I Found You (10 page)

‘Well, speaking as someone with
no life whatsoever
, I’d say that sounds pretty great.’

‘Yeah. It’s good. It’s weird, but it’s good. And means I can work round the kids, which is brilliant.’

‘Not to mention this lot.’ He indicates the dogs. ‘And them.’ He gestures at the iPad with its sinisterly glowing vignette of an empty room. ‘You’ve got a lot on your plate.’

‘Yes. I do. But no more than a million other women. Women are amazing, you know.’ She smiles and he smiles back.

‘I’ll have to take your word for it. Since I can’t actually remember any women.’

‘Well, you know me, and take it from me, I am completely amazing.’

He doesn’t laugh but he does smile. ‘OK. You are Woman A and from now on will be the benchmark for every other woman I meet.’

‘Oh Christ, I’ve become your mother!’

This time he laughs and as he rocks back his leg presses briefly against Alice’s leg and she feels it open
up inside her, the big gaping hole of loneliness and neediness she’s been trying to ignore for six years. Outside the low-slung window a lightbulb on the string is fizzing and flickering. Finally it extinguishes completely and the room is suddenly a degree darker. She hears the floorboards creak overhead as a child makes its way to the bathroom. And then something remarkable happens. Griff, who has been watching their conversation from the other side of the room, suddenly unfolds his elegant legs and wanders towards them. Alice expects that he is coming for some fuss from her but instead the dog stops at Frank and rests his chin on Frank’s knee.

‘Oh,’ says Frank, cupping his hand over the dog’s skull. He looks up at Alice and smiles.

Alice looks from her dog to Frank and then back at her dog. Her stomach eddies. Griff, unlike Sadie and Hero, is
her
dog. She chose him from a rescue centre when he was a year old. He’s been with her since her London days, since before she had Romaine. He is the kindest, nicest dog in the world. But he is not a friendly dog. He keeps his distance from people. But here he is, offering himself up to a stranger, echoing, in some poetic way, Alice’s own subliminal desires.

‘You must be a good guy,’ she says. ‘Dogs always know.’

‘You reckon?’

‘I reckon.’ And then she feels something softening deep inside her, something that had once been tender and, over time, without her even noticing, became hard. She puts her hand over Frank’s hand where it rests on Griff’s tightly domed head. Frank brings his other hand to cover hers. And there it is. An exquisite moment of suspended existence beyond which lies the potential for everything.
Remember
, they might say in years to come,
that night. When we first touched?

But for now there is the clank of the plumbing upstairs as a child flushes the toilet. Then there is the sound of footsteps coming down the wooden stairs. And there is Romaine in glorious disarray, eyes puffed with sleep, pulling at the sides of her off-white nightdress and saying, ‘Mummy. I keep waking up.’

Alice takes her hand from beneath his and sighs and says to him, ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’

But he’s already shifting in his seat, trying to dislodge Hero from his lap, putting down his tumbler of Scotch and saying, ‘You know, I’m shattered, actually. Is it OK . . .?’

‘Stay as long as you like,’ she says. ‘Any friend of Griff’s is a friend of mine.’

She takes Romaine’s outstretched hand and walks her up the stairs. ‘I’ll leave the back door unlocked,’ she calls down to him. ‘See you in the morning.’

1993

That night they went out for dinner. The impromptu tea at Kitty’s mansion had slightly upended their day and there’d been no time to go shopping for food so Kirsty had said, ‘Why don’t we eat by the beach tonight? It’ll be really nice.’

It was a lovely evening, cool but golden with a brilliant blue sky, so Tony suggested the smart seafood restaurant at the other end of town with the covered terrace overlooking the beach. ‘No starters though,’ he pre-instructed.

Gray appraised Kirsty over the top of his menu. She looked different.

‘What?’ she said, spotting his gaze on her.

‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘What are you having?’

‘Scampi,’ she said, closing her menu.

Mascara. That’s what it was. She was wearing mascara.

‘What are you having?’

‘Minute steak,’ he said.

She mock yawned. Gray always ordered steak.

‘What did you talk about?’ he asked. ‘You and the weirdo?’

‘Oh, Graham,’ his mum interjected. ‘That’s not nice.’

‘Well,’ he countered, ‘he’s not exactly normal is he?’

‘Well, no,’ said Tony, ‘but then, who is? Really? It’s something you realise the older you get. Everyone’s a bit strange.’

