GONE WITHOUT A TRACE

It has been nine years since Anita Wafer, 63, waved her husband off to the shops – and he never came home

- EMILY HALL, ASHLEIGH PAGE

Hearing the toaster pop, I flipped an egg over in the pan and popped two tea bags in two mugs. ‘Breakfast’s ready, love,’ I called to my husband, Brian, then 66.

‘Thanks, pet,’ Brian said, shuffling into the dining room in his slippers, a newspaper tucked under his arm. As I placed the fry-up down in front of him, I gave him a smile and asked him what his plans were for the day. ‘I thought I might go to the bookies,’ he said.

Brian was nothing if not a creature of habit. It was July 2013, and we had lived in our little council house in Wolverhampton for decades. Since Brian had retired from his job as a builder six years before, he did the same thing every day – pop to the bookies in the morning, drop by the shops and then head home for lunch around 2pm.

He had been diagnosed with mild Parkinson’s in 2005 and we had soon discovered that routine helped him. With the help of that and daily medication, the condition hadn’t progressed too far, thankfully, and just affected his memory.

We’d met in the late 1970s, when he and my dad John worked on the same building site in Wolverhampton. I adored Brian’s sense of humour and he wasn’t bad looking either. After marrying in February 1983, we had our son Steven* that September.

COMPANIONSHIP

We didn’t lead the most exciting life, but Brian and I were content with that. And when Steven left home in 2009 and it was back to being just the two of us, I couldn’t wait to spend the rest of our lives together.