by Wendy Clarke
Mark stands as well, his long arms hanging by his sides, his fingers curled into fists. It’s hard to read his expression. ‘But what if you’re wrong? What if something’s happened to her?’
‘The likelihood of a missing person being the victim of serious crime is fortunately low, but as I say, if your wife still hasn’t returned of her own accord in a few days, or if anything else comes to light, do please let us know.’ PC Rose walks to the door, the young police constable following at her heels. When she reaches it, she turns back to the room, her eyes moving from one end of it to the other, and I wonder if she’s seeing it as I am. A soulless place. No plants to break up the spaces. No pictures or objects to reflect the personalities of the people who live here.
‘One last thing, Mark. You say you’re the property developer for Tobacco Wharf, along with your wife’s father. Do you or Joanna have access to any of the empty properties?’
Mark folds his arms. ‘I do, but the keys are kept at the office. My wife doesn’t have access to them.’
‘I see. Thank you, you’ve been very helpful, and as I said, try not to worry. We have all we need at the moment, but, in the meantime, if you can think of anyone at all who your wife might have seen in recent weeks, do please contact them. It’s surprising how often they can provide the missing link.’
Mark opens the door to let them out. The policewoman walks through, but the young man hovers in the doorway. In the forty minutes they’ve been here, except for his faux pas with the badly timed congratulations, he’s been very quiet.
‘Just one further thing, Mark.’
‘Yes?’
‘I was just wondering… has anything like this ever happened before?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Has your wife disappeared before?’
Mark draws himself up. ‘Don’t you think I would have told you if it had?’
The young man nods. ‘Of course, you would. Sorry to have asked. We’ll be in touch.’
We wait at the door as PC Jameson joins his colleague at the lift. With a ping the doors slide open, and he pulls back the concertina inner door, dragging it closed again once they’re both inside. As the metal doors slide shut, I shiver, thinking of the small airless space inside.
Mark has already gone back inside. He’s in the kitchen opening a bottle of wine as though we have something to celebrate. Even though he’ll be driving.
‘What are you doing?’
‘What does it look like I’m doing?’
He pours half a glassful and downs it in one. ‘Want some?’
‘No. It’s only eleven.’
Ignoring what I’ve said, he pours me some and pushes the glass across to me. ‘Live a little. I just want to say thank you for not saying anything.’ He smiles. ‘It’s the second time I’ve said that in two days, isn’t it? Are you always this obliging?’
Heat burns my cheeks. ‘I’m doing it for Joanna.’
‘No,’ Mark says. ‘You didn’t do it for Joanna. You admitted yourself that you haven’t seen my wife in ten years. You did it for me.’
I wonder if he’s right. There’s something about Mark, but I don’t know what it is. Something that makes me want to help him. Despite this, I wonder if I’ve done the right thing.
Twenty
Mark picks up his keys and is just leaving when I remember my phone.
‘The charger you brought up from my car isn’t working.’
‘Not working? Did you plug it in properly?’
‘Yes, but I’ve checked it in other sockets just to be sure.’
I unplug the charger from the wall beneath the kitchen cupboards and plug the toaster back in. ‘The battery’s practically dead, and I don’t like being without my phone.’
Mark takes the charger from me and looks at it. ‘It didn’t charge at all?’
‘No.’
Picking up my phone from the counter, he plugs it in and wiggles the cable. ‘There’s nothing obvious. And you say it was charging all right on your way here?’
‘Yes. It was working all right then.’
Getting his own mobile out of his pocket, he holds it out to me. ‘Do you want to use mine? Is there someone you need to ring?’
I take it from him. The phone is expensive. The latest model. ‘Thank you.’
But now the phone’s in my hand, I realise there’s no one I want to contact. I hand it back to him. ‘Don’t worry. I can do it later. I’ve still got a bit of charge, so could you give me your number just in case I need it? Just write it down as I don’t want to make you later than you already are.’
