by Louise Voss
With her fingers crossed, she hit ‘Upload’ and watched as it appeared on the Home page of her site, Becky’s pixellated face beaming out at her. Sadness threatened to choke her, but she blinked away the pain of the moment – she had also decided that she was done with feeling sad. Not until she knew for a fact that she had something to be sad about. Becky was missing, but no news was often good news. Until the moment that Becky’s body was discovered (God forbid), she refused to be overwhelmed by this any more. It was a problem that needed solving, that was all.
Her appeal would also go out in the monthly Upcycle.com newsletter to all her subscribers, due to be sent that afternoon by the online marketing company – the email included whatever was featured on the site’s Home page. So Becky’s picture would land in every single mailbox on every single subscriber’s computer. And if even a quarter of them shared it on Twitter or Facebook, the number of people seeing it would increase exponentially.
Amy felt better. Better enough to face something she knew she ought to have done days ago but hadn’t been able to deal with, and about which Cliff’s comment earlier had given her a nudge of guilty conscience: she took out her phone and rang her parents’ number. Last time she’d rung she had only asked Carmella, the housekeeper, if Becky was there, she hadn’t said why she was asking. She couldn’t keep it from them any more.
The long European ringtone abbreviated into a staccato crackle of answer. ‘Hello – Mum?’
‘No. Is Carmella. Miz Coltman away.’
‘Oh. Hi, Carmella, it’s Amy again. Is Dad there? When will Mum be back?’
‘No. Away. On holidays.’
It seemed as though she wasn’t the only one not very good at communicating with her family members. Her parents definitely hadn’t mentioned anything about any holiday.
‘Where?’
‘I doan know. They are in … hmmm … many places, on the sea.’
‘On a cruise?’
There was a brief commotion as an obese woman in a wheelchair, pushed by her tiny husband and both talking loudly about lemon cake, came through the door with some difficulty, and Amy had to put her finger in her free ear to hear Carmella’s reply.
‘Sí. A crew-se.’
‘Where – the Caribbean? The Fjords?’
‘Hmmm … he go to Miami firsts.’
So, probably the Caribbean then. ‘Oh. I don’t suppose you know if they got around to getting a mobile phone before they left, do you?’
Her parents never had a mobile because, as they said, they didn’t need one in their village in Spain, and it was far too expensive a way to communicate with their family and friends in the UK. They were also complete Luddites when it came to computers and were not on email. Consequently, they never fully understood – or even tried to – what Upcycle.com was all about, nor had any idea how successful a business Amy had made of it.
‘No. No phone. Is problem?’
‘Sí – um, yes. I need to give them an urgent message, if they call you. Urgent! My sister Becky has, er, disappeared. You understand?’
Amy wished she wasn’t making this call in a busy café. The woman in the wheelchair had stopped wittering about lemon cake and was listening with shameless interest.
‘Sí, I understand. Becky, she is missing. I am sorry for you, Amy. Is bad?’
Carmella’s voice softened, and Amy’s new tough resolve wavered for a moment.
‘Yeah, is bad. It’s really bad.’
‘Police, he know?’
‘Yes, they know. Please could you look for any details of their holiday, Carmella, any information on what ship they’re on, or the travel agent they booked it through? And please get them to ring me urgently if you speak to them. When are they back?’
There was a pause while Carmella digested and translated. ‘Yes. I look. I have your telephone number, I call you, OK? They home, two weeks? But I tell them call you urgent.’
‘Thanks, Carmella.’
Amy terminated the call, half relieved that she’d done all she could to keep her folks in the loop, and half anxious that they would be in for a hell of a shock when they found out – if Becky wasn’t safely home by then. She glared at the woman in the wheelchair, transferring onto her some of the anger she felt towards her parents. How could they do something as major as going on a Caribbean cruise without having the courtesy to let her and Becky know? It was as if they had discharged their parental obligation towards their daughters the moment she and Becky left the family home and went to university.
