The Other Passenger

by Louise Candlish

  ‘Misguided actions? What are you expecting me to do, get rid of her, as well?’

  There’s a moment of horror as I hear what I said: as well. I feel myself colour. ‘To be clear, that was a joke. I haven’t got rid of anyone and don’t intend to. Look, yesterday, that was my fault, I shouldn’t have approached Melia and I’m very sorry. But the first time, on Friday, I was only accompanying my partner. I was worried . . .’ Worried she might attack Melia physically as she later did me? No, it’s too incendiary to tell him of Clare’s discovery and the arguments we’ve had. The fragility of our current stand-off. ‘I won’t go near her again, you have my word.’

  ‘Good.’ He nods. He’s not taking notes, so this must be off the record. He’ll tell Parry, though. He’ll log it. Do they have other cases, this early-rising team? I hope so. I hope this is the first and last call he’ll make today regarding the Ropers and me.

  I offer him a third biscuit. ‘Since you’re here, can I ask you a question?’

  ‘Shoot.’

  ‘We’re wondering why you’re still not publicizing Kit’s disappearance in the local press? Or on missing persons?’

  Merchison’s tone sharpens: ‘“We”?’

  I couldn’t do a better job of advertising myself as a loose cannon if I had the words stamped on my forehead. ‘Just me and Clare. I told her I thought there might be some bigger drugs ring operation you don’t want to jeopardize. Undercover officers, that kind of thing.’

  The look he gives me is half amused – by my cliché TV terminology, perhaps, or because I think for a moment he’s going to share this sort of intelligence with me. ‘I can only repeat that involving the press and public can, in some cases, compromise overlapping inquiries. We’ve told Mrs Roper the same. Understandably, she shares your frustration.’

  ‘But how can you control it? There must be others who’re worried? What about his colleagues? If he doesn’t turn up for work, won’t they put out alerts that could get picked up by the press?’

  ‘Please leave us to worry about that.’

  Easy, I suppose, for them to ask Melia to phone Kit’s employer with some excuse, or for them to explain directly the need for anonymity: ‘overlapping inquiries’ seems to be the line.

  ‘And, Jamie? Anyone who takes it upon themselves to circulate an alert will have us to answer to.’

  ‘Right.’ I make no mention of the secret cyber probing initiated by Clare. Safer to play dumb. ‘I saw a TV drama where the police opened the helpline in an appeal and the public started phoning in. They called them something, the time wasters. Fools and ghouls or something.’

  Merchison chuckles. ‘That’s a good one. I’ll tell my wife that.’

  ‘You’re married?’

  ‘Five years tomorrow.’

  ‘Congratulations.’ I have no right to compare his obvious pride and contentment in his relationship with my own status – one partnership irrevocably broken thanks to my treachery, the other in sticky suspension. No right to name the jagged pain in my ribcage anything other than a self-inflicted wound.

  Only when he’s finished Clare’s biscuits does he leave and I marvel at a constitution that can process so much sugar this early in the day.

  *

  I head to the pier for the boat to work, too late for the 7.20, thanks to Merchison, and only making the 7.55 by the skin of my teeth. The boat is still quiet, the no man’s land between Christmas and New Year’s rolling on, the wealthy off skiing or frolicking on some far-flung beach. I’m literally one of only a dozen or so to board at St Mary’s and it’s impossible not to scan the faces of the last remaining commuters and wonder about the mystery witness. She of the black hair with pink ends is a couple of rows in front of me, and couldn’t pay me less attention if she tried, her earbuds like creatures burrowing into the skull. But if she’s the one who reported me to the police, wouldn’t I remember seeing her that night, one of the more distinctive-looking commuters? And wouldn’t she be wary of seeing me?

  Putting my phone to my ear, I say, loudly. ‘Sarah?’

  Nothing. Feeling foolish, I tuck my phone in my pocket and check out the crew. I don’t recognize any of them from that night service a week ago and, even if I did, it would hardly be advisable to start quizzing them about what the police had asked, whether the security footage was formally seized with the intention of being used as evidence in a prosecution. The thought causes me to groan loudly and Pink Ends glances over her shoulder. Her eye lingers, not with sympathy or even curiosity, but with caution, as if she thinks I might be unstable. I smile, but it probably makes things worse, and when we slow to approach the next stop, she moves to a different seat.

