LITMIR.BIZ

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Jo asked.

      With Steph’s words still ringing in his ears, DS Baxter gave Jo an apologetic smile but he spoke bluntly. ‘There are people who simply choose to step out of their lives and for a variety of reasons. Even our closest family members are capable of surprising us, no matter how well we think we know them. I can assure you we will be taking this seriously and we will investigate, but I have to warn you that if all the evidence then suggests David elected to disappear, I’m afraid there’s not much more we can do.’

      Jo made a point of swallowing hard as if she had a raging thirst. ‘I think I could do with that cup of coffee you offered,’ she said to Steph. ‘Are you sure you don’t want one, DS Baxter?’

      The policeman sat back in the armchair. ‘Please call me Martin,’ he said, ‘and yes, I think I do. Milk, one sugar if it’s not too much trouble,’ he said, offering a smile to Steph as she stood up.

      Jo watched her sister leave the room and held off speaking until she had closed the door. ‘I’ve gone through every possible reason why David didn’t come home last night and I keep asking myself the same question that I know you’re asking yourself right now. Has my husband left me?’

      ‘Is it possible?’

      Jo played nervously with the corner of the holiday brochure. ‘I met David when I was twenty-one, a week after starting at Nelson’s,’ Jo began, choosing to concentrate on the birth of their relationship rather than what might turn out to be its death throes. She briefly closed her eyes as the memory of their first meeting came to mind. She had been a fresh-faced trainee, sitting meekly in the corner of what had been her first professional meeting. David admitted later that he hadn’t even noticed her until she interrupted him mid-sentence to announce he didn’t know what he was talking about. In truth, she hadn’t been quite so abrupt, but the story was all the better for his retelling. ‘I’m not sure if it was love at first sight but it didn’t take long for both of us to realize that we were soul mates. We married three years later and have spent the last seven years building our lives together.’ She paused as she saw the flicker of a thought cross Martin’s face. ‘What? You think this is the dreaded seven-year itch?’

      ‘It happens more often than you’d think,’ the policeman said and probably wasn’t aware that his thumb stroked the flesh around the third finger of his left hand where perhaps a wedding band had once been. ‘Given that he didn’t go to his family, is there anyone else he could have turned to?’

      ‘You mean was he having an affair?’ Jo had questioned her entire belief system in the last twenty-four hours but in this one regard she had come back with the same answer time and time again. She shook her head and said, ‘No, I won’t believe that of him, not David. And apart from the fact that I trust him implicitly, we work together. Yes, he goes out with his friends and his brother, but I really don’t see how he’d have the opportunity, not without me knowing or at least suspecting.’

      ‘You understand why I have to ask,’ Martin said by way of an apology.

      ‘Of course. You’re not asking anything I haven’t already asked myself. We were happy.’ The use of the past tense had been an unconscious slip and one that frightened Jo and made Martin raise his eyebrows so she hurried on, ‘I’ll admit it hasn’t been easy of late but I’ve never doubted my love for my husband and before now I never doubted his love for me. I questioned why he loved me often enough, but I never doubted it.’

      ‘What do you mean by that?’

      ‘David and I are complete opposites. He’s spontaneous, daring, a bit of a risk taker while I’m more measured, less impulsive. He adds the colour to my black-and-white world while I …’ Jo’s mind stalled as she tried to think exactly what it was that she added to David’s life. Why had he put up with her?

      There was an uncomfortable pause and Jo imagined the policeman losing interest in the case by the second. She had spent the last twenty-four hours searching for answers and was slowly and painfully coming to the conclusion that David must have abandoned her, and now she was convincing Martin of the same thing.

      ‘You said there have been issues recently. Was there something in particular putting a strain on your marriage?’

      Jo lifted the brochure up but only enough to hide the gentle mound of her stomach. ‘As my sister was keen to point out, I’m pregnant. We’d agreed to start a family when I was thirty. It was David who came up with the plan but then he is the planner – or at least that’s what’s written on his job description,’ she added bitterly. She was repeating a well-worn argument that was no stranger to those same four walls. ‘And me, being the one who follows policies and procedures to the letter, I thought once we had a plan we would stick to it. I was looking forward to being a mum. I really wanted to start a family with the man I loved.’

      Her voice softened as the dream she had spent years creating came so vividly to mind. As if sensing her excitement, FB made her stomach flip; then the colour faded from her imaginary world. ‘But David changed his mind and at first I couldn’t blame him. He was affected by his dad’s death quite deeply and I didn’t push, but after a year of prevaricating, I told him that I’d had enough. I didn’t exactly tell him I was coming off the pill, but I didn’t say I wasn’t, either.’

      ‘So he wasn’t happy when you told him you were pregnant?’

      Jo’s laugh was hollow. ‘It was more a matter of him being in shock and OK, maybe a little angry too. He didn’t agree with how I’d gone about things, but he didn’t blame me either.’

      ‘It sounds like you wanted different things,’ he said.

      ‘No, I think we wanted the same things – just at different times. He wanted to see more of the world before settling down, that’s all. If things had gone his way then we would have been in America this week.’

      ‘Ah …’ Martin said and took the brochure which Jo was finally ready to relinquish.

      ‘I’m finding it impossible to believe that he would hop on the next plane to America,’ she said, ‘but there are pages torn out, pages that David was poring over just before I dropped the bombshell. And now I can’t account for where those pages might be or, more importantly, his passport … It doesn’t look good, does it?’

      ‘It’s one line of enquiry,’ Martin agreed but wouldn’t commit himself further. ‘So tell me more about how things have been lately. Was he getting used to the idea of becoming a father?’

      ‘He was more subdued than anything. It was as if he wanted to be excited but was afraid to be,’ Jo said hesitantly. ‘But then I wasn’t much better. I felt guilty about trapping him – if you can trap someone you’re already married to.’ Her voice tightened as she finished her sentence and she looked away, out of the window, blinking back tears.

      ‘So you would have told him about the baby around five months ago?’

      Jo’s guilt was showing on her face when she turned back to Martin with a wavering smile. ‘I took my time telling him, so it was more like three or four months ago. Still enough time to plan his escape, do you think?’

      Rather than answer her, he pursed his lips then said, ‘Had anything happened more recently that might have made him want to up and leave now?’

      The hairs on the back of Jo’s neck stood on end as she felt another layer of her life being stripped away. ‘David came with me for the twenty-week scan a few weeks ago and I thought we had reached a turning point. He had even come up with a name for my bump.’ She patted her stomach and didn’t give a second thought to the blush rising in her cheeks. ‘We’d started calling it FB. Don’t ask why, because I don’t think even I followed his logic.’ There was a brief pause for a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes and then she added, ‘But anyway, when we got there for the scan, all David wanted to know was if I would be able to travel on a long haul flight.’ There was still a note of disbelief in Jo’s voice. ‘He was still more interested in going ahead with our holiday than he was about becoming a father.’

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