The Loving Husband by Christobel Kent Read Free Book Online

‘I know, I know. I’m not sleeping. And it’s work.’ And he sighed and subsided on to the sofa, patting the space beside him.
    ‘What about work?’ said Fran, leaning against him. He rested his chin on her head.
    ‘Oh,’ his voice had a grim edge, ‘just … well.’
    ‘What?’ she said, keeping still.
    He sighed. ‘A project I’ve been after for … oh, years now. Lots of bureaucracy, you know, all the permissions. I’ve put a lot of work into it. Putting together a tender, and someone’s thrown a spanner in the works.’ He took his chin away from her head and tilted her face up to him, looking into it, frowning. ‘Some jobsworth in the planning department. These people.’ And he got up quickly and got a bottle of wine that had been in the fridge for months. They hardly ever drank, these days. ‘So,’ he said when he came back, handing her a glass, taking a big gulp from his, ‘how was the baby clinic?’
    He did seem interested, to give him credit, or at least he sat and listened while she talked, gaining in confidence, although she could hear herself, talking on. Moving from Emme’s weight and the health visitor’s approval to her own childhood, bedsits and head lice and moving schools. ‘Mum specialised in evading the authorities,’ she said at one point, and he let out a laugh, surprised.
    ‘She did love me,’ Fran said. ‘It was mostly the money, and having to manage everything on our own.’ Carefully she set her empty glass down. ‘It makes you think, though,’ she said, not nostalgic exactly but softened towards her exasperating mother by Emme. ‘Having her. Don’t you find yourself remembering stuff? Things you thought you’d forgotten.’
    He poured himself another glass of wine, and before he’d taken a sip was ready with how dull it had been, his parents were so quiet, his father so strait-laced, his mother uptight. Fishing trips along the fen, a wistful story about squatting in a derelict house with mates, a long, last summer, swimming in an icy flooded quarry. Leaning back on the sofa. ‘It seemed to last for ever,’ smiling. And then an offer, college or something like it. ‘As soon as I could get away, I was out of there. I didn’t need to be asked twice. I never really went back home after that.’
    After so long without it the wine sent them both off to sleep unresisting – she even heard him snore as she dropped off, woozily content that something had been said, at least. It was only when she woke, before dawn and with a little knot of hangover forming behind her eyes, that she felt obscurely wrong-footed. It took her longer to realise that nothing had changed, except that the conversation couldn’t be had again. When he turned over to her a week later she held her breath but he just said, reasonable but no kinder than that, no sweeter, ‘Can’t you sleep?’ and then ‘Should I get you something?’

    DS Doug Gerard was watching Fran across the table. He was watching her mouth. Her eyes.
    He’s out there. It drummed in her head.He’s still out there. The man I saw. She wanted to tell them. He’s going to come back. But Gerard spoke first.
    ‘Look,’ he said, firm but reasonable, as if it was the most straightforward thing in the world, ‘I think it would be useful to get you down to the station. Interview you and get this all down on paper, cover all the bases, put you in touch with the team.’ Behind them Carswell shifted, but Gerard went on, smoothly, ‘And while we’re at it, talk about sorting out somewhere for you to be while all this is going on. You’re naturally feeling highly vulnerable…’ But his eyes said something different, they roamed the room, inquisitive. He smiled. ‘Alternative accommodation, if you remember, last night—’
    But he stopped, an eyebrow lifted, because Fran was shaking her head. She wanted to shove them to the door and slam it and bolt it. If she told this man, this DS Gerard, The man I saw is coming back , what