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

Vicky had started bringing him here he’d been obsessed with the tantalising collection of clown figurines that Mrs McCallum kept on the hearth, and took any chance he could to get at them. Vicky knew his game, though, and managed to grab him just before he reached the fragile ornaments. Her hands around his waist, she scooped him up onto her hip and took him through to the kitchen, where she plonked him on the floor and gave him his bag of Matchbox cars.
    So far that day she’d been just about able to cope with the heat but now, as she came back up to standing, she found she had to wipe the sweat from her face. Setting her hairdryer and brushes out on the kitchen table she asked if she might open the front door so as to let some air flow through to where she worked. Mrs McCallum agreed and soon Vicky was hard at work on the old lady’s sparse curls while Barney brummed and beeped his toy cars around her feet.
    Barney played nicely but, every now and again, he would whizz one of his cars a little too fast across the lino and, when it came into contact with the hall carpet, it would fly up and spiral off into the distance. The first few times this happened Vicky would stop what she was doing and watch while he went to retrieve the toy. The hall dog-legged its way to the front door and she didn’t want him wandering out onto that high walkway. Before long, though, she became absorbed in her work and her attention waned.
    Afterwards, Vicky had claimed she could never be sure how long it took her to realise that Barney was gone. It could have been two minutes; it could have been ten. Whatever the timings, initially, she put his silence down to those clown figurines. Marching into the living room, she’d expected to find him, headless clown in hand. But the room was empty. Still thinking he must be up to mischief, Vicky had searched the rest of the flat, peering under beds and behind sofas. That, too, proved fruitless. Starting to panic, it was then that she ventured outside and onto the walkway.
    Terrified he’d climbed the barrier, she looked over the side; she’d told the police she had braced herself for the sight of his prone body on the ground, eight floors below. But again, there was nothing. Her subsequent relief was mixed with a growing confusion. Where was he?
    While an increasingly befuddled Mrs McCallum looked on, half her scalp in rollers, Vicky had sprinted back and forwards across the walkway, checking the nearby lifts and stairwells. When there was no sign of him there, she lunged for the stairs, taking them three at a time. It was at that point the thunderstorm finally broke, the heavy rain saturating the dry ground.
    ‘Somebody help me. I can’t find my son. Please help me. My son is gone.’ Although she wanted to scream this out loud, Vicky had tried not to let the words crystallise in her mouth. She felt as though if only she could keep those terrible sentences at bay she’d prevent what seemed to be happening from ever becoming a reality, ensuring this would all be nothing more than a horrible scare: that day where for a few awful minutes she thought she had lost her beautiful boy.
    I looked at the thin black lines demarcating the car park on the architect’s drawing and imagined Vicky standing there in the rain. Desperately trying to spot the red dash of Barney’s T-shirt in amongst the wet cars and motorbikes, she would be praying that his face would suddenly appear and that, within minutes, she would be scolding and cuddling him for giving her such a fright.
    The drawings contained floor plans for every storey of the building and Jason had written in the people thought to be living in each flat at the time. Where possible, he had also listed any other salient information pertaining to them. I did a quick scan of the names and details listed. I knew it was unlikely, but I wanted to make sure that a Mr Keith Veitch, the guy from the off-licence, hadn’t been a resident. As I searched for his name