‘This is us,’ Stuart said, indicating right. As the car bumped down the track, I glanced at Niamh. She’d pulled her seatbelt loose and was sitting on the edge of her seat, her face pressed up against the window, her toe tapping in the footwell. I tried to remember what it felt like to be eighteen with your entire life ahead of you, brimming with excitement at the prospect of a week in the sun. I tried to remember, but I failed.
Chapter Eleven
MONDAY 14 JUNE
I sailed through my pregnancy with Nate. Even in the first trimester, I glowed. No morning sickness for me. My hair was shiny, and my skin was clear. I had a small, neat bump, and I buzzed with energy and positivity.
Nate was two weeks late, and I was still working the day before I went into hospital to be induced. I had no reason to doubt that I’d be home with our perfect baby a couple of days later and back at work a month after that.
No one had warned me that induced labour was more painful than labour that started on its own, nor that women who were induced were more likely to have an assisted delivery, where midwives used forceps or ventouse suction to drag the baby out.
I started haemorrhaging within minutes of Nate’s forceps delivery because my uterus failed to contract. Doctors whisked me into theatre, leaving a wailing Nate in Stuart’s arms. When attempts to fix the haemorrhaging failed, the same doctors had no choice but to cut my womb out of me. I would have died if they hadn’t. As it was, I lost four litres of blood and my ability to give Nate a brother or sister.
It was the most traumatic time of my life. Until that moment I’d followed an upward - almost stratospheric - trajectory. I didn’t do failure. And yet my body had failed me when I needed it most. Six years later, I still had the occasional flashback.
In Nate, I’d found comfort. A happy baby, he’d grown into an easy-going, cuddly toddler, always quick with a smile. Work fulfilled me and Nate completed me. And I had given him a sibling in the end.
My phone rang in my pocket, dragging me back to the present. I checked the screen. Bill. He could wait. I had more pressing things on my mind than the company accounts. I stared at the three foil wrappers in my hand. Stuart and I hadn’t needed to use protection since my hysterectomy. So why did he have a stash of condoms in his bedside drawer?
I slid the condoms back into the pages of the magazine and replaced it at the bottom of the drawer, rearranging everything on top exactly as I’d found it. If only I could do the same with my thoughts. But my brain refused to forget what my eyes had seen. I was transported back to a sex ed lesson at my girls’ grammar school, when our red-faced form teacher had popped a condom out of a packet and pulled it over an under-ripe banana while the class sniggered behind their hands.
Stuart was having an affair. There was no other explanation. He was sleeping with someone else. Shagging around. My lumbering, ponderous husband had a bit on the side. It seemed so unlikely that a bitter laugh bubbled up my throat and out of my mouth before it ricocheted around the bedroom, mocking me.
Had his behaviour changed recently? Cheating husbands joined the gym, started taking care of their appearance, offered to pop out to buy milk or a newspaper so they could phone their lovers. I cast my mind back over the last few months and drew a blank. I crossed the room to his wardrobe and sniffed his clothes to see if I could catch a hint of another woman’s perfume, but they smelt of the sandalwood aftershave I bought him for Christmas.
He wasn’t a flirt, not like Bill, who fancied himself as a bit of a ladies’ man and had Sheila wrapped around his little finger. But women warmed to Stuart because he was a genuine, straightforward kinda guy. Hell, it’s the reason I fell in love with him. And now it appeared someone else might have, too.
A terrible thought occurred to me. Had Stuart really been out looking for Immy? Was he looking for her now, or was he in the arms of his lover, being consoled by her? What if… I shook my head, dismissing the thought as absurd. But it refused to go away. What if Stuart’s lover had taken Immy?
My phone rang again. Probably Bill trying me a second time on Sheila’s orders. Did he know about Stuart’s affair? I snatched the phone up, about to stab the decline icon, when I saw it was a withheld number.
‘Cleo?’ said a crackly voice. ‘It’s DC Sam Bennett. Are you and Stuart home? The DI’s on his way. He needs to speak to you ASAP.’
Detective Inspector Ian Jones was a thickset man with slate grey hair, a deeply lined forehead and a mouth that turned down at the corners. Dressed in a crumpled grey suit and clutching a folder under his arm, he reminded me of Eeyore.
‘Mrs Cooper,’ he said with a nod as he followed the family liaison officer into the house.
Adrenalin had been coursing through my veins from the moment Sam had called. Clearly there’d been a development. Was it a bad sign that they wanted to deliver the news in person?
I’d tried phoning Stuart, but it had gone straight through to voicemail, so I left a message. Images of him in bed with another woman crowded into my head, but I pushed them away. His affair was the least of my worries.
Sam went straight to the kettle. How many cups of tea must
