by Louise Voss
I wipe my dripping face with my sleeve, and feel spikes of damp hair plaster themselves to my forehead. I remembered back to my first date, Big-Bum Shaun. ‘And then they turn out to be the opposite of sexy.’
‘Tell me about it. When I got to the restaurant I didn’t even recognize him at first, he looked so embarrassed – and embarrassing. He was quite a lot fatter than I thought he’d be and he had these awful smokers’ teeth, really yellow and crumbly and disgusting. I realized that he hadn’t been smiling in any of his profile photos.
‘Good on the phone, rubbish in the flesh.’
We watch a sparrow land on the topmost, flimsiest branch of the bush opposite. The branch bows, taking the bird with it, until both are horizontal, and the sparrow flies off, looking confused.
‘It was such a bloody waste of an evening. I only agreed to stay for dinner because I was starving, and I’d told Clive I was going out for a meal with the girls and he’d think it was weird if I came home so early having not eaten.’
I stand up, mostly to try to quash the impulse to say, Well that’s what happens when you start lying … ‘Come on, tell me the rest as we walk – let’s just have a cool-down for a lap. But honestly, Kath, it doesn’t sound that bad! One dull evening with one dull guy?’
‘It really pissed me off. I mean, this guy honestly thought that we were starting a relationship! I thought most men were just interested in sex. They’re supposed to think about it every fifteen seconds or something, aren’t they? Surely, it can’t be that hard to find men who just want some uncomplicated naughty fun? It’s so difficult for me to get away from Clive for an evening without having to tell a ton of lies, so I don’t want to waste it sitting in a BORING restaurant with a BORING man who is waffling on about the hamster called Chips he had when he was eight years old!’
I sort of see her point. I remember the only one-night stand I’ve ever had – a night of smooth skin, words, admiration and sex, which was all the better for its lack of intimacy and the knowledge that it would never come with all the dull constraints and conditions of coupledom. A man I’d never want to be in a relationship with, but who was just perfect for one night. I wouldn’t mind a few more nights like that, with other men like him.
‘There’s an obvious answer though, Kath – if it’s so hard to get away, and you don’t want to be with Clive, why don’t you finish it? Then you’d be free to go on dates every night!’
She scowls again. In fact, I think I see her lip wobble, which is very unlike her.
‘It would be really hard for me to leave him.’
‘Why? Your cat? The mortgage?’
We walk on around the track in silence for a couple of minutes, as the serious runners whiz past us, giving us an exaggeratedly wide berth to express their annoyance at us cluttering up their track.
‘Come on, you can tell me, I’m a doctor,’ I joke, although I’m starting to feel a little worried.
There are actual tears in her eyes now, so we stop again. I put my arm around her and she looks at me.
‘Yes, the cat, yes, the mortgage – but it’s worse than that. Thing is, Becks, I owe him money.’ Her voice is flat and resigned.
‘A lot of money?’
She nods. ‘He’s been lending me cash for years – for my car, and that kiln I bought so I can make those silver pendants of baby footprints, you know. My laptop, holidays we’ve had together. The mortgage. It’s thousands, on top of what I already owe on my maxed-out credit cards. And when I said I wanted us to split up, he said, “There’s no way you’re leaving me till you pay me back.” Arsehole. He knows I’ve got no money. He told me if I ever leave him he’ll shop me to the Inland Revenue about not declaring my income from my jewellery sideline, and he’ll tell the school that I’m sleeping with the sixth-formers.’
I put my hands on my hips. ‘That’s ridiculous!’ A thought occurs. ‘You’re not sleeping with the sixth-formers, are you?’
She shrugs. ‘I did once give Jonty Pendleton a blowjob, but he left years ago. It’s fine.’
A jogger runs past at that moment and does a comic double take over his shoulder at the word ‘blowjob’. ‘Oh, Kath! You’re outrageous. But you can’t let him blackmail you into staying.’
She wipes her eyes. ‘No. You’re right. I can’t. I’m going to have to risk it, let him do his worst. But in the meantime, don’t give me a hard time about wanting a little fun in my life too?’
