by NC Marshall
Tom laughs again as she goes and shrugs his shoulders, “What can I say, you can't get the staff these days.”
“Don’t knock it,” I respond, “being a waitress is bloody hard work!”
“Oh, how do you know? Is that what you do now?” he asks, interested.
I nod, feeling a little embarrassed, though I’m not too sure why.
“I always thought you’d end up being an artist or a sculptor. If I remember rightly you were never away from the arts block at school. But then again, you were good in all subjects, you always were a bit of a swot,” he says, as our drinks arrive.
“Apart from maths,” I correct him. “Anyway, you can talk.” I reach over the table push him playfully on the arm. “If I remember rightly, you came out of secondary school with the highest set of grades it had seen in years.”
It was true. Tom had left high school with the highest grades available for all subjects in his final exams and set an all-time record for Sandbroke High. I remember thinking how unfair it was, that he was allowed to be so intelligent and have the level of popularity that he did too. Not only was being the most popular guy in school enough, but he also had the most beautiful girlfriend and he was the captain of the football team, which, of course, was at the top of its league. The cliché of the perfect catch that you see in all teenage chick flicks is alive and well, and is now sitting opposite me, drinking a bottle of Bud.
“How is Olivia?” I ask. The image of Tom’s simply stunning high school girlfriend now rooted firmly in my head—perfect hair, perfect teeth, perfect figure and ultimately loved by all. I envied her growing up; she was everything I wanted to be and possessed everything I wanted to have back then. “Does she still live in Sandbroke?”
“She certainly does. Married, with four kids now,” he adds, before taking a casual sip from his bottle. “She and Peter were married eight years ago.”
“You mean Peter Morley…”
“Yep, Pete, you remember him! My best friend back then. He still is now, actually. I was his best man at their wedding.”
I can't help but laugh out loud. Olivia used to dote on Tom, she followed him around like a sheep. They had still been together when I left Sandbroke, and I didn’t think she would have ever let him go. “Wow, how times change,” I announce, mockingly.
“Yes, they certainly do. Olivia and I were never really a good match. She and Pete are much better together.” There's a pause, then Tom’s eyes meet mine.
“So what about you, Emily Moore? Weren’t you madly in love with Jake Saunders?”
I keep calm. Maybe the vodka is starting to work its magic because my heart hasn't started pumping nearly as quickly as it usually does at the mention of Jake’s name.
I fiddle with the straw in my drink, unable to meet Tom’s forceful stare.
“No, we split up a couple of years into the relationship.”
“And then you moved to the North East?” I can see that Tom has put two and two together. It isn’t hard. I don’t try and deter him from working out my reason for leaving was Jake. I nod.
“And what about now?” he asks, his tone lowered. I detect a slight awkwardness to him that I’ve never seen before. “Are you seeing anyone?”
“No. No man in my life; carefree and single.” If only he knew. I drain what is left in my drink and Tom promptly calls Tia over to get us another round.
“I’m surprised that you've not settled down, though,” I say, when she leaves us again. Carefully maneuvering the conversation away from my non-existent love life.
“How do you mean?” he asks, sounding genuinely puzzled.
“Well, you had about fifty girls lining up back at school, you could have taken your pick.” I use my fingers to begin to count. “There was Polly, Rebecca, Jayne, Victoria…” I begin to ramble, rattling off a list the girls who had admitted to having a thing for Tom back in school, before he puts up a hand to stop me. “They would have all jumped at the chance to go out with you.”
Tom’s eyes finally meet mine. “What about you?”
I almost choke on an ice cube. “What do you mean?”
“Would you have said yes, if I’d asked you out back then? If I got there before Jake?” Tom cocks his head and smiles, that confident smile that has no worries, self-assured and bordering cocky.
I flush. Suddenly, I’m fifteen again, standing at my locker in the school corridor as he goes past, surrounded by flocks of friends and female admirers, not even turning to give me a second glance, blissfully unaware of my existence. I summon some courage, God knows where it comes from; perhaps the vodka. I’m almost thirty-five years old; I’m not a kid anymore. He doesn’t possess the same power he once had over me as a loved up teen. Or at least that’s what I’m telling myself at this moment in time.
