Come Back to Me

by Sara Foster

  He spent twenty minutes on this. There was nothing new.

  There was only one more thing to try. He picked up his phone and dialled the number, hoping he’d still got the right one.

  ‘Kelly, it’s Alex,’ he said when a female voice answered.

  ‘Alex? Alex! Bloody hell, mate, long time no see!’

  He immediately felt guilty that he was ringing her after all this time with a purpose other than one related to their old friendship. He asked her how she was and they chatted for a while, and he was just wondering how to ask the question when she said, ‘Do you want me to do another search on Amy?’

  He felt a surge of warmth for Kelly for making this so easy for him, as well as guilty that he hadn’t kept up contact. But it had been too painful, when he had returned from Australia on his own, to talk to joint friends from their carefree uni days about what had happened. Contact had drifted off until it became Christmas cards, if anything.

  ‘Can you?’ he asked.

  ‘Al, it’ll take me one sec. Hang on.’ There was a short pause, then, ‘Nothing new, I’m afraid. Still listed as missing. Hold on a sec, there’s a note on her file, though. Let me check it.’ Another pause, longer. ‘Jeez, Al, it seems there is something new on here, after all.’

  He listened to what Kelly had to say, his heart pounding harder with every word she uttered, clenching his fists as the old memories and the anger returned.

  ‘And Amy doesn’t know this?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know, Al, but we don’t often get missing persons ringing up asking after themselves.’

  ‘Of course,’ he said, feeling stupid.

  ‘It’s all over the Australian news,’ Kelly continued. ‘Just look on the Net.’

  ‘Yes, but even if she’s seen it she might not realise it’s possibly connected to her,’ Alex said, thinking aloud.

  There was a pause on the line. ‘Al, has something happened? You know, if you’ve heard from her then we need to know. Her family will still be suffering.’

  ‘I haven’t,’ he told her quickly, hating himself for lying. ‘I was just reminded of her the other day, and I realised I haven’t called for a while, and felt a bit guilty, I guess. I still hope…’ He trailed off. He didn’t want to weave himself into a growing lie any more than he had to.

  ‘We all do, Al,’ Kelly said gently. ‘We all do.’

  As soon as he had hung up, Alex logged on to the web and began flicking through news articles with growing shock, printing out everything he could find. The need to locate Amy and tell her the news became more pressing with every article he read. Eventually his work head and his emotions had a gentleman’s handshake that he would concentrate for a couple of hours and get lots done, and then he would think about how to find her. Since it looked like Mark would rather actively hinder him than help, he would have to do it another way.

  Having made a short-term decision he began to get into his work. Before he knew it his stomach was growling, and a quick glance at the clock told him it was after eleven.

  He was leaning back in his chair, studying the design he was currently manipulating on screen, when he heard a noise outside. Footsteps. He glanced up at the long, thin, rectangular window, and saw a pair of scruffy suede boots, the kind with no heel and a thick woollen lining, pass by.

  He didn’t recognise the boots, but his heart did a bungee dive inside his ribcage as he understood for certain just who they belonged to.

  He jumped up and moved quickly to the window to get the best glimpse he could, even then doubting his own conclusion, wanting to double check. The boots were outside the front door, and he waited for the sound of the doorbell, but it didn’t come.

  He was holding his breath, watching this pair of feet, half-joyous, half-terrified that she had found him.

  And then the boots moved. Past the window, quickly, as though their owner had had serious second thoughts about where she was. And that movement catapulted him into action.

  ‘Fuck!’ he yelled, and rushed to the stairs, taking them two at a time, fumbling with the catch of the cellar door at the top, rounding the doorpost, down the long hallway, grabbing his keys off the hall table – every movement taking forever – and unlocking the front door. Even though it was still wet outside from the intermittent rain, he raced down the path in his T-shirt and slippers, feeling the water seeping through his flimsy footwear, but not caring. He ran into the road in a panic.

