She left the estate agent with nothing but her passport, wallet and backpack, got into a taxi and headed for the airport. It was time to say goodbye to the past – to France, to Pete and to the life that had remained a fantasy. It was time to let go of her doubts and theories about what had happened to him. It was time to look to the future. And for the first time in months, she felt excited again.
Kate was in the park with the girls when she got the call from the police to tell her that the investigation into Pete’s disappearance had been downgraded to low priority. It was the summer holidays and London was in the grip of a heatwave that had lasted for weeks without a drop of rain. There was talk of a hosepipe ban for the first time in years. The house pulsated with heat and they had fans in every room to keep themselves cool. The girls had been in heaven, splashing about in the paddling pool in the garden all summer and sitting on deckchairs eating ice lollies on the new decking that she’d had installed over the old ponds. She’d finally got the garden renovated and it looked amazing. She’d made it into a real entertaining space, perfect for playdates with friends and drinks with her school mum friends in the evening, with fairy lights twinkling in the trees and a big firepit for cooler nights. They had people round the house all the time now – the girls loved inviting their friends home to play and she had a gang of pals who came over for barbecues and drinks at the weekend.
Rachel stopped by from time to time for a catch-up and Karen visited once a month. Erin was pregnant after a whirlwind romance with her boyfriend Scott and the girls were so excited about meeting their new niece or nephew. Kate, who knew how overwhelming it was to become a mother for the first time, was already on standby, ready to help her sister out and make sure that she never felt alone like she had.
When the police had first told her that Pete had been reported missing, her life had been turned upside down all over again. She had been a nervous wreck and spent countless hours racking her brain, looking for the possible things she could have missed all those months ago, anything that could incriminate her. Had she finally reached her day of reckoning? The police had searched the house from top to bottom and contacted everyone Pete knew.
Karen had called her full of concern the minute officers had left her house. ‘I can’t believe this, Kate, what’s going on?’
‘I’ve got no idea,’ she replied. ‘All these months I thought he was with another woman in France and now I have absolutely no idea what happened to him.’
‘It’s exactly what his own dad did,’ Karen said sadly. ‘He just ran away from it all – from his life, from his responsibilities. It’s like history repeating itself. I’m so sorry that this has happened to you and the girls, Kate, you deserve so much more.’
Of course she’d felt even worse then, but she’d come too far to give up now. She’d worked so hard to rebuild her life and she had to keep playing the part, now more so than ever while the police’s gaze was on her. Did I miss anything? she kept asking herself. Having had a taste of a better, happier life she was more desperate than ever to get through this. She was terrified of losing everything she had.
But days turned to weeks and then to months and nothing happened. She waited for the police cars to pull up outside her house, for them to handcuff her and walk her out but they never came. Erin and Lottie, who had flocked around her protectively when she first told them the news, started mentioning it less and less. Everyone was simply getting on with their lives and as time went on, she started to breathe again. But still, she fretted. She tried to throw herself into work, and the children, and life. She tried to forget about the investigation. But she couldn’t. Each day she plastered on a smile and carried on playing her part as the abandoned wife trying to put her life back together. Inside she was falling apart, living in a state of constant fear. It wasn’t until that moment in the playground, when the police told her that the investigation hadn’t unearthed anything suspicious, that she finally felt herself relax. She hadn’t missed anything. She’d got away with it, for now at least. She could look to the future again.
So much had changed in a year. This time last summer they had been in Greece on that joke of a holiday where both she and Pete had pretended that everything was totally fine when their marriage, and lives, were falling apart. Looking back, she could barely recognise the person she had become. Next week they were going to Spain with Erin and Scott for a holiday and Lily and Maggie had been counting down the days. She was looking forward to some time off work – it had been hard trying to juggle work with the girls at home so much and in the end she’d decided to take the whole of August off so that she could focus on spending time with