Mark scribbles his number on the writing pad that’s next to him, then pockets his phone. ‘I’ll tell you what. I’ll buy another charger for you when I get out of the office later.’
I smile. ‘That would be great. Thank you. Oh, and Mark?’
‘Yes?’
‘My car keys. You didn’t give them back to me yesterday.’
‘Didn’t I?’ Mark frowns and digs deep into his pocket. ‘Oh, no I didn’t.’ He brings out the bunch of keys and hands it to me. ‘Sorry.’
‘Don’t worry. I’m not planning on driving anywhere. Not today, anyway.’
‘That’s all right then. I’ll see you later. What have you got planned for the afternoon?’
‘I thought I might invite Eloise up for a cup of tea.’
He breathes in through his nose. ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’
‘Why not?’
‘I just don’t think we should complicate matters at the moment. Not after what’s happened to Joanna.’
‘But we don’t know what’s happened to her.’
He fixes me with his blue eyes. ‘Precisely and that’s why we don’t want to muddy the waters with idle gossip.’
Straightening his tie, Mark goes to the front door and lets himself out. ‘I’ll see you later, Alice.’
‘Yes. Have a good day and don’t forget the new charger.’
‘I won’t.’
‘Bye then. Try not to be too late home.’
From the way he turns his head, two lines deepening between his brows, I know that I’ve said the wrong thing. I’m mortified.
‘I… I’m sorry. It’s a habit. I used to say it to Drew when he went out in the evening. He was a music promoter. I could never get to sleep until he’d come home and—’
‘You don’t need to explain. I understand perfectly.’
The door closes, and he’s gone, leaving me wishing the earth could open up and swallow me.
Crossing the room to the black wooden doors, I open them and look out, hoping to get a glimpse of Mark’s car as he drives around the front of the building. I’m just about to give up and go back inside when I hear it. As he drives past the neat box trees in their pots, I wonder if he’ll look up, but he doesn’t and soon the Lexus has turned the corner and is out of sight.
Did Joanna lean on this black railing and raise a hand to Mark as he left for work? Did my friend mind being left alone in this warehouse, the only company the tall abandoned cranes on the dockside and the gutted buildings full of rusting car parts and scrap metal? Did she count down the hours until his return, as I know I will?
I laugh out loud. Of course not. Joanna was an independent woman. Chances are she’d have left the apartment before him, driving away from Black Water Dock to meet her clients. Sitting in bars in Canary Wharf. Having fun. I lean on the black railing for a moment, straining my eyes to see the towering office blocks, hazy in the distance. She must be fine, just like the police said. Perhaps she left of her own accord. There’s nothing to be worried about.
There’s a movement below me, and I look down. It’s Derek the security guard. He’s standing with his hands in the pockets of his black bomber jacket, looking in the direction in which Mark has just driven. Slowly, he turns his head and looks up to where I’m standing, and I step back into the room out of sight. I know he’s seen me, though.
I close the doors and lock them, my
skin prickling. Why did Joanna leave without a word or a note? Was she unhappy? Could Mark be having an affair? Or maybe she was.
I think of what Mark told the police officers. Is it really possible she could have taken clothes without him knowing? Or did she have reason to leave in a hurry? Deciding to leave everything behind including New Tobacco Wharf with its luxury apartments no one wants to buy.
I think of Mark in his serious pinstripe suit. The neat beard. The preppy glasses. Then I think of his meticulous manners and how upset he was when he told me Joanna was missing. Yet here he is today, driving off in his flash car as though he doesn’t have a care in the world. But looks can be deceiving, and it’s not as if I’ve always been the best judge of character.
I’m glad I’m not driving home today. After my terrible night, I’d found it hard to get back to sleep, even with the bedside light on and the blinds up. Every time I closed my eyes, I felt the darkness pressing in and had to open them to the light again before my panic could take hold. But eventually my body had given in to the weight of tiredness, and I’d slept a bit, waking to welcome sunlight shining through the windowpanes.
