Wronged Sons, The (4 page)

“Two nights ago. He wanted to watch News At Ten but I was tired, so I kissed him goodnight and went to bed.”

“Do you remember what time he joined you?”

“No, but I know he was there.”

“How, did you see him or talk to him?”

“No, I’m just sure he was.”

“But it’s possible he might not have been? I mean, he could have actually left that night?”

“Well I suppose so; yes.” I wracked my brains to recall if I’d felt Simon at all during the night, but I drew a blank. Then she changed her direction.

“Was everything alright with your marriage?”

“Of course,” I replied, defensively.

“Did Simon have any money problems? Did he show signs of stress at work?”

“No, nothing at all.” I didn’t appreciate the way she referred to him in the past tense. “You haven’t considered the possibility there might be someone else?”

That caught me by surprise. It’d never crossed my mind, even for a second. “No, he wouldn’t do that.”

“I think Catherine’s right,” added Roger. “Simon’s not that kind of guy. Family means everything to him.”

“Only it happens more often than you think…” I cut her off forcefully.

“I told you, no. My husband does not have affairs.”

“Has he ever disappeared before?”

“No.”

“Even just for a few hours?”

“No.”

“Or has he ever threatened to leave?”

“No!” My hackles rose and my head buzzed. I glanced at the digital clock on the oven and hoped the questions would end soon.

“Have there been any family problems lately?”

Roger and I glanced at each other and I felt my throat tighten.

“Only what I told you about in the car,” Roger replied for me.

“Right. And how did Simon deal with that?”

I swallowed hard. “It’s been a tough year for all of us but we’ve managed to get through it. He was very supportive.”

“I can only imagine. But you don’t think it has anything to do with why Simon left?”

“Stop saying he’s left!” I snapped. “My husband has gone missing.” I turned to Roger for support.

“That’s not what Yvette meant,” he replied, glaring at his tactless colleague. “I’m sorry Catherine, we just need to look at all possibilities.”

“You mean you think it’s a possibility he could have walked out on us?”

“No, no, I don’t. But please bear with us. We’re almost done.”

The questions finished after a long half hour when all the avenues we’d explored ended in cul-de-sacs. Roger asked for a recent photograph of his friend, so I pulled a padded envelope of pictures I’d yet to place into albums from the kitchen drawer.

I’d taken them at Christmas; the last time our family was complete. When it was all of us together, not six minus two. It was early Christmas day and James danced and mimed to his new ‘A-ha’ single while Robbie was in his own prehistoric world with a diplodocus and something with a spiny back fighting for power. Emily was making herself giggle popping bubble-wrap with her feet.

I recalled how Simon seemed oblivious to the wonderful chaos. Instead, he looked around at the family he’d helped create like he’d never seen them before. In one picture, he seemed fixated by a face in the highchair smiling back at him. There was something blank about his expression that wasn’t the Simon I remembered. It disappeared as quickly as the camera’s flash, but was captured on film forever.

So I picked another photo instead; all smiles. That’s how I wanted people to see him, as my Simon. Because that’s the Simon I desperately needed to come home.

12.45pm

Word of Simon’s disappearance spread like wildfire because it had to. If he was lying injured somewhere, then time was of the essence to find him. So under police supervision, our friends in the village formed a search party.

Dozens of people of all ages, along with neighbours we’d never met, hunted for him in fields; along country roads; in copses and church grounds. Police divers tackled streams, ponds and canals.

I stood by our garden fence with my arms wrapped around myself, willing my tremors to stop. I watched carefully as blurred figures fanned out across the fields behind our cottage. I prayed a voice would suddenly shout to say they’d found something. But the sound of their feet trampling the crops was all the wind carried back to me.

Later, I joined Roger and WPC Williams in searching the house from top to bottom for anything out of the ordinary. And while it was invasive, I gritted my teeth and accepted it because I knew they had a job to do.

