My Husband's Son: A dark and gripping psychological thriller by Deborah O'Connor Read Free Book Online

Barney had been missing.
    I looked at the cover of the folder sitting before me marked 2010 – the year Barney disappeared. The first thing in the file was an Ordnance Survey map folded into quarters. Jason had secured its place in the ring binder by hole-punching the sides. I’d seen it many times before but now, as I opened it out onto the desk, I tried to look upon it with fresh eyes. It contained an overview of the area in which Barney was last seen. Charting three square miles, the left side of the space was dominated by a rectangular block of council flats and adjacent car park and playground. I studied the map as best I could, not sure what I was looking for. Apart from the flats, the rest of the area was overlooked by the low peaks of the Eston Hills and grassland, bisected at one point by the A19. I thought for a moment. The A19 did lead north, towards the town in which the off-licence was situated, but, apart from that slim nugget, there was nothing else of remark.
    I moved onto the next page. Printed onto shiny, bluey-coloured paper, it was an architect’s drawing of the block of flats from the Ordnance Survey map, named Ashbrook House. The text at the side of the drawing revealed the structure was ten stories high and contained sixty different dwellings. Designed so that the front doors faced out onto the same side, each flat was accessed by open, half-walled walkways that ran lengthways across the stretch of the building.
    Jason had marked flat 56 with a large red circle. Situated on the eighth floor, the front door to this particular flat was located directly next to the stairwell that led to the floors below.
    Flat 56. The last place Barney had been seen before he vanished, apparently into thin air.
    There were many theories about what might have happened to him, some more credible than others. Theories aside, the facts as I understood them from Jason were these:
    Barney James Thursby had disappeared on an idle Wednesday afternoon in July 2010. That particular morning, Jason had described how Barney had been up with the lark, bouncing on his and Vicky’s bed, blowing raspberries and begging them to come downstairs and play. Eventually, Jason said he had given in and gone down to the kitchen, where he made Barney his favourite breakfast of dippy egg and soldiers.
    At the time, Jason had yet to retrain as a first-aid teacher and was still a jobbing welder, helping to construct the burners on a nearby power station. That morning, as he left for work he gave his son a kiss goodbye, got in his van and drove away without so much as a backward glance. From then on in, as per usual, Barney was in Vicky’s care. A mobile hairdresser by trade, she often took Barney with her on jobs in order to save on expensive nursery fees. This particular Wednesday, her diary was jammed with back-to-back appointments, and at around 3 p.m. she had headed for her final client. Aged seventy-eight and suffering from mild dementia, Mrs McCallum got upset if Vicky didn’t do her weekly shampoo and set on the same day at the same time every week.
    As Vicky navigated Ashbrook House’s endless flights of stairs with the weight of her hairdressing bag slung on her shoulder – she would do anything to avoid the building’s urine-riddled lifts – Barney began to play up. Dawdling behind, he kept grabbing hold of the metal handrail and attempting to swing from it. Vicky would no sooner have climbed three steps than she would have to retreat four, extricate Barney’s hands from the railing and direct him back up the stairs. By the time they reached the eighth floor, her patience was starting to wear thin.
    The temperature inside Mrs McCallum’s tiny flat didn’t help. The air dense with the muggy crackle that precedes a storm, there’d been a distant rumble of thunder as the old lady shuffled down the hall to make tea. Barney, meanwhile, instead of following behind, had tried to make a cheeky diversion into the living room. Ever since