by Sarah Dunant
“Did you contact the police then?”
“No. It wasn’t serious.”
“Could you give the circumstances?”
Could I? “It was a bad time in her life, that’s all. There was some personal trouble; her mother was ill, and I think that really affected her. Everything just got too much. Er . . . she just packed a suitcase and took a train somewhere. To get away from it.”
“Where did she go?”
“To the Lake District. A hotel there.”
“And how long was she out of contact?”
“Not long. Five or six days.”
“But she didn’t tell anyone she was going.”
“No.”
“How did you find her?”
“She called me. And I went up to see her.”
I saw Paul look away toward something on the table. He picked up a water jug and refilled their glasses.
“Have you checked that hotel this time?”
“It never occurred to me.”
“You don’t remember what it was called?”
“Yes. It was the Windermere. After the lake.” He wrote it down. “But that was completely different from now.”
“You mean she’s not under any kind of strain now?”
“I mean she has Lily now.”
“And she’s not under any strain,” he repeated, doing his best to make the statement sound less like the question.
“No,” I said. I waited for Paul to back me up. When he didn’t, I glanced at him. He was still looking at the table.
“And you’d agree with that, would you, sir?”
“Yes, I would.”
The officer gave a little smile. “You don’t sound so sure.” And he was right. Paul didn’t.
Paul shrugged. “She’s like everybody else. She’s too busy. She’s got a job and a young kid. She gets tired. Sometimes she gets stressed. Still . . . I don’t think . . . well, I don’t think that’s got anything to do with this.”
“But if she did go off she’d know that you would be here to look after Lily?”
“Yeah, but . . .” Paul trailed off.
“What will you do to find her?” I said, because I didn’t feel like answering any more questions.
“Well, this report will go in when we get back to the station and from there an officer will make contact with Florence, and check the airlines in and out of Florence and Pisa for the particular dates, see if she left the city and if so when and where she went. If it turns out that she’s still there we’ll put out descriptions through Interpol.” He paused. “You know, ninety percent of people who are reported missing to the police make contact or are found within seven days.”
Simple as that. We were in the once-upon-a-time land of police training statistics, where bad guys broke the law and the good guys made them stop doing it. I could read it to Lily as her bedtime story, except even at her tender age she was starting to ask questions about the gap between what if and what is.
They had a few final requests: a photo and any further help on what clothes she might have taken with her.
Upstairs I did the clothes first, checking the wardrobe more carefully. I fumbled through the rack. I thought I remembered a pair of black crepe trousers that she had bought in Amsterdam earlier in the spring and that weren’t there now. And Paul was right, there was no yellow jacket in the cupboard either. In the bathroom I checked her jewelry. Anna was an earring junkie, the longer the trip the more of them would be missing, but who was I to know how many had been there in the first place? I looked in the mirror and saw her staring out at me; black trousers, yellow jacket, airline boarding card in her hand.
God, Anna, wherever you are, why don’t you pick up the phone? One call is all it takes. I thought of myself mellowing into last night’s alcohol. What if I hadn’t been there to answer the phone? René and I might have decided to meet somewhere for the weekend. We might have been sitting in some medieval square in Amiens or Bruges sipping coffee and eating pastries while in my mind Anna was safe and well, standing in the shallow end of a swimming pool in London, arms outstretched as Lily splashed her way toward her. When my mother died it took me months to accept that she hadn’t just gone away on a trip somewhere and forgotten to write. But this wasn’t the time to think about that.
I moved into the study in search of a decent photo. The three of them on holiday in Montana wasn’t clear enough and anyway I didn’t want to take it down from the wall. I went through her desk drawers in search of something more suitable. The bottom right was a set of old Guardian weekly Guides (why?) and a jumble of photo envelopes underneath. I was about to select from memories of last Christmas when I came across another set, one that I’d never seen before: bigger prints, maybe six inches by four; Anna with a half-smile staring straight into the camera. The lighting was professional; this was a portrait rather than a photo, the kind of thing that mothers of missing models give to the police just before their lovely daughters are found with their throats slit on a patch of wasteland in the Hackney marshes. What Anna could be doing with such a set of shots I couldn’t imagine.
“How’s it going up there, Estella?” Paul’s voice rose up through the stairwell. I had been daydreaming too long. The officers had moved to the door now, eager to be on their way.
I picked two of the photos and shoved the rest back in the drawer.
“Well?” I said as we closed the door on them. “What do you think?”
He shrugged. “The dark-haired one is straight, the other could go either way but doesn’t know it yet.”
I didn’t laugh.
He sighed. “I don’t know. Presumably they know what they’re doing.”
“If they take it seriously.”
“Why shouldn’t they?”
“Because you told them she was in a disturbed state, that’s why.”
“No, Stella. That’s not what I said.”
“Yes it was.”
“I said she was stressed. That’s not the same as disturbed. I hardly think they’re going to stick her in the pending tray because one of us says she might have been under a bit of strain.”
“I don’t think we should have given them any excuse, that’s all.”
“Which is why you lied to them about the Lakes, presumably.”
