by Sibel Hodge
‘Is that what you think he’ll do? Bang on the door? Cause trouble?’
I bite my lip and nod.
Something like concern flashes in his eyes. It makes him look almost sympathetic for a change. ‘Has he ever hit you?’
‘No. But…’ I trail off, avoiding his gaze because I feel weak and pathetic. Maybe Liam was right after all. I am stupid. Stupid for staying so long.
‘But what?’
‘Words and actions can bruise deeper than any fist. Scars aren’t always on the outside, are they?’
He studies me for a moment. ‘Not always, no.’
I can’t talk about this yet. Can’t deal with it. When I find out who took me, then I can fall apart and cry for what should’ve been but never was. For the woman who lost herself. For what she thought was real love but was only something toxic and warped.
But not now. Now I need to find out who abducted me. ‘It doesn’t matter now,’ I say dismissively. ‘I left him. Twice. I’m going to get on with my life and be OK. If this unknown person doesn’t kill me first, of course.’ I shoot him a grave look.
‘Do you have anywhere else you can go? I don’t think it’s safe for you to stay here while we make further enquiries. Even if Liam doesn’t try to see you, we still don’t know what happened here and whether you left of your own free will. The sleeping tablets, or lack of them, are bothering me.’
‘I could go to Jordan’s,’ I say immediately. He’s the only person I know well enough, and there’s no one else to turn to.
‘Who’s Jordan?’
‘A…a colleague.’ A hot flush creeps into my cheeks.
‘Call him and see if it’s possible.’
I go to where I left my mobile phone, find his number from the last time he called, and hit redial.
‘Chloe! I’ve just got out of class and heard something about Chris being questioned. I was just about to call you. What’s going on? Are you all right?’ He’s breathless, like he’s walking fast. I hear a cacophony of teenage voices laughing and shouting in the background.
‘Yes. I’m OK.’ I glance at Summers. ‘I’m with the police.’
‘Good. As long as you’re safe. But, Chris? I mean, do they really think he’s involved in this? He’s in my class. I never would’ve—’
‘They think he has an alibi,’ I cut in. ‘Look, Jordan. You know you said to call if you could help? Well, I need a favour.’
‘Of course. What do you need?’
‘Can I stay at your place? Just for a few days maybe, until I get something else sorted.’
‘Absolutely,’ he says with no hesitation. ‘You can stay as long as you like. I’ve got a spare room.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Do you want me to pick you up from somewhere?’
‘No, it’s OK, I can walk. Or get a lift from DI Summers.’
‘OK, well, I’ve finished for the day, so I’ll be home in about twenty minutes. I can meet you at home.’
‘That would be great. I’ll see you there.’ I hang up. I don’t ask for his address since I already know it. He had a moving-in party there, back when I first started working at the college. It seems so long ago now. So far away. ‘Ninety-five Curzon Street,’ I tell Summers. ‘That’s where I’ll be. And, please, don’t tell Liam.’
‘It will be completely confidential.’ He writes the address down in his notepad then waits until I’ve gathered my meagre belongings together before walking me outside. ‘Do you trust this Jordan?’
Trust. Five small letters that can have such a big effect on your life. I want to tell Summers I don’t trust him. He didn’t believe me in the first place. He tossed me aside, abandoned me to my fate, even if he is making amends now. I don’t know he won’t do it again. I also trusted Liam, and look where that got me.
Do I trust Jordan? My heart does, even if my head doesn’t know what to think. ‘I have to trust someone, don’t I?’ I say. ‘At least if I disappear again, you’ll know the last place to look.’
27
When Jordan opens the door, he’s got that worried frown of concern on his face. We stand there, staring at each other, and it’s as if a whole silent conversation passes between us. He lifts his arms up, making me think he’s about to reach out and pull me close to him. I want that. Want to feel protected and cared about for once. I know I’ll feel safe with him wrapped around me. But the moment vanishes when he notices Summers sitting in his car parked at the kerb.
I turn, give Summers a small wave, and he drives off. Jordan steps back to let me inside, and I can’t help looking around. They say you can tell a lot about a person by their home.
