The Other Passenger

by Louise Candlish

  One useful side effect had been her not deigning to ask the reasons for my weekly – sometime twice-weekly – late arrivals home following liaisons with Melia, but, doubtless, blaming Kit on principle.

  Not until we went for a walk on our own on Boxing Day morning to Calton Hill did either of us mention the Ropers.

  ‘I had a bit of a row with Kit on Monday,’ I said, at the summit, as if the subject could only be broached here, with the wind gusting in her ears and her eyes misled by the panorama. It was all there, solid and unchanging: the castle and Princes Street; Holyroodhouse Palace and Arthur’s Seat; the Leith docks and the distant haze of the Forth Estuary.

  Her head turned only fractionally. ‘What about?’ ‘Nothing in particular. I just think we rub each other up the wrong way these days. Like I said, I’m worried about him.’

  ‘Right.’ Melia’s problem, that’s what she’d said.

  ‘To be honest, I’m not sure he’s that stable,’ I added. ‘He’s more of a cokehead than I thought.’

  We looked across to Arthur’s Seat. Right in front of us a young couple preened with a selfie stick, adjusting their poses repeatedly.

  ‘You haven’t got involved on any deeper level, have you?’ Clare said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You know, sharing his habit. You don’t owe any money or anything?’

  ‘God, no.’ I paused. ‘He does, that’s for sure.’

  ‘We all know he does. If this was the nineteenth century, he’d be in the Marshalsea. Melia as well, probably.’

  ‘He did ask me for a loan a while ago,’ I confessed. ‘He made me feel really guilty when I said no.’

  ‘Be careful. That kind of thing is only ever the start. He could end up blackmailing you or something.’

  I stole a wary glance her way: what did she mean by that? The conversation was burrowing closer to the bone than I cared to allow and I let a minute pass, willing the city – at once familiar and remote – to work its magic on me, on her. I had the sense that if we’d settled here and not London I’d never have accepted that I owned precisely nought per cent of the home I lived in; I’d never have had to leave my job because the commute felt life-threatening; perhaps never have begun an affair with a woman like Melia – or any woman. In the end, was Kit right? Was it all down to property? Not just the financial security of it, but the pride of ownership. The power of possession.

  My gaze settled on the National Monument, Edinburgh’s unfinished Parthenon– unfinishedbecausethemoneyranout.

  ‘You want to know what I think?’ Clare said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I think you need to cut ties.’

  ‘With Kit? I was thinking the same myself. Thought maybe I’ll ask to change my hours at the café so I can get a different boat from him. It would mean working some weekends, but I—’

  She interrupted: ‘Not just him, Jamie. Her, as well.’

  I swallowed. It was out of the question not to meet her eye, avoidance would only have broadcast my guilt, but when I did I found her gaze to be more co-operative than accusing.

  ‘Both of us, I mean,’ she said. ‘There’s something not right about those two.’

  ‘I thought you liked Melia.’

  ‘I do, but maybe not as much as I did. There’s a reason “Melia” gets shortened to “Me”. It’s because she’s a complete narcissist.’

  Wow. I breathed cold clear air into my lungs, expelled it in a mist. ‘Okay. Well, that’s fine in theory, but how can you do it when you work with her?’

  ‘Not directly,’ Clare pointed out. ‘Sales and lettings are separate teams and we’re all out of the office a lot on appointments. Anyway, I don’t mean I want us to ghost them or anything, just stop hanging out. It all got too intense too quickly, didn’t it? And I know that was my fault. It didn’t develop the way a friendship should.’

  I fell silent, more than content for her to do the talking. The thinking.

  ‘I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings,’ she added, with typical Clare decency. ‘Life’s hard enough, isn’t it?’

  My heart ached for her. She was worrying about hurting Melia’s feelings, when Melia was . . . Well, Melia was only acting her side of the friendship, even if she did it so naturally she couldn’t tell herself where the lines blurred.

