Susie put away her phone, relieved Nick seemed okay. She could always tell his mood by his appetite, which was prodigious. She’d never known him to go off his food except when he had flu, and the only other time had been when his father had been rushed to hospital with a suspected heart attack. The fact he’d mentioned baklava in his text – he loved the syrup-drenched pastries – meant he was coping pretty well.
She alighted from the train, briefcase in one hand, a vivid yellow Selfridges Food bag in the other. Her neighbour in the train had spent a full five minutes studying her, obviously trying to work out what she did ever since he’d taken in her Prada reading glasses and burgundy leather briefcase with her initials embedded in silver just below Aspinal of London. He’d surreptitiously tried to read her laptop screen, but since she never worked on anything sensitive in public all he gleaned was that she might be a lawyer, or a high-powered exec of some sort, which suited her fine.
Susie liked being looked at. But only on her own terms. She could vanish in a street in a second, slip on a wig and a pair of trainers and turn into the plainest of plain Janes where nobody gave her a second’s glance, so she revelled in the attention when it came.
She loved labels, showing off her wealth, her power. Thanks to Victor – she still struggled with calling him Daddy, she was an adult for Chrissakes – she had a generous trust fund which gave her an annual income a family of four could live off comfortably. Rob was utterly unaware of this. He knew she came from money – how could he not, when she had a wardrobe full of designer clothes and an apartment worth over two million pounds – but he didn’t know how much money.
She’d considered telling him, even offering to sub him so he didn’t have to keep working with the dreadful Ronja, but Susie was smarter than that because although some men would have jumped at such a chance, Nick wasn’t one of them. He might think he’d like being a kept man – he joked about it from time to time – but deep down she knew he’d hate it. Nick was a traditional sort who wanted to be able to provide and protect his family, not become some kind of lapdog to his wife.
So Susie kept her wealth quiet and everything trickled along just fine.
Beeping open her car – a nice anonymous Audi but with a beefed-up turbocharged petrol engine and fortified wheels – she put the shopping in the footwell, her briefcase behind the driver’s seat. Then she climbed inside, brushing droplets of rain that clung to her shoulders and hair.
She switched on the wipers, then flicked the heater to demist, and pulled out of the car park, checking her rear-view mirror and side mirrors, the pedestrians, the people on the opposite side of the road waiting for a bus – always checking her surroundings, always vigilant, always alert. It wasn’t a conscious thing, her preternatural awareness. It had simply grown like a soft carapace over the years and most of the time she didn’t even know she was conducting light surveillance.
Luckily, Nick had never noticed, although on one of their early dates he’d baulked at sitting in the back row of the cinema, her preferred spot because she had a clear view of everything and everyone, with easy access to the door.
The cottage was dark when she arrived. Although Nick was usually prompt about timings, he’d obviously got caught up with Clara. Not surprising given the shock of Rob’s arrival into their lives. She still found it hard to believe, and had run and rerun the news clip dozens of times at work, but each time she looked into Rob’s eyes, she felt a punch in her gut that told her again and again that against all the odds, it was him.
Susie let herself into the cottage, already warm thanks to the central heating, timed to kick in at five thirty in readiness for Rob’s homecoming after work. Kicking off her shoes, she padded into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of wine. She felt like she needed it. Looking for Nick’s brother on top of her current workload wasn’t the best of situations, but she had to admit that it wasn’t unusual to have an extra case file shoved on her desk.
Where was Rob?
She let her mind continue to chew over this question as she sipped her wine and unpacked the Selfridges bag. There had been nothing after that first sighting. Not a whiff of him on any CCTV cameras, and nothing on the ground. He’d vanished like a pro and when she got her hands on him, she’d kill him very slowly for putting her and the team, as well as Nick and his family, through this.
Where was he? Which hole had he crawled back into? Or had he decided to do something else? Like plan his resurrection? Nick’s family wouldn’t just kill the fatted calf when he returned, but the whole damned herd. They’d be eating meat for years, oblivious of the prodigal son’s infamous stupidity.
She leaned against the worktop, sipping her wine and wondering where Rob would be sleeping that night – whether he was sleeping rough, or tucked up with a friend or a lover – some poor sap who didn’t know what a monumental pain in the arse he was.
Her mind suddenly gave a shiver.
Had Rob contacted his family? Was he in Bosham? Had he contacted Clara? Was that why Nick was delayed?
No. She took another sip of wine, shaking her head. Rob would never come home. Not just because of the shame he’d bring with him, but because he’d do anything to protect his family. That was why he’d disappeared. Wasn’t it?