We searched through the antique writing bureau, paper-by-paper, folder-by-folder, ploughing through old bank statements and phone bills for ‘signs of unusual activity.’ Simon’s passport, chequebook and bankcard were in their usual place in the drawer next to mine. I examined each of the scores of receipts he kept in shoeboxes dating back years.

Elsewhere, police checked his records with Dr Khan and trawled through his office paperwork with Steven. Neighbours were questioned and even the milkman and our poor paperboy were given the third degree. But Simon simply hadn’t been seen.

WPC Williams asked me to narrow down what he might have been wearing, so I rummaged through his wardrobe. Suddenly I recalled Oscar waiting nervously by the front the day before. It hadn’t registered at the time, but Simon’s running shoes lay by the dog’s side. It puzzled me.

It meant he hadn’t, as I’d presumed, gone for a jog. So WPC Williams was right; he could have disappeared the night before. But where had he gone so late or so early and why? And why hadn’t he taken his wallet or keys?

“How are you getting on there Mrs Nicholson?” yelled WPC Williams from the foot of the stairs. “Have you found anything?”

“No, I’ll be down in a minute,” I lied and perched on the ottoman trying to fathom out the unfathomable. I don’t know why, but I felt it best to keep it to myself. She doubted him already and I wasn’t keen to prove the smug cow right.

With the arrival of a Herald & Post reporter came police reinforcements in a transit van. Three handlers with barking German Shepherd sniffer dogs came into the house to pick up a scent from Simon’s clothes. Oscar cowered in the pantry; unable to understand why his world had become such a confusing, noisy place.

“I know how you feel,” I whispered, and bent down to kiss his head.

5.15pm

I had no choice but to lie to the children again when I picked them up from school in the car. Robbie and James punched their fists in the air when I said I was taking them to the cinema to see a new Disney film.

I’d accepted Roger’s advice and got them out of the village so they wouldn’t ask why so many people were in the streets and parks on a weekday. I wanted to keep them in a world of cartoon make-believe before reality hit them. As they crammed in as much popcorn and iced lollipops as their mouths allowed, I casually mentioned that Daddy had been home at lunchtime to pick up some fresh clothes.

“He’s flying to a different country for work, in a huge plane, like the one we flew in to Spain,” I began. “He’ll only be gone for a few days.”

They loved the thought of him on a big adventure somewhere across the sea. Robbie said it made him sound like Indiana Jones.

“And Daddy asked me to take you all to the cinema for a treat and to remind you he loves you very much and he’ll be home soon,” I added.

“Thanks Daddy!” shouted James lifting his head up to the sky to wave to an imaginary airplane.

As soon as the film’s opening credits began, I wondered if an afternoon out to cover up a gigantic lie was the right thing to do. But how could I expect them to understand their dad had vanished when I didn’t understand it myself? I couldn’t tell them the truth because I didn’t know what the truth was.

I stared at the screen for an hour and a half, not taking in a single word or animated image. I couldn’t stop thinking about Simon’s trainers. If he hadn’t gone for a run when he left the house, then where had he gone? And why? I went round in so many circles I began to feel queasy.

But amongst the confusion, I was still certain of one thing. Simon hadn’t left us of his own free will.

7.40pm

I pulled into the drive soon after fading daylight forced the search party to come to a halt. A tired Robbie and James trudged up the staircase and into the bathroom to get washed and ready for bed. I hurried into the kitchen and found Annie, who’d brought Emily back from Caroline’s house.

“Have you heard anything?” I asked hopefully.

“Sorry darling,” she replied, and my bottom lip quivered. Annie rose to her feet to comfort me, but I put my hands up to form a barrier.

“I’m okay, honestly. I’d better check on the kids.”

“You had a couple of visitors earlier.”

“Who?”

“Arthur and Shirley,” she replied, shaking her head knowingly.

I sighed. In the chaos of those twenty-four hours, I’d asked Roger to fill them in, and then I promptly forgot about them. And I was too tired to go into battle that night.

“I wouldn’t keep them waiting for too long,” added Annie, reading my mind. “You know Shirley’s like a dog with a bone if she thinks someone’s not telling her something.”