Has Joanna ever been scared living here? Has she lain awake in her magazine-perfect bedroom with its Egyptian cotton sheets, the ceiling fan turning slowly above her head? Cooling skin bathed in the sweat of intimacy. Mark beside her.
Not that I’ve seen that room properly, only the glimpse afforded that first night. I look at the closed door and it’s as if invisible hands are pulling me. Before I’m aware of what I’m doing, I’ve crossed the wooden boards to the door in the far wall. Hesitating only a second before opening it and peering inside.
The room is bigger than the one I’ve been sleeping in but, unlike mine, its brick walls have been painted a stark white. The metal shutters are the same as the ones at the rest of the windows, but, in this room, they’ve been partially opened, a strip of brown Thames visible between them and the white floorboards.
Joanna looks down at me from her picture. She’s on her side, the fingers of one hand entwined in her hair, her other hand flat on the ground supporting herself – her thumb dimpling the skin of her small round breast.
I turn away from the rose-pink nipple, my cheeks flushing pink. Imagining Mark’s hand cupping those breasts, his own fingers in her dark hair.
In the half-light of the bedroom, I open the huge mirrored wardrobe that spans the width of the room. Biting my bottom lip as my hand touches the smooth sleeve of a midnight blue silk blouse. The satin strap of a halter neck evening dress. Some clothes with their labels still attached.
Would Joanna have been able to afford all these clothes on the money she got from being a part-time life coach? It seems unlikely, but, then again, I can’t imagine her allowing Mark to fund her lifestyle. The girl I used to know would have scoffed at the thought. But then I think of Joanna’s old room in her parents’ house: the wardrobe of clothes by London designers I’d never heard of, the new computer by the window overlooking the field of horses and the diamond studs she’d got for her sixteenth birthday. Clearly, her scruples hadn’t extended as far as her parents.
I try to remember if she’d ever mentioned a trust fund. It wouldn’t surprise me. It would be the perfect trade-off for the lack of interest they took in her when she was growing up. A way to appease the guilt – if they felt any.
Before I can question what I’m doing, I’ve slipped the blue blouse off its hanger. Laying it on Joanna’s bed, I pull off my T-shirt, then slip my arms into the sleeves and do up the buttons. The material is whisper-soft against my skin, and when I look at myself in the full-length mirror, I see how the colour sets off my hair, turning it a richer shade of auburn.
It feels strange to be wearing Joanna’s clothes even though it’s what we used to do at university. Back then we’d swap tops we were bored with. Something old becoming new again on a different body. Not that there was much Joanna wanted to borrow of mine.
Lifting the lid of an antique wooden jewellery box, I see inside its velvet lining a wide gold bracelet such as Cleopatra might have worn. A tiny black box next to it offers up a pair of tiny diamond studs. Could these be the same ones I coveted all those years ago? After a moment’s hesitation, I lift one of the earrings and push it through the hole in my earlobe. I do the same with the other, pushing on the butterfly clips to secure them. It’s only as I close the lid of the jewellery box that I see the tiny drawer at the front, hardly visible against the marquetry of the wood.
I slide it open, expecting to see more jewellery, but there’s nothing inside except for a small key. Taking it out, I rub the shiny metal with the pad of my thumb. I wonder? Might it be? Quickly, I slide the drawer back into place and go out of Joanna’s white bedroom, shutting the door behind me.
In my own room, I open the wardrobe door and, crouching down, attempt to slip the key into the lock, biting my lip in frustration when it slips out of my fingers and onto the floor. My second attempt is more successful, and my heart beats faster as it slips into the lock and turns easily. I won’t allow myself to feel guilty; I’m doing this for a reason. There could be something inside that will help me discover where Joanna is.