His house is a small two-bedroomed cottage, all original sanded floorboards, wooden beams, and uneven plasterwork. I take a quick glance through the open door to the lounge, which has an old-fashioned log burner and a comfy-looking, sagging sofa. Scenic photos and throws provide splashes of bright colour.
He leads me into the sunny kitchen, painted a yellow that reminds me of daffodils, at the back of the house. The kitchen units look handmade, with rustic barn door type cupboards and battered iron handles. There’s a Range cooker on the back wall where a large brick open fireplace once stood. It’s small, but warm and cosy, like Sara’s, and it fits him perfectly.
‘Have a seat.’ Jordan waves at a distressed wooden kitchen table in the centre of the room. It looks like it’s seen a lot of use. Plate and cup rings are burned into the surface, scratches and scrapes that tell a history and only add to its charm. Liam would hate it. ‘Do you want a tea or coffee?’ He leans his hip against the worktop.
‘Actually, do you have something stronger?’ I sit on what looks like part of an old wooden church pew and put the small suitcase with all my worldly belongings in it on the floor, along with my handbag, ‘I could really do with it.’
He raises his eyebrows casually. ‘Sure. I’ve got beer or wine or…’ He bends down and rummages around in a cupboard. His black T-shirt clings to his broad back and shoulders, and I wonder again what it would feel like to have his arms wrapped around me. ‘Vodka?’ He holds up a bottle and catches me looking.
Heat floods my cheeks.
He smiles, and my stomach flips. ‘Might have some rum somewhere as well.’
For the first time in what feels like years, I smile, too. ‘Beer is good.’
He puts the vodka back and stands up. ‘Beer it is, then.’ He grabs two bottles from the fridge, twists the caps off, and throws them in the bin before handing me one.
I take a sip. I never knew beer could taste so good. Or maybe it’s the company.
‘We can go into the lounge if you want.’
‘No, this is OK. Unless you want to?’
‘No. This is fine.’ He takes a swig of beer, his gaze on me. Today his eyes look more of a warm honey-brown colour, and I wonder why I’m even noticing that in the midst of everything going on. I don’t feel uncomfortable under his gaze as I do with Liam. I’m not watching and waiting for something to happen. Now I just feel…safe.
We sit in silence for a moment,. I look out the kitchen window to the small courtyard garden outside. A tall, whitewashed wall surrounds it, with wildflowers around the borders and a completely private decked patio area. ‘You have a nice house You’ve done a lot to it since your party.’
‘Thanks. When I moved in, it was a bit of a state. I renovated it myself.’
I’m not surprised. Jordan seems like the kind of guy who’s hands-on.
‘Have the police found out any more about Chris?’
‘I’m still waiting to hear. Chris said he was away with his Dad when I was taken.’
He scrunches up his face. ‘Well, I couldn’t believe it when I heard what had happened. If he does have an alibi, it’s a bit of a coincidence, isn’t it? His story being almost exactly like what happened to you?’
I think about all the coincidences that made me think Liam was involved, and yet he couldn’t have possibly been. ‘Coincidences seem to be follo
wing me around everywhere, but maybe it really is just another one.’ I pick at the label on the bottle then realize what I’m doing and stop abruptly. I don’t want to make a mess. ‘Sorry.’ I smooth down the label so none of it falls off onto the table.
‘Hey, no problem. Treat this place like your own while you’re here. If you want to pull off beer labels, be my guest.’ He grins. ‘It might be a good kind of stress relief.’
I laugh, and it sounds so foreign to my ears. ‘Summers is going to call me when they’ve spoken to Chris’ dad. And they’re going to do some house-to-house enquiries at Sara’s.’ I tell him everything I’ve found out since I last saw him.
‘So you know for certain now you did actually leave Liam, then?’
‘Yes. But Liam didn’t know. He was still in Scotland when I was kidnapped, so he must’ve really thought I’d tried to kill myself because of the letter he found when he got back and the sleeping tablets in my system.’
‘What do you think he’ll do when he finds out you’ve left now?’