“I didn’t lie.”
“Oh, please, Stella, give me a break. She contacted you? I was around, too, if you remember. She never rang anyone. You found the number of the hotel on a piece of paper in her flat and called. Or did I just make that up, too?”
There was a time after Anna got pregnant when Paul and I didn’t get on that well. It didn’t take a genius to work out why. Since we’d always liked each other before, I reckoned that we would grow to like each other again. And so we have. But our relationship has always been funneled through other people, first Anna and now Lily. When we’re on our own there is always the risk of a shadow falling between us.
“Okay, so I lied,” I said. “If I’d told them the truth they’d just have assumed this was like the last time and not bothered to look for her.”
“Yeah, I know.” He nodded and rubbed his forehead. “Jesus, I’ve been thinking about it all night. Why would she be late? Where could she be? Between Lily and Mike and work, everything’s so damn busy these days there’s no time to talk properly anymore.” He paused. “But I do think she’s been different recently. I don’t know—cut off, distracted. I can’t put it any clearer than that. I thought it might be connected to a man. But if it was serious she would have told you.”
What did I think? I hadn’t seen her since Easter. Over two months ago. She and Lily had visited for a week. She was researching a story on Amsterdam’s soft-drugs policy. Lily and I had played for three days while she frequented my favorite brown cafés and politicians’ waiting rooms. A good time had been had by all. Since then it had been business as usual on most of the Friday nights . . . me a little high, her a little . . . A little what? Busy? Tired? Offhand? Had there been som
ething I hadn’t noticed? Something that got lost between the vodka and the dope fumes? What could there be that Anna wouldn’t tell me?
“This couldn’t have anything to do with Chris Menzies, could it?” I said, because, of course, he would have to come up eventually.
“The TV-star sperm donor?” For a man who makes his money out of things you can do on small screens Paul has always had a healthy mistrust of television. “Coarsening the nation’s culture” is his line. I know enough of the nation who might accuse him of doing the same thing. But at least we had always agreed on Menzies. “No, I don’t think so. She never mentions him.”
“Where did he go after Washington?”
He shrugged. “I dunno. Somewhere in Europe, I think. Paris, maybe?”
Not a million miles from Florence. I shook my head. He was right. It couldn’t be Menzies, not after all this time.
Paul looked at his watch. “I told Kylie’s mum I’d pick them up at the swimming pool and take Lily to lunch. You going to come with me?”
“I think somebody should stay here,” I said. “In case she rings.”
Though as I said it I already knew there were no guarantees.
Away—Friday A.M.
THE SUNLIGHT WAS crashing in through the window and there was a rapping, the sound of someone knocking on the door, then unlocking it. Anna was up and out of the bed before he got into the room, snapping herself into a standing position, tense, ready to shout or to run.
“You are awake?” he said with a smile. “Good.” The door swung back of its own accord, slamming shut behind him. “How do you feel?” He stood awkwardly, a tray in his hands: coffeepot, milk, cup and saucer. It was all she could do not to send it crashing on her way to the door.
“You’ve made a terrible mistake,” she said, her voice flying out of her like a missile. “I don’t know who you think I am, but I have no money, none at all. No one will pay for me, do you understand?”
The smile hovered, but didn’t break. It was clear he didn’t have a clue what she was talking about. Slow down, she thought. Try again.
“Where am I? What happened? What did you do to me?”
“Please. Don’t be upset. You are very all right. You were ill in the car. You don’t remember this? I called a doctor for you. She said you are going to be fine.”
“Where am I?”
“In my house. I bring you here last night after you got sick. You don’t remember getting out of the car? You spoke to me, I told you what was happening. The doctor made an examination of you and she said maybe you have—I don’t know the word—epilepsia? Or a reaction to something, but I couldn’t tell her what you have eaten.”
Her mouth was too dry, but she couldn’t work out if it was fear or the remnants of sleep. “It wasn’t anything I ate. It was the drink. The coffee.”
“The coffee? But how . . .? I drank a cup, too. Except for the syrup . . . You are not having a reaction to almonds? I didn’t think . . .”
She jerked her head in denial. He gave a little shrug, as if the whole thing was simply one of life’s mysteries that couldn’t be explained. She thought of the locked room and the darkness. He was lying. Even his English was splintering under the strain of deception. As he put the tray down on the table she rushed past him and made for the door.
He made no effort to stop her. It was unlocked. She found herself staring out onto a corridor and then a staircase at the end. She ran to the landing. The stairs led down to a hall. As she leaned over she could see a front door. Where to now? She stood for a moment, unsure of what to do, then walked back, but didn’t go all the way in, standing instead in the doorway. He hadn’t moved from the spot. The coffee tray was still on the table waiting. He looked concerned, a well-dressed man with a troubled houseguest; not a hint of the mob or the gangster about him. She felt suddenly wrong-footed.
“Didn’t you hear me shouting in the night? I yelled and screamed for someone to come. The door was locked.”
“You woke up in the night?” And he sounded genuinely upset. “I am so sorry. I sleep downstairs at the other end of the house. I locked the door because the house woman comes early to clean. I didn’t want her to disturb you. You didn’t read the note?”