“You know I would have said yes,” I say softly. “You didn’t even notice me.”
Tom leans closer to me across the table, but doesn’t get the chance to reply as a different waitress comes over to our table and hands Tom the phone.
“It’s Bill Collier, Tom, he wants to know something about the fresh seafood order you placed last week. Are you alright to talk to him?” she asks.
Bill Collier was a keen fisherman back when I lived here and was once a good friend of my dad’s. I presume he must have gone on to cast his nets further afield now and sell his daily catch as a profession.
“Yes, I’ll speak to him,” Tom answers, before turning to me. “Sorry, Em.”
“It's fine,” I reply.
Tom sighs and rises to his feet. Taking the phone from the waitress, he moves away, motioning to me that he will be two minutes. I smile back, thankful for the interruption, to cool down, pull myself back together and get my head out of the clouds.
When Tom returns almost fifteen minutes later, he quickly apologises, before grabbing his jacket and ushering me out of the door to head to our table reservation. Hopefully, he has forgotten the conversation we had just been having and I can be saved from any more humiliation. As he holds the door open for me and I step out onto the decking, he puts a hand on my shoulder and I spin to face him. He pushes my hair to one side and whispers something into my ear.
Even over the loudness of the crashing waves and the wind gushing around us, his message is clear and rings in my ears like a sweet melody fifteen years too late.
“Don’t ever think I didn’t notice you.”
*
After a night full of conversation and laughs, Tom walks me back to the cabin. I’d spent the most part of the night pretending to learn things about him that I already know. Although some things have changed as he’s grown older, a lot hasn’t. Back when Mark was dating my sister, he would be over at our house often. Mark talked about Tom a lot and it was clear to see that the two of them were close. I remember sitting at the dining table when I was fourteen as Mark chatted away to my parents over dinner, taking mental notes of Tom’s likes and dislikes; his favourite TV shows, his favourite band, the places he liked to hang out. I tried my best to like the same things he did in hope that maybe it would make him notice me. I bought the T-shirts of the bands he liked and even forced Ali and Jenna to visit the local skate park every weekend for a month, but it didn’t make him notice me, and I soon lost interest. After tonight, I realise I have more in common with him now than I ever did then, some might call it sods law. It was nice to relax and think about something other than Ali, even if it was only for a few short and admittedly selfish hours.
Tom leans against the doorframe to the cabin and I fumble in my handbag to fish out my key. The nervousness in my stomach that had vanished once in the restaurant has now returned threefold. He looks so calm, so casual and relaxed standing there. Then I realise that it’s more than likely he’s so calm is because he does this sort of thing all of the time, moving from one woman to the next then preying on his next victim. Dating was part of life to him, if that is what tonight was, a date. I’m not even sure anymore. Tom is sleek; he says the right
things and acts the correct way, wooing women is simply woven into his DNA.
I, on the other hand, am not accustomed to the dating game, and I’m sure if I was, the rules would have changed dramatically since the last proper relationship I was in. Alex was Lucy’s primary school teacher back when she was seven. He was a nice guy, but I had built my defenses up high and no amount of hard work, and dare I say love, would have brought them down back then. The relationship lasted eighteen months before I pushed Alex away completely. After that, my love life consisted of a few drunken one-night stands or some encounters that lasted a few weeks or a couple of months at the most, usually always based purely on sex. As soon as anything more serious started to emerge, I’d end it. It’s easier that way.
I manage to find the key in the dim light and open the door. I turn to face Tom as he closes the inches separating us. The heat from his body penetrates my skin, his aftershave floats enticingly on the sea breeze. He reaches down and touches the side of my cheek, bringing his face close to mine. I force myself to move away.
“Good night, Tom,” I say. “It was good catching up with you tonight.”
