I just hoped that it wasn’t the second option.
I tried to think back to what had happened on the boat. I had checked Silas over pretty thoroughly whilst he’d been unconscious but I couldn’t remember seeing a phone anywhere. Perhaps he’d hidden it somewhere prior to meeting me and then had only just gotten around to re-claiming it.
I had no idea how long I’d been standing there. I’d said on the text that he should collect me at 4pm but I’d gotten there at 3.55 and had been waiting for at least ten minutes before the first car drove past. Perhaps I’d gotten the time wrong. Had I specified 4pm today? Perhaps he thought that I meant 4am?
That’s what I was thinking when I heard a screech from over on my left. In the direction of the exit. And when I looked across, there was Silas’ Ferrari.
*
The car just swept past. It didn’t turn into the coach-stop behind me, it just kept on moving at a fairly constant speed. The roof was up and the windows were tinted so I could see absolutely nothing of the driver. Of course, I had no way of knowing that it was Silas’ car. I hadn’t bothered to commit his registration to memory, or anything like that. But I knew it when I saw it: a big, flash, yellow Ferrari.
It had to be Silas.
Only he didn’t stop. Just kept going, heading for the entrance, slowing down only as he navigated the junction. The sound of the powerful engine accelerating up the road was all that I was left with.
I ran across to the sheds.
“Did you see that!” I enthused. “That was him! That was Silas.”
Millie stepped out from behind two big bins.
“I was looking the wrong way,” Millie confessed. “Barely got a glimpse. Are you sure it was him?”
“Yeah, pretty sure.”
“What about the registration? What about that?”
I rolled my eyes. “It looked like the same car.”
“But you’re not certain.”
“How many yellow Ferraris do you think are in central London?”
Millie seemed to mistake this for a serious enquiry. “I don’t know. Seven or eight. Anyway, you’ve got to get back over there. He might come back.”
I hadn’t thought about that. I blew a kiss to Millie and ran back to my position. My excitement was getting the better of me: of course it was his car. Who else would be driving around in his car using his phone? It had to be Silas, I was certain of it. And yet, if that were true why hadn’t he stopped? What possible threat could I pose?
Two minutes later the Ferrari appeared at the exit for a second time. It came towards me at the same constant speed and, for a second, I was struck by the idea of running out into the road to block his path. Force him to stop. Then I could be certain. Was it really Silas or was someone playing a game?
Just as I was on the verge of serious injury the car indicated and gently pulled into the coach bay behind me.
I couldn’t move, just stood there, my arms poker stiff by my sides. I turned around, unsure how to proceed.
Several moments passed and nothing happened. Something was wrong. This was Silas’ cue to throw open the door and sweep me off my feet. What was taking him so long?
My hand brushed against the hardness of the sphere beneath my sweatshirt.
I stepped forward and rapped my knuckles against the passenger window. It was possible, up-close, to make out the shape of someone sitting in the driver’s seat. I made to knock again but then the electric window started to open. I took a step back, fully expecting a shotgun to be thrust in my face
Only that didn’t happen. The window slid down into the door panel and I saw the driver for the first time.
A teenaged girl with a face full of freckles, strawberry blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail. She was wearing a red checked shirt under a black gilet, sleeves rolled up. I strained to look into the back seat. Where was Silas? There was no sign of anyone else.
“Who the hell are you?” I asked.
She leaned across the passenger seat and opened the door.
“Hi,” she said. “I’m Carlotta. Silas’ sister. Why don’t you hop in?”
I hesitated, trying to work out what had just happened.
“I’m with someone,” I said lamely.
“Shame.”
She pulled the door closed and the engine roared into life.
I managed to get the door open and the last thing I saw before I got inside was Millie emerging from behind the sheds. As I settled into my seat, Carlotta accelerated away, pinning me back.
“Who was that?” she said.
“That was my friend.”
“Work friend or proper friend?”
“Both,” I reached around for my seatbelt. “Where’s Silas?”
“Bit of a long story.”
I struggled to locate the belt buckle as we approached a set of lights. I was expecting her to brake but instead she accelerated, zipping over the junction.
She certainly had the look of Silas, if not his colouring - her mouth was fixed and firm. This was definitely Silas’ sister – his much younger sister.
“Do you even have a driving licence?”
“How old do you think I am?”
“I don’t know.”
“Eighteen in two weeks.”
She’d been tailgating a car in the outside lane which had been resolutely sticking to the speed limit and then, without any hesitation, she wrenched the wheel around and undertook him with a surge of power.
“And how long have you been driving?” I said.
“In two weeks time, I’ll have been driving for exactly one whole year.”
“But that means…” I couldn’t get my head around it.
“I passed my test on the day of my seventeenth birthday.”
I shot her a look. “How is that even possible?”
“I learnt to drive on the roads around the estate. Private land - so you don’t need a licence. One of the farm managers taught me. Took me six weeks, though I’ve been driving tractors all my life. What about you? How old were you when you passed?”
I hesitated. “I can’t drive.”
She had to take her eyes off the road to see whether I was joking or not.
