Michael Robotham - The Wreckage

The next image is clearer. They’re outside on the street, getting into a cab. A third photograph shows the cab arriving at the house in Barnes. The woman is wearing North’s leather jacket around her shoulders.

Something soft breaks inside Elizabeth, a single thread no thicker than a spider’s web that has been holding her self-respect and her dignity in place.

“How long did she stay?”

“It’s in the report.”

“How long?”

Hackett takes a deep breath. “I left at two a.m. She was still there.”

Elizabeth is willing herself not to cry. Forbidding it.

“I’m sorry to be giving you this news, Mrs. North. In my experience a wife’s intuition is her most valuable instinct. You considered something untoward was happening, which is why you hired me. Your instincts proved correct.”

Elizabeth is barely listening.

“Mrs. North?”

She whispers. “I need to know who she is.”

The private detective scratches his jaw and grimaces. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Please?”

Hackett pushes the manila envelope across his desk. “It’s all in the report, Mrs. North.”

“But I want you to find him.”

“Did you bin-bag him?”

“Sorry?”

“Kick him out. You suspected he had a girlfriend and you told him to leave.”

“It wasn’t like that. I didn’t know about the girl until now.”

“But you suspected.”

“Maybe if you find her, you’ll find my husband.”

Colin Hackett sighs. “Listen, Mrs. North, take the file home. Read it or burn it. Have a good night’s sleep. If you still think this guy is worth finding, give me a call.”

“I don’t need to sleep on it. I’m having a baby any day now. I want you to find him.”

Hackett nods. He wants to tell her not to waste her money and warn her that some rocks should never be turned over, but he can see a steely resolve in her gaze.

Elizabeth’s feet manage to take her outside, where she sits at a cafe next to Rowan. An ice-cream seller is pushing a barrow along the pavement. Elizabeth searches for spare change. A tear springs from her right eye and runs down her cheek. The ice-cream seller gives her an extra napkin so she can blow her nose.

A small explosion has detonated within her. She is no longer solid, no longer pristine. Everything that she knows about her life now carries a question mark. This sort of thing doesn’t happen to people like her. Her husband doesn’t have affairs or sleep with prostitutes or keep secrets from her. Her entire life has been one of money, privilege and being envied rather than pitied. All that has changed in the click of a camera shutter.

“Why is you crying, Mummy?”

“I’m just having a sad day.”

“Because of Daddy.”

“Yes.”

“Is he coming home?”

“I hope so.”

Colin Hackett waits until Elizabeth North has gone before he emerges from his office. He tells Janice to print off an invoice and post it immediately. Sometimes they change their mind about paying when you give them bad news.

Hackett set up his agency ten years ago when his own marriage had disappeared in front of his eyes. He was angry at his wife’s infidelity, but later came to blame himself because he saw how many husbands had emotionally left their wives years before they bothered to clear their sock drawers.

For the most part, detective work had proven to be depressing and dull rather than glamorous or dangerous. Missing children, lost cats, dodgy tradesmen, background checks, insurance claims, paternity tests, proving or disproving fidelity… he had seen almost the full range of human failings and tribulations.

He first met Elizabeth North in a cafe just off Sloane Square. She had crossed the cafe as though on a catwalk and Hackett was sure he recognized her from somewhere. It was only afterwards when he typed her name into a search engine that he discovered her former career as a daytime TV presenter on one of those lifestyle programs watched by retired people, housewives and the unemployed.

She was nervous about hiring him. A newbie. Some get cold feet. Others have feet of clay. They want someone to peek behind the curtains, but they’re frightened of what they might find. Ignorance is often a happier state.

She had used the phrase “seeing someone else,” which sounded politely courteous coming from her lips. Most spouses tended to voice their mistrust in cruder terms.

It hadn’t taken him long to get the goods on Richard North. It was a straight tail and surveillance job. The guy went running every morning in a worn tracksuit and polar fleece, through the maze of streets around where he lived. Then he left for the office at the same time, on the same train, wearing the same suit. He probably had sex to schedule.

The only difference came on the last few days of surveillance when North started acting erratically, coming home at strange hours and taking unexpected trips like the one to Luton. Hackett hadn’t minded the drive. Mileage was a billable expense.

Now he has to find him, which shouldn’t be a problem. The tracking device he placed on North’s car will do that for him. Hackett hadn’t mentioned this to Elizabeth-why make his job seem too easy? In a few days he’ll give her a call and tell her that he’s found her wandering husband. She seems desperate enough and pregnant enough to take him back.

That’s the problem with marriage-the raised expectations. A man starts off being faithful because he wants a wife who appeals to his nobler instincts and higher nature, then after a while he wants another woman to help him forget them.

Seagulls wheel and scream above Holly’s head, bickering like siblings. The Thames is at full tide. Dusk gathering. The wooden boat is pulled on to a narrow beach. Fuel lines uncoupled. The outboard engine lifted from its mounts. The younger fisherman has been dropped off at a jetty. The remaining one is covering the boat with a tarpaulin, pegging down the faded fabric.

Thin and wiry with acne-divots in his cheeks, his name is Pete and he’s dressed in overalls and heavy work boots. Holly follows him along a narrow, winding path between blackberry bushes until they reach a weathered caravan.

A skinny dog with a large square head emerges from beneath the axle, wagging its entire body. The dog sniffs at her crotch and she pushes it away.

“What is this place?”

“It’s called Platt’s Eyot.”

“It’s an island?”

“Used to be an old boat yard. Hasn’t been used since the sixties.”

“And you live here?”

“This is my weekender.”

“It’s not the weekend.”

“Yeah, well, sometimes I stay here during the week.”

Pete stores his fishing gear beneath the wheel arch and retrieves a key on a piece of string that is hanging from a secret hiding place. He opens the door of the caravan and pulls out two canvas stools, placing them beneath the awning.

Holly looks around the caravan. It has a bunk bed with a sleeping bag, a small TV, a gas stove and sink. Beyond the awning, just visible in the fading light, an abandoned building seems to crumble under the weight of vines and weeds. Rusting metal stanchions rise into the darkening sky to where the roof has partially collapsed and tin sheets hang from the frame. Oily water laps against a slipway and a sign strung across the entrance says, HAZARDOUS AREA: KEEP OUT.

“Are we allowed to be here?”

“I sort of look after the place… unofficially.”

“What about the other guy?” she asks.

“Marty is a mate of mine. He lives in Sunbury. I take him fishing sometimes.”

Pete sits on a stool and smokes a roll-up cigarette out of the corner of his mouth. Next to the caravan are empty fuel drums, gas cylinders and a hammock slung beneath the branches.