  I straighten my mind, scan for loose ends. I leave a message for my father: ‘I’m so sorry, Dad, but I’m going to have to bail on tomorrow night. The thing is, Clare and I are going through a rough patch at the moment and she doesn’t really want house guests, not even family.’ I feel like a heel, both for letting him down and for blaming Clare for it. Crap behaviour begets crap behaviour, it would seem.

  ‘Jamie, you all right?’

  It’s Steve – God, have we reached North Greenwich already? – and I remember my text to him, the idiocy of which has been eclipsed by more pressing concerns. With the rest of my row free, I have no hope of avoiding a confab with him.

  ‘You’re in late, as well?’

  ‘I overslept.’ He licks a spot of toothpaste from the corner of his mouth. ‘What the fuck was that text all about on Saturday?’

  ‘Sorry, I’d been drinking, lost my mind a bit about this Kit situation. Someone’s been talking bollocks to the police, saying I’m involved.’

  He removes his glasses and wipes them clean, turning large blind eyes towards me. ‘Yeah, well, you must know I would never dob a mate in, even if I did think he’d done something dodgy.’ He puts his glasses back on and seems to notice the marks on my face for the first time. I watch him decide not to ask. ‘What’s the latest, then? You don’t think he’s just gone off somewhere without telling Melia?’

  ‘I hope that’s what it is,’ I agree. Already, I’m sensing there’s comfort to be gained from this discussion. Steve’s instincts are in sync with those I first presented to Parry and Merchison: Kit’s gone AWOL because it’s the kind of thing he does.

  Steve frowns. ‘He might not even know there’s been all this drama. Why’s there nothing about it online? If he saw a news report, he’d realize people are worried and he’d get in touch with her. Or someone.’

  ‘If he’s online,’ I point out. ‘His phone is out of service – all my texts are coming back undelivered.’

  ‘Yeah, mine as well.’

  I lower my voice. ‘Between you and me, I think the police think it might be to do with some drugs dispute. Did Kit say anything to you about being in that kind of trouble?’

  ‘Drugs?’ Uncertain emotions pass across his face. He’s remembering, perhaps, my half-hearted proposal of an intervention a few weeks ago, his own cavalier dismissal of the notion that Kit had a problem. Live and let live sounds like bad advice now. ‘Well, I knew he was strapped for cash, but I didn’t get the impression he was looking over his shoulder. I wonder if Gretchen’s heard from him.’

  ‘She’s off now till the New Year. Morocco.’

  ‘Really?’ We look at each other and I guess his thoughts: might Kit and Gretchen have absconded together for some extended dirty weekend in the sun? No fling has ever been admitted to, but when has that ever stopped the millions of faithless over the centuries? (Let’s face it, I should know.)

  ‘You don’t think . . . ? Would she have had the guts to lie to the police when they called looking for him?’ I ask.

  ‘It’s possible,’ Steve says.

  ‘What about the airports? You’d have thought they’d check them as part of their search.’

  ‘Maybe it’s not something you can do that easily or quickly. Shall we phone her? See if she picks up?’

  As I hear him connect
to Gretchen, I focus on the glazed dome of the foot tunnel entrance by Greenwich Pier, allowing my mind to dislocate from the present and picture the building going up at the turn of the twentieth century. What crises did men grapple with then? Did their disasters befall them unannounced or did they create them for themselves? Were there Kits and Jamies and Steves among them? Were there Melias?

  I know myself well enough to understand that this sudden hunger for perspective, the desire to reduce myself to a speck in human history, is really a ruse to diminish my guilt, my fear.

  ‘Any luck?’ I ask, when he hangs up.

  ‘Nope. She’s in Marrakech, you got that right, but she thought I was calling her with news. I woke her up, so either she’s a brilliant actress or she knows even less than we do.’

  ‘Well, it was worth a try.’

  We sit in fretful silence until Tower Bridge, where he disembarks.