‘Yes, but not everyone takes your fifteen-year-old daughter off to the bottom of the garden to look at “donkeys”.’

‘There was a donkey!’ Kirsty cried.

Gray sighed.

‘It was called Nancy. It was beautiful. And he’s not weird. He’s just . . . posh.’

‘He’s posh
and
weird. I mean, who invites a group of total strangers round for tea?’

‘He’s bored,’ said Kirsty. ‘He told me. He offered to come here to keep his aunt company because he thought some of his friends from the old days might be here and they’re not and now he’s stuck here with no one to hang out with.’

‘So he decides he wants to hang out with the Rosses from Croydon?’

Kirsty shrugged.

The waitress appeared and took their order and Gray looked down from the terrace on to the steam fair below. It was a pleasant evening and the seafront was heaving with bodies: clusters of teens and families. Gray did a double-take at a fleeting glimpse of a head of slick dark hair. He followed the head as it passed through the crowds. It wasn’t, was it? Was it Mark? The figure circled the dodgems, then stopped and bought an ice cream. Then he started walking towards the near side of the fairground, and as he got closer he looked up and Gray whispered, ‘Jesus,’ under his breath.

‘What?’ said Kirsty.

Mark caught Gray’s eye and raised his ice-cream cone towards him.

‘
Jesus
,’ he muttered again, raising his hand to return the greeting.

‘What?’ Kirsty got up from her seat and came to see what he was looking at. ‘Oh!’ she said. ‘It’s Mark!’ She waved and Mark waved back and then Pam joined them and waved and Gray folded his arms across his chest and sighed.

‘Come down,’ he heard Mark call up. ‘After dinner. I’ll wait for you!’

Kirsty was flushed when she retook her seat.

‘You’re not going to go, are you?’ he asked, incredulously.

‘Why not?’

‘Because you’re fifteen! Because he’s nineteen! Mum, Dad, you’re not going to let her, are you?’

Pam and Tony looked at each other and then at Gray, and Pam said, ‘I don’t see any reason why not? Do you?’ She glanced at Tony again.

Tony shook his head. ‘Long as you’re home by ten.’

The rest of the meal was tainted for Gray. He stole glances off the terrace every now and then, staking out the unnaturally shining crown of Mark’s head. Who went to a funfair by themselves? Who hung around for an hour waiting for a teenage girl to finish her dinner?

His minute steak was tough and chewy, the chips were too greasy and the ketchup wasn’t Heinz. He put down his knife and fork halfway through the meal. Kirsty, he noticed, was racing through her scampi, putting two in her mouth at once at one point. She slapped her knife and fork together, gulped down the dregs of her Coke, accepted a five-pound note from her dad’s wallet and left.

Gray turned and watched. He saw his little sister, her feet suddenly not so turned in, her gait suddenly not so gangling, stride down the steps and towards Mark, who was waiting for her by the entrance. Mark greeted her with a brief embrace and a kiss to her
cheek. Then he stood with his hand upon her shoulder and smiled at her for a moment, before taking her arm by the elbow and leading her gallantly into the crowds.

And then Gray thought about the mascara and he knew that this had all been pre-planned. Down by the donkey paddock. He tried to imagine the conversation; he saw Mark smiling conspiratorially and saying, ‘Eight o’clock. Find a way to get away.’ And his sister, his gorgeous, stupid, never-been-kissed sister, saying, ‘I’ll be there!’ as if this was a scene in some stupid Disney Channel show.

And then he stood up and said to his mum and dad, ‘I’m going for a walk. I’ll see you back at the cottage.’

‘No pudding?’ asked his mum.

‘No.’ He rubbed his stomach. ‘I’m not feeling too good actually. Think it was all that cake earlier.’

‘Oh.’ His mum made a
poor baby
face and stroked his hand. ‘Well, you get some fresh air and we’ll see you later.’

He smiled at them both and left, heading towards the steam fair. He found a good vantage point on a wall just above the fair, lowered his sunglasses, sat down and watched.

Lily sits on her bed, the bed she shares with her husband. A husband who is not here. A husband who is not in fact a husband. A husband who is a cardboard cut-out of a husband. Like one of those life-size film-star figures they have in cinemas to give the impression that you are in the presence of celebrity. The bed still smells of him, it smells of them, of the sheen of their bodies when they are together, the heat of them and the joy of them. It has been three days now since she felt him. Three nights since their bodies tangled together under these sheets. The smell will fade soon. And then the sheets will become stale and she will need to wash them. And after the smell goes, everything that remains will be false, including this flat that was designed to look expensive with its fake
wooden floors, its flimsy walls and cheap flat-pack furniture, its door handles and plug sockets that are coming loose and chrome taps that are already losing their bright shine.

