When Jack still hadn’t arrived home by midnight, Molly headed to bed where exhaustion closed her eyes and she drifted into a restless sleep. But turmoil wasn’t a good bedfellow and after only a couple of hours she was wide awake.
The silence in the room was oppressive, uneasy. She felt pinned to the bed by the weight of all that was hanging over her and, panicking, she struggled to her feet and felt along the wall for the light switch. The sudden brightness swept the shadows and shades from the room. Her breathing, fast and rasping, slowed and quietened. There was no bogeyman hiding in the dark. She sank onto the bed and checked her watch. 3am.
She hadn’t heard Jack come in. He’d not wanted to wake her; she’d have preferred if he had. A sudden need to see him sent her barefooted to the spare bedroom, turning the doorknob and easing the door open. The curtains weren’t pulled, and streetlights lit the room… and the empty bed. He hadn’t come home.
Her eyes filled and she slumped against the wall. He had several friends; he could be with any of them. She returned to her bedroom and picked up her mobile, expecting to see a message from him. There were three: from Remi, Freya and Amelia, but nothing from Jack.
She crawled back under the duvet and shut her eyes. For the next few hours, she dozed, waking each time with a pounding in her chest and the faint hope that he had come home. Each time she swung her feet to the floor and crossed to the spare room, each time desolate to find it empty.
At six, she gave up, pulled a robe on and went down to make coffee and something to eat. Apart from half a sandwich she’d had at Amelia’s the day before, Molly had had nothing to eat since the hotel.
She made toast and sat at the table nibbling it while she drank her coffee and waited for the world to wake up. Finding the quiet of the house depressing, she switched on the TV. She didn’t look to see what was on, it didn’t matter; all she wanted was the sound of voices to keep her company.
It wasn’t until eight thirty that she heard a key in the lock. She kept her eyes on the kitchen door, waiting for it to open. When it did, Jack stood looking at her, one hand on the doorknob, a curious expression on his face. He was still wearing his suit, but it was creased, his tie loosened, the top button of his shirt undone. A five o’clock shadow shaded his jaw. It added an air of menace as he stood without speaking.
The silence dragged out. Molly got to her feet and went to switch the kettle on, hoping that a hot drink might cure the chill that gripped her belly.
She watched him take off his jacket and hang it carefully on the back of a chair, struck once again by how thin he’d become. The yearly annual check-up his company insisted upon had only been two months before. She’d seen the report, she knew he was in perfect physical health. Or, at least, he had been. ‘Are you okay?’ she said into the silence before spooning coffee into two mugs.
‘Okay?’ he snorted. ‘Gosh, why wouldn’t I be?’ He hit his forehead so hard with the heel of his hand that she heard the sound across the room. ‘Oh yes, I remember why I wouldn’t bloody well be okay, why I’m a million miles from being even remotely near okay, because my wife got herself involved with a stranger, a stranger who was murdered, and now I have the police calling to the damn office because my wife… my wife is under investigation.’
She added milk and shoved his mug across the counter. ‘I wasn’t involved with him, Jack, and I’m not under investigation,’ she said, hoping she was right. ‘I’m simply helping the police with their enquiries.’ She allowed the bitterness in her voice to spill out. ‘Thanks, by the way, for giving them my phone number and not bothering to tell me.’
Without responding, he picked up his coffee and took it to the sofa. He sat, crossed his legs and switched the TV to a news channel.
She clasped her hands around her mug and lifted it to her lips. It would be nice to throw it across the room and watch the arc of coffee shatter his composure. ‘Where have you been, anyway?’ She knew it would have been with one of his friends, but she couldn’t resist saying, ‘Did you find yourself a pretty shoulder to cry on?’
He moved so suddenly that she was startled even before he threw the mug. It missed her head by inches, hot coffee splashing her skin, causing her to jump up with a yelp of fright. In all the years she’d known him, she’d never seen him lose his temper. The man standing glaring at her with his hands clenched in fists was a stranger. Brushing away the splashes of coffee with a tea towel grabbed from the rail, she stared at him. ‘Have you lost your mind?’
‘Me? It’s you that’s lost your mind. How dare you accuse me? Just because you’ve the morals of an alley cat, don’t put that on me.’
The mug had hit a cupboard and crashed onto the floor where it had smashed into shards of china. She looked at it in confusion. It felt like her life. Trying to get her thoughts in order, she used the tea towel to mop up the coffee that had streaked the countertop, the wall behind her and the floor. She mopped it slowly, conscious of Jack’s heaving body standing a few feet away. With a final sweep across the counter, she threw the cloth on top of the broken china, moved to the sofa and sat.
‘You didn’t come home.’ Her voice sounded broken, pathetic.
His temper gone as quickly as it had come, he ran a hand through his hair, and took a step towards her. ‘I’ve never cheated on you, Molly. I always thought we had something so precious, so special, I wasn’t going to risk destroying it.’
Guilt seared her. She wanted to say she felt the same, that what they had was special, and so very precious. Too precious to be destroyed by her stupid moment of weakness, a meaningless nothing. She wanted to grab him, scream at him until he listened, until he acknowledged the stupidity of risking what they had for something that never happened. Instead, keeping her eyes on his, she asked quietly, ‘So, where did you go?’
He took a step closer. ‘I cadged a bed at a mate’s.’
She wanted to ask which mate, but she didn’t because she’d known him too long and she knew, without a doubt, that he was lying.