Ted wants your number. You OK with that?
No, no I am not OK with that, Jo thinks, tapping out a quick reply to the same effect, grateful at least that Louise has asked first. While she knows her best friend’s attempts at getting her back ‘out there’ and dating are well intentioned, they’re unwanted. Jo does not want to date. She does not want to meet another man. She just wants Will back. And now she has a lead. The most solid lead since he disappeared.
‘Can you think of any reason at all why your husband may have had to take off and leave? However insignificant it may seem,’ the officer, PC Logan, had said at that first meeting nearly a year ago, after she’d made the call to the police. Will had been missing twenty-four hours by the time they came out. The officer had cleared his throat. ‘Including personal reasons.’
Jo had sat silent, thinking, tearing her mind apart in search of anything helpful she could tell the police. She shook her head. ‘I mean, we’re not up to our eyeballs in debt or anything like that,’ she said softly. ‘There’s the mortgage, but it’s just about manageable. The car’s bought on tick but we really need it, and again, it’s budgeted for, though… there are a few repairs that need doing. But we have the emergency fund for that.’ Jo dug her nails into her palms, not wanting to discuss the car. ‘Will refuses to have credit cards or personal loans, and we don’t owe any family members money. There’s not a lot left over at the end of the month, but we’re OK. Will is not running away because of debt.’ Jo was sure about that.
‘What about gambling, or drinking? Is it possible your husband has run up a secret debt and has taken off because he’s scared?’
Jo was already shaking her head before he finished the sentence. ‘No, no, that’s ludicrous. Will doesn’t gamble. He won’t even buy a lottery ticket. Sometimes we’ll have some wine, and he likes a few beers, but he’s not an alcoholic. Far from it.’ She was uneasy that the two officers were sitting in her living room, laboriously handwriting notes, taking her statement, wasting time. You should be out there looking for him!
‘I’m afraid the next couple of questions might seem intrusive, but they could help us with the inquiry. How was your husband’s mental health, Mrs Carter? Did he suffer from low mood at all, or depression? Has he ever self-harmed or taken drugs – prescription or otherwise?’
‘Will?’ Jo said, sounding almost surprised, as if she’d never considered the possibility. ‘What, you mean you think he might have…?’ She bowed her head and sighed. She couldn’t bear the thought… Will alone at the edge of a cliff or on a high bridge. Sitting in his car with a hosepipe inserted through the window from the exhaust – it was unthinkable. Except the car was left at his work car park, and his keys, wallet and phone were found on his desk in the small office he shared with the other drama department staff.
‘It’s something we have to consider,’ PC Logan replied. He was a big man, probably only late twenties, and his thick upper arms bulged out of his short-sleeved shirt. Jo thought he looked trussed up in his police garb, things attached to him everywhere, his radio crackling intermittently until he turned it down.
‘Well, I… I…’ Jo had stared out of the window then, praying for Will to walk down the street and up their short garden path. If nothing else, it would end this grilling. ‘He was fine, as far as I know.’ Jo swallowed. Should I tell them? she’d thought. Should I tell him he’d been distracted and nervous ever since… But then they’d ask her ‘ever since what’, and that she couldn’t possibly answer. ‘He seemed absolutely fine. He wasn’t depressed as far as I know. Everything was just… normal.’
‘OK, thank you,’ the officer said, tapping his pen on his pad. ‘And what about the possibility that he’s taken off with…’ PC Logan glanced at his colleague as she gave Jo a sympathetic look. ‘Well, someone else? Do you think there’s another woman in your husband’s life?’
‘No!’ Jo said, feeling even more indignant about that than the thought of Will committing suicide or having a gambling debt. ‘Absolutely not. No more than I would run off with anyone else.’ It was unthinkable. They’d been together twelve years, married for eight. Will would not do anything like that. He was a talker, a sharer, a caring, kind and decent man. And they trusted each other implicitly. ‘Why did you even have to ask me that?’ Jo said, whispering, on the verge of tears.
‘I’m so sorry, Mrs Carter. It wasn’t my intention to upset you, but we do have to cover all bases.’
‘Yes, yes… I understand. It’s just… I just can’t take the not knowing. It’s been twenty-four hours now, and it’s so out of character.’
Twenty-four fucking hours, Jo thinks now, swigging her wine, reminded of the debt racking up on her credit card – the one she’s had to take out to keep her head above water now she’s surviving on just her salary. It’s getting harder each month. What I wouldn’t do for the sheer hope that a mere twenty-four hours brought back then, she thinks, staring at the house-sitting home page absent-mindedly.
Back then, it was still plausible that he’d perhaps suffered a bump to the head and had forgotten his way home – yes, she could have convinced herself of that. Or maybe he’d had a bit of a session with his mates down the pub and felt guilty for staying out all night, intending on slinking home the next evening to face the music. Or perhaps he’d had one too many after rehearsals and got behind the wheel, been pulled over by the police and arrested. He could have been making his way home from twenty-four hours in custody just as she was speaking to the police in their sitting room.
But not now. Not nearly a whole year in custody, Jo thinks, mustering the courage to click on the house with Will in it again. Not a whole bloody year of wandering the streets lost or feeling sheepish and sofa-surfing between mates.
Jo breathes out a sigh she didn’t realise she’d been holding. Will is still there. On photos five, seven and eight of the house-sit page.
Strangely, it’s somehow comforting, seeing him there. Knowing where he is, even if it is just the internet. She imagines it might feel the same if she’d spotted his face on one of the many missing persons sites she’s signed up to. Or glimpsed him on a bus, or getting on a train, the doors closing before she could follow. There, but not there.
After touching Will’s face on the screen, Jo browses through the other photos of the house looking for clues, for remnants of Will. The kitchen looks nice – homely in a muddled, eclectic kind of way, as if someone artistic lives there. The cat is in many of the photos, with a couple including the dog, one outside of him charging for a stick, his silky ears flapping. Then the bedroom (she pauses on that one, wondering if Will has slept in the bed, and if so, who with), the bathroom, a few exterior photos and pictures of the village, the little tea room nearby, the coast… as well as a list of chores to be done and the local facilities. But there’s nothing else to suggest Will’s presence, apart from the three pictures on the mantelpiece.
Jo sighs, knowing she has no choice.
I have to apply for the house-sit, she thinks, her voice clear inside her head. ‘Someone’s got three pictures of my missing husband on their mantelpiece,’ she adds in a whisper when she looks at the owner’s profile – which has a 99.8 per cent approval rating from other site users. Jo wonders what the lost 0.2 per cent was for. ‘Stealing other people’s husbands, perhaps?’ She glares at the generic grey outline of a head. She’s not uploaded a profile picture – not all members have.