14. Pete

  15. Kate

  16. Pete

  17. Kate

  18. Pete

  19. Kate

  20. Claire

  21. Pete

  22. Claire

  23. Pete

  24. Claire

  25. Kate

  26. Pete

  27. Kate

  28. Claire and Kate

  Acknowledgements

  A note from the publisher

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  Prologue

  There is nothing remarkable about the last time you saw your husband. It was a typical September day, a wet weekday morning just like any of the thousands that have passed before it without ceremony. You were alone in the kitchen, tidying up the aftermath of the children’s breakfast when he walked in. His hair was still damp from his shower and the fresh, clean smell of toothpaste and lemon shower gel emanated from him, just as it did every morning. It was one of your favourite smells and even after all these years of marriage you still paused for a second to breathe it in.

  You switched on the coffee machine, sliced some sourdough bread and put it in the toaster, while he grabbed the coffee cups and milk; years of cohabitation creating a routine so ingrained that you were hardly aware you were doing it anymore. The children had gone to school early that morning, so you had a rare, uninterrupted breakfast together, sipping your still hot coffee and talking about the mundane topics of family life. Then he wiped his mouth, stood up, kissed you and left – his mind, you imagined, already preoccupied with the tasks of the day ahead.

  It has now been five months and you haven’t seen him since.

  You’ve replayed that morning over and over again in your head. You’ve obsessed over every single second of that day and the days leading up to it. Recently someone asked you, ‘If you knew then that it would be the last time you saw him, would you have done anything differently?’

  The answer is, you have no idea anymore. Because, what do you do when your husband has betrayed you? When he has turned his back on everything you built together, on your children, on your intertwined life as a family unit? When his selfishness has broken you and the life you thought was real? When every time you think you’ve found the answers, something happens to plant a new seed of doubt in your mind?

  You carry on. You put the kettle on, you look after the kids and you get on with your life.

  Because, really, what else can you do?

  1

  Kate

  Kate sat at the kitchen table and stared at her iPhone. It was a pointless exercise really. She already knew it wasn’t going to provide her with any answers. She scrolled mindlessly through her Facebook, Twitter and Instagram feeds, scanning the endless conveyor belt of other people’s lives without processing any of it. It was simply a habit, a distraction from real life and in particular the situation she was in. She looked at the clock on the wall and then back at her phone. She tapped her fingers on the table, her manicured nails clicking on the hardwood surface, one, two, three, one, two, three, four, five, playing scales in her subconscious – an old habit from years of piano lessons as a child.

  The kettle boiled and clicked off for the third time that morning. No tea had been made yet.

  The house had the stillness that comes after the whirling tornado of children – school shoes flying across the room, the frantic search for missing coats or bags, bickering over who gets the pink earmuffs – have finally departed for school and peace is temporarily restored for a few blissful hours. Normally she treasured the silence but today it was too loud and too obvious. Something was missing and she had that horrible, sinking feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you know that the world has fundamentally shifted but you’re not sure exactly what that means yet.

  Finally, she exhaled deeply, picked up the phone and called her sister Erin. As usual, it went to voicemail and this wasn’t the time for pleasantries or small talk. Five words were enough, so she took a deep breath and said simply: ‘I think he’s left me’. There was nothing else to say and she put the phone down and stared at the clock again. It continued its steady ticking, oblivious to the chaos that was erupting around it. Time didn’t stand still for anyone.

  The clock was grey and elegant, an impulse purchase to fill a blank wall and the final touch to the family kitchen which had been Kate’s project of passion for months. She’d finally got to buy the sunken sink, central island and huge Aga she’d always dreamed of. ‘Like a modern farmhouse kitchen in the city,’ her husband Pete had commented when it was finished. She’d been desperate to create a rural chic effect and the stress of the whole renovation project had nearly tipped her over the edge on several occasions, so she had been thrilled by his description.

  They lived in a townhouse in Muswell Hill, north London, just a few minutes’ walk from the bus stop where Pete started his journey to work each morning. He hadn’t wanted to live there at first because there wasn’t a Tube station nearby, but she had immediately fallen in love with the ‘impressive four-bedroom house in an enviable location’ pitched to them by the slick Greek-Cypriot estate agent. When they went to view it, Kate, clutching their eldest daughter Lily’s hand while cradling a newborn Maggie in her baby carrier, could imagine them putting down roots here. She could already hear their children’s laughter echoing around the rooms as they ran through the halls, growing up, playing with their friends and making memories. They would be so happy here, she thought.

