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The wife looks up, her eyes red. “I saw it on the news this morning. And I knew. I knew it was Steve.”
“Can you tell us the circumstances around his disappearance, Mrs. Carey?”
She sniffs and dabs at her nose with a tissue. “There’s not much to it. He went for a run, as he always did. Thursday night. But this time he didn’t come home.”
She looks up and Adam nods, encouraging her to go on.
“At first I assumed he’d just gone a bit farther than normal. Turned his three miles into four. But then an hour passed, and it was dark. I thought maybe he’d had an accident, so I called the neighbor, got her to watch the boys while I went out looking. But I couldn’t find him on his usual route. I called the police straight away. I knew. It wasn’t like Steve to go somewhere without telling me.”
Adam had read the misper report. Just disappeared. No witnesses, no idea where he’d gone. Response and Patrol had done a reasonable job trying to track him down. Spoken to friends, family, hospitals, with no luck. Now they know why.
“And his usual movements? Did Stephen have a routine?”
“Not much, not really.” She runs through her husband’s life. A family man, the usual mundane stuff. Driving to work—a solicitor at a local law firm—going to the supermarket. Taking the kids to the park and swimming on the weekend.
“But he was always keen on his fitness,” she continues. “Running every day.”
“Every day? What time did he go?”
“Around eight. Once the kids were in bed. He’s gone for no longer than half an hour. That’s how I knew something was wrong. When he didn’t come home.”
“And had anything else been strange lately? Something out of the ordinary that maybe you didn’t give much thought to at the time?”
“No. Not at all.” But she pauses, thinking.
“Mrs. Carey? Anything, however small or insignificant, could be useful for our investigation.”
“It’s silly. But it was odd. I came down one morning a few weeks ago and the back door was unlocked. Steve swore blind he’d locked it, but there it was. And …”
“And?” Adam prompts.
“There was sand on the kitchen floor. Not much, but enough to make me wonder how it got there.”
“But that was it? Nothing had been stolen?”
“That was it. A bit of sand. Seems daft now I say it out loud.”
“No, thank you. That’s helpful.” Adam glances to Jamie, who’s writing it all down in his notebook. “Do you have a hairbrush of his? Or a toothbrush? We’ll need something to compare for DNA analysis. So we can formally identify the body.”
“I thought you’d want me to do it,” the wife replies. “Like they do on TV.” She lets out a long breath of air. “I’m relieved I don’t need to, to be honest. I don’t want to see him … like that. I want to remember him the way he was,” she finishes, and starts crying again.
“No. This way will work fine,” Adam says. He’s glad he doesn’t have to tell her what happened to her husband. To try to make her understand about the rats and the foxes and the maggots. That he no longer has a face to identify.
The wife gets up to fetch her husband’s toothbrush, still crying, and leaves them in the living room.
Adam looks to Jamie. “Do you think someone broke into the house?” he whispers. “Had a bit of a poke around?”
“Maybe. But why?” Jamie replies. “And where was he murdered? If you wanted to kill the guy, it would have been easier to leave him where he fell.”
Adam nods. He’s read the file: five eleven, brown hair, brown eyes. Active. Not a small person to move.
They quieten as the wife comes back with a red toothbrush; Adam holds out a clear evidence bag, and she drops it inside.
“How did he die?” she asks, her eyes pleading. Adam’s seen it before. Desperate for a crumb of hope, that their loved ones hadn’t suffered, hadn’t been in pain.
“It’s still early days,” he replies. “We’ll know more soon. We’ll appoint a family liaison officer to stay with you, and they’ll be able to keep you updated on the investigation.”
“But he was murdered?”
