Chapter 43

CLAIRE ARDEN

Claire’s eyes were sore to the touch, like someone had kicked sand into them and then rubbed it in. She willed herself to cry in the hope that it might offer them some relief. But she was drained; there were no more tears left inside her.

She remained trapped and helpless in her hijacked car, listening to a group of strangers debate the value of her life. In keeping the truth about Ben from them, she had cheated her baby out of a future. Her one job as a mother was to protect Tate and she had failed.

Claire knew as soon as the world had seen images of her husband’s dead body that her chance of surviving the ordeal was over. If she had been a juror or at home, glued to her TV screen watching someone else tangled up in her mess, she too would have sided with the evidence presented. But it wasn’t the truth. It wasn’t even close to the truth. If only she had been given just a minute longer to explain why Ben’s body was in the boot of her car, she and Tate might have stood a chance. But that wasn’t what the Hacker

wanted. He wanted to send them to their deaths. The end was coming for Claire and there was nothing left for her to do to stop it.

Outside, her car was flanked by armoured army vehicles and marked police cars, preventing any interference from the hundreds of onlookers patiently waiting on the pavements to catch a glimpse of Claire travelling her own green mile.

She turned away from the window and gazed down longingly at her bump. ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,’ she whispered, her hands working their way around it carefully like a potter at the wheel. ‘It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. Your dad and I had everything planned out for you. The three of us were going to have this incredible life together, full of exciting adventures. And eventually you were going to fly the nest and have amazing experiences all of your own while your daddy and I grew old together. But then he ruined it all. And as well as losing him, now I’m going to lose you too.’

Claire thought back six months and to the day when her world fell from its axis. She recalled with clarity quietly closing the front door to their home and letting her handbag drop to the floor. The plastic bottles inside it rattled. She watched as Ben made his way up the stairs, pulling himself up using both bannisters until he turned a corner and disappeared into their bedroom. Then she clasped her hands across her mouth and sobbed in silence. She needed a moment to herself to let it all out before concentrating on her husband.

Claire patted her stomach, then just a barely protruding bump that had only just begun to reveal itself. She wanted to reassure her baby that by the time it emerged into the world, everything was going to be alright. She didn’t want to begin their relationship with a lie, but she had little choice.

Everything now was about protecting her child at all costs.

By the time she reached the bedroom, she paused under the doorway to take Ben in. He was sitting on the edge of the mattress, his head buried in his hands. This was not the strong, unyielding man Claire had fallen in love with. She no longer saw him as the strapping six-foot-three-inch tall, broad-chested athlete who excelled at sports and who she’d cheered on from the sidelines when he competed in triathlons. Before her was a frightened, vulnerable boy trapped inside a man’s broken body and who desperately needed her reassurance. But she couldn’t give him what he craved.

Instead, she positioned herself by Ben’s side and draped her arm around his shoulder. He placed her other hand in his and drew it to her mouth to kiss. His lips and fingers were icy cold so she entwined them around hers.

From where she was sitting, Claire could see into the spare bedroom that was to eventually become the nursery. Only neither of them had the courage to even think about clearing it of old books, CDs and gym equipment let alone decorate it. They had made that mistake before. A day after assembling a cot, Claire had begun to bleed until their dreams were taken away from them. Now, without either wanting to admit it to one another, they were waiting for this baby to be snatched like all the others had before it. Each day it remained inside her was a miracle.

‘We will be okay,’ Claire soothed and tilted her head to rest her temple against Ben’s. ‘You and me, we will get through this together.’

‘You can’t say that with certainty though, can you?’

‘Nothing is certain; you and I know that more than most. But despite everything we’ve been through, we’ve never lost each other, have we?

What makes you think I’m going to let that happen now? You’re my DNA Match, remember? We were made for one another.’

‘I wish I could believe you, but you heard the diagnosis. It’s inevitable.’

‘Your surgeon said that it could be a year from now or twenty years. Or with luck on our side, even longer.’