She looks down into her hands at the objects she found in the locked drawer after the WPC and the computer forensics boy left. Two golden rings, one set with a large diamond. A key fob with three door keys on it. A thick wodge of banknotes: £890. So now she has money. But no answers.

The rings are very small. Maybe they belonged to his mother? The key fob is a brass sphere, heavy and satisfying in the palm of her hand. The notes are comprised of twenty- and fifty-pound notes, used, but neatly stacked as though from a bank. So. This is what he was hiding from her. Not so much. Nothing that any other man wouldn’t keep locked in a drawer, for safekeeping.

The phone rings and she jumps. It will be the WPC, calling with more news to rock her world. To tell her, maybe, that her husband was once a woman. That his name is really Carla. Ha. She smiles grimly to herself and picks up the bedside phone.

‘Is that Lily?’ asks a man with a gentle, almost effeminate voice.

‘Yes.’

‘Oh, hi, Lily. We haven’t spoken before. My name’s Russ. I’m a friend of your husband’s? Of Carl’s?’

Lily sits up straight and grips the phone harder. ‘Yes?’

‘Listen, I’ve been trying to call him the past couple of days. His phone seems to be dead. Called him at work earlier and they told me he hasn’t been in since Tuesday. I hate to bother you at home, but I wondered if maybe I could have a word with him.’ He stops and she hears him licking his lips. ‘If he’s there?’

‘No,’ she says. ‘He’s not here.’

‘Ah, OK. When are you expecting him home?’

‘I don’t know. He is missing.’

She hears him pause between breaths.

‘He has not come home since Tuesday night. I have not seen him since Tuesday morning. The police are aware.’

He breathes sharply. ‘Wow,’ he says, ‘
missing
. That’s . . . I don’t know what to say. I mean . . . Do you mean you literally haven’t seen him?’

‘Yes. He left on Tuesday morning. He texted me on Tuesday evening when he left work. He never came home. And now it is Friday night. So. Yes. I am being literal.’

‘Bloody hell. Christ. That doesn’t sound like him. I mean, I know I haven’t seen him for a while but from what little I gleaned he was completely potty about you. Deliriously happy. You know.’

‘He was the happiest man in the world.’ She pauses and looks down at the wedding rings and the keys on
the mattress by her side. ‘Russ, how long have you known Carl?’

‘Gosh, I don’t know. A few years, I guess. I used to work with him at Blommers. We both joined around the same time: 2010? I think?’

‘And where had he been working before that?’

‘Well, I’m not sure exactly. Another financial services company I suppose. He probably told me but I don’t remember.’

‘Do you know his family?’

‘No. God, no. I’ve never met anyone he knows. We always just used to meet up for a pint or two, you know, just the two of us, whenever I found myself in town. And I’d been trying to get the pair of you over for dinner. So hard to get out and about with a baby, you know. But I got the impression he didn’t really fancy a night with a screaming baby.’ He laughed nervously. ‘Kept finding excuses. So, what with one thing and another, I haven’t seen him for at least a year.’

‘Where do you live, Russ?’

‘Putney.’

‘Where is Putney?’

‘It’s south London. On the river.’

‘I want to come and see you. I want to ask you some questions. Please.’

‘Oh. Of course. Yes. I mean, we’re busy tomorrow, seeing Jo’s parents for lunch.’

‘I can come early. I don’t sleep, so I can come any time.’

‘I suppose. I mean, mornings are quite hectic here what with the baby and everything.’

‘Half an hour. I just need half an hour.’

‘OK. I’ll talk to Jo. Hold on . . .’ The sound muffles as he cups his hand over the phone and she hears him call out. She hears ‘Carl’s wife . . . missing . . . early . . . half an hour.’ Then a cross woman’s voice saying, ‘Not here though. Go to Antonio’s.’

He comes back on the line. ‘OK, that’ll be fine. There’s a coffee shop, a deli kind of thing, just round the corner. Antonio’s. I can meet you there at nine. Give me your phone number and I’ll text you the postcode.’