She turned her attention back to her laptop. To her surprise, there was already one comment on her post, from someone she didn’t know but who was a regular contributor to the discussion boards: Knittyfreak – hi Amy, so sorry to hear this. What a nightmare. Tweeted, shared, posted. Praying that your sister comes home soon. Sorry I don’t recognize Jeans but I’m in Scotland
Amy suspected all the comments would be along these lines. She was about to close her laptop when another one popped up: SusieB – I do!!!! Jeans Laundrette’s up the road from me in Epsom (Surrey)! It always catches my eye because of the missing apostrophe! It’s near the Londis, which has a post office in it – that might help you get the exact address. I can’t remember the name of the road. Good luck – really hope she’s OK and turns up soon. SusieX
Exhilarated, Amy typed a reply: Wow!!! Susie, thank you so much, that’s incredible – talk about an instant response. You Upcyclers are awesome, what a community! I will check it out ASAP – but, in the meantime, please keep sharing Becky’s photo? I will keep you all posted. Amy.
It was the work of moments to search online for post offices in Epsom, which handily yielded a link to the Street View of the exterior on Google Maps. Sure enough, when Amy clicked on it, the ‘-rette’ of the Jeans Laundrette sign was visible in the left corner of the picture.
‘I can’t believe it!’ she crowed to Boris, who was asleep under the table. ‘How easy was that?’ Another thought struck her, and she scrolled the cursor around in the Street View. There was the window of the room in which TooledUp had taken his photo – no question. Same nasty UPVC window frame, same small panes of glass.
She nudged him awake with her foot. ‘Right, come on, you. We’ve got to get you home so I can go to Epsom.’
She found Jeans Laundrette with no difficulty at all, other than stopping to consult the Maps app on her iPhone once or twice. There was so much adrenaline flooding through her system that she didn’t even pause to remember her initial impression of TooledUp, that he looked like a psychopath. As she walked up to the dirty front door that appeared to give access to the flats opposite the launderette, her breath caught for a moment. Nobody knew she was here. Was she insane? Was she about to find out what fate had befallen her sister? Hastily, she took several photos with her camera phone, clearly showing the street sign and house number, and the view of Jeans, and emailed them to herself with a note that read: ‘Last seen here looking for Becky. A man known as TooledUp from Casexual.com lives here and I’m going to talk to him.’
She had no idea which bell corresponded to TooledUp’s flat, so she tried a few, but there was no answer from any of them. Unsure of what to do next, she hung around for a few minutes. A Middle Eastern man with a thick beard approached the door, a key in his outstretched hand.
‘Excuse me – I’m looking for someone who lives up there,’ she said. He looked at her as if he was about to ignore her, so she moved in front of the door, barring his way. ‘It’s important.’ She took the printout of TooledUp’s profile picture out of her pocket and unfolded it. ‘Him. Do you recognize him?’
The man’s blank expression changed and he scowled. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘He’s called Halsall. Don’t know his first name, but it says P. Halsall on his mailbox. He’s a hard man. Watch yourself.’
Amy was momentarily surprised that the man sounded so English when he looked so Turkish, then she berated herself for making racial judgements. He could easily be more English than she was.
‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘Can you let me in to wait for him?’
The man shrugged. ‘If you want,’ he said, looking suspiciously at her. He opened his mouth as though about to quiz her – and then closed it again, evidently deciding he didn’t care either way what she wanted with his neighbour. He stomped away up the stairs, leaving her in the lobby. When he got to the first turning, he looked back. ‘He’s usually back around now,’ he said brusquely, and carried on without waiting for her to reply.
Amy followed him up the first flight and found herself in a smelly, dark hall with doors to two flats facing each other. Free newspapers and pizza leaflets littered the floor, even though the mailboxes were downstairs. It was as though someone had carried them as far up as the first floor and then lost interest in taking them inside. Amy slid down the wall, placed her helmet down beside her and sat on one of the newspapers, which was far preferable to the prospect of sitting directly on the cold, dirty, tiled floor, despite the headline about an old woman who had been beaten to death just down the road from here. From somewhere in the building, she could hear a woman sobbing.