‘Or it could be next week. Or tomorrow. Or even tonight. Why not in the next few minutes?’

‘Ben …’

‘Why couldn’t it wait until I was in my eighties to appear, when I’ve lived my life and watched our kid grow up? It wouldn’t matter then. Why is it happening to me now?

‘It’s not just happening to you, it’s happening to us.’

‘Well, forgive me but you’re not the one with an aneurysm inside your head.’

It was as if he resented Claire for being healthy. ‘That’s not fair.’

‘I know, it’s not … I’m sorry.’

Three hours had passed since the specialist’s diagnosis at Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital. It had followed a battery of tests including MRI scans, CT scans and angiographies. Finally, a dye had been injected into arteries and the shadow it created revealed what the surgeon suspected – an aneurysm buried deep inside Ben’s brain. At seven millimetres, it was on

the larger end of the spectrum and its positioning meant the risk of brain damage or a stroke was too high risk to operate.

Now back at home, they remained on the bed, hand in hand, as Claire punished herself for failing to acknowledge the recent changes in her husband. He had begun to forget things that were important to him, like his sister’s birthday and an appointment to meet a client at a nearby hotel. One morning she found him sitting at the breakfast table halfway through a bowl of cereal. She reminded him it was a Saturday and that he didn’t work weekends.

Claire had blamed each memory lapse on pressures at work and concern over whether the baby would reach full term. It was only when she discovered a handful of empty Nurofen packets hidden in his car’s glovebox that he admitted the increasing frequency of his headaches.

‘I need a time-out,’ Ben said and rose to his feet.

‘Where are you going?’

‘To the park.’

‘Can I come with you?’

‘Thank you, but I want to be alone.’

Alone was how Claire felt for the next three months. While husband and wife continued to go about their daily routines, a chasm opened that she couldn’t close by herself. Instead, she filled the cracks where and when they appeared, trying to lift Ben’s spirits even when he’d lost interest in being a husband and a dad-to-be. The dilapidated house they’d taken on a year earlier still required much renovation work, so she took on the project management in the hope it might be completed before the baby arrived.

Eventually, she could hold her tongue no longer.

‘Do you know where I’ve been all afternoon?’ she snapped, storming into their bedroom one day. ‘No, of course you don’t, because you’re too busy lying here in the dark feeling sorry for yourself. I’ve been at the hospital scared shitless I was losing the baby.’

Ben sat upright. ‘What happened?’

‘Oh, now you care. I was cramping at work and started spotting so I took myself to A&E. You would’ve known that if you’d bothered to answer your phone.’

‘Sorry, I must have set it to silent.’

‘No, it wasn’t; it’s switched off like it always is because you can’t deal with reality. But while you’ve pressed pause on life, the world is still going

on around you. And the paediatrician said it was just a scare, the baby is okay.’

‘Thank God.’ He lay back on the bed, relieved. But Claire wasn’t finished.

‘I’ve had enough, Ben. This should be the happiest time of our lives but you’re ruining it for us. I’ll be damned if I’m going to spend the rest of my pregnancy living with the walking dead. It’s time for you to stand up and be my husband instead of moping around and waiting for an artery in your head to burst. If you don’t want to be a part our lives, then pack your stuff and leave now, because I’m running out of strength for the three of us.’

Claire’s tough talking appeared to switch on a lightbulb inside Ben’s head. It began with a heartfelt apology and developed over the following days into the return of the husband she loved. He put time and effort into their relationship and together, they allowed themselves to imagine being parents.

‘There’s something I need to talk to you about,’ Ben began one evening.

He put a plank of wood and a nail gun down on the lawn and invited her to join him on the half-completed decking. The sun began to disappear behind the roofs of the houses ahead. ‘I’ve been thinking about this and if it ever reaches a point where I know the inevitable is going to happen, then there’s something I need you to do. Don’t call an ambulance. I want you to get me to the office.’

Claire raised a brow as if she’d misheard. ‘You mean the hospital?’

