The wood felt warm to the touch. Jim had been recaulking the thing for months now, he’d taken the job off Paddy, insisting on doing it himself, and it was taking longer than it should. A lot longer. She’d heard the owner—a Londoner—in the pub complaining, and she had tried not to listen. In the water these boats looked featherlight, effortless and natural, but in here she was only aware of the weight beside her, over her. Of what would happen if one of these chocks on which it rested was knocked out and the tons of wood and brass were to tilt and fall—she could almost hear the crash.
“Jim?” she said, and then there was a sound of someone trying to stay silent, a gasp of something held in. She took a step. “Jim,” she said again, pleading, soft, and the gasp became a gulp, a sob, an awful hoarse noise.
Hands against the boat’s hull, she felt her way around it, following the sound. For a moment she couldn’t see him, he was crouched so small, a darker patch of dark, but then she saw his dirty white canvas shoes, pale against the littered dark concrete of the floor and the toes turned in, the feet of a kid waiting to be told off. Waiting to be found out. Nat came closer, kneeling, she came right up against him and she almost closed her eyes at his familiar smell, his sweat like no one else’s, and the daily cocktail of diesel and paint and linseed the job left on him. She put her arm around him, helpless to do anything else, she put her cheek against his.
“Jim,” she said, hopeless, and then this close there was a different smell, a different bitter chemical sourness. He felt strange under her arm too: he swayed and she said it a last time, this time sharply, “Jim!” She shook him. “What have you done? What have you done?” His head lifted, his shaggy head, the hair falling back and she could see the planes of his face, his mouth slack, his eyes not looking.
“You’ve taken something.” She could hear the anger, the bitterness, the frustration in her voice, all of it pouring out now, when she needed to be kind. “Tell me what it is. Tell me.”
He whimpered, his head came down as he tried to hide from her, to escape her. “I know you slept with Beth,” she said, but it came out odd, wondering, as if she didn’t know what the words might mean.
He was crouched inside her arms, and then he spoke. He mumbled. “I didn’t,” he said. “She didn’t—” And his head fell into his hands. “You wouldn’t talk to me,” he said, and it was almost a moan. “She let Janine think we had”—he was hoarse—“but all we did was … she just let me stay. All she did was lie next to me, put her arms around me a bit. She wouldn’t have … she was your friend. She said it was none of Janine’s business, let her think what she wanted.” His head lifting up and his voice rising, but all Nat could hear was the past tense. “I only wanted you back.”
“I’m not coming back, Jim. I can’t come back.” She wished it was different. She wished … she wished she could go back and change it all. From when? From the day Beth dropped her shiny backpack at Nat’s feet in the doorway of the Bird? From the day Nat walked into the dusty anonymous clinic on the other side of the town and signed her name, turning her face away when the woman leaned in to the screen to see was it there, was it alive, inside her, was it true, was the baby real? It had been real.
It seemed to her that Jim was telling the truth: she could hear Beth saying it, contempt for Janine, none of her business. If she had wanted a baby, it wouldn’t have been Jim’s.
My friend. She was my friend.
Jim had gone still now, tensed and waiting. He was stronger than her, even like this, even thin, even sick. She could feel the sinews on him, but she wrapped her arms around him. “I know it wasn’t you, Jim. I know you didn’t hurt her.” His head drifted from side to side; she could tell he was trying to focus on her. There was something he was trying to understand. “But someone did. Someone dug in the garden. Someone hung her dress in the tree.” Whispering, to herself, “I need help here, Jim. If you know anything—”
She wasn’t even sure if he heard her. He swayed against her arms.
“What have you taken?” she asked again, gentler this time.
Consequences. She didn’t even want to think about Bill. She’d done nothing wrong. Sort Jim out first, that was the thing. Bill could wait.
“And Ollie. That poor kid. He saw something, he knew something about who Beth was seeing.” Persisting. Jim just stared, big eyes in the dark, like a kid. “Did she say anything to you, about who else was on the scene?”