She waited about twenty-five minutes, increasingly aware of her need for a pee. She was just wondering if she dared ask the bearded man if she could use his loo, when the front door opened and closed again, and heavy footsteps came banging up the stairs towards her.
A thick head appeared first, shaved at the sides, with thinning, slicked-back hair on top, and then one of those obscenely muscled bodies that screamed steroids. It was TooledUp, without a doubt, and he looked even more menacing in the flesh that he had in his picture. He stopped short when he saw her sitting outside his door, and she scrambled up.
‘Hi,’ she said, doing everything she could to stop her voice trembling. ‘My name is Amy Coltman, and I need your help.’
He looked at her as though she was something he’d found on the bottom of his shoe. He let the holdall he was carrying fall to the floor with a dull thud that echoed through the hallway. ‘Me?’
‘Yes. It’s about my sister. She’s called Becky, and you were talking to her on a dating – well, a hook-up site. Casexual.com. This is a bit delicate … you were going to, um, have a threesome with her and her friend Katherine.’
P. Halsall’s face turned a thunderous puce colour, and he shook his head as if in disbelief, coming a few steps closer to Amy. It was a narrow corridor, and his bulk was blocking her access to the stairs. He smelled of cheap hair gel and, Amy imagined, those huge tubs of protein powder. She held her nerve.
‘It’s just that Becky’s gone missing, and I’m desperately trying to see if I can find out when she was last seen …’
The man put his key in the lock, frowning as though he was thinking about it. Then he opened the door, and Amy instinctively backed away slightly in case he grabbed her. He turned as he walked into his flat and flicked on the lights.
He stabbed a stubby finger in her direction. ‘Listen, I don’t know who you are, but you have some fucking nerve, coming here and mouthing off about my private life. I don’t know your sister, so you can just piss off, all right?’ He paused, as a thought crawled into his brain, and he gave her the filthiest look she’d ever suffered. ‘Unless you’re here looking to get some action yourself.’
He stepped closer to her. A vein pulsed in his forehead. ‘You look like the type who likes it rough.’
Amy took a deep breath and gathered all the courage she’d never had when she was with Nathan. ‘You’re disgusting. But I need to know—’
He turned away and slammed the door, and when she closed her eyes, all Amy could see was Nathan’s face.
31
Amy
Thinking about the last time she’d seen Nathan always gave Amy a little thrill inside – part guilt, part catharsis, but mostly triumph. It had only been six months ago. Chris had been treating her to a farewell dinner in a big posh restaurant in the West End. How fitting, Amy thought, that she had been with Chris that evening, the same Chris to whom Nathan had objected so strongly all those years ago, giving her the first warning signs that all might not be well with her beloved after all.
‘I’ll miss you so much!’ she had wailed at him over the starters.
Chris had made a face both sympathetic and empathetic, and clinked his wineglass against hers. ‘It’s only Edinburgh, sweetie, not Sydney. You can pop up on the train for a weekend to stay with us. We have a very comfy sofa bed.’
‘I promise I won’t spend the whole night moaning,’ she said, ‘but you’re my best friends – pretty much my only friends – and I can’t believe you’re going. I mean,’ she added hastily, ‘I’m made up for you both, really, and it’s so great that Vince is coming with you and that you’ve both found such good jobs, but …’
Chris made a mock-stern face at her. He had recently cultivated a very pointy bleached quiff that now seemed to jab accusingly at her like a self-important finger. ‘What do you mean, your only friends? What about Hannah, and Liz, and those girls you used to hang about with a few years back?’