  ‘Who was Dugald Stewart?’ I asked, as we passed his monument, a coterie of tourists taking photos on their phones. I’d left mine in the flat, the better to tune out the voicemails arriving from Melia.

  ‘You’ve asked me that before,’ Clare said. ‘He was a famous moral philosopher.’

  ‘Oh yes, the common sense guy.’

  ‘Exactly. We could do with a few more of those about the place.’

  ‘True.’ And for a brief moment on that hill it felt as if common sense really were all that was needed to save us.

  *

  On the train home – a slow skeleton service of the sort that made you lose the will to live – Clare groaned as she saw the work messages that had accumulated. ‘Who emails on Boxing Day, for fuck’s sake? The world’s gone mad.’

  ‘Did your couple make their offer on the house in Blackheath?’

  ‘Not yet. Tomorrow, hopefully. Oh, I’ve had a couple of missed calls from Melia.’

  We exchanged a significant look, mindful of our conversation on Calton Hill.

  ‘Any voicemail?’

  ‘No. Should I call her back?’

  ‘Leave it till you see her at work tomorrow,’ I suggested, yawning.

  The train was due into King’s Cross at 10 p.m. Normally, when heading home to London I felt a rock-solid conviction that I was travelling in the right direction, back where I belonged. Dick Whittington returned, ready to rule his city. But this Thursday evening after Christmas, by the time the houselights lining the tracks began to thicken, before we entered the deep cut into King’s Cross, I felt a sensation remarkably like dread.

  27

  27 December 2019

  ‘Dread? Why would you feel dread?’ Parry asks, and I realize I’ve lost track of what I’ve said aloud.

  Not long ago, Melia gave me some advice: The best way to stop yourself saying stuff is to not think it. But how do you stop yourself thinking?

  ‘Because of all this.’ I motion to the space around us, the increasing tempo of late morning, the dizzying number of variables that might make the difference between a good day and a bad one, a good deed or a bad one. ‘Work, life, London. The craziness of it all. It’s overwhelming. Don’t you ever feel that after a few days away?’

  It is almost ten thirty. I struggle to cast my mind back to the commute this morning. I remember the empty seat where Kit should have been; the strangely cryptic conversation with Gretchen; the welcoming committee at the pier. That self-indulgent sense of isolation at exactly the moment I was singled out: Is it just me?

  And then this interview. Talking till my throat parches and my heart shrinks. Everything you know.

  Merchison is suppressing a desire to stretch, I can tell from the tension in his shoulders, the squirming in his seat. If someone yawned, he’d yawn right back. Parry, younger, gym-fit, is holding up better, but his phone has rung two or three times during the latest portion of my account and even he is losing concentration. ‘Okay, we’ll leave it there,’ he says. ‘Our apologies to your manager for keeping you a little longer than billed.’

  My eyes pop. ‘You don’t want me to make an official statement or anything?’

  ‘Not for now. Don’t go harassing anyone else involved in this investigation, mind you. If you do, we’ll be all over you for perverting the course of justice, understood?’

  It’s not hard to guess their primary fear: that I’ll try to hunt down this other witness and force from her the details they’ve held so tantalizingly at bay.

  ‘That includes Mrs Roper,’ Merchison says. ‘In fact, keep everything we’ve discussed to yourself for now, all right?’

  I frown. ‘What, even Kit g
oing missing? Are you not putting out some sort of appeal?’

  I had imagined grainy footage of an inebriated Kit staggering off the boat and up the jetty – ideally with the preceding fight scene left on the cutting room floor – played on all the news sites and the local TV news. Did you see this man on Monday night?

  ‘Not yet, no.’ They exchange a wary look, before Merchison explains: ‘In light of this conversation, we’ll need to consult with senior colleagues. It may not be appropriate to involve the public at this time.’

  I stare, unsure how to decode this. I wonder if budget is a factor. Maybe those big media appeals are only for children and attractive young women, not feckless men with drug issues and debts, gone AWOL in office party season. Not so much tragedy as natural wastage. ‘You mean, what, you don’t want to jeopardize other cases, that kind of thing?’