  They lived on a street of large terraced houses set back from the wide road, with old horse chestnut trees standing guard at periodic intervals either side. The paving stones were uneven, and most people had some kind of hedgerow built up at the front to discourage intruders or busybodies. Alex took all this in, all those places to hide, all those places she might be. Surely she was close. He looked around wildly for anything that might betray where she was, but it was quiet. He was about to shout her name, when he heard a woman’s voice.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  It was Esther, from the house opposite. On her way to collect her son from nursery. Wrapped up for the weather, in long coat and gloves, and doing a swift appraising top-to-toe of him, her face clouding with worry as she did so.

  Alex gulped back the cry in his throat, and ran his fingers through his hair, attempting to intimate some level of composure. But he couldn’t. ‘Did you see a woman, just now, in the street?’ he jabbered. ‘Wearing boots, suede boots?’

  He could see Esther trying not to look disturbed at this strange question. She and Chloe were quite friendly when they saw one another, and she was obviously mentally computing that he wasn’t referring to his wife.

  ‘I didn’t, I’m sorry,’ she said politely, but with a little more restraint in her voice. She looked unsure of him now. ‘Sorry, Alex,’ she said, moving to her car. ‘I’ve got to dash, Nathan will be waiting.’

  ‘No problem,’ he replied, trying to smile normally but feeling his face crease up oddly. Esther gave him a quick, tight smile back, confirming to him that he was looking more like a lunatic than a friendly neighbour, and got in the car, firing the engine quickly and waving without looking as she drove down the street.

  Once she was gone he took a few more glances left and right. Nothing.

  ‘FOR GOD’S SAKE,’ he bellowed, not giving a shit any more if the whole neighbourhood decided to watch. ‘COME OUT IF YOU’RE THERE. PLEASE!’

  Silence. The only things moving in the street were flimsy branches on the skeletal trees.

  She had been so close for a few moments, and now she was gone again, and for how long he didn’t know. Maybe forever.

  As he trudged back inside, frustration making his head throb, he heard his phone ringing downstairs. He reached it just in time to see ‘Chloe’ on the small screen, and was frozen in indecision until it went silent.

  21

  Chloe made her way hurriedly to Bar 38, thanking god that she was meeting her cousin for lunch. In her opinion Mikaela was capable of lightening the foulest mood, though not many of her relatives would have said the same. It was well known that, in the family, Mikaela could be found under any of the more downbeat euphemisms – she was everything from the problem middle child to the black sheep of the family to the skeleton in the closet – although they all had great trouble actually keeping her in the proverbial closet as Mikaela tended to spring out over and over again like a demented jack-in-the-box.

  At the doorway to the pub, her mobile rang. It was her mother, who barked, ‘Have you told him yet?’ and was outraged when Chloe said no. Chloe was sure this meant that Margaret had either phoned the entire gardening club already and was now waiting for her daughter to get her act together so Margaret wouldn’t look bad, or that she was suffering great pains in keeping the confidence. She was fervently wishing she hadn’t let her mother in on such a precious secret.

  When she had finished the call, she walked through the door and spotted Mikaela as her cousin rose with an excited wave and gestured to two goblet-sized wines alread
y waiting on the table. They made small talk for a while. Chloe was enjoying the ease of female company: seeing her friends seemed to have become a frustratingly rare thing since her mother had begun competing with her job for her spare time.

  ‘Okay, spill the beans,’ Mikaela said suddenly, startling Chloe from her reverie.

  ‘What? There are no beans.’

  ‘Of course there are. You look like you’ve got something you’re dying to tell me.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘The way you’re acting, like, all quiet and brooding. I know you of old, Chlo. Spit it out.’

  ‘Well,’ she hesitated for just a second, then to her chagrin found herself blurting, ‘I’m pregnant.’

  ‘What?’ Mikaela looked gobsmacked. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, really.’ Chloe attempted a feeble smile. It didn’t quite work.

  ‘So, you’ve got a great job, you’re happily married, and you’re having a baby. Is that why you’re looking so miserable?’ Mikaela put a hand on Chloe’s arm and stroked it softly. ‘C’mon, Chloe, aren’t you pleased?’