  ‘Something bad has happened, hasn’t it?’ he says, by way of a farewell.

  Yes sounds too stark, too brutal, so I tell him, ‘All we can do is hope,’ and he heads for the door, limping a little, head down.

  I would never dob a mate in. Not an enemy then, as I’d supposed, but nonetheless too late to be an ally. I wonder if he’ll mention his theory about Gretchen to the police, should they contact him again.

  The tide is the highest I’ve ever seen it. As we duck through the gold-studded red arches of Blackfriars Bridge, I picture the river bursting its banks and beaching us onto the South Bank, the humans fleeing from the slimy double-hulled monster, everyone screaming.

  34

  30 December 2019

  The Comfort Zone remains disquietingly celebratory of all things Yule. Plum pudding and ginger latte has been our special for the last two weeks, and even though the thought of drinking one makes me want to gag, it continues to outsell all other offerings. Regan, still in an elf’s hat and glittery Christmas makeup five days after Santa’s visit, has at least replaced the sprigs of ivy on each table with mistletoe.

  She peers at my face and, unlike Steve, demands an explanation. ‘What happened to you? You look like you were attacked by a cat.’

  ‘I kind of was,’ I say.

  ‘You weren’t bitten, were you? If you’re bitten you’re supposed to get a tetanus jab. Cat’s teeth are so small, the skin heals over the wound and seals in the infection.’

  ‘I think I’m up to date with tetanus.’

  ‘Any news on your missing friend?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  I can read the mixed emotions in her face: she’s charged by the sudden drama in her workmate’s life, but repelled by the unseemliness of physical violence. And then there’s the perplexing way her brain wants to link the two.

  A group of women with babies commandeers our largest table for most of the morning, creating an obstacle course of prams and buggies that could be the difference between life and death, preventing, as they do, access to the fire exit by the loos. Some of the babies are plump and cute, like babies should be, but some are like tiny men, their faces sharp, bursting to escape their mothers’ arms and start contradicting authority. I experience a sudden lurch, a memory of the first time I met Kit, his complaints about the mothers in St Mary’s – They’d rather you got hit by a bus! – in that wicked, laughing way he had when he was in a great mood, meeting new people and pouring all his energy into his own charisma.

  At least the mums order hot drinks and I’m grateful for the noise of the steamer, which I normally hate, that mechanical screaming that obliterates all human speech within range.

  But in the first interlude, Regan continues her inquisition. ‘How long has it been? Your friend, I mean.’ She begins sorting the recycling as we chat and I help in a desultory fashion, flattening cartons and picking out the non-recyclable crisp packets.

  ‘Almost a week.’

  ‘So how long before someone’s, you know, presumed dead?’

  ‘I don’t know. Years, I think.’

  ‘Years?’ She stops what she’s doing and raises her voice. ‘How are his family and friends supposed to live in limbo like that? Not knowing if he’s been viciously murdered?’ At this, a couple of the mums look up, frowning – as if their uncomprehending babies are going to be contaminated by our unsavoury conversation. ‘Do they have to keep his job open for him?’

  ‘I imagine so, legally, but between you and me I doubt he’s any great loss to the insurance sector. He thought he was doing them a favour just gracing them with his presence.’

  It feels good to be able to say something critical about Kit. Just because someone’s missing doesn’t mean they aren’t still a twat.

  I don’t say that to Regan, obviously.

  My phone buzzes. Dad has left a voicemail assuring me that he’s happy to accept a neighbour’s invitation on New Year’s Eve, before making a surprising admission: ‘I wondered, in France, about you and Clare. I hope you can work it out, she’s a great girl.’

  I imagine Clare hearing that and teasing him for calling her a girl. Making no secret of the fact that she’s pleased. I wonder if they’ll keep in touch after news of our separation circulates. How could he not side with her?

  Regan misreads my melancholy expression as being related to the mother-baby tableau in front of us. ‘I bet it puts things in perspective, doesn’t it, this business with your friend? Makes you reassess. Did you ever want kids, years ago? You and your partner?’

