THIRTY-FIVE
JUSTINE
‘Where are we going?’ Justine’s voice quivered as much as her insides were churning. ‘Craig. Stop!’ She wrenched her arm from her husband’s pincer-like clutches and dug her heels into the earth underneath them. He’d dragged her all the way from the back of her mum’s bungalow, through a thicket and out the other side before making her march across two fields to reach the lake. Her calves were killing and her toes were sore from being rubbed by pumps that weren’t meant to be worn for hiking. She shook his hands off her.
He stopped and stared at her. She didn’t want to upset him and end up pinned on the ground again. ‘Just keep going.’ He glanced behind her. ‘It’s not safe to talk here. We need to get further away.’
‘How far?’
He turned to face her, the whites of his eyes reflecting the moon above. ‘Keep your voice down.’ He grabbed her again and pulled her by the arm. Pixie whined as she followed them, her little legs working hard to keep up.
‘I will if you let me go. You’re hurting me.’
Craig stopped. He turned and he moved in close, facing her, then he placed his hand over her mouth again. ‘I said shut up.’
She snatched his hand from her mouth. ‘Why, so you can wrestle me to the floor again and knock me out.’ Right now, she didn’t recognise her husband one bit, and this version of him was scaring her more by the second. She wanted her son and she wanted to go home to her mum’s cosy house.
‘I did not knock you out. You fainted. I didn’t want to make you scream when I approached you and you were fighting me. I had no choice but to wrestle you to the ground. I had no choice!’
Charging into his chest, she began to beat him with her fists. He grabbed and parted them, moving closer until their noses met. ‘I hate you,’ she said. Scared or not. She wasn’t going to let him see how much.
‘Whatever. I have more to worry about than you being in a bad mood with me.’
‘Bad mood.’ She shook her head and continued walking. ‘Right, so where are we going? Are we going to charge through another field or jump in the lake? What’s it to be because I’m fed up and I just want whatever this is to be over.’ She wondered if he knew that she and Danny had led the police to believe that he might have killed Kain.
‘There, over there.’ He pointed to the picnic table and benches next to the lake. A fox scarpered and Pixie barked and pulled. Craig pulled her back and threaded her lead through the wooden slats of the table. He sat on the bench in the dark and blew out a breath.
She sat opposite him, her heart beating ten to the dozen. The yoga retreat that she used was on the other side of the lake, all closed and dark, just as she’d expect it to be in the middle of the night. She glanced to her left at the old boarded-up building that she always looked at when she did yoga. From a distance, the rotting building didn’t appear to be so sinister but close up, her nerves were getting the better of her. She couldn’t stop her feet from nervously tapping. The imposing building caught thecorner of her eye, the sky lit up as a huge cloud dispersed and the moon’s milky light caught a damaged wall. It looked like a serial killer’s haunt and the mere sight of it made her more uneasy. Heart banging to the point she could barely catch her breath, she kept imagining this moment being her end, and the only words coming from Craig’s mouth were lies.
If she tried to run from him now, she wouldn’t make it far. She needed to get her breath back and dislodge the end of her sock to stop it from rubbing her little toe. ‘Where the hell have you been, Craig? The police are looking for you and you scared the shit out of me back there. Mum will be worried.’
‘She won’t. I sent her a message from your phone telling her that you’ve bumped into a friend and will be back late.’
He had it all covered. Her mum would go to bed and not worry at all. Her poor mum didn’t even know that there was anything to be worried about. She needed Craig to help her find their son. ‘Have you seen Danny? We argued earlier and he got upset and ran.’ The last thing she wanted to tell Craig was that she slapped him in a moment of temper. She bent over and nudged her pump off with her other foot and pulled the sock tighter in the hope that it would rub less.
‘He arrived home in a state but he didn’t go into the house. I was around the back listening from the other side of the garden fence, hoping to catch you or him. He got spooked by the police presence so he almost bumped into me trying to hide from them. Then he told me what you both did and for the bloody record, I approve, okay? There’s no way I want Danny to get hauled in over this. Something’s happened and he won’t tell me what. Do you know anything?’
She opened and closed her mouth, the words staying firmly inside as she thought back to that horrible message on his screen. ‘I saw something on his computer. He sent a message to someone. He’s in trouble and I know it’s not just because hewas horrible to someone on the internet. That’s what he said it was about. I think he might have been involved in Kain’s death somehow.’ She paused.
‘Don’t be daft. This is Danny we’re talking about.’
‘Where have you been and don’t say Newcastle. You haven’t been working away, have you?’
He looked into his lap. ‘No.’
‘Who are you sleeping with?’ She suspected Simeon but she wanted to hear it from Craig’s mouth.
‘That doesn’t matter. Nobody.’
Her suspicions had been confirmed about the affair. ‘It matters to me. I want to know. I’m sick of the lies, Craig.’
‘It’s over. It was nothing and I understand if you want to leave me but it’s not what I want. I’ve been stupid and I will make it up to you.’
‘You should have thought about that before you screwed someone else. Is it someone I know?’ She held back. She really wanted to say,just say his name…
The breeze caught the lake, sending ripples all the way across to the other side, and the trees rustled. ‘We have bigger things to deal with. Tell me about the message. I need to know everything if Danny and I are going to get out of this situation. Forget everything else right now and think of Danny. He needs us to stay focused.’
Pixie licked Justine’s hand and Justine stroked her scared dog’s head. ‘It said something about needing to talk and how Danny couldn’t live with whatever had happened any longer. I can’t remember the exact words. It’s not a case of who was involved, it’s what he did and Kain is dead. I was so worried when I saw that message but I couldn’t let him get interviewed by the police without a plan. I also took his laptop to Mum’s before they searched our house.’