  Chloe was taken aback by the way her life had just been described to her, as though it were some textbook example of how to move steadily through adulthood. ‘Of course I am,’ she said, somewhat defensively, ‘it’s just… oh, god, it’s just I can’t believe I’m telling you before I’ve even told the father.’

  Mikaela’s grip tightened on her arm and she leaned forward. ‘Why? Who’s the father?’

  ‘What? Mikaela! It’s Alex, of course.’

  ‘Oh.’ Mikaela looked a bit disappointed. ‘Okay, why haven’t you told Alex?’

  ‘It’s… complicated.’ Chloe began to fill Mikaela in on the scene in the restaurant the week before, Julia there looking gorgeous, and Alex’s strange behaviour since.

  When she paused, Mikaela sat back looking thoughtful. ‘Hmmm. Well, it’s always the quiet ones.’

  Chloe was rapidly wishing she’d never started this. Mikaela was anything but reassuring. ‘What’s always the quiet ones?’ She sighed. ‘He isn’t having an affair, Mik. It’s just made me feel a bit weird, that’s all, and I wanted it to be… happy, when I told him about the baby, not strained. Besides, Alex isn’t quiet.’

  ‘What? Of course he is, Chloe. He’s not silent-quiet, but you couldn’t get much more reserved and brooding – in that mysterious, sexy way he’s got. Like, like… Mr Darcy!’

  Chloe was stunned. She’d never seen Alex as approaching anything Mr-Darcyish by nature. He wasn’t a chatterbox, but…

  How many people thought like this? She felt giddy, and put down her wineglass. How many people had an entirely different perspective of her own husband? And – most importantly – who the hell was right?

  ‘What do you think I should do?’ she asked.

  ‘You’re asking me…!’ Mikaela began. ‘Haven’t you noticed I never get past the third date?’

  ‘Well, perhaps you should wait longer before putting out,’ Chloe retorted, before biting her lip, but Mikaela just laughed. Then, seeing her cousin sitting there looking crestfallen, Mikaela rubbed her finger against her chin while she thought.

  Finally, she leaned in and said, ‘Don’t take it from him, hon. Demand to know what’s going on. And, for god’s sake, tell him you’re pregnant. Then he’ll have to treat you right – nothing like a bun in the oven to be able to add in some emotional blackmail.’

  ‘I don’t want to have to “blackmail” him to get him to do the right thing, Mik,’ Chloe snapped, then added, ‘but you’re right, we need to have it out.’ She sighed. ‘I just want things to get back to normal.’

  ‘I know you do, babe.’

  Chloe had had enough of this discussion; it was making everything seem worse. Her mind searched for a new topic to cause a diversion, and came up trumps. ‘Have you spoken to your mum yet?’ Mikaela and her family had been on difficult terms since Mikaela had discussed some of the wilder aspects of her sex life on a late-night television show.

  ‘Nope.’ Mikaela knocked back the last of her wine. ‘Waiting for her now.’

  ‘Mik, she doesn’t even know where you are.’

  ‘I know, I know. But I’ll leave it a while longer, I think.’

  ‘Mik -’

  Mikaela held up her hand. The devilish glint in her eyes was extinguished for a moment, and Chloe realised that her cousin looked tired.

  ‘Things can’t always go back, Chlo. However much you want them to. You have to work with where you are right now, and go forward. Wishing things could be what they once were just sends you dotty, believe you me.’

  ‘Do you wish you hadn’t done it?’ They both knew Chloe was referring to Mikaela’s five minutes of television fame.

  ‘Of course not!’ Mikaela lifted the carafe and poured herself some more wine. Then she looked up and raised her glass, and the mischievous glint was back in her eyes. ‘I just wish that it hadn’t been broadcast to the nation on a rare night that my family stayed up past ten!’

  Chloe couldn’t help but smile.

  Chloe made her way back to the office feeling much brighter after an hour with Mikaela. The freezing wind swirled around her, nipping her legs and biting her cheeks as she pulled her coat close. It was time to get out hats and gloves, something she put off as long as possible, knowing that it always seemed such a long time before she could put them away again. She hated the frozen winter months of slippery pavements and dirty splashes down her tights.

