The Wreckage - Michael Robotham [61]
“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 café just off Sloane Square. She had crossed the café 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.
6
LONDON
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