I nodded, scared that if I spoke, my voice might crack. She could tell, and this time, I let her hug me.

“Try not to worry, Simon will be back soon.”

I wondered how many times I’d hear that before it came true?

***

Luton, Twenty-five years ago

June 5, 7.40am

Cars and lorries thundered past the motorway slip road as my feet sank into a soggy grass verge.

With little money and no alternative means, hitchhiking would be my best way to reach London provided I could persuade a driver to take pity on me. But both man and machine appeared deliberately oblivious to my optimistic thumb. However, I had patience on my side.

I’d spent just one restful night in my tatty caravan when a family car with a roof rack strapped full of weathered plastic suitcases parked by my side. With minimum fuss, I grabbed my clothes and scrambled out of the rear window like a fugitive, dressing as I ran.

My pace slowed when I reached the gates, then I paused at the sound of a child’s scream. One of the new arrivals, a little boy of no more than three years, had been unable to contain his excitement and ran eagerly towards the caravan. He must have tripped and taken the brunt of the impact on his knees.

Without thinking, his mum discarded her handbag, ran around the car and scooped him up in her arms to comfort him. Fatherhood helped me identify the difference between genuine tears and those exaggerated for sympathy. Even at such an unseasoned age, the boy was aware the longer he made his pain visible, the longer he’d remain her priority.

It had never worked for me though with my own mother. The last time I’d seen her had been some twenty years earlier - when I’d longed for her death.

My father, Arthur, was a loyal but weak man whose only mistake in his mediocre life had been to offer his heart to a transient soul. Because Doreen was his polar opposite – a flighty, part-time wife and parent who sauntered in and out of our lives through her own set of revolving doors.

When she gave us her attention she was fun, attentive and loving. You could feel her presence long before she made her entrance into a room. Her infectious laughter filled corners my father and I couldn’t reach. She and I would giggle as we built dens in the lounge using polyester bed sheets draped over the settee. We’d crawl inside to escape the world and pick at crumbled digestives from the tin of broken biscuits she filled with cast-offs from Woolworth’s damaged goods shelf.

But Arthur and I only ever had the woman we loved on loan. It never mattered how long she remained in our company – a month, six months, maybe a year if we were fortunate – we always kept one eye on the clock waiting for the inevitable.

Doreen’s extra marital liaisons were both frequent and humiliating. Sometimes it only took a stranger’s wink and a sniff of greener grass and she’d dig her way out to the other side. Once she absconded with the local pub landlord to work in his new premises in Sunderland. Then a Pan Am pilot with an American twang promised to show her the world. She reached as far as Birmingham before he cast her aside.

And there were her extended stays in London with the one my parents only argued about when they thought I was sleeping. Doreen was terrified of being happy but equally frightened of being alone. And any time she reached the middle ground, she either ran from us or to us. Just because I grew accustomed to it, didn’t mean it made sense.

“I get suffocated, Simon,” she once strived to explain. I’d caught her one Saturday teatime trying to slip away without being noticed. She knelt with her suitcase in one hand and mine in the other, talking to a six-year-old like he knew how to navigate the trenches of the heart.

“I love you and your dad, but I need more,” she cried, then closed the front door and disappeared in a stranger’s blue Austin Healey.

We always forgave her dramatic vignettes and eventually, her departures came as a relief. Because anticipating the melancholy they induced was far worse than the actual rejection. So when I wished her dead, it was only to force the merry-go-round to stop.

I still ached for my mother’s love, despite myself. After all the promises she’d broken and tears I’d shed, I needed her to know she was forgiven before I moved on. And London was her last known location.

The heavens opened and the rain poured down just as a car’s indicator flashed and pulled up ahead. I ran towards it.

My wife’s actions made me understand there were times when there was no other option but to leave everything behind and to hell with the ramifications. And I had a better reason to leave my family than Doreen ever believed she’d had.

She was the last dandelion seed head I needed to set free.

Hemel Hempstead, 1.10pm

I attached myself to a metal chair in a motorway service station and waited patiently for the rain to stop.