Free Watching You by Michael Robotham

days.
    “You don’t understand,” he said, trying to apologize. “I’ve been working since I was fourteen: every weekend, holidays, when I finished school…at university…I’ve always worked…”
    “And you’ll work again.”
    “I had to try so much harder than anyone else to succeed. I was an outsider. I had to prove myself.”
    “And you did!”
    Things were better after that. Daniel took a part-time job teaching journalism at London College. Marnie imagined his classes were full of girls called Jacinta and Charlotte who dreamed of working for glossy magazines and dashing around Soho in designer heels, hailing cabs with a latte in one hand and mobile phone in the other. Why does everybody still want to be a journalist, she wondered. Thousands of bright young things were doing media courses and studying journalism when the jobs were disappearing and none of them actually read the publications they dreamed of working for.
    Marnie talked of writing copy again, but who would look after Elijah? Maybe if he’d been healthier or once he started school, said Daniel. So he kept teaching (and secretly gambling) while their savings shrank in fits and bursts, tumbling through his fingers like discarded playing cards.
    On the day he went missing, Marnie came home and found a half-filled vase in the sink and a bunch of flowers still wrapped in cellophane. A mug sat on the kitchen bench, instant coffee spooned inside, milk waiting, the kettle grown cold. It was as though he’d been interrupted in mid-thought and simply forgotten where to pick up the thread.
    Marnie called his mobile. She kept calling. The next morning she phoned the police. A constable asked her if there was evidence of violence.
    “What would that be?” she asked.
    “Did you find blood or signs of a break-in?”
    “No.”
    “How long has he been missing?”
    “Since yesterday.”
    “We can’t report someone missing until it’s been forty-eight hours.”
    “Why?”
    “That’s the rule.”
    “It’s a pretty stupid rule. What if something has happened to him? What if he’s hurt?”
    “He might have wanted to get away for a few days.”
    The constable was younger than Marnie. He told her that most missing husbands turn up eventually, making Daniel sound like a stray dog being fed by a neighbor.
    Two more days passed. By then Marnie had called every number in her contacts list, along with hospitals, clinics, homeless shelters, and casinos. That’s when the police assigned PC Rhonda Firth to keep her informed. The big-hipped black woman had hair woven into Rastafarian plaits, pinned tightly to her scalp. Smart, sturdy, and good-natured, Rhonda was the sort of woman that Marnie once wished she could have as a friend because she didn’t have any black friends and she thought it reflected badly on her.
    Rhonda took notes and collected photographs, asking about Daniel’s daily routines. Did he have any hobbies? Could he have been seeing someone else? Do you have his passport?
    Marnie mentioned the gambling and casinos. She thought maybe Daniel had been followed home and mugged. Rhonda thought it unlikely. Already she seemed to have passed judgment, dismissing Daniel as a problem gambler who had abandoned his wife and children.
    “Why aren’t you out there looking for him?” Marnie asked. “Why isn’t his photograph all over the news?”
    Rhonda smiled as though dealing with a child. “We have to take into consideration Daniel’s feelings.”
    “His feelings?”
    “What if he meant to run away? He might need some time to think. Maybe he’s feeling emotionally fragile. If we plaster his face all over the news, it might make him do something foolish.”
    “He’s not going to kill himself,” said Marnie, growing frustrated. “He’s the least suicidal person you’ll ever meet.”
    Rhonda asked about their sex life. Did Marnie and Daniel have arguments? Yes . Had he ever been violent toward her? No . Was disappearing like this out of