The Missing Husband. Amanda Brooke

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СКАЧАТЬ listening only long enough for the automated announcement to kick in advising her to leave a message. She didn’t. She hung up each and every time before waiting precisely ten minutes until she allowed herself to repeat the process.

      Jo hadn’t yet decided what she would use the landline for. She wanted to phone someone but didn’t know whom. She had gone through her address book on her mobile but dismissed every one. Right now there was only one person’s voice she wanted to hear and no one else would do, not family or friends and, God forbid, not the emergency services. If there was the possibility that something awful had happened to David then, she reasoned, it wasn’t yet real and it wouldn’t be real until she told someone. She and David lived an unremarkable life; nothing bad had ever happened to them and as long as she didn’t let her imagination run wild, it wasn’t happening now. Telling someone would be like taking a pin and bursting the protective bubble she was desperately constructing around herself.

      And then the phone rang.

      Her mobile shone through the darkness and the warm rush coursing through her body took Jo’s breath away. She squeezed her eyes shut but it was too late. She had seen the caller ID and the spark of excitement was cruelly extinguished.

      Jo’s tone was flat as she answered the late night call from one of her oldest friends. ‘Hi, Heather.’

      ‘Sorry, I’ve only just seen your missed call and thought it must be important for you to call so late. What’s up?’

      ‘What missed call?’ she asked but was already working it out for herself. ‘Oh, sorry, I must have pressed a button by mistake when I was going through my address book.’ Jo’s mouth was dry as she spoke, a stark contrast to the tears stinging her eyes.

      ‘I didn’t wake you up, did I?’

      ‘No, I’m waiting up for David.’

      ‘Out on the town, is he?’

      ‘He’s been in Leeds all day,’ Jo replied, leaving a pause to summon up the courage to say more but Heather was already talking.

      ‘I’ve just got back from London. I was only away one night but Max acted like I’d been gone a month,’ Heather said of her six-year-old son. ‘He’s been clinging on to me for the last couple of hours so this is the first chance I’ve had for some peace and quiet. I’m sure Oliver’s been winding him up just to put pressure on me to travel less. It wouldn’t cross his mind that my earnings from these sales trips mean I don’t have to squeeze him for every penny he’s got.’

      As Heather launched into complaints about her ex-husband, Jo’s eyes returned to the clock. The longest hand was creeping towards ten past eleven – the next ten-minute marker for phoning David. ‘I’d better go,’ she said, interrupting Heather mid-flow.

      ‘Is everything all right?’

      There was a pause. In the fifteen years they had known each other, she and Heather had taken it in turns to be the shoulder to cry on. It was only in the last year, while Heather was going through a bitter divorce, that Jo had found it impossible to confide in her friend. She hadn’t been able to share her worries about the direction of her own marriage because in comparison, her troubles had been trivial. They didn’t seem trivial any more. ‘I don’t know where he is, Heather.’

      ‘David?’

      Jo told her what time David was supposed to have arrived home and left her friend to draw her own conclusions.

      ‘He’s probably met up with Steve and gone for a drink,’ Heather said. ‘I know what you’re like, Jo. Stop thinking the worst!’

      Jo shook her head. If David had gone out with his brother he would have called her from Steve’s phone. Heather wasn’t the only one who knew how much of a worrier she was. ‘I’m sure you’re right, but can I go now? He might be trying to phone as we speak.’

      Heather wasn’t fooled by Jo’s quick acceptance but she didn’t think for a minute that her friend’s concerns were warranted. Jo, on the other hand, wouldn’t rest until she heard David’s voice and she cut off the call to Heather before she had even finished saying goodbye. She made the call to David with only seconds to spare.

      The automated voice grated on her nerves and Jo cut that call short too. Leaning forward in her chair, she closed her eyes and put her hands over her face. Her bump was substantial enough to make her attempt to curl into a ball uncomfortable. She wished she could hold her baby. She wished she could fast forward four months to the moment David could share in the miracle growing inside her, to a time when they could heal the rift between them, but for now her arms were empty and the only thing she could feel was the pressure on her bladder. She hadn’t dared go to the toilet in case David turned up because she wanted to be there when he came through the door as she knew he would; he had to. Heather’s theory about his whereabouts wasn’t the only one Jo had explored. There were a myriad other explanations which could have delayed him, the majority of which involved nothing more than mild inconvenience and Jo had practised her response to each of them.

      He could have lost his wallet and might have decided to walk the eight miles home from the city centre. That would take a good few hours, in which case he should be walking up to the door right about now …

      The travel information might be wrong. The train could have broken down or been delayed by a fallen tree, in which case he would be arriving home right about now …

      He could have met an old friend and gone for a quick drink, in which case he would be arriving home … right about now …

      Or he could have had enough of his interfering wife who thought she knew best. He could have tired of all those idiosyncrasies he had said he found sweet, such as her obsession for neatness – in which he case he would be coming home … right … about … never.

      She shook her head. Kelly was right, her hormones were playing up and she was definitely overreacting.

      But why hadn’t he phoned to say he was delayed? Even if his mobile wasn’t working, he could use a pay phone or work his charm on someone to borrow theirs. And if he didn’t have cash he could reverse the charges.

      To break the monotony of going around in circles, Jo replayed David’s voicemail message from earlier that day and listened to every nuance in his voice, analysing everything he said and didn’t say. When that didn’t settle her mind, she looked at the last text message he had sent. It was even shorter than the one replying to Jo’s earlier message.

       On train home.

       Arrive Lime Street 7:10 p.m.

       D x

      He was rushing with his texts because his battery was low and his battery was low because it hadn’t been charged the night before. But if Jo hadn’t been sulking like a child, she would have made sure that it had a full battery. David relied on his wife’s obsession for detail to ensure that both of them were ready for anything.

      But as time ticked by and it became less likely that David had been held up for some simple reason, Jo was anything but ready. As long as something too awful to contemplate hadn’t happened, and she prayed it hadn’t, then there was only one other explanation left.

      David had chosen not to come home.

      And if Jo was being perfectly honest, that was the real СКАЧАТЬ