Tom nods, apparently taking the hint that he is not invited in, here is where the night will end. He pushes his weight off the door frame and leans back in to kiss me on the cheek. My knees weaken at his touch as his face lightly brushes mine once more. He pauses briefly, then he moves away.
“Goodnight, Emily.” I watch silently, as he walks off into the darkness.
Chapter 25
I’m only back in the cabin ten minutes when there’s a knock on the door. I hesitate before I open it, half expecting to see Tom. Frantically, I start to think up an excuse in my head for him not to come in. Do I really have one? He never did seem the type to take no for an answer. The same nervous feeling mixed with exhilaration that I had earlier this evening hits me. I smooth my hair and straighten my top, taking a deep breath. When I open the door, it’s Mark standing on the step in front of me. Wrong brother.
“Mark, hi, what are you doing here?” I ask, folding my arms across my chest as an unwanted disappointment hits me. I don’t tell him that he has just missed his brother leaving.
“I’ve got some news for you, Em. I thought you would want to hear it face-to-face.”
“Really, what news?”
“We’ve found Ali.”
My heart rate increases. I invite Mark in and he follows me, perching himself on the edge of the couch.
“Is she okay?” I rush over and sit next to him.
“She’s fine.”
Relief washes over me. I can't remember the last time I felt like this. Maybe it was the time I lost Lucy when she was seven years old on a busy Long Sands beach and she showed up unscathed with an ice cream in her hand twenty minutes later at the lifeguard hut. I snap my attention back to Mark. “Where was she?”
“She’s been in Somerset.”
“Somerset? What was she doing there?”
“On holiday. She’s been staying with a mutual friend of yours apparently, Jenna Stevens?”
My mind is working overtime “It was Jenna Cunningham when I knew her, but yes, she moved up to Bristol a while ago, must have relocated to Somerset,” I offer bemused.
Mark nods. “Apparently unbeknown to any of us, the two of them have recently been back in touch. We weren’t aware of that until now. Ali told us she went there to visit Jenna, said she needed to get away for a couple of weeks.”
I think back to Ali’s diary. She’d said she wanted to try and make contact with me and Jenna again. I didn’t think she would have acted on it as soon.
“When did you speak to her?” I ask.
“I didn’t. She called the station earlier when she saw an appeal for herself in an online local Sandbroke newspaper. She was more than a little confused when she called and spoke to Chrissy.”
“But, what about the e-mail she sent me saying she was in trouble…”
“We are still looking into that part. Seems her e-mail account was hacked a little while ago and she lost her phone a week or so before she left for Somerset. It was only a cheap pay-as-you-go model. She wasn’t bothered about modern technology, and nothing of any importance was stored on it, so she just replaced it with a new one, which explains why there was no answer when we tried contacting her. She didn’t realise her e-mails had been hacked until we told her about the one sent to you. She doesn't use the account anymore.”
I’m thoroughly confused.
“So, it was never really Ali who sent me the e-mail?”
“Nope.”
“What about the clothes you found deserted on the beach, the book with her name in it?” I continue.
“We asked Ali about that. Our fear was that someone had been in her house and still has access. Ali told us the items that were found, including the book, had been amongst a load she donated as part of a charity jumble sale for the hospital. They could have been purchased by anyone and left on the beach by anyone. Ali was never on the beach that day. She was in Somerset with Jenna by then.”
“What about her travelling there, though, how wasn’t it picked up by the police? Surely they checked CCTV at the train stations and the airports. ”
“She didn’t get the train or fly. Jenna picked her up on the way back from an overnight stay for a business conference nearby. She hasn’t been back to Cranley for a number of years. The only place she could remember was the beach club so she picked Ali up outside of there.”
“And nobody saw the two of them there, or Jenna’s car?”
“Seems not, but the area would have been deserted. It was before eight a.m. The beach club doesn’t open until ten; there was nobody around. She paid for everything while she was away in cash, as she usually does, which is why there was no activity to pick up on her cards or accounts either.”
I stare at Mark feeling bewildered. “I can't believe that she’s just been staying with Jenna all this time.” I slump back on the sofa and stare at him open mouthed.