‘Luckily he doesn’t know I’ve got a new phone, or he’d be ringing me constantly. He’d start off being all kind and caring and apologetic, telling me how much he loves me. Then rapidly turn into an angry drunk, and everything would be my fault. He’d be shouting, swearing, calling me all the names under the sun, wondering how I could dare to leave him. How meek and mild Chloe could ever stick up for herself.’ I take another swig of beer. ‘I can’t deal with him at the moment. I just want to be left alone to figure things out before this person comes back.’
Jordan nods in agreement, but I detect a note of sadness in his eyes, and I don’t know if that sadness is for me, for him, for bad timing.
‘The police haven’t been very helpful, but at least Summers does believe something strange happened now.’ I attempt to change the subject from getting too personal. It’s too much, too soon. ‘He thinks it’s weird that the sleeping tablets aren’t anywhere to be found.’
‘So do I. Which must mean someone gave them to you, mustn’t it? They must’ve used them to knock you out so they could abduct you.’
‘Summers said I could’ve found somewhere else to stay, and maybe that’s where I took them. In Sara’s spare bedroom, we found last week’s local paper, and I’d circled some flats for rent. Do you have a copy? Because Summers took it, and I want to have a look and see if it rings any bells. I have to prove to him somehow I didn’t take those sleeping pills. Then I can negate his theory that I hallucinated the whole abduction thing, and he’ll have to believe something more sinister happened.’
‘I don’t think I’ve thrown it out yet. Hang on.’ As he wanders out of the room, I watch his retreating back. He’s relaxed, unhurried, always cool and calm, even in a crisis. ‘Got it!’ He returns a few minutes later and sits down again.
I spread it out on the table and flip to the classified page.
‘If you had found somewhere else to live, wouldn’t you have taken your stuff that was at Sara’s?’
‘Yes, and that’s why I’m positive I didn’t move out of her house. Have you got a pen?’
He swivels in his chair to the drawer behind him, opens it, and grabs a biro. ‘One pen, madam.’ He presents it as if he’s showing me an expensive bottle of wine.
I laugh again. Wow, that’s twice in about five minutes. I hope with all my heart this was a good idea coming here. I’ve made enough mistakes in my life; I don’t want to live to regret this.
If I live.
But Jordan’s my only friend right now, so I don’t have an alternative. I put a red circle round the ones I’d marked before and swing the paper round to show him. ‘Apparently, I marked these three.’
‘Do you want to call them? See if you went there to check them out?’
‘Summers said he was going to do that, but I just feel so helpless, waiting for someone else to take control of my life. I’ve had enough of that already. I need to be in control for a change.’
‘I’ll get the phone. It won’t hurt to call them.’ He disappears out of the room again.
A loud slamming noise comes from the kitchen door, which makes me jump so hard I bite my tongue. I snap my head round in that direction and see it’s only a small black cat that’s charged through the cat flap. It sits in the middle of the floor, looking up at me as if wondering whether I’m friend or foe. Deciding on the former, the cat winds itself around my legs.
‘So you’ve met John, then. He’s my other roommate.’ Jordan sits back down.
‘John!’ I chuckle, reaching down to pick John up and put him on my lap. He treats me to a loud purr as he nudges his head against my hand. ‘How can you call a cat ‘John’?’
‘I don’t know.’ His lips curve into a smile. ‘He looks like a John, don’t you think?’
I raise an eyebrow. ‘How can a cat look like a John? Fluffy or Tiddles or Blacky, or something, but he definitely doesn’t look like John.’
Jordan shrugs. ‘So what should I call him, then? You choose.’
‘You can’t just rename him!’
‘Why? He won’t know the difference, will he?’
‘But don’t you call him when you want him to come in? He’ll just get confused when you give him another name.’
‘No, he pretty much comes and goes as he wants. That’s what I like about cats. They’re independent, and they come to you because they choose to, not because you make them.’ He smiles, and once again, I sense his words have a deeper meaning than the subject we’re talking about.
A jolt of heat flushes through my cheeks. I lean over and kiss John on the head so Jordan doesn’t notice.
