Page 54 of My Husband's Wife
As they leave the house, Emily gets her hands tangled in Madison’s hair but Madison ignores the little tugs.
She leaves the front garden under the arch and begins to nudge the gate back and forth. It’s hard to move, like she knew it would be. She tries to recall coming home yesterday. After leaving the Sea Horse Hotel, her mind had been on other things, like the feeling of being watched. Her hand had been sore from the burn – another distraction. She remembers pulling up and getting out of the car with only her handbag over her shoulder. Had she forgotten to close the gate? No. It didn’t matter because last night while she was looking out of the upstairs window, the gate was definitely closed.
She walks along the dirt track. On reaching the gate to the woods, she stops. It’s closed, but it’s never locked. A gust catches the branches. If there were anyone lurking around today, she’d have no chance of hearing them over the tweeting birds and branches slapping against one another. The further she gets into the woods, the bumpier the ground gets which makes her uneasy. If she falls, Emily might get hurt. It’s also carpeted with stingers that she’s trying hard to avoid, but one catches her ankle.
The shed that Theo built is ahead and it doesn’t look like anyone has tampered with it. For a fleeting moment, she imagines someone hiding in there. What if there is a person behind that door? If she were to startle them, would they attack her? Every instinct she has is telling her to run back home. But she can’t. She eventually reaches the windowless structure. The only way to see out from inside is to open the flap that Theo positions the camera in to film. It’s stuck. Her heart begins to pound as she accidentally kicks a tin feeding bowl towards the edge of the clearing.
Open the door, open the door, her inner voice keeps saying. She walks around the back and tugs at it. Like everything else in the house, it’s stiff to budge, but it’s not locked. Although the land belongs to them, ramblers very occasionally pass through, and he sometimes leaves a camera in there so she half expected it to be locked. She uses her shoulder to fully open the door. The shed is as big as she remembered. It contains a desk and a chair, a small bookcase filled with tin mugs, animal feed, baby wipes and bowls, all of which are stacked precariously. She sits in his chair and opens the flap then peers outside while wondering how Theo can do this for hours.
Emily tugs her hair again, just to remind Madison that she’s still there. As she bows her head to untangle her hair from Emily’s soggy fingers, she notices the waste bin. She reaches down, moving aside the crisp wrappers and empty drinks cans to reveal something strange. It’s a small raven toy with a sucker stuck to its base. She places it on the desk and wonders why he has it. Shrugging, she cleans it with a wipe and gives it to Emily in the hope that she’ll prefer playing with that over pulling Madison’s hair.
Rolling backwards in his chair, she spins around to face the desk. She goes to open the drawer, but it’s locked. She reaches underneath, feeling for a key, but there isn’t one. The bookcase. She checks all the mugs and the animal bowls but again there isn’t a key. Emily is starting to gripe. She quickly takes the sling off and places Emily on the floor before kneeling underneath the desk. There is a corner of paper sticking out of the back. However much she tries to pinch it with her fingertips, she can’t. That’s when she spots another piece of paper stuck against the wall. She grabs it and sits up. It’s a newspaper cutting with a picture of a boy on it, but the article isn’t included. She stares into the eyes of the smiling kid and she can’t think where from, but she recognises him. Her phone rings, making Emily cry. She ignores the call and takes a photo of the clipping on her phone before throwing it back on the floor. She goes to answer the call but Theo has hung up. She pops the sling back on, instantly soothing Emily, then hurries out of the shed. The face in the clipping keeps whirling through her mind but for the life of her, she can’t think who it is, and she can’t think why Theo would be hiding it away in his shed.
Forty-Five
Madison hurries back to the dirt road, wondering why Theo was calling. She tries to call him back but he doesn’t answer. As she’s about to reach the gate, something catches her eye. A green that isn’t the green of the leaves or shrubs. It’s more like an artificial mint colour, like the one she’d used to paint one of the walls in her salon. The piece of material dances to the tune of the breeze. She tugs it but it’s stuck to a thorn. After gently teasing it, it becomes free.
Her phone buzzes and rings. ‘Theo.’
‘Where are you?’
‘I’m just out the front. I’ve been for a walk with Emily.’
‘Someone broke into the cabin last night.’
She runs through the gate and in through the front door. He stands in the kitchen, staring out of the back window at the cabin with Buster at his feet. ‘Have they taken anything?’
He shakes his head. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘How do you know someone broke in?’
‘The toilet window has been pushed out.’
She tries to imagine someone getting through that window. It’s big enough to squeeze through but it’s not huge. ‘I told you someone was watching us last night.’
‘I’m sorry, I should have checked outside.’ He huffs out a breath. ‘I bet they waited until we were asleep.’
‘But they didn’t take anything,’ she adds.
‘I’ll board the window up for now. Maybe it was kids camping out in the woods and messing around.’
‘Seriously. We need to call the police and not touch anything just in case whoever broke in left their DNA.’
He raises his arms and lets them drop. ‘You think they’ll send someone out for nothing more than a broken toilet window? Besides, I’ve already been in there and touched everything. They’ll just give me a crime number for the insurance, and there’s no point claiming because the excess will cost more. Nothing has been taken.’
She knows the police won’t do much but they were broken into. Someone had been watching them, and waiting for them to go to bed. ‘It should go on the record. What if they come back?’
‘Look, they got nothing. We’re looking at selling soon and the last thing we need is any prospective buyers knowing we’ve been broken into. It’ll make the cottage harder to sell. I’m going to board it and then we can forget it.’
She doesn’t seem to have a say in the matter. ‘I found this caught in the shrubs.’ She places the material on the worktop. ‘Maybe the intruder was wearing this and they got snagged.’
‘Or maybe it’s nothing more than a bit of material.’
‘I want to call the police,’ she says.
‘There’s no point.’
She feels the battle rising within. Theo hates people coming into their house, and he won’t relish police lurking around for half the day. ‘But I don’t feel safe.’
