Local Gone Missing(45)

“Shut up.” Elise punched her arm. “She’s been a good friend.”

“Right,” Caro snapped. Not like me unsaid but loud and clear. “Oh, and DI Ward wants to sit in on this,” she added, and pushed the interview room door open.

Elise didn’t have time to protest—or steel herself. He was walking in behind her.

“Hello, Elise,” Hugh said, his voice sending unwanted signals all over her broken body. “How are you?”

“Fine, thanks,” she said, and had to clear her throat.

He looked completely unfazed—a bit blank if she was honest—and she was furious that she was the nervous one. She’d fantasized for so long about what she’d say the first time they met at work. She was going to be cool and distant, then be gracious. The bigger person. Instead, she was stuttering and blushing like a fourteen-year-old shoplifter.

She looked at him as he sorted through his papers and wondered if she’d ever really known him. She’d thought she had—thought they’d been completely honest with each other. Elise had told him early on that she didn’t want children. That she wanted to focus on her career. And Hugh had gone along with it. He’d loved the job too.

“And we’ve got nephews and nieces if we want trips to the zoo,” he’d said.

They’d moved in together but had never bothered getting married. Hugh had said it was a waste of money. “Can’t see the point—we’re happy as we are, El.” And she’d gone along with it. We are, aren’t we?

They’d spent their money on nice wine and expensive holidays and their days off going to the gym, watching dark-drama box sets, and following his beloved Crystal Palace FC. A tight couple, not needing other people to make them happy.

And for nine years, everything on her list had been ticked. Until it wasn’t.

He’d chosen their favorite restaurant, where the staff knew them. She’d thought it was a midweek treat. But afterward, as she unpicked it all, she realized he must have hoped she wouldn’t have a full-scale row in front of the ma?tre d’. He’d been a bit quiet in the weeks before, blaming his moods on work, so Elise had put up her hair, squeezed into her little black dress, and put on lipstick. She could see herself now. Thinking she looked sexy.

Sitting across from her, Hugh had folded his napkin over his lap and looked back up.

“El,” he said, and stopped.

He looked so flustered, she thought he was going to propose and she flushed with unexpected pleasure. She’d told herself so many times that she wasn’t bothered. Every time a relative had asked her when she was getting wed. But clearly, she had been.

She leaned forward and smiled into his eyes. “Yes, the answer is yes.”

The shock on his face stopped her hand as it reached for his.

“No, wait,” he said too loudly, and a man at the next table glanced round. “Look, I need to talk to you about something that has happened to me. Something completely out of the blue.”

“What? Is it work?”

“No. No, er . . .”

Hugh had never been indecisive and she felt her skin prickle.

“Come on! My calamari is going cold.” And she thought she’d turned the awkwardness into a joke. But he hadn’t picked up his fork.

“Elise, I’ve met someone else.”

She sat there, her back rigid and aching from the tension as he spat it out. His apologies, his guilt, his struggle to do the right thing.

“Who is she?” Elise said when he ran out of words.

“You don’t know her. I met her running in the park. On my breaks.”

She wanted to stand and wail but her legs felt as if they belonged to someone else.

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I thought I was happy. That we were happy. But we are all about the job. Maybe I needed something that wasn’t.”

It was her fault, then. She’d failed him. Afterward, she wasn’t able to remember the journey home. They must have taken a taxi but they were suddenly standing on the doorstep, outside their block of luxury flats, and Hugh was saying good-bye.

“I think it’s best I go now,” he said, like some romantic hero from a black-and-white film.

“Don’t try to be noble, Hugh,” Elise said. “You are shitting all over me and our life.”

He stepped back and stumbled off the step.

“Let’s not get nasty, El,” he said. “We can do this like grown-ups, can’t we?”

“Fuck off,” she said, and slammed the door behind her.

In the flat, she put the safety chain on to make her situation secure. Then she smashed his favorite Crystal Palace mug—the one he’d had since he was a boy—and left the shards in the sink.

“I’d have cut the crotch out of all his trousers,” Caro had said when Elise finally told her.

She’d waited a month to see if Hugh would have second thoughts but he hadn’t. He’d come back to collect his things, silently selecting paperbacks from the bookshelf and wrapping photos in newspaper. Elise had hovered. Not giving any ground. Not letting him think he’d got away with anything.

“Where’s my mug?” he asked.

She just looked at him. “Broken, like our relationship,” she said.

It was the first time he looked the least bit upset.