Can’t hear what he answers back, though.
He’s totally drowned out by the chime of midnight, by the crackle of fireworks and by the sound of celebrations breaking out all round us.
2.05 a.m.
Take ages, ages, an almost unbearable length of time, but finally others are all gone and it’s just me and Simon back at the house, alone.
I find him sitting by himself in the living room, finishing off dregs of a glass of whiskey. He smiles at me and pats the seat beside him for me to sit down.
I don’t faff around, just come straight to point.
‘You in the mood to talk?’ I ask him tentatively.
‘To you? Always.’
‘Look, I know tonight was a bit of an ordeal for you …’
An exasperated eye-roll here. ‘Tell me about it.’
‘But I have to ask. Whatever you were trying to tell me out at the bonfire earlier …’
‘Let me get you a drink,’ he interrupts me, but gently. ‘I think you might just need one for this.’
Oh Christ. Whatever’s coming must be bad, v., v. bad. I gird my loins and keep on pressing him.
‘I’m OK, thanks, just anxious to know what’s on your mind, that’s all. We’re all so worried about you. And if by any chance you’ve come across any new information that might help, then … well, you have to tell me. No matter what.’
‘Angie,’ he sighs deeply, looking over at me, red-eyed from deep exhaustion. ‘Did you ever wonder why I was as cut up as I was over having to cancel the whole skiing trip with Kitty?’
‘Of course I didn’t! You were out of your mind with worry, like the rest of us.’
‘No.’ He sighs deeply. ‘No, it was more than that. Far more. You see …’ He pauses to rub bloodshot eyes and my heart just goes out to him. ‘And for the moment at least, this is absolutely to go no further …’
‘You can trust me. You know that.’
I’m on the edge of my seat now, wanting to screech, ‘Just gimme the last sentence first!’
After another unbearable bout of staring moodily into the dying dregs of the fire, he turns back to me.
‘While we were away on holidays, I’d planned on asking Kitty to marry me.’
My jaw drops.
‘Even had it all worked out,’ he goes on, ‘right down to the finest detail, worse eejit me. We were flying to Austria, as you know …’
‘To Kitzbühel,’ I interrupt automatically.
‘Yeah,’ he nods. ‘But what Kitty didn’t know was that at the end of the holiday, I’d planned to tell her I’d a very special surprise for her and that she was just to trust me. Then I was going to drive her to Innsbruck, where I’d booked us two tickets on the Orient-Express to pick us up there and take us onto Paris. Overnight sleeper, the whole works … I’ve been saving up for it for months now. Knew she’d never in a million years go in for a big white wedding, so I thought I’d splash out on the proposal and make it something we’d both remember for the rest of our lives.’
I gasp a bit here. Kitty’s lifelong dream had always been to travel on the Orient-Express. ‘I’ll do it with my Lotto winnings,’ she used to giggle. ‘After I get this big hooter on my face sorted out first, that is.’
‘We were to have dinner on the train,’ he goes on, ‘then a champagne breakfast the following morning. And when we finally arrived in Paris, I’d booked for us to stay the night at the Crillon Hotel …’
The Crillon. Have heard of it all right. Poshest hotel in the whole city, apparently. Must have seen a hundred movies using it as a background and in each and every single one, it looks like a bleeding palace.
‘… Then later that night, I’d booked to take her to dinner in Maxim’s …’
Jeez, I have to hand it to him. No expense spared. How could she possibly refuse the guy, when he’d gone to so much bother?
‘There’s more,’ he smiles wryly at me. ‘There’s a live band at the restaurant and I’d even called ahead to tell them what I was secretly planning and to ask them to play her favourite song …’
‘“Bat Out of Hell” by Meat Loaf?’ I say, a bit stunned. (Kitty’s taste in music is best described as eclectic.)
‘No,’ he grins, ‘“Wonderful Tonight”, by Eric Clapton. OK, so maybe her second favourite song. And that’s when I was going to ask her. If everything had gone according to plan, she and I would be an engaged couple by now.’
Instincts clashing. Involuntarily, I find my hand clutching my throat, like a dowager duchess in a nineteen fifties black-and-white thriller. I want to say, ‘Oh my Gowd!’ in a loud, annoying voice, I want to hug him and congratulate him and crack open champagne and beg to be bridesmaid and say all the things I’d say if … well, if circumstances were different. If this was an occasion to celebrate.
But instead, I land back to reality with aching thud.
‘She’d have been over the moon, Simon,’ is all I can tell him, simply. ‘I know she would.’
The green eyes turn sharply away from the fire to focus firmly on me.
‘You do? Because I’m not so sure about that.’
‘Oh, come on! She was mad about you, you know that! You were her longest relationship in … in, like, for ever!’
But something in the way he’s staring at me cuts the words off in my throat.
‘You don’t understand. There’s more. A lot more.’
A long sigh, then he’s gone back to staring into the dying fire embers.
‘I was due to move in here after the holidays,’ he eventually says.
‘I know.’
‘And as you’ve seen for yourself, I’d carted over a lot of my stuff here beforehand, a few days before she disappeared. Just dumped it all, in bags and cardboard boxes into the spare room upstairs. I figured I’d get round to unpacking it all after the holiday.’
‘So?’