  She makes it sound like a geriatric’s long-distant dilemma. I haven’t told her I’ve split up with Clare and I agonize for a few moments over whether it could cast doubt on my character if I’m later found to have deliberately misled her. I tell myself not to overthink this stuff. ‘No. Way too scary.’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ she agrees. ‘It’s totally the most terrifying thing I can imagine.’

  I manage a blissful thirty seconds deluding myself that cuddling an infant while chatting over the top of its head with another adult is indeed the most terrifying thing I can imagine, but then I remember DC Merchison on my doorstep that morning, all too determined to step over the threshold and find a way to prove his gut instinct that I’m not to be trusted. That I’m telling him everything except what might actually be useful.

  *

  Even though Regan sends me home early, there being so little business after the mums’ group, by the time I board the boat home it’s already dark as midnight. The bar staff are offering complimentary slices of chocolate log and cleaning up in tips. Festive songs play: Good tidings we bring . . . which makes me think of Melia of course. I imagine myself arriving at St Mary’s and walking up Royal Way, past my turning into Prospect Square and on to the high street towards Tiding Street, until I’m standing under her window like a stalker.

  But I know better than to succumb to that temptation. I bite into my cake, icing catching on my upper lip, and start chewing. It tastes stale. The boat is taking its time pulling away from the pier; the river’s busy with evening tour boats. The song changes to ‘Let It Snow’.

  On the other side of the river, on Embankment, the traffic lights blaze red as far as the eye can see.

  *

  When I get home, Clare is already there and still in her work trouser suit, not the yoga gear she routinely changes into as soon as she’s through the door. In the living room, nibbles have been set on the coffee table, enticingly arranged on a lacquered platter, alongside a carafe of iced water and three glasses. I anticipate a request to make myself scarce.

  ‘Expecting guests?’

  ‘Piers’s contact is coming round to talk to us. Kelvin, he’s called.’ She speaks to me as I’ve heard her speak to the cleaner and other helpers. Scrupulously democratic, emotionally remote, but preferable to the angry contempt that is, in my case, the alternative.

  ‘You mean the investigator? That was quick.’

  ‘It was an express service. Anyway, how long can it take? They just sit at a laptop, don’t they?’

  Cracking passcod
es. Breaking the law. Stealing data like a prowler steals jewellery and cash. As I collect a non-alcoholic lager from the fridge and take my seat at this most peculiar of conferences, I feel the wings of foreboding flap in my gut, as if the next couple of hours could alter my destiny.

  ‘By the way,’ she says, ‘I rang Kit’s office today.’

  ‘Really?’ I remember my own query to Merchison about Kit’s colleagues, his swift shutting-down. ‘Should we be doing that?’

  ‘I don’t see why not. I said I was a family friend.’

  ‘What did they say?’

  ‘They said he’s on leave. Very diplomatic. I guess it’s easy enough to cover it up at this time of year, when they’ve only got a skeleton staff anyway.’ At the sound of the doorbell, she jumps to her feet. ‘That’ll be Kelvin.’

  I’d pictured a whizz kid barely out of school, but he is fortyish, stout of body and thin on top. He presents his findings with a cheerful bedside manner, as if he’s a financial advisor reviewing our pension provision. But Clare and I are quickly transfixed by the unequivocally dire, chaotically entwined arrangements of Kit and Melia: student loans, and many other types of loan taken out since, all with iniquitous interest rates; defaults on credit card payments; rent arrears on Tiding Street, plus three months unpaid on the flat before that is still being sought by the landlord; unauthorized overdrafts with excessive charges. Extensions on some of the loans and reductions in payments have been only temporary reprieves and their salaries barely touch the sides of the money pit. Since I’ve lost regular contact with Melia, they’ve been given notice to vacate Tiding Street and warned that bailiffs will visit if the arrears are not met.

  ‘It’s obvious she can’t pay up and is going to be evicted,’ Clare says. ‘I hope she’s got somewhere to go.’

  ‘Legally, she has till the end of January,’ Kelvin says, ‘even if bailiffs take the furniture before then.’

  ‘She has friends,’ I say, thinking of Elodie and her 999 threat. It’s striking that we all speak on the assumption that Melia is, for the foreseeable future, a single woman.