“Note?” She glanced around the room. “What note?”
“I left it by the bed.”
He moved rapidly over to the bedside table, bent down, and straightened up, holding something in his hand. “Here. It fell down the side.”
Still she didn’t budge. He came to her, holding it out at arm’s length so she wouldn’t feel threatened. She grabbed it from him. On a piece of paper ripped from a notebook were five lines in small, neat writing:
Don’t be worried. You are quite safe. A doctor has checked you. She gave you something to help you sleep. I called the number for your home, which I found in a book in your handbag, and left a message. I told them you were delayed. I will wake you in the morning.
So polite, so solicitous, such grammatical English. She felt another collision of panic and confusion. He had even called her home . . . Lily . . .
“What time is it?” she said quickly.
“I think eleven o’clock.”
“Eleven? I have to call my daughter.”
“But I told you,” he said gently. “I did this. I left a message on an answering machine. I said you are delayed, and that you will be home when you could. I told them not to worry. I hope that was okay. Your daughter, she will be at school by now, yes?”
Eleven o’clock here, ten o’clock there. Yes, she’d be at school. And Patricia would already have left for Dublin. She would have taken Lily back to her house for the night and left the answering machine on in its place. She could try Paul’s mobile, but he wasn’t always connected. He picked up Lily anyway on Friday after school, took her out for tea or to a movie. If she caught an afternoon flight she’d be back home almost the same time as they would.
She looked up and found him still watching her intently. He seemed different from yesterday, but she couldn’t work out how.
You’re making all this up, she thought suddenly. The note, the story, it’s all made up to reassure me.
At the same time the thought was ridiculous. Why shouldn’t he be telling the truth? After all, things do happen to people. Once last autumn, Lily had fainted at a friend’s house. One minute she was upright in the garden, the next crumpled on the grass. They had spent three hours at the hospital waiting to have her checked over. The doctor had said she was fine, that these things sometimes happen. Like now. But it still didn’t feel okay. Maybe it never would until she had got out of there and was sitting safely in her own house again.
“I made a booking for you,” he said, as if reading her thoughts. “The planes are very full now, but there is an Air Italia flight to London this afternoon that had one seat free on it, so I reserve it. I hope that is all right? You will have to pay. It is not a charter.” He paused. “You don’t mind that I did this? I found your ticket in your bag with the book.”
“No.” She gave a short laugh, the sense of relief palpable. “I don’t mind. Thank you.”
“So you have time now, yes? The airport is not far from my house. I booked a taxi for four P.M. Why don’t you have a shower and come downstairs for some breakfast? You will feel better when you have eaten something.”
And sensing her discomfort, he turned and left the room, closing the door behind him. When she tried it quietly afterward it was open.
The water woke her up, but it didn’t wash the panic out of her. No doubt he was right and it would take food to untie the knots in her stomach, fill up the empty space that had been taken over by fear.
She changed her clothes and dried her hair. As she rolled up the shirt she had discarded, a faint smell of vomit came off it. She smelled it more closely, then studied the material. There was a stain around the left breast, as if someone had scrubbed that bit with a soapy cloth. She remembered how nauseated she had felt in the car and then again la
ter in the darkness. It wasn’t a doctor’s job to clean up a patient’s vomit. Which meant he would have done that too.
That was the problem, of course; she couldn’t stand the idea of his intimacy with her unconscious body: the carrying from the car, the laying out, the cleaning, the watching and waiting while someone examined her. All of it was too much like violation to be able to forgive or forget.
She slipped a hand between her legs. If you were unconscious, how would you know? Of course you would know. Surely. She remembered a wild story glimpsed at the bottom of a front page about a woman in a New York hospital who had given birth to a baby even though she had been in a coma for three years. It was one of those apocalyptic tales that seemed like myth even before it happened. No, it wasn’t possible. She would know. He hadn’t touched her.
Once she was out of there she would feel better. On the plane she might even write him a letter apologizing for her lack of gratitude. He seemed a decent enough man. He would understand. By the time she had got home, the events of the last twenty-four hours would have become her own urban legend, one of life’s more colorful party pieces.
The room was less forbidding in the daytime, though the décor was still too corporate. Maybe it was Italian style to make the guest bedroom like a hotel. She checked it more carefully: the chest of drawers and the wardrobe were both locked. She went back to the window. A wilderness greeted her. Where an unkempt garden ended a forest began, a mass of closely packed pine trees, tall and regimented, like some silent army waiting for the signal to move. It explained the hissing blackness of the night.
As she opened the window a rush of outside air hit her, cooler than the stale fist of city heat and sweet with the scent of pine. It made her realize how, despite the shower, her head still had traces of fog inside it. Could she really have been allergic to something? She knew children, friends of Lily’s, who were allergic to nuts; it was so serious that their parents rang to warn you before they came round, just in case you might be careless enough to offer them the wrong chocolate bar. But you didn’t just develop that out of nowhere. On the other hand, she couldn’t even remember the last time she had eaten almonds.