The drawer slides an inch or so, then stops. The space inside is jammed full of paper, and something is caught at the front, stopping it from sliding on its runners. Easing my fingers into the small gap, I prod and probe at the contents until, at last, I’m rewarded for my efforts. The drawer slides open, and I’m able to see why it got stuck. It’s packed full of photographs.
But they’re not just any photos. With a gasp, I sit back on my heels, the blood draining from my face.
They’re all of me.
Every single one of them.
Twenty-One
Emptying the photographs onto the floor, I see that they span the years from when I met Joanna at the age of thirteen to the last time I saw her when I was twenty-one. Some of them are just of me but, in others, Joanna is there too. In one, we’re sitting on Joanna’s bed in her parents’ house, giving a thumbs up to the camera. In another, we’re in the field with the horses, my hand raised to the soft neck of the piebald.
So many of them, crammed into this small locked drawer. No wedding photos. None of Mark. Just of me.
I’m looking through them all when the buzzer goes in the living area. It’s not the front door intercom, but someone at my door. Joanna’s door.
The buzzer goes again. Wondering if it could be Eloise, I shove the photographs back into the drawer, pressing them down with my hand and pushing it closed. I’m pleased at the thought of seeing her again as, even though I only met her briefly, she intrigued me. I’m also hoping she might tell me something of interest about Joanna. Pushing myself up from the floor, I hurry over to the door and look through the spyhole. But it’s not Eloise who’s standing there, it’s someone else. Someone whose face is level with my eye, knowing that I can see him.
Derek.
I step back from the spyhole, my heart thumping. Why is he here? Leaning my shoulder against the door, I’m just trying to decide whether or not to open it when the buzzer goes again, making me jump. If I don’t let him in, what will he think? With his panel of monitors, he must know I haven’t left the building. Must know I’m here.
I tear at a nail, a habit I haven’t had since I was at school, and wait. Maybe he’ll tire and go away. But it doesn’t happen. Instead, the buzzer goes again, a long high-pitched drone that grates. It’s clear he’s not going anywhere.
Leaving the chain in place, I open the door a couple of inches. ‘Hello?’
He nods at me, his face impassive. ‘If it’s not too much trouble, I need to access Mr Belmont’s apartment.’
‘Is anything wrong?’
His voice is a study of patience. Slowly, he runs the flat of his hand across his ginger crew cut, and I notice how fine the hair is. Like a child’s. ‘I’ll be able to explain better if you take the chain off.’
After a second’s hesita
tion, I reluctantly slide it out of its track, forcing a smile to cover my discomfort.
Derek rocks back on his heels, fixing me with his small, light blue eyes. By his feet is a back holdall full of tools. ‘Mr Belmont asked me to take a look at the air con unit. One’s been playing up in another apartment and as all the units came from the same supplier, he’s worried they might all have a fault.’
Is it Eloise’s apartment he’s talking about? As far as I remember, no one else is living here permanently.
Picking up his bag, Derek takes a step forward. ‘You don’t have any objection, do you?’
There’s a sheen of sweat on his forehead despite the fact the air in the corridor is cool and he wipes it away with his sleeve. I hate the thought of this man in the apartment, but I don’t have much choice. It was Mark who asked him to come up, and it’s his apartment after all.
The fingers of Derek’s right hand absentmindedly stroke the word security that’s stitched onto the breast of his black bomber jacket, and I can’t drag my eyes away from them.
‘So it’s all right if I come in?’
The corridor is empty. No one here except the two of us. I don’t like the thought of Derek being in the apartment with me, but I feel powerless to refuse. My fingers make contact with the mobile in my back pocket, tracing the hard edges. I could call Mark, but I want to save what little charge I have left.
Reluctantly, I step back. ‘Of course.’
‘Thank you. I just need access to the condensing box. It’s in the smaller of the two bedrooms.’
Moving past me, he walks confidently across the long, open stretch of bare wooden floor towards my room. Unlike Mark, he’s not tall, but his lean frame looks hard and muscular.