“Why would she have?” He shook his head, she could see his bewilderment at what she was saying. “She was private, wasn’t she? Beth was. I didn’t even know about that guy, that guy that’s been hanging round, him with the pickup—”
She heard his voice rise, wavering, she shushed him. “Nor did any of us, it’s OK, Jim. Forget it.”
That panicked drumbeat started up again, and she knew somewhere there was truth in it. Maybe the world shouldn’t be like this, but this is where it got you. This was dangerous shit. No such thing as no strings, no such thing as safe sex, these are consequences. Once you get inside someone’s space, into their head—sometimes you’re lucky, and all there is in there is flowers and sunshine. But sometimes it’s got claws, sometimes it’s a lake of tar; sometimes you don’t get out again.
It was a gamble, and Beth liked the gamble. Maybe she thought she had the eye, could tell who was a big risk.
“Ollie died, didn’t he?” mumbled Jim. “I don’t know what he knew. She never told me anything.” Desperate; overwhelmed. Nat shifted her position, she took hold of his hands. They were very cold. “I miss her too,” he said. Mumbling.
“Have you taken pills?” she asked again, a last time. “Have you overdosed?” She was holding on to him, holding his hands tight, but she didn’t know what it was she was feeling. Something huge and painful and frightening.
“I’m phoning an ambulance,” she said, and then she was on her feet. She blundered back through the dark space, her shin knocking painfully into a trestle, feeling her way along the big silent hull. She got to the doors and pushed them open. As the flat white glare from outside hit her, she was aware that he had made no sound, he hadn’t moved to come after her.
Shielding her face she got out her mobile phone and was about to dial 999 when she saw the car, trunk open, parked on the gravel.
Just an ordinary silver car, and she knew it from somewhere, but her brain didn’t seem to be working at all. Then in the same moment she saw the white plate advertising the taxi license, she saw a man leaning to look in through the glass of Paddy’s shed.
He’s come after her, was Nat’s thought. Sophie’s husband, Richard. But then the man turned, and she saw it was the taxi driver, the same one who had taken her and Craig to Brandon. Don.
“They’ve gone,” she said. “You’ve come for them, haven’t you?” She couldn’t stop the anger in her voice. “He sent you. For the kid.”
Don stepped back—alarmed, perhaps, by the sound of her voice.
“They’re not here,” she said, just wanting him gone. Something I’ve got to do.
“I can’t leave without him,” he said, his smile steady. “I’ve come down here. Who’s going to pay me?” He turned to look at the car, trunk open.
“You want money?” Nat felt in her bag, scrabbling for her purse in stupid pointless rage. She felt like she could kill someone herself in that second. A tenner, twenty. And then she heard the creak of the boat shed’s door and saw the taxi driver’s head turn to look.
Jim came through the doorway. Nat grabbed him to steady him: he was very pale. She held him upright with one hand.
“Take us to the emergency room,” she said. Trying not to sound too desperate. Pulling money out of her pocket, twenty. “Could you, please? Now. And you get paid.”
Don looked from her to the money to his car and shrugged. “All right, then,” he said, and walked around to shut the trunk.
For a panicked moment, seeing the trunk open and wondering why, what was he expecting here, she thought, Richard’s in
the back seat all along, they were going to abduct the boy.
He stood at the driver’s door, frowning.
“Please,” said Nat. Jim mumbled into her neck: skinny or not, he was a deadweight against her, and his breath was sour. Don sighed and bent to open the rear door. Coming over, he took hold of Jim’s upper arms in both hands and she transferred the weight. Jim’s head went up and he looked around, dazed, then leaned sideways against the car, his mouth opening and closing.
“He’s taking us to hospital,” said Nat. He looked clammy and white.
“Not you,” Jim said with an effort.
“What?” She held him away from her; his head flipped up and he looked into her face. “I don’t want you to come with me,” he said distinctly. “I can … can do it on my own. ’S enough. You’ve done enough.”
“Don’t be—” she began, exasperated, but he pulled away from her, lurching against Don.
“I don’t want your pity,” said Jim. Then his shoulders dropping, swaying. “Let.” A heavy breath. “Me go.”
