“Never mind that now,” I said. “You need to call the cops and get them looking.”
“I’m Gus King,” he said. “And Ruby and Dillon King are the backing singers.”
I laughed a bit-he deserved it for trying-but I wanted to shake him.
He looked at the note again, out the front window, at his watch, back at me. “You really think I should phone?”
“I really do. Right now.” Inappropriate, unprofessional. What you’re supposed to say is, it’s your decision, I’ll support you but it’s up to you. “Where’s your phone?” I asked and then followed him through to the hall.
The phone was on a kind of hallstand thing, wrought iron and glass, half-hidden under coats and bobble hats. He looked up the number in the book-I’d have just called 999-and dialled, then tidied the coat rack while he waited, pulling sleeves the right way out, balling up gloves and tucking them into a drawer. Then his eyes opened wide and he swung away.
“Yeah, hi, hiya,” he said. “Em, it’s my wife. She’s left in her car and there’s a note and I’m worried about her.” He looked back at me as if to ask if he’d said it right. I nodded and gave him a tight smile. “Hello? Oh, uh-huh. License number, yeah. It’s, em, SD02 ZJY. A Micra. Dark green. I-I don’t know. I just got back in ten minutes ago. Me and my kids.” He gave me a hard stare, daring me to disagree. “I had both the kids out with me and we all got back and she was gone. Becky King. Yeah, Rebecca. King, yeah. She left a note, saying she couldn’t go on.” I reached out and touched his arm, squeezed it a little. “It’s the Stockman’s Cottage at Cally Mains, Sandsea. Gatehouse, yeah. No, no, it’s okay. No, it’s fine.” He glanced at me again. “I’ve got a friend with me.” And he dropped the phone back down as if it was burning him, turned, put both his hands against the wall, and let his head hang down.
“Gus?”
“Jesus,” he said.
“What did they say?”
He stood up and stared at me. “They’re sending somebody round,” he said. “Jesus. I thought they’d tell me not to worry. Twenty-four hours and all that. Check with her friends… ”
“You could do,” I said. “Check with her family. Her friends.”
“No family,” he said. “Well, her dad. But… ” He shook his head. I knew the type. Saw plenty of dads like that at work. Or heard about them anyway.
“Friends?” I asked. He walked back through to the living room and dropped down onto one of the vinyl chairs. They were the kind that the cushion squirts out if you move too fast and he looked miserable, balancing there on the edge of it, feet braced. Those big Ikea couches, at least you can plop into them after a shock.
“Her best friend was Ros,” he said. “But she’s away back home to Poland. She only broke the news a couple of weeks ago.”
“That can’t have helped,” I said. I sat down too, right on the edge of the sofa, on one of the furry cushions, still not sure. But it squeaked like horsehair, so I shoved myself back a bit.
“It didn’t,” said Gus. “But I know Becky. She’ll come back.”
“But… do you mind me asking?” I said. A bit late. “It wasn’t just her friend leaving, was it? What couldn’t she go through again?”
“Depression,” he said.
“Right,” I said. “Christ. Yeah. Well. I’ve never had it. I’d rather have pretty much anything else, though.”
He nodded. “Me too,” he said. Then he looked at me. “Makes a change to hear somebody take it seriously.”
That was a nice thing to say. He didn’t half notice wee things for someone who’d just had something truly enormous happen. So I said no more, in case he thought I was milking it.
After a minute, he cocked his head towards the kitchen. The kids were laughing, squealing a bit. Someone was kicking their chair.
“Yeah,” he said. “Post-natal depression. Ruby was bad. Dillon was worse. And she told me this morning she was pregnant again. Did the test and everything.”
I remembered what he had said on the phone. It’s not forever. It’ll stop. And her note. I can’t go through it again. I can’t go on.
“Oh, Jesus,” I said. He looked up and nodded really slow. “But-” He stopped nodding as soon as I spoke again.
“But what?” he asked me. He looked like he’d been turned to stone.
“She won’t have to go through it,” I said. “She can stop it. If you agree.”
“Think I want to see her in that state a third time?” He was instantly angry. Zero to sixty in a heartbeat.
“So she’ll do that. She won’t just end it all. She won’t just leave you lot.”
“I hope you’re right,” he said and put his head back in his hands, like the flash of anger had never happened.
“Of course I am,” I told him. “She’d never leave them.”
“She left Dillon,” he said, his voice muffled.
And the truth was, I did think that was funny. It’s easy to overreact to stuff that pushes your buttons, and if anything I go the other road to make sure. But a mum leaving her baby was a kicker, no two ways there. And if she’d never done that before and she’d never left a note before, I could see why he was scared. But nothing about this whole stupid mess made sense. What was he even doing in Marks in Dumfries on his own with Ruby on this day of all days? After that news? How could he hear her cry for help and then hang up and smash his phone? Why the hell were they having a third kid anyway, with their boy and girl already? He was talking again. God’s sake, Jessie, at least listen, eh?
“It’s not just the depression,” he was saying and he sat up again, leaned his head against the lace mat on the back of his chair, and looked at me from under his lashes. It should have been a creepy look, really. Sly, kind of. But he just looked wiped, as if he’d been drugged and could hardly stay conscious. “It’s more than that. It’s everything. Everything’s crap.”
I couldn’t help flicking a glance around the room then. “Looks okay to me,” I said.
“It’s not though,” he said. “Happy Families and all that. We weren’t. We’re not.”
“Well, not today maybe,” I said.
“Oh, me and the kids are fine,” he went on. “Me and Becky… Look, come on back through. They’re doing murder in there.”
The shouting started as soon as he opened the door, noise breaking over us.
“We’re starving, Dad!”
“P B a J! P B a J!”
“Can I have syrup instead of jam, but?”
“Jam but, jam but!”
He high-fived Ruby on his way back to the breadboard and kissed the baby. He put a hand down on both their heads and tousled their hair, making a noise like a machine churning, messing her strawberry curls, his blond silk.
“Say hello to Jess, kids,” he said. “She’s staying for tea, seeing Mummy’s gone out.”
But he’d only got as far as spreading marg on the bread when a car door slammed outside. I watched the blood drain out of his face. Becky? Then a second door slammed, and two sets of feet walked up the brick path to the door. Even the kids fell silent, listening to the two sets of feet in heavy shoes, slow deliberate steps. Police. And a crackle from one of their radios made it true, and then Gus was edging round the children’s chairs, gripping them tight, hauling himself along like he was climbing a cliff face. I followed him through the living room and out into the hall, watched as he opened the door.
“Mr. King?” said one of the coppers.
A woman and a man, and the way they stood there said it all.
“Aye?” said Gus.
“You’re the husband of Rebecca King?”
“That was quick,” he said. “Where did you come from?”