The Husband

by Daniel Hurst

Could our luck run out? Could our perfect family unit be destroyed in some awful, unforeseen way? Or am I really letting my overactive imagination run away with itself?

William takes after his father more.

Hopefully He doesn't pick up any of his hobbies

The future can only spoil things, right? Wrong. The secrets of the past have the power to ruin everything…

I’ve never let the law get in the way of a good time and I don’t intend to start now.

so much in my life has been about never letting my wife find out exactly what I’m up to.

the highlight of my life occurred when I was around my son’s age, which is sad because that’s twenty-five years ago now. The bigger problem is that it’s a highlight only I know about. If I told anyone about what I’d done back then, it would only serve to make me a highlight on the next news bulletin.

My pleasure in life is almost unspeakable.

I can keep my other vices in boring moderation too. Two beers. Two bodies.

But the main reason I’m not tucking into the snacks is that it seems the setting for this story is a place I am familiar with and it has shocked me. A second later, Bonnie realises it too. ‘Carnfield? Isn’t that where Dad’s from?’

Some people hate having them. But for me, they make life interesting.

‘Dad! Why have you never told us about Paisley?’ Bonnie asks, and for a brief second, I swear my heart stops beating. Why the hell has my daughter just said that name?

Francesca is not Paisley. She doesn’t know how lucky she is.

I wonder if I might have just found what I’ve been looking for. I’ve been feeling so down lately, but it’s not a mid-life crisis. It’s the misery that comes from missing the thing that made me feel most alive. Killing interests me,

While for them, it would be a simple holiday, for me, it would be committing the cardinal sin of any criminal. I’d be returning to the scene of the crime. And from what I hear, that never ends well.

But most of all, I hate him. Angus. My best friend. The person I have been close with ever since our parents made us play together when we were babies.

I’ve had a crush on Paisley Hamilton for as long as I can remember.

Nobody knew how I felt about Paisley. Nobody until the night when, during a sleepover at his parents’ house when we were thirteen, I told Angus about the crush I had.

But while I was angry at him, I was also angry at her. How dare she opt for him.

I hate my parents. I hate home. I hate this village. Most of all, I hate the two people kissing in front of me.

She is looking at me like she would never be attracted to me in a million years. I don’t know what happens in that split-second that my brain registers the dismissive look, but the next thing I know, Paisley is lying on the ground

‘But Mum! All my friends are messaging about it, and I still haven’t finished it!’

She cant just stream it on her phone up in her own room?

that was only the cue for Bonnie to take her plate to her room, presumably to watch the documentary on the TV in there.

Oh okay I was gonna say

Angry, frustrated, unpredictable people are capable of doing crazy things like taking a life. But nobody suspects the placid, ordinary ones – people like me.

‘What would you do if you were one of the suspects?’ Bonnie suddenly asks, and my blood turns cold as I register the question.

We sadly became a four on the day our dear friend Teri passed away in her home.

it’s a double tragedy because she was murdered by an intruder who has yet to be caught.

Prob by your homicidal hubby

‘Teenage tantrums are way worse,’ Kath chips in with them. ‘At least they are cute when they’re little and you could always pick them up if you had to. Now they just smell and could pick us up instead.’

Lmao

it’s still two women who were murdered without the killer being caught,’ Kath adds, unhelpfully for my argument. ‘Seriously, Teri’s death should be turned into a documentary. It has all the same ingredients as the Paisley case,’

‘How weird is it that Lachlan has been in both places at the same time?’

Without ego, I never would have killed Paisley. Nor would I have killed Teri, one of my wife’s best friends who rejected my advances and threatened to tell my wife about my inappropriate behaviour until I staged a break-in at her home and silenced her.

the females who have shown no interest in me are the ones who have caused me to behave violently.

she is extremely lucky because if she had rejected me, she might not be alive now.

I never know when the last time I will take a life will be, so it’s always fun to experiment.

‘He can still go to the festival. I’ll drive him back for it. We can leave Saturday morning, he can attend and then we’ll drive back and rejoin you guys in the evening.’ I frown. That sounds like an awful lot of effort to make it work.

Perfect excuse to come back and kill someone

But as he looks at me, I don’t see anger or annoyance or even a sheepish look that might suggest he is about to apologise for the stupid move he made. I see something I was not expecting. I see fear.

But it does occur to me that maybe this is a sign from the universe, or at least some higher power, that I’m not meant to do what I was planning to do to Francesca.

as well as a church and a pub, ensuring both saints and sinners are well catered for,

It’s almost as if they are filling the time between now and when they die, and probably, the only thing they really want to happen between this moment and that one is that they get some definitive answer about who killed their daughter.

this is exactly why criminals never return to the scene of the crime. It’s impossible to not feel like people can read your thoughts.

The village residents are respectful of this couple’s loss, but they are not treating them differently or doing anything to make them feel worse. They are talking to them like the neighbours that they are,

I notice my husband flinch and, bizarrely, for a split second, it seems like he is much weaker than the ageing man standing over him.

Angus was Lachlan’s best mate? He never told me that, even though I specifically asked him how close he was to that man. In fact, he told me he barely knew him.

I observe Lachlan and figure he must know exactly what caused such a dramatic-sounding school fight. Although if he does know, he is not offering it up to us.

‘I think the killer is in this pub right now,’ he says shockingly. ‘Or should I say, killers.’

your husband.’ Gerard looks at me. ‘What’s his theory? He’s never actually told me. Has he told you?’ That’s a good question and I can’t answer it. Lachlan has never told me his thoughts on the murder.

I say it as it creates the idea that the dangerous killer still lurks out there and, by doing that, it’s creating a separation between me and them, even though we are really the same person.

I thought I knew you, but maybe I’m wrong.’

A person with nothing to hide doesn’t run a car off the road. Only a person who is afraid does that. So what are you afraid of by being here? What is it that you were running from when you left?’

I’d hoped I was the only one lying throughout this conversation. I think that has changed now. I can tell she is lying to me too.

My friend’s unsolved murder, and the helplessness I have felt about that, is making this harder to keep to myself because now I do have the chance to help. I wish I could bring Teri’s killer to justice,