  ‘That kind of thing,’ he agrees.

  ‘Can I talk about it with Clare, at least?’

  They nod their assent and dictate a number for me to reach them on. ‘Call us straightaway if he gets in touch.’

  ‘Of course.’ I pocket my phone and get to my feet.

  I can’t resist the opportunity to double back and take the stairs down, allowing me to track them in my peripheral vision. They remain at the table, phones in hand. Will they stay a while to hammer out a new hypothesis? Or hotfoot it to St Mary’s, hoping those houses closest to the Thames path will yield witnesses, accounts by children of having been woken on Monday night by scary drunk men shouting and scuffling?

  Or maybe they’ll just go back to the station to wait for word that a body has washed ashore.

  28

  27 December 2019

  I leave by the western exit and hover for a moment in the flat winter light, assessing. When I’m certain I’m not being followed, I allow my shoulders to relax and slowly exhale. I’m free.

  For now.

  I feel as shattered as if it were the end of a long shift. My lower back aches badly. Sciatica? A slipped disc? Middle-aged people’s afflictions I’ve chosen to disregard of late, believing that youth is transferable through bodily fluids. I have a sudden, unbidden thought: I am almost twenty years older than Melia. When she’s forty, I’ll be sixty! What are we doing?

  Though the Comfort Zone is a five-minute stroll away, I turn in the opposite direction, towards the river, already dialling Regan to make my excuses: ‘I’m really sorry, but I’ve had to go home. It’s an emergency, a friend’s gone missing.’

  Her reaction to the news is far more excitable than mine was. ‘That’s terrible! I can’t believe it! What do they think’s happened to him? Who is it?’

  ‘You know the guy I get the boat with? Kit? It’s him.’ Within five minutes, I’ve ignored the detectives’ instructions to keep the inquiry to myself. Already, I’m willing to exploit the currency of this crisis for my own gain. ‘I’m sure he’ll turn up, but the whole thing is . . .’ Hearing the sound of the milk steamer hissing and squawking, I stop. The whole thing is what? Impossible to process? Not really happening? ‘Confidential, so don’t say anything, got it?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Can you get someone else to help out today?’

  ‘Simona just came in, but it’s been dead so far.’ I hear her catch herself, as if the word ‘dead’ will distress me.

  ‘Thank you, you’re a star. I’ll definitely be in on Monday, no matter what.’

  I retrace my steps to the pier. The concourse by the Eye is thickening with tourists, the winter wonderland open for business. I stand for a minute watching the innocents in their knitted hats and leather gloves, talking one another into a cheeky mulled wine or a hot chocolate with whipped cream. As I wait there, alone and unnoticed, it’s as if I am the one who might have been abducted, not Kit.

  There’s no service to St Mary’s outside of rush hour, so I board the next boat to North Greenwich. The tide feels stronger, the water more agitated than earlier. Above, the pearl sky is starting to streak with darker cloud. I’ve never seen the boat this empty. Just me and half a dozen tourists in hooded parkas, their bags strapped across their chests. There’s a family of four – Italian, I think. Two sons, less enthused by the riverscape than their parents are, showing each other stuff on their phones. The parents object at first, then give up trying.

  The first thing I do is buy coffee and water and listen to Melia’s voicemails from the past few days, pleas for me to let her know if I’ve seen Kit:

  ‘I’m sure it’s nothing, but . . .’

  ‘He’s still not back, can you please call me!’

  I text her an apology:

  So sorry I missed your calls, my phone was off over

  Christmas. This is awful about Kit. I swear I haven’t heard

  from him since late Monday night. Please let me know

  what I can do to help.