Amy put her elbows on the table and ticked off her fingers: ‘Hannah – took Nathan’s side in the split and hasn’t spoken to me since, not that I’d want her to. Liz just had her second baby, never goes out, and no phone conversation with her ever lasts more than ninety seconds before she has to go and change a nappy or mop something up. Jo moved to France to restore a chateau with that weird man of hers … Honestly, I’m not being self-pitying but, apart from my sister, you and Vince are my social life.’
‘Move up to Edinburgh then! Boris wouldn’t mind a change of scene. You can do Upcycle anywhere – it’s not like you’re tied to an office.’
Amy smiled, then sighed. ‘Nice idea, but I wouldn’t want to be so far away from Becky. I’ll come and visit, though.’
The waiter came and removed their empty starter plates. ‘You’d better, sweetie,’ said Chris.
‘I’m really glad you tracked me down,’ Amy said, feeling slightly overemotional. Chris had found her about a year after their accidental meeting in the bar in Kingston, and after Amy had hastily deleted the text containing his number, terrified that Nathan would go beserk if he spotted it on her phone.
‘Well, that’s what Facebook’s for, isn’t it? And I was worried about you after … you know …’
Amy made a face. ‘I know.’
‘Do you ever hear from Mr Prince Not Very Charming?’
She shook her head. ‘No, thank God. He got an official police caution, which would have mortified him. I haven’t heard a thing, thankfully.’
Chris could tell she didn’t want to talk about Nathan, so he changed the subject. Their main courses came, and the conversation turned to other things: Becky, Upcycle, Chris’s new job as a corporate lawyer for a major Scottish blue-chip company, Vince’s new job as a wine waiter for a five-star hotel in Edinburgh, the number of calories in steak with blue-cheese sauce … chitchat between old friends. An hour or so passed, and the restaurant dimmed the lights and turned up the music. Their table was quite near the door, and large numbers of people came and went, squeezing past the back of Chris’s chair.
Amy was in mid-sentence, telling Chris about the Tuscan holiday she and Becky had been on the previous summer, when she looked up and saw a face across the restaurant that she hadn’t seen for almost four years. She froze, and felt the blood drain from her face.
‘What’s the matter?’ Chris asked, swivelling round in his seat to follow her gaze.
‘It can’t be. We were just talking about him!’ she stuttered.
‘Not fucking Nathan!’
Amy dropped her head and nodded, utterly panicked. She didn’t dare look up but she knew he’d seen her at the same moment she spotted him. Her heart was pounding out of her chest and she felt sick. He was with a group of men, four or five of them, probably work colleagues – they all had ‘the look’ – urban, trendy, casual, the right shirts and jeans and haircuts.
‘He’s coming over!’ she sa
id in a strangulated voice.
‘I’ll deal with him,’ said Chris, squaring his shoulders.
But it was at that moment that something clicked inside Amy, and she too put her head up and her shoulders back. She did not need to be afraid of Nathan any more – and better still, she didn’t love him any more, not an iota.
He approached their table and she gazed coolly at him, taking in the fact that he had filled out quite a lot, and his cheekbones had vanished. He smiled at her, that old, warm, sexy Nathan smile, but Amy was completely unmoved – if somewhat surprised. She had assumed that the police caution had infuriated him so much that he would never speak to her again, and yet here he was, behaving like they were old friends. He walked right up to her and leaned down to give her a kiss on the cheek, but she ducked her head away. Not in panic, just as though she was completely mystified.
‘Can I help you?’ she asked politely. Firmly.
‘Amy! It’s so great to see you, darling! How have you been?’
Chris was looking worriedly at her, so she flashed him a small reassuring smile, then frowned at Nathan. ‘I’m really sorry – um – have we met?’
He threw back his head and laughed, but it was tinged with uncertainty. ‘Amy! It’s me, Nathan! You look great. I like the new piercings – that one really suits you.’ He pointed at her nose stud. ‘And your hair’s really grown. Nice.’
Furrowing her brow, she scrutinized him, allowing her gaze to linger for a particularly long time at the stomach straining the buttons of his designer checked shirt, and the layer of podge under his chin. Then she shook her head.