The Perfect Husband by Iain Maitland

Author:Iain Maitland [Maitland, Iain]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Inkubator Books
Published: 2022-10-18T16:00:00+00:00

He is up, moving through the living room to the dining room and into the kitchen, at my nervous, nodded agreement. His footsteps echo in my head.

And she is speaking to me, asking me a question, repeating it, to distract my attention.

I turn to her, with an acid feeling in my stomach, as I hear him opening drawers oh so carefully in the kitchen.

“Did Robert have any money worries?”

I look at her, trying to focus, but listening to him, and then, after a while, I hear his footsteps going into the utility room. I fear I may have left the door to the garage open and he will go straight through. I brace myself.

“Did he have money worries?” she repeats the question as I look back at her, so distracted by her colleague moving through my house.

I decide to be honest, as much as I can anyway. So I don’t have to remember what I said later. Not that any of it matters if the policeman comes running back in from the garage.

“He was an investment adviser. Invested clients’ money into foreign exchange and something called arb … arbit …” I stumble over the word. “… Arbitrage schemes. He invested Harry’s money from over the way. I … I think he had money worries, yes.”

“Were you involved in his business?” A blunt question. I wonder if I should tell her I’ve lost money too. I decide not to.

“Not at all, no. I’m a primary school teacher … when it’s not the school holidays … I teach the alphabet and numbers … early years.” I try for a gentle laugh or even a smile, but neither come. My mouth does not seem to work properly. I am listening out towards the utility room and the garage beyond.

“You weren’t responsible for doing the books, paying returns, making sure everything added up? You weren’t in charge of the money … in control?”

He is out of the utility room and moving back to the kitchen and then into the conservatory, the hallway, and the cloakroom and under the stairs. Nothing to find there, but still I fear exposure at any moment. I am sweating heavily and can barely concentrate on her. She repeats the question.

I am completely distracted, but I force myself to look at her as steadily as I can. “No.” I think of offering her his phone or laptop and also saying that they can check my bank account if they want to. Anything to make them go away and leave me alone. But I hesitate. He would never have left any of those items behind. And I want to see the secrets of the phone and the laptop for myself. “I’d not know where to start,” I add.

There is a thump upstairs. As if the policeman has tugged at a drawer of a bedroom cabinet and it has fallen out and hit the carpet. He is digging about and may see the watch and the phone and the laptop, but I do not think he will assume anything other than they are mine.

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