‘I can’t believe Clive would ever be that horrible,’ I say.
She catches my eye for a split second, then stares at the ground, watching a ladybird crawl across the path. ‘It’s why I don’t feel guilty about what I’m doing – or intending to do. You have no idea what he’s like behind closed doors.’
I wondered if Kath was exaggerating, as she had a tendency to do. Clive always seemed pretty innocuous to me. But then I remembered Amy’s experience with Mr Lover-Lover man, and what hidden murky depths people are able to conceal from the outside world, when they want to …
‘I’m sorry, darling,’ I say. ‘What a nightmare for you. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help, won’t you?’
She smiles, a trace of the old wickedness returning. ‘How about joining me in having some fun?’
7
Amy
Sunday, 21 July
‘Becky?’
Amy yelled her sister’s name then jumped up from the desk chair and ran into the hallway, almost falling over her boots, which she’d taken off hours before. The front door was open an inch, but as she reached it she heard footsteps pounding in the opposite direction.
‘Becky!’
She yanked open the door and ran out of the flat. Someone was hurtling down the stairs. She chased after them, down one flight, skidding and almost tripping in her socked feet, grabbing hold of the rail to steady herself, her heart leaping into her throat. As she reached the first floor and started to run down the next flight of stairs, the outside door slammed below her.
She raced out and stood in the street, looking left and right. There was no one in sight. Her heart hammered in her chest. She called Becky’s name again, but with less conviction. She ran along the road to the left, wishing she’d never taken her boots off, but there was nobody to be seen apart from an elderly black woman who eyed her suspiciously.
‘Did you see anyone run this way?’ Amy asked.
The woman scowled and hurried on.
Thanks a lot, Amy thought. It was no good. Whoever had opened the door to the flat was long gone. But who had it been? Becky? If it had been her, why had she sprinted away upon hearing Amy’s voice? And if it wasn’t Becky, then who was it?
She shivered.
She headed back inside after a final look around, and knocked on Gary’s door. No answer. She pressed her ear against the wooden panel but couldn’t hear anything. Pulling out her phone, she pressed Becky’s name in the ‘Favourites’ folder of her address book, but nothing had changed. The call still went straight to voicemail. After a moment’s hesitation, she called Gary instead.
He answered on the fourth ring.
‘Hello?’
‘Gary, it’s Amy. Are you in?’
‘Eh? Oh – no. I’m still at the pub. Everything all right? Has Becky turned up?’
‘Somebody just walked into her flat. They had a key, Gary. When I called out they ran off.’
‘Are you still there?’
‘Yeah – well, I’m in the hallway, outside your place. Just been knocking at your door.’
‘Right, well, get back into Becky’s, lock the door, and I’ll come straight back.’
‘You don’t have—’
But he had disconnected.
She wandered back to Becky’s place, shaking with adrenaline and unable to stand still. She paced around the living room, frequently looking out the window. She felt sick. If it hadn’t been Becky, then did that mean it was whoever had sent the email? Oh, God … What if they came back? She went into the kitchen and slid
a knife from the block.
Five minutes later, someone knocked on the door. Her stomach lurched.
‘Who is it?’ she called, holding the knife with a trembling hand.
‘It’s me, Gary.’
She went to open the door but had second thoughts. ‘How do I know it’s really you?’
‘Er – don’t you recognize my voice? OK. This morning, when you knocked on my door, I wasn’t wearing a shirt. I just spoke to you on the phone and told you I was in the pub.’
She opened the door. Gary looked as if he’d had a few drinks.
‘Are you OK?’ he asked, sending a blast of beery breath in her direction.
She nodded. ‘I’ve calmed down a bit now.’
‘I got back as quickly as I could. You look like you could use a drink. Why don’t you come to mine?’
She was relieved to get out of Becky’s flat. Moments later, she sat on Gary’s leather sofa, gripping a glass of whisky.
‘My dad bought me that whisky,’ Gary said. ‘Can’t stand the stuff myself.’