“Seriously: you can’t drive.”
“I work in London. There’s no need.”
She checked her mirror. “I’ve got to say: either your guy is very good or I’ve lost him.”
“My guy?”
“The back-up guy. In case you got snatched. Don’t your lot all drive Range Rovers?”
I let out a long sigh.
“There isn’t a back-up guy. This was all thrown together sort of last minute,” I sagged in my seat. “So, you’re the one who’s been trying to contact me?”
“Really sorry about that. But it had to be done.”
With a flick of her wrists she pulled off the road and up a ramp heading into a multi-storey car-park. After taking a ticket, she started to head up through the levels, the tires squealing at every turn.
I sat there feeling deflated, the overhead lights slicing across the car as we continued to climb. My worst fears had been confirmed. Silas was gone. In the back of my mind I’d always feared that it would be the case. The sense of utter loss was slow to strike but I could feel it gathering somewhere over the horizon, steady yet remorseless.
We finally came out onto the roof. There weren’t many other cars up there. Carlotta brought us to a halt and turned off the engine. She unclipped her belt.
“Why go to all this trouble?” I said throwing up my hands. “Why couldn’t you just tell me over the phone?”
“Because I needed to speak with you face to face.”
“All I needed was the truth. I think I deserve that much.”
“I didn’t want all of your friends at The Bear Garden listening in.”
I let out a long sigh. She probably had as many questions as I had. After all, I had been the last one to see her brother alive. I took off my seatbelt and just sat there watching people coming
and going with their shopping.
Carlotta leaned over and opened the glove compartment, took out a phone and offered it to me. But I was too upset. I pushed my door open and staggered out onto the thin tarmac roof. It was quite windy up there but that seemed to suit my mood. Carlotta got out on her side but had the good sense not to approach me.
“Where did you find it? The phone. Where?”
“That was the easy bit. He’d left it in the car. Finding the car – now that was hard.”
From the top of the multi-storey we had a pretty good view of most of central London. I took it all in with one sweep of my arm. “So where exactly did you find it?”
She smiled at her own ingenuity but one look at me made her hesitate. “Silas likes his cars and, luckily for me, you can’t get the insurance for these things without installing some serious tracking software. After he disappeared, I contacted the insurance people and explained the problem. They rang me back within the hour to say that they’d found it. It also helps if you have a spare set of keys…”
She held them up for my perusal but I wasn’t interested.
“But why did you send that text?” I was consciously trying to manage my emotions. Didn’t want to say anything I might later regret. “When I received that I thought… well, you know.”
“What?”
“I thought…” I gritted my teeth as I inhaled. “I thought he might - you know – be alive.”
Carlotta threw her arms in the air. “Oh, he’s alive alright. No, that’s not the problem.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
I sprawled across the bonnet, sobbing so hard that I triggered the car alarm.
I was still crying when the car park attendant arrived to see what all the fuss was about. Carlotta charmed him easily enough and I think that he would have liked to have stayed for longer if I hadn’t frightened him off with my tears.
I’d exhausted myself, I’d cried so much. I’d cried until snot ran down my nose. I’d cried until I cried myself hoarse. In the end, Carlotta became embarrassed by the number of people coming over to ask if I was alright. She grabbed me by the hips and gently manoeuvred me up into a standing position.
I cried for half an hour all told. Carlotta found a box of tissues in the car so at least I could wipe my face.
When I stopped, I stopped completely coming to a juddering halt.
Using the wing mirror I tried to sort out my hair which was plastered to my face. My eyes were bright red and puffy. I looked terrible.
Grabbing Carlotta’s arm I was struck with a new thought. “You’re sure he’s alright though. You’ve seen him?”
Carlotta held up the box of tissues, pointed to a mark on my face that I’d missed. I wiped at it with the back of my hand.
“He’s not in the best shape but he is very much alive.”
*
I was famished after my crying fit and needed something to eat. The car park was attached to a shopping mall so I set off in search of sustenance while Carlotta followed behind. She didn’t try to talk to me or ask me where I was going. Just as well.
The shopping mall was reasonably busy and all of the little cafés we passed were thick with bodies so I kept going until I came to a baker’s. They had a queue leading out of the door but it was moving fast. Carlotta stood beside me and kept talking about what she was going to order but I wasn’t listening.
I wanted to know why she’d been so thoughtless. Why she hadn’t told me sooner? How could she have manipulated my emotions like that? But she was young and self-obsessed and I guessed early on that she wasn’t going to have the answers to half my questions.
When it came time for us to be served I was concerned that I wouldn’t order enough to fully satisfy my raging hunger so I ordered four big wedges of pizza and a can of full fat coke. It was only when it came time to pay that I realised I didn’t have my purse – I’d left it with Millie. Carlotta offered her credit card. It was the least she could do under the circumstances. Then I went out and stood on the concourse over-looking the rest of the mall. Carlotta came to join me holding some kind of wrap and a bottle of orange juice.
“First things first, Carlotta. Why didn’t you contact me straightaway? Why did we have to go through this whole charade?”