Don looked at her across his drooping head, shrugged. “You heard him,” he said. “Come on then, son,” he said and surprisingly easily—or he was strong—Jim went to him, allowed himself to be deposited on the seat. The door slammed and the driver looked down at the money in Nat’s hand. He smiled, and as if from a distance Nat saw how that changed things, all you had to do was give out that open smile and she was smiling back, she was thinking, Fine. Why had she never learned to do that? Cheer up, love, it might never happen.
“Just get him there quick,” she said.
“Before he throws up?” He’d have seen all this before. Blokes pissed and crying over women, swallowing pills by the handful and the girl always caves, gets in, All right, but this is it. This is the last time.
Don looked at her a moment, and for a second she thought he was actually amused. Then he shrugged, pocketing the cash and tugging on the driver’s door. Climbing inside and the matte silver car was moving away, a careful three-point turn on the wet stones, and it was in the lane. As it hit the bend there was a quick flash of the hazards—cheeky, cheerful.
Almost immediately, as the anger receded, her mistake overwhelmed her. Shit, shit, shit: she should have just shoved her way into the car after him. What was she doing here alone by the water, twiddling her bloody thumbs? And it wasn’t just Jim. There was Sophie, Richard—and Victor about to be discharged.
Dowd too. The only one of Beth’s men to have come out of the woodwork. Think. Think.
She got out her phone: three missed calls, from Craig, no signal in the boat shed. Impatiently she scrolled back, looking for the taxi firm’s number, dialed and got put on to a tinny music track. Hung up and called Craig—it went to answerphone. Then hanging up again she saw he’d left a message on hers.
She stamped across the wet gravel, listening, press one to listen to your messages. But when the message finally came it was indistinct, she could hear traffic noise, and at one point the signal must have cut. I saw him on her Instagram feed, Ollie must have … I know — Then nothing.
Saw who? Shit, shit. Nat had always known Beth was on Instagram, hadn’t she? Posting pictures of trees and birds and food—and people, she supposed. Nat hadn’t ever bothered with it, she worked with Beth, after all. She brought up the page on her phone.
Sign up to see photos and videos from your friends. Her battery was low. Had Craig really seen something?
Where was Craig? She needed to get to the caravan site. Paddy wasn’t going to be any use, between Sophie and Richard, was he? How long would it take her to get up to the caravan site on foot?
There was the dinghy, the Chickadee in front of her, her gear loose on the duckboards. The tide was lapping close to her tilted hull, and without stopping to think Nat was leaning down and setting her shoulder against her stern—just to see.
Over the boat’s wooden flank she saw something that didn’t make sense, sitting in a puddle. A suitcase—Sophie’s suitcase?—already beginning to stain up one side. Was she moving in with Paddy?
Who had left that there? Dowd?
She kept shoving the Chickadee, thinking, thinking. Just to have it confirmed that there was too far to push her and the weather was turning anyway and … but the hull shifted, her bow was already in the water and before she knew it Nat was knee-deep in the tide too. And then with a quick movement she didn’t even need to think about, she had one dripping leg over the side and was hauling the sail up.
Centerboard down, sheet in, she scrambled back to the tiller and felt the boat quicken. The wind had picked up, it surprised her: she could get to Sunny Slopes this way. Upriver. How long: half an hour? The wind was stronger than she’d thought, offshore, and picking up all the time. The exhilaration was mixed with something else as the land slipped past. Calculation: how strong was too strong? And she’d lost track of the tide; it must, she realized, be about to turn.
Something else was wrong too, but she couldn’t put a name to it. She turned to look back and was startled to see how far away the boat sheds were. The suitcase: it was a big suitcase. A dark rectangle standing there, waiting. Had it been there when she was talking with Paddy? When they saw Dowd leaving?
She looked back out to sea, trying to put things in their right place. The horizon was blurred, and to either side of her she saw the unnatural height of the tide, the mudbanks submerged, just a roughening of the gray water here and there where the sea lavender still broke surface. The caravan site just visible. The Chickadee was moving so fast it must have turned.