  So, just as she had always done so well in her old job in public relations, she had prepared her best pitch to Pete, painting the picture of an idyllic family life in the house, sending him links to nearby restaurants and cafés that she knew he’d like and eventually persuading him that this property was exactly what they needed. Four years on and he still moaned about the damn commute. But she knew he loved the house really and the girls, now seven and five, had got into the popular local primary school. Plus the renovation, while stressful, had given her a much-needed project to distract her from the relentless and overwhelming job of being a stay-at-home mum to young children.

  Now all that was left
to do was the overgrown garden and recently she had been feeling like she was almost there, that Project Family Home was nearing completion. To her that symbolised the start of a new, better life. She was slowly inching ever closer to having created the ideal home that she had dreamed of for her family, a place constantly filled with people, life and laughter for many years to come.

  But this morning, as she sat in silence at their handmade pine kitchen table, listening to the monotonous sound of their beautiful clock ticking in their immaculately designed kitchen, she had never felt more alone. Her mind drifted back to the previous day and the last words she had said to her husband before he left.

  The morning had started like any other. The girls had bounded into their rooms at 6.30am, snuggling under the covers for a few more blissful moments in bed before they all had to face the day. Kate had got up with them and taken them off to get dressed while Pete checked his emails. Downstairs she had made them breakfast and waited for Rachel, their nanny, to collect them and take them to school. She had asked her to come earlier than usual so that they could go to a breakfast fundraiser organised by the parents committee. Once they had left, Kate had started cleaning up the kitchen as she waited for Pete to come down, then they’d had a quick breakfast together before he left for work.

  Had he acted any differently over breakfast, she wondered, casting her mind back? She didn’t think so. Nothing she could put her finger on anyway. What was the last thing she had said to him as he headed towards the front door? She tried to think but she couldn’t remember exactly now. It wasn’t ‘I love you’, they’d stopped saying that to each other every day years ago. But everyone knew that was par for the course when you’ve been together forever and you’ve got children. It was a given that you loved each other.

  That evening, she hadn’t been surprised when he wasn’t home to help put the girls to bed. He was a workaholic and in the nine years she’d been married to him she’d become accustomed to his late nights and business trips. As a director at a large media company there was always a client to schmooze or a crisis to handle. She had carried on with the usual evening routine – bath, bed and stories with the girls – before kissing them goodnight and padding wearily down the stairs, pouring a glass of red wine and collapsing on the sofa. Turning the TV on, she sent Pete a quick text to ask if he’d be home for dinner before scrolling through the channels and choosing an episode of EastEnders. Pete loathed soaps but she loved them, and she always indulged in her guilty pleasure whenever he wasn’t around. She relished the mad, over-the-top drama of other people’s fictional lives, secure in the knowledge that hers was reassuringly mundane in comparison.

  At 3am she woke up on the sofa with the empty bottle of wine next to her, a horrible taste in her mouth and the immediate sensation that Pete wasn’t in the house. She climbed the stairs and glanced into their empty bedroom, then pulled her phone out of her jeans pocket and called him, nearly jumping out of her skin when the sound of ringing downstairs pierced the still of the night. Pete never went anywhere without his phone. She followed the sound to the coat rack by the front door and rummaged through his jacket until she discovered his mobile nestled in a pocket, next to an envelope with her name on it. It had clearly been there all day, but she hadn’t heard it go off. Looking at the screen she could see just two notifications – her own text message that she’d sent him earlier that evening, unread and unanswered – and her missed call. Putting the phone in her own pocket for now and feeling the grogginess of the red wine wearing off rapidly, she turned her attention to the letter.

  She couldn’t remember the last time her husband had written her an anniversary card, let alone a handwritten letter but the writing was undoubtedly his messy scrawl. Walking back into the living room and sinking down on to the sofa with a rapidly growing feeling of dread, she stared at the envelope for a second before pulling out the letter with fumbling fingers. She scanned it quickly, her heart thumping as the adrenaline kicked in. When she was finished, she went back to the beginning and re-read every line over and over again, trying to make sense of the words.

  Kate,

  I love you, I always will, and I love our children more than life itself. I’ve struggled for a long time trying to make this work, to feel as happy as I should with our perfect life, our perfect house and our perfect family, but I just don’t have the strength anymore. You deserve better, so do the girls.