I wiped pizza grease off my chin and watched as she got her story straight in her head.
“You’re right. I’m sorry. I just needed to know that you were serious about helping.”
“Why wouldn’t I be serious?” I choked. I felt like I was still in shock.
Silas was alive.
“Why couldn’t he call me himself? That’s the bit I don’t understand.”
“Right!” Carlotta rested her drink on the balcony rail, she was clearly used to expressing herself with her hands. “Initially, he was in a bad way. It wasn’t enough that he was half drowned but then he got hit by this boat. He was lucky to make it to shore. Lay there for a while before someone spotted him and called an ambulance.”
“But I checked all the hospitals myself. There was no report of any ambulance pick-ups in that area. I spoke to everyone.”
Carlotta listened patiently and then said. “They would have been paid off, my family’s very good at that. The ambulance crew would have taken him to a private clinic and then rung it in as a hoax call. Silas gets the best treatment and the ambulance crew get a nice lump sum deposited in their bank accounts.”
“He’s done this before?”
“He’s a shapeshifter with a reputation to protect. Happens all the time.”
I remembered when I first met Silas, him telling me about how the werewolves had a team of people to clean up after them. It really was a different world.
“Did he tell you how he’d come to be in the water?” I asked.
Carlotta gave an exaggerated shrug. “He tells me nothing. I had to piece all that together from talking to the staff.”
Staff? This really was a different world.
And then the question I’d dreaded: “Was he badly hurt?”
Carlotta set her mouth. This was difficult for her, I could tell.
“He was at the clinic for three days before he contacted us. Then my mother sent a car to fetch him. That’s all I can tell you. The rest you’ll have to ask him yourself.”
I brightened at that and had to look down into the shopping mall to hide my excitement. A clown was entertaining a group of pre-school children and their parents making balloon animals. I had a strange feeling which I couldn’t shake. Like I’d mislaid something important but couldn’t remember what it was. Instead of the overwhelming sense of relief I thought I’d experience, my sense of loss was, if anything, stronger than it had been before.
Why hadn’t he just rung me? Let me know he was alright? Did I mean so little to him?
The answer to that of course was obvious. He blamed me for what had happened. He probably never wanted to see me again. It wasn’t even as though he’d sent his little sister to do the dirty work for him: she was the one taking the initiative. He just wasn’t interested. Simple as that. The man I’d cared so much about felt nothing for me.
I’d been fooling myself all this time.
But that wasn’t the whole story. Something else didn’t quite add up.
“Carlotta, I appreciate you telling me all this but you have to be honest with me now. Is Silas really okay?”
“You can judge for yourself when you see him.”
I refused to settle for that. “But he didn’t send you to find me, did he?”
Carlotta picked up her wrap. “Not exactly, no. You see, he can be a little pig-headed at times. Doesn’t think he needs anyone’s help. He’s also incredibly secretive about his personal life. Especially where his girlfriends are concerned.”
I couldn’t hide my scorn, “Is that what he thinks I am: his girlfriend?”
She sniffed at the wrap and pulled a face. “I think we both know you’re a lot more than that.”
*
“But what does th
at actually mean?” Millie wanted to know.
I’d gotten back to the flat late with a pounding headache. I was worried that Millie would be angry with me for leaving her like that but she’d been very understanding. Realised that I hadn’t had much of a choice. Then she’d found me some paracetamol and sent me to take a shower while she cooked dinner.
I swallowed the tablets before stepping under the water. The force of the spray pummelling my neck and shoulders was wonderfully enervating and, by the time I came to put on my bathrobe, I was already starting to feel human again.
Millie was making enchiladas, I love the way she does it: with lots of cheese melted on the top. She’d bought tacos and dip and I ate these sitting on the work-top whilst she arranged the salad.
“So,” she was searching for clarification. “You’re more than a girlfriend? But what does that mean? I think I’d have known if the pair of you were engaged.”
“I have no idea,” I said rubbing the back of my calves. “She complains about Silas being secretive but she’s just as cryptic.”
“So she wants you to go up this estate of theirs – wherever that is.”
“I don’t know. Somewhere in Scotland.”
“She wants you to go to Scotland to surprise him.”
It sounded even worse when she said it like that: it sounded like Carlotta was playing me for a fool.
“I know: it doesn’t make any sense. She says that he’s not thinking straight. She’s worried that he’s about to make ‘the worst mistake of his life.’ Whatever that means.”
“Couldn’t you just ring him first? At least that way ...”
Her voice trailed off.
The thought of speaking to Silas on the phone filled me with dread. I could imagine the terrible silence as we both searched for something to say. But if I could talk to him face to face…
For the last few months I had been absolutely certain about my feelings for him. But now that I knew that he was definitely alive, things didn’t seem quite so clear-cut.
“I’m scared,” I said. “I’m scared that I’ve blown this whole relationship thing up out of all proportion. I’m scared that he just looked on me as some kind of harmless fling. And who could blame him: we only ever kissed once. It’s not like we’ve slept together.”
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