It felt good going down, spreading warmth through her throat and chest. Gary sat down in the armchair opposite. He was more sure of himself on his own territory. A strong smell of fresh sweat came off him, mingling with the beer. Masculine smells. Not unpleasant.
She told him what had happened.
‘That’s fucking scary,’ he said. ‘What did the footsteps sound like?’
‘Um … they sounded like footsteps!’
‘No, I mean, did they sound slower and heavy, like a big man’s, or fast and lighter, like a woman’s – like Becky’s would be?’
‘Good point.’ Amy tried to remember. ‘But I don’t know. I’d say somewhere in the middle – heavy but fast. That’s not very helpful, is it?’
Gary smiled faintly at her. ‘Did you call the police?’
‘I called them earlier but they said they’d call me back. That was hours ago.’
Gary took out his phone. ‘Let’s do it now.’
‘I really need to get back. Boris has probably chewed the leg off the dining-room table by—’
‘Now. Why are you so reluctant to keep calling them?’
‘I’m not.’
He looked at her sceptically. ‘You could have fooled me.’
Irritated, she stood up, almost spilling the remains of the whisky, and grabbed the phone out of his hand. ‘The only reason I might have reservations is because they’re useless and won’t listen to me.’
‘Well, your decision, I guess.’
‘Oh, all right, I’ll call them.’
She ignored Gary’s smirk and crossed to the window to call the police station for the third time. It had been a really long day and she ached with exhaustion, the adrenaline deserting her body, leaving her feeling cold and depleted.
‘Well?’ Gary asked.
‘They’re sending someone round. Finally.’
The police officers stood in Gary’s living room, filling it with their alien presence, a scene she had watched many times on TV but had never experienced until now. Amy was always astonished when she saw people being rude or confrontational to the police. She had been conditioned as a child to be respectful, even fearful, of the police and, even though she had little respect for them now, her own experiences brutally reversing that conditioning, she couldn’t relax in their presence. She felt awkward, under suspicion. But also desperate for their help. They introduced themselves as PC Jay Sewell and WPC Minnie Whitaker.
‘So,’ said PC Sewell, who must have been six foot four – he had to duck as he came into the flat. ‘You fell asleep in your sister’s flat and woke to find someone opening the door.’
‘That’s right.’
WPC Whitaker, who reminded Amy of the hockey captain from her school, said, ‘Who else has a key? Did she have a cleaner, or a lover who might have had one?’
‘Just me,’ said Gary. Two pairs of eyes lasered in on him, and he hurriedly added, ‘We had copies of each other’s keys in case we ever locked ourselves out. But Amy has my key.’
‘And he was at the pub,’ Amy added.
WPC Whitaker wrote something in her notebook.
‘Maybe you could take fingerprints from the door?’ Amy suggested.
The police officers exchanged a look. She had seen mechanics exchange similar looks when she took her bike in to be serviced and suggested what she thought was wrong with it.
‘The issue we have,’ said Sewell, ‘is that no crime has been committed. We have nothing to make us think that something suspicious has happened to your sister, apart from your feelings and this … fact about Cambodia. And nobody tried to break into the flat. They opened it with a key.’
Amy looked at Gary. I told you so.
‘Don’t you think it’s strange, though?’ Gary said.
‘Whether or not I think it’s strange is irrelevant, sir. We have no evidence of a crime. There’s nothing we can do.’
Amy awoke the next morning in her own flat, with sunlight in a warm shaft across her cheek and the dawn chorus in her ears. She had fallen into bed in a punch-drunk daze, leaving the curtains open, still wearing her clothes. Boris was in his usual position at the foot of the bed and, as he heard her stir, came round to lick the side of her face.
‘Oh, lovely … Thanks, Boris. How—’
Suddenly, all the events of yesterday whooshed into her head and she grabbed her phone to check her texts and emails. Please let there be something from Becky. But there was nothing. Instead, there were dozens more emails from customers and suppliers that had come in overnight, filling her Inbox on top of all the messages she’d failed to respond to yesterday. She felt a lurch of panic. It was only four a.m. but she knew she would never get back to sleep. She stank; her mouth was dry. She needed to do some work. She needed to find Becky. But she needed to catch up with her work, Becky, work …
She remembered what the therapist had taught her about dealing with panic attacks. She swung her legs around and sat on the edge of the bed, put one hand on her abdomen and the other just above her breasts, breathed in slowly through her nose, held it, then exhaled through her mouth. Repeat. She felt her mind emptying. She would deal with what she needed to do calmly, one thing at a time.