  I imagine Parry and Merchison reading it, debating whether it’s a genuine approach by a bewildered lover or the sort of message composed by someone covering his criminal tracks. Of course, I know they won’t be doing anything so sci-fi as reading my texts live. On TV, getting phone records takes a matter of hours, but I’ve read that in reality it’s probably more like days or even weeks; the phone companies drag their heels in their dealings with the police. It will be the other side of New Year, surely. And what about internet search histories? Do the police need the actual devices for that? Will they come to the house and seize all our electronics? I think about the calls and texts and internet searches every one of us makes each day, the inferences to be made, cases to be built.

  What the police will do soon enough – today, I’m supposing – is phone Clare. At the very least, they’ll want her to confirm the time of my arrival home on Monday and my whereabouts since. I pray they don’t tell her about Melia and me. If they could just hold fire for a few days, ideally a week.

  Even before the boat reaches Tower Bridge, both Steve and Gretchen have phoned, one after the other. I let them go to voicemail and then listen to the messages straightaway.

  Steve: ‘Jamie, did you hear Kit’s gone walkabout? Let me know if you hear anything, will you?’

  And Gretchen, more distressed: ‘Jamie, is this true about Kit? No one’s seen him since our night out? His phone’s turned off, I just tried. Sorry if I was weird earlier, I had stuff to think about. I’m off to Marrakech for New Year – I hope that doesn’t look bad, but I booked it just before I heard the news and I won’t get a refund if I cancel. Anyway, I’m rambling. Please phone me if there’s any news.’ There’s an odd pause before she rings off, as if she was considering adding something but changed her mind.

  Or maybe that’s just me, imagining secrets where there are none. I text her:

  Yes, it’s true. I’ve already met with the police. Really hope it’s all some misunderstanding.

  I send a similar message to Steve and then sit back, my shoulders sinking low in the seat. I’ve never been so aware of the rise and fall of the vessel; at Canary Wharf it seems to have trouble docking, the deck hands stern-faced as they feed the rope through expert fingers. On the move again, the eastern sky darkens to smoke-grey, as if we’re sailing into a bonfire.

  A new text pops up from Clare:

  How did it go with the police?

  A bit worrying, TBH. Skipping work & heading home.

  I’ll try to finish early.

  At North Greenwich, the service terminates and I’m thrown off balance by the movement of the pontoon beneath my feet, the swelling tide below. I walk down the eastern side of the peninsula; the riggings of the boats rattle in the wind and jar my nerves. As I pass some of the apartment buildings where I’ve had assignations with Melia, I look up at the blank windows and picture the vacant glazed spaces within, the cold finishes and smart technology that await their occupants. They’re strikingly devoid of decorations, as if the festive season has been cancelled in this place, life lived in the near future. There’s just one figure visible on the matrix of balcon
ies, a woman dressed in running gear with a water bottle in her hand, the railings of her balcony making it look as though she’s behind bars.

  I follow the home curve of the river, the Thames Barrier glinting ahead, before I turn inland for the train station at Charlton. On the deserted train, I have four seats to myself and sit calmly, watching southeast London slide by. You’d never guess I was a man who’d once brought a network to its knees, or whatever Twitter claimed happened.

  I remember the therapist saying, ‘Could you go on the Tube again if it was just you? An empty carriage, no one else.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I think so.’

  ‘So your fear is associated with the other passengers as much as with being underground.’

  Not a question, nor a judgement. A conclusion.

  The memory dislodges a more recent one: that odd segue in the police interview between their warning me about ‘other versions’ of what happened on Monday night and probing the episode on the Tube. Why had they made the association? The discussion might reasonably have proceeded with no reference to the Tube incident at all, so it must have been relevant to some unspecified hypothesis of theirs, something more than a demonstration of my – what was it? – ‘impulsive streak’, that was it.

  My imagination twists. What if . . . what if this other passenger had something to do with the earlier event? That one hater who’d emailed me those horrible messages: had something happened to her baby and caused her to develop some psychosis, to become fixated on me? Had she been stalking me? I leave the train, walk alone down the platform. No, it’s a crazy leap, not to mention egocentric. People like me don’t have stalkers.