‘No, there’s no point in taking me there. When the aneurism ruptures, that’s it, game over; there’s nothing they can do. If you take me to work and leave me there, then my medical insurance will pay out.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘You and I have life insurance, right? Which is all well and good. But because I have an existing medical condition, it’s capped at £110,000. But at work, all staff are insured for up to £340,000 if they die on work premises, and that includes the gardens, the grounds or in the car park. I rechecked the policy to make sure. That money will be you and Tate’s future.’

Claire shook her head. ‘I can’t just drive you to your office as you’re dying and dump you there! It’s a ridiculous idea.’

‘No, it’s a sensible idea. It’ll make no difference to me, Claire, I’ll be unconscious, dying or dead anyway. This way I know you two will have

security. You can’t afford the mortgage on your own especially when you go down to statutory maternity pay. Please, just think about it.’

Claire knew that what he was saying was true, but it sat awkwardly with her. Ben must have sensed it because he didn’t mention it again. Four weeks later, he was dead.

The morning of the hijack, it was his failure to turn off the alarm clock that made her jab him in the ribs to wake him. He didn’t move. There was no response when she said his name, or pushed him, shook him, rolled him over or begged him to wake up. Multiple times she ran her fingers across Ben’s body searching for a heartbeat or a pulse but he was still. When her fingers cupped his chin and stroked his cheeks, he was cold and his skin was already stiffening. It was too late. She held her protruding stomach, partly for comfort, partly out of fear their baby might vanish just as suddenly as his father.

As the early morning light gleamed through the bedroom shutters, Claire reached for her phone and dialled two nines. She hesitated before pressing it a third time, reflecting on Ben’s instructions for when this moment arrived. Then she collapsed into an armchair in the corner of the room, crying and racked with guilt for even considering it.

Through the thick mist of her grief, she knew that Ben was right. The extra life insurance money would pay for the completion of the house renovations, pay off their mortgage and place less pressure on her to hurry back to work after Tate’s birth. All that needed to be done was to transport Ben to his office’s car park and wait for his body to be discovered.

Pulling herself together, she dressed and chose something appropriate for Ben to wear for a working day. Her tears splashed upon his chest as she removed his T-shirt and shorts and put him in a pair of khaki-coloured chinos and a crisp white shirt. She paused to take him in one last time and couldn’t help but resent him. ‘You lied,’ she whispered. ‘You told me that thing in your head wasn’t going to beat you.’

Moving Ben to the car was a challenge as he was a bulky man. She dragged him by the arms from the bed and to the floor, then slowly across the landing and down the staircase, pausing every so often so as not to strain herself or hurt the baby. She texted the car to reverse into the garage, then pressed the tailgate button so it lowered to ground level. And with one final heave, she pushed Ben on to it. As it lifted and scooped him into the

boot before shutting, she would figure out how to move him into the Passenger seat later.

Exhausted and emotional, Claire’s brain ran through what needed to be done next. She dictated notes into her phone so that she wouldn’t forget –

programme the car for Ben’s office; book an Uber using a guest account; go to work; start texting Ben mid-morning. Then when she told his employers she was worried that she hadn’t heard from her husband but that her app was confirming his vehicle was parked at work, they would likely investigate and Ben would be discovered.

Claire acted the next few moments out like she would any other day so as not to arouse suspicion. She left the house through the front door, set the alarm, waved to her neighbour Sundraj and then climbed inside the car before it pulled away and along the road.

Only the Hacker had a different plan for Claire. Now, two hours later, it was unlikely that by the end of the morning, Ben’s would be the only body in the car.

At least we’ll all be together when it happens, she thought as she stroked her stomach again.

Without warning, there felt like a popping sensation inside her followed by a slow trickle of liquid down her leg. Claire assumed the baby had been resting on her bladder and putting pressure on it. But she didn’t feel the urge to urinate. Then to her horror, she understood what had happened. Her waters had broken, two months early.

The baby was on its way.