‘Another beer?’ He nods to my bottle that I didn’t realize was empty.
‘Yes, please.’
Jordan grabs two more from the fridge and places them on the table, then waves the phone at me. ‘Do you want to call these numbers, then?’
I take a swig of beer for courage, wondering what I’m going to find out. It feels like I’m a voyeur in my own life, investigating myself when I know I haven’t done anything wrong. What will these people tell me? There’s only one way to find out, so I punch in the first number and listen to it ringing.
‘Hello?’ a deep voice answers. In the background, booming bass music plays and a fruit machine is going off.
‘Oh, hi, yes, my name’s Chloe Benson, and I’m ringing about the flat.’
‘What, again?’ he shouts over the noise.
‘Did I call before?’ My gaze flicks to Jordan, who’s looking at me with brows raised.
‘Yeah, but when I told you it was above the pub, you didn’t want it. Have you changed your mind, then? It’s still vacant.’
‘Um…no, thank you. Sorry to bother you.’ I hang up and dial the next number I’d marked. ‘Above a pub. I didn’t want it,’ I say to Jordan.
‘Hello? Can I help you?’ a male with an Indian accent answers.
‘Hi, my name’s Chloe Benson, and I’m ringing about the flat advertised in the paper.’
‘I’m sorry, it’s been rented.’
‘OK, but…um…do you remember whether I called before?’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t remember. I spoke to a lot of people on the phone.’
‘Right. So do you remember if I came over and looked at it, then?’
‘No, you couldn’t have done. The first person who looked took it.’
‘OK. Well, thanks for your help.’ I hang up and sigh. ‘Third time lucky,’ I say to Jordan and ring the last number I’d circled.
‘Yeah?’ a woman answers the phone. I think she’s chewing gum, judging by the lip-smacking sound.
‘Oh, hi, I’m ringing about the flat for rent.’
‘Yeah, it’s taken, I’m afraid. Someone rented it the day before the advert came out in the local. Sorry, it was too late to stop it.’
‘Right. Well, thanks for your help.’
‘No problem.’
I lean back in the chair, shoulders slumping. John rubs his he
ad under my chin for another stroke, and I oblige.
‘No luck, then?’ Jordan says. ‘You didn’t go and see any of them?’
‘No.’
‘Don’t worry, Chloe.’ He lays a hand on mine with a tenderness that makes my throat clench. As soon as he touches me, his warmth spreads over my chilled skin. ‘We’ll figure it out. You’ve gone through some terrible things, but whatever happened, we can find out together. I just want to help you.’
The air suddenly feels charged, heavy with all the words he’s not saying. The things I know he feels for me. And I don’t know if I can do this. I don’t know if I can handle someone being so nice to me right now. It might make me fall apart, and I have to stay strong.
28
Jordan is chopping onions, mushrooms, peppers, and garlic. He bites his lower lip as he concentrates, a clean tea towel hanging casually out the back pocket of his jeans, looking completely at home in the kitchen. Stealing a glance over his shoulder, he catches me watching him. ‘What?’ His lips quirk up.
‘You cook.’
‘Yes.’
‘You cook, and you own a cat.’
He laughs. It’s deep and throaty and carefree. The sounds ripples through me, and I realize I want to hear more of it. ‘Is there a law that says a man can’t cook and own a cat?’ He waves the knife he’s been using at me, but it’s not threatening. Not when his eyes sparkle with laugher like that.
I’m about to tell him that it’s nice. It’s…refreshing. Liam wouldn’t cook a meal; that was my job. And he’d probably kick a cat if he saw it. He hated how they’d always use our garden as a toilet. He even put cayenne pepper all over the grass and borders once to try to get rid of them. He was livid when a sudden breeze blew some of it in his eye as he was dispersing it. It didn’t deter the cats, anyway.
‘It’s sweet,’ I say.
‘I’m not sure whether being called sweet is an insult to my manliness.’ He raises an amused eyebrow.
‘Trust me. Sweet is good.’ I stare deep into his eyes, and my skin tingles. Abruptly, I look away, and the moment is lost.