There was something else changed too, a small creeping feeling, a low feeling, though whether in the pit of her own stomach or beneath her feet in the boat’s hull, the wind and tide beneath it, she was no longer able to tell. And then she was at the mouth of the creek and looking across the water to the woods where Dowd’s camp was, seeing his little tender at the jetty, this side of the caravan site. The line of heavy cloud inland was coming up fast, it had overtaken her.
She heard a sound, distinct from the wind’s rush in her ears. A tiny trickle. And then, somewhere far off, a rumble of thunder.
Was that why the dinghy had been hauled up out of the water? The weather was going to break. She should have asked him.
A suitcase, sitting on the stony beach by Paddy’s shed, stained from the tide.
* * *
Staring up at the canopy of trees as he moved beneath them, he felt light as air, euphoric, high on triumph. He had arrived at the perfect moment, the conjunction. She moved toward discovery, he had been there to show her. She only had to look. She was gone, or almost. She would soon be gone. It was the moment of panic he enjoyed. If he closed his eyes he could visualize it perfectly, he could superimpose the one face over the other. Beth, her head tilted back as he had tightened his grip and watched her eyes widen. He could still feel the soft parts under his thumb, feeling for the artery, the windpipe, feeling lovingly, gently.
And then the tendons go taut as she struggles, her hands flapping, a nail catching him.
The sky was gray overhead, he could feel the wind picking up, he shifted as something snagged, caught, irritated him. That fingernail: he had cleaned beneath it, he had had hours to do that, and other things, inspecting her secret places that were his now. Inside out.
Had she gotten away from him, out on the water? It had been his impulse, seeing the boat lying there, a flimsy contraption of wood and rope and—because luck was on his side, it always was—the weather breaking, and then knowing that was where she thought she was in control. Natalie. Just like Beth in the bedroom, thinking she knew. And if he got the timing right, he could even be there to watch, he could stand there onshore and she would see him and she would know.
She’ll be swallowed up, the water will close over her head, and at the thought something rose inside him, joyful. There was a sound, a disturbance, and he wasn’t sure if it came from inside himself. He was listening to Bach: he moved to turn up the sound, in c
ase someone heard.
The buzzing of a high-pitched engine, something like a motorcycle engine, disturbed his perfect shiny peace. It came closer, then receded, taking a different path.
* * *
Victor was at the window, standing stiffly upright to show them, to show Lisa that he was capable. He had the oddest feeling, as he presented himself with his carrier bag of neatly folded things at the desk, that she was losing patience with him, that she was no longer on his side. She had called her husband: was it something he had said?
He looked down into the car park, the rows of roofs were dull under the overcast sky. He wasn’t worried about rain, he had spent enough months listening to it drum on the caravan roof, wind roaring. It was the rest of it that held him upright, on his mettle. Richard, and Sophie on her way back to him. Rufus: Richard had only to get to him first and Sophie would lose the fight, he could even see her with her small helpless hands held out and pleading.
“Victor.” The voice at his shoulder was Lisa’s, and when he turned he saw she had a small stack of medications.
“Here you go, then.” Lisa was bright now, normal service resumed, but there was a brittleness about it, as if he’d disappointed her, wanting to leave. She folded her arms across her body and leaned past him to look down at the drop-off area.
“He’s on his way. He’s had a long day, it was crack of dawn when he brought me in. I expect this will be his last fare of the day.”
Victor took the boxes of tablets and carefully stashed them in the top of his carrier bag. Sophie, Sophie, Sophie, he thought. She’ll be waiting for me.
Lisa was still scanning the approach road as he straightened up. “There have to be some perks,” she said, smiling into his face, and maybe it was the flat white light but he saw the lines now, not so much laughter lines as worry lines, her forehead furrowed, her eyes crinkled and small and anxious.
“Perks?”
“Being married to a cabdriver,” Lisa said. Then the lines deepened and she leaned sharply toward the glass, he heard her catch her breath. “There he is,” she said. “Looks like he picked up a fare on the way down.”
The Day She Disappeared Page 31