  As she walked through the office corridors, David Marchant approached her. One half of the two senior partners in the practice, David was usually the bad cop to Neil Lewis’s good cop as far as their employees were concerned, and Chloe immediately stiffened.

  ‘Neil and I would like a status meeting with you, please, Chloe,’ David said to her as he neared, looking at her from under bushy grey eyebrows. ‘We’re feeling out of touch with your caseloads, particularly your progress with the Abbott case. Get Jana to set something up with Marie.’

  ‘No problem, David,’ Chloe replied, hoping that was it. But David followed her towards her office.

  ‘Do you know where Mark Jameson is, Chloe?’ There was only one Mark in the office, yet David nearly always referred to him by his full name.

  ‘No.’ Chloe looked startled. ‘Why?’

  David grimaced and she swallowed a frustrated sigh at the ill-conceived insinuation that her relationship with Mark still went beyond office hours. Their involvement had been treated as an infidelity towards the firm. It had never been quite forgiven. Even though they had ended it long ago, and Chloe had since married, David Marchant regularly treated them both to looks of suspicion and distaste.

  ‘Well, he seems to have disappeared.’

  ‘Has he?’ Chloe had almost reached her own door as, surprised, she looked over to Mark’s office, which stood empty as if in silent agreement. She wondered, uncomfortably, how often the partners noticed these things.

  David Marchant raised an eyebrow and lowered his voice to a discreet hum. ‘Neil played squash with him last night and said he seemed quite out of sorts – apparently, for the past week he’s been letting Neil win far more easily than he usually does.’ Chloe thought she saw the briefest trace of a smile cross David’s lips, before he cleared his throat and added, ‘Chloe, if anything is going on that we should know about, then – this time – tell us, won’t you, and avoid another embarrassing episode.’

  He gave Chloe a curt nod, before striding off like a military general – casting glances left and right along the corridor as though checking his troops were all in order.

  Chloe watched him go. Then she turned to look back at Mark’s office. She thought over David’s words, grimacing at the ‘embarrassing episode’ comment. She thought he was referring to the Christmas law ball, but that was nearly ten bloody years ago, for god’s sake.

  She walked round to her desk, and sat down. It took her a moment to register the note waiting for her, and another moment to
read it. Then she gave a strangled cry, jumped up, grabbed her coat and bag and rushed out again, no longer caring whether David saw her go or not.

  22

  Mark was frustrated as he got out of the taxi. The barrister’s clerk on the Blythe case had been in his office and only too happy to witter on about next week’s court appearance.

  It took him a while to find the passageway, and once he was through it, he looked around, startled. It wasn’t what he had expected. He’d been thinking quaint, but these were grimy tenements arranged around a squalid, overgrown courtyard, with graffiti tags scrawled on the walls of the passage that led to them. He checked the crumpled paper in his hand, trying to ignore his befuddled brain, which was still puzzling over why he’d left work during the middle of the day to come here. There was a scruffy door, red paint flaking badly, with numbers 2 and 3 in brass on the front.

  He couldn’t find a doorbell, so he pushed gingerly against the smooth brass plate to one side, and felt the door swing open.

  There was a narrow staircase, and a door leading off to the right with number 3 on it. An empty McDonald’s wrapper and a discarded cigarette packet lay next to a shabby footmat. He debated for the thousandth time just what exactly he thought he was doing, then looked up the stairs, took a deep breath, and began to climb.

  At the top a doorway was positioned on the uppermost step. Before he could change his mind, Mark knocked.

  He heard a flurry of activity behind, which then fell silent. Anger and embarrassment suffused him. He shouldn’t have come. Nevertheless, he rapped smartly again, and waited.

  ‘Who is it?’ an unsteady voice called.

  ‘Mark,’ he shouted back.

  ‘Mark?’ There was more movement from inside. A bolt drawn back. A key turned. Then she was there, in front of him, like everything and nothing he’d imagined. Her hair was loose and tucked casually behind her ears, and she had a long black coat on, as though she were about to go out. ‘What are you doing here?’ she said. She looked worried.