After a minute or two, she relaxed, opened her eyes. The dog gazed up at her, his serious expression making her smile.
She went into the kitchen and gave Boris a bowl of Weetabix, let him out into the garden then headed into the shower. The water usually spat torrents of hot water then cold, but this morning it was behaving, and the warm water cascading over her body soothed her, allowed her to compose in her head an ordered list of what she needed to do. The first item on the list was to outsource her customer-service enquiries to a third party – and a quick Google search brought up half a dozen options. She would arrange that later. The second was to concentrate on finding the men Becky had dated.
By five a.m., she was dressed and finally felt fully awake, ready to sit down at her computer. She’d already emailed herself the new CupidsWeb password for Becky’s account, so she checked it and logged in, clicking straight into the message Inbox. There were two new messages from men saying they liked the look of Becky’s profile. There were lots of messages like this received over recent weeks and Becky didn’t appear to have answered any of them. That was odd. Had she stopped using the site?
She found the messages from the three men she knew Becky had arranged dates with: Rosski20, Notthesheep and DannyBoy. Naff usernames or what? she thought, curling her lip.
She clicked onto Notthesheep’s profile, which proclaimed: Cheeky Chappy Seeks fun lady 4 Adventure!
‘Oh, Becks, really? He’s a twat!’ Amy said disgustedly, looking through his profile pictures, many of which featured him taking sharp corners on a large, ugly motorbike or raising a pint with a load of other identical-looking fat bald blokes in a pub. The only close-up was a blurry shot of him looking as though he was strangling a big black Labrador.
; Amy thought that she personally wouldn’t touch him with a twenty-foot bargepole, but she could sort of see why Becky was attracted to him. Becks had always had a penchant for ‘fun’ blokes, especially ones with fast bikes. And Shaun Notthesheep had come on pretty strong to Becky in his CupidsWeb emails, raving on and on about her beauty, her hair, her sense of humour. That was the other thing about Becky: she could never resist flattery.
Amy read his About Me section: ‘I love to travel to those far-flung places; equally I enjoy a weekend getaway to places closer to home that I’ve never been to. I often go for long rides on my beloved BMW bike, taking that fork in the road you always wondered where it leads.’
Aah, bless, thought Amy, he fancies himself as a bit of a philosopher. She went to the last message, dated from May, and noted that Becky had helpfully demanded to know his surname as well as his mobile number before they met – undoubtedly, so that she could Facebook-stalk him.
‘Good girl,’ she murmured, noting both down. His full name was Shaun Blackman. Not too common – that should help.
Next, she went to Rosski20’s profile. He was quite nice-looking, in a clean-cut, slightly boring way, dark hair slicked back and a goofy smile. Very boy-next-door, Amy thought.
‘Hi! I’m Ross. I’ve got my own company providing motivational speakers for events – which I also do myself, so if you date me, I’ll always be able to help you think positive! I’m also a Reiki practitioner, and author of the book Help Yourself to a Better Life Experience. I lived abroad for some years and love to travel. I’d love to find someone who would like to explore new places. My last big trip was to Vietnam and Cambodia and I can’t wait to get back there.’
Vietnam and Cambodia! Amy sat up. That was a bit of a coincidence, wasn’t it? Although of course it didn’t mean that they were there together. If Becky had recently read his profile, perhaps that was where she had come up with the idea.
He seemed pleasant, and his private messages to Becky were polite and funny. Amy could see why Becky had picked him. She Googled ‘Ross’ plus ‘book’ and ‘Help Yourself to a Better Life Experience’ and immediately discovered that his last name was Malone. Becky must have done the same, since she hadn’t asked him for his surname in any of their messages.