  I met someone else, I don’t know how it happened, I wasn’t looking for it but it came and I couldn’t resist. I’m sorry, I know I’m weak. But I also know that I feel happier and lighter than I’ve felt in years. I feel free. I know you won’t understand this right now but I hope that you will, in time, and that you will find the same freedom.

  I’m going away for a while, to give us both a chance to clear our heads, for the dust to settle. I know you’ll be angry with me and it’s more than I deserve but please tell the girls that I’m on a business trip. I want to be a good dad to them, I need to be. But to do that we both need some time so that we can reset and start again.

  I’ll be in touch in a few weeks. I love you. I’m sorry.

  Kate stared at the letter for so long that the words started to blur and bounce around on the page in front of her. Her heart was pounding as her mind whirred through possible alternatives – this wasn’t actually happening; she was dreaming; it would all be fine in the morning – before landing on the inevitable truth. This was very real and the life that she knew had changed forever. But she simply wasn’t prepared.

  She had been with Pete for so long that she couldn’t really remember life without him. University sweethearts, she had met him in a student bar in Leeds on her first night in the city. She was high on nerves, cheap beer and the excitement of being away from home for the first time. The bar was heaving with over-eager freshers, necking lagers or alcopops as they made conversation and sized up potential new friends, future housemates and soulmates. After an exhausting day of travelling from her family home in Southampton, finding her new digs, unpacking and meeting new faces, she’d been desperate for a seat and as soon as she spotted one at the end of a table that looked free she’d launched herself at it, grinning self-consciously at the other inhabitants at the table who were all staring back at her. It was quickly established that the seat was already taken and when its tenant, Pete, returned from the bar to claim it, he suggested they solve the problem by her sitting on his lap.

  It wasn’t love at first sight but it wasn’t far off either. He was living in the same halls of residence as her and they struck up an easy friendship, meeting in the canteen for meals and walking to campus together where they would go their separate ways for lectures – him in business management and her in communication and media. Soon they were spending several evenings a week lying on her bed together, listening to indie music (his choice), eating crisps and discussing the meaning of life. They were the very cliché of new students but she loved it. By the time she went home for Christmas, she was smitten with this new boy in her life, with his confidence, easy self-assurance and banter, and she spent the entire festive period mooning over him, listening to Mariah Carey (her choice) and using every ounce of willpower that she had not to drunk call him and declare undying love.

  Meeting up with her old school friends in the local pub, she’d felt different, as though she’d somehow become a new person in those three months she’d been away, and she was aching to get back to Leeds. The holidays seemed like they would never end and as soon as term started, she was throwing her stuff into her holdall, waving at her parents and practically sprinting to the train station to make her journey back north.

  To her amazement and utter joy, Pete returned in January single after breaking up with his girlfriend from back home. As soon as he heard she was back in town he was at her door with some Doritos, a four-pack of beer and a nervous grin. Within two weeks they were an official couple. By the following year their relationship was as solid, reliable and familiar to all thei
r friends as the second-hand furniture that furnished their student digs.

  The perfect couple, that’s what they’d been called by the other students during their time in Leeds. They were sociable and fun-loving, always up for a laugh and popular with everyone. They bickered of course but while other couples would have drunken, jealous spats after nights out, accusing the other of flirting with another student from their course, they seemed immune to the drama. With Pete she felt both safe and exhilarated at the same time because everything with him was more fun, more colourful, than her dull, suburban life had been before she met him.

  By the time they graduated, they’d made their plan for the future and agreed that they would both apply for jobs in London and move there as soon as they were hired. Their reputation as the dream couple followed them to London where they survived the tumultuous post-university years when all the other couples around them were breaking up as their lives took them in different directions and towards new passions and desires.

  They managed to navigate the tricky path to pursuing their careers and discovering new friendships while maintaining their relationship. She’d been tempted of course, enjoying the attention of work colleagues flirting with her at Christmas parties or catching the eye of an attractive man in a bar on a night out with the girls. She was sure he’d had plenty of temptations too, but she trusted him implicitly. She knew, and relished the fact, that their relationship was envied by friends and colleagues on both sides and that there were women out there determined to find a chink in their armour and claim Pete for themselves, but they had held strong for all these years, a solid couple that couldn’t be broken. Until now.