Mark nods. “Me neither. Ali was totally unaware any of this was happening. She hasn’t had any link to Cranley or Sandbroke since she left for Jenna’s. No real need to for her to.”
I sit forward and cross my legs under me, my brain back to working overtime.
“Hold on, though, that still doesn’t explain the e-mail telling me she was in trouble or why her belongings seem like they were purposely left on the beach, someone still made it look like a disappearance,” I say. I don’t mention the messages and poster that I received too.
“The belongings could have just been a coincidence.” Mark doesn’t even remotely look like he believes his own words.
“Hell of a coincidence,” I retort.
“Ali was very well-known for a long time when she was acting, Em. She told Chrissy that occasionally some people still recognise her now. She had quite a big following a few years back. It was probably just some daft super fan playing games with us.”
“Why would a fan of hers send an e-mail to me, though? What part was I in it all?”
“I don’t think you were. You were probably just the first name they came to in her e-mail address book. They possibly wanted to make someone aware to get the ball rolling with an investigation.”
“But Mrs. Robertson was the one who reported it first, when Ali didn’t show up to walk her dog. Not me.”
“They wouldn’t have been aware that Mrs. Robertson had been in touch, so they reached out to you instead.”
“But Mrs. Robertson said she didn’t show up to walk the dog.”
“Mrs. Robertson was never really a reliable source. Ali told Chrissy that she carefully explained to Mrs. Robertson that she was going out of town for a couple of weeks so she wouldn’t be able to walk the dog, but the poor woman must have forgotten Ali telling her that.”
“I still don’t understand, why would a fan want to fake Ali going missing? To go to all of this trouble?”
“Maybe they wanted to give her some exposure,
to get her back in the spotlight like she once was. I’ve never understood how these people’s minds work.”
“No, me neither.”
“Ali said she had a few cases back when she was living in London; fans following her, personal belongings going missing. Her accounts have been hacked a couple of times in the past, too. I don’t think it's really that big a deal for her to be honest.”
I smile, feeling a little more convinced.
“Ali is safe and well that is the main thing,” says Mark.
“Yeah, you're right, it is.”
Mark stands up.
“Anyway, I have to get going. I just wanted to tell you the good news.”
Mark makes his way to the door before he spins back to me.
“Oh, before I forget, Chrissy gave me this to pass on to you.” He reaches into his pocket and hands me a business card with a mobile number written on the front. “Ali’s new number. She said to give her a call. It’s a shame you aren't sticking around to see her, but she knows you have to get home.”
I take the card from him and give him an agreeable smile. “I know, it is unfortunate. I would have liked to have seen her. But you're right, I do need to get back to Newcastle. I've been here longer than I should already.” I tuck the number in my pocket. “I’ll give her a call when she is back and settled.”
Mark smiles and opens his arms to give me a hug.
“Look after yourself, Mark,” I say.
“You too, Emily. Please say hi to Trish for me.”
“Will do.”
“Have a safe trip back home.”
“I will, thanks Mark. Take care.”
Once again, I’ve passed up on the opportunity to tell Mark about the communication I believed was from Ali and I really can't say why. In my head, I’m telling myself that it was all purely harmless, as Mark has just suggested, and that maybe this person only had Ali’s best interests at heart—they wanted nothing more than to get Ali back into the spotlight and restore her fame to what it once was. The text message and note must have all been sent to me by this yet-to-be-identified mystery fan of hers. Her phone was more than likely taken by this person, her e-mails hacked, the bag left on the beach and the photo delivered was all them too. Even the note tucked into the back of the framed picture in Ali’s bedroom must have all been part of their plan. I suppose it wouldn’t be too hard to do; if they followed Ali they could have easily slipped the note behind the frame. It had clearly been professionally printed, and more than likely framed for her too, maybe even delivered to her house, along with all the others on her bedroom wall. It could have been out of Ali’s possession for a number of days, if not longer. The note could have been there a while and she would have never even known it was there.