‘So, late last night, I couldn’t sleep. I was restless and found myself wandering around the house at about three in the morning, just looking for something, anything, that might shed a bit of light on all this.’
OK, the suspense is nearly killing me now. And I’m deeply regretting that I didn’t snap up his offer of a stiff drink earlier.
‘And I found myself searching through the spare room, just in case. At first I couldn’t find a thing, just all the bags and suitcases I’d left there myself, days before I last saw her. Then I remembered the ring I’d been planning to surprise her with. I’ve had so much else on my mind recently, I hadn’t given it as much as a thought.’
‘The engagement ring was here all this time?’
He nods.
‘I knew it was safe here. And it was buried deep in the carry-on bag I’d have been travelling with, so I was certain I wouldn’t go away without it. It was my grandmother’s, you see, and I thought … well, after Kitty vanished, I figured the least I could do was keep it somewhere a bit safer, rather than still wrapped in its box at the bottom of a small suitcase. But when I went to root it out …’ He breaks off here and I barrel over him.
‘Don’t stop! Keep on talking!’
My bum is clenched tight with worry now.
‘… I discovered that the wrapping around the ring box had already been opened, then carefully resealed again.’
‘What? You’re sure?’
‘Certain. The ring box had even been put back into its wrapping wrong side up.’
‘You mean … you think Kitty found it?’
‘That’s exactly what I think, yes. Just think about it: it would have been the easiest thing in the world to happen. Some night when she was here on her own, she might have started to unpack some of my things and accidentally stumbled on it. Or she could have been rummaging round the spare room for stuff of her own and somehow come across it that way.’
Like a scene from a movie, I can actually see it play out in my mind’s eye. Kitty has a v. inquisitive nature and I’m certain that if she were to find a ring box buried deep under a pile of Simon’s cloth
es, no power on earth would stop her from opening it up to have a right, good gander at it. Be the very same myself. Couldn’t sleep under same roof as something as huge as that without knowing exactly what it was.
‘But she’d have been thrilled, Simon! I know she would!’
He looks at me for a long time, my face urgently trying to read his.
‘You do? You absolutely certain of that? Wish I could be.’
‘So what are you thinking?’
He hesitates. ‘Angie, you and Kitty often laugh and say that before I met her, she was famous for just taking off the minute she sensed a guy was getting any way serious on her. If she was getting cold feet at all, she’d just up sticks and run.’
‘Yeah, but that all changed when we met you! She’s been with you for well over eighteen months now, for God’s sake, her longest relationship ever, and I should know!’
‘Well, maybe she didn’t change as much as I’d like to think. The police are constantly at us trying to unearth some reason as to why she’d take off like she has, and maybe this is it.’
‘So you think …’
‘That she accidentally stumbled across the ring, instantly knew I was planning to propose on holiday and just couldn’t hack it. So she reverted back to type and bolted.’
Chapter Six
New Year’s Day, 4.15 a.m.
I’ve stayed the night in Kitty’s. Couldn’t bring myself to leave Simon, the state he was in. He v. gallantly offered me Kitty’s bed while he said he’d sleep in the spare room, but I swear I could hear him up and about for most of the night, moving round and pacing restlessly. Don’t blame him; I couldn’t nod off myself either. Instead I’m just lying here in Kitty’s bed, surrounded by Kitty’s books and photos, bone-knackered and staring at Kitty’s ceiling, thinking, where in hell are you right now? And have you the first clue what you’re putting us all through?
If you saw me, you’d swear I was some kind of deranged, certifiable nut-job trying to reach out and contact her telepathically.
(Though not the worst idea, now it comes to me. Suggest to police that we hire a professional psychic? No, maybe not …)
5.45 a.m
Eventually manage to drift into fretful sleep, but then have the most vivid dream that it was Kitty and Simon’s wedding day, I was chief bridesmaid in an arse-covering dress about as far removed from Pippa Middleton’s as you can get, and just as we were all about to leave for the church, she vanished. And muggins here not only had to break the bad news to Simon, but then had to address a packed church and tell them the bride was probably halfway to South America by now. But that I was absolutely certain they could get refunds on all the lovely stuff they’d bought as wedding presents from IKEA, B&Q, etc.
Bit like in Runaway Bride, except this was most definitely not a romantic comedy.
6.05 a.m.
No convincing Simon about Kitty not having done a runner; he just won’t hear it. I tried my level best last night; tried and failed. The guy’s totally torn apart. He even produced the engagement ring to show me, like it was evidence in a murder trial. And I could quite clearly see for myself that the elegant silver wrapping around it had been opened and then carefully resealed. You could tell by way the Sellotape didn’t quite stick right, where she must have replaced it.
The pair of us pored over it for ages last night, examining it like we worked in a forensics lab.
And the ring’s absolutely stunning, by the way. A beautiful antique ruby, with two little diamonds, one mounted on either side. How any woman could have refused it, especially after the most romantic proposal known to man that he had all pre-planned, is totally beyond me.
Told Simon she’d have loved it. Sorry, correction, that she will love it.
6.06 a.m.
Simon’s properly up and about now. I can hear him going downstairs and pottering around, putting the kettle on, etc.
Can’t help thinking, not eight short days ago, this was the most confident, self-assured man I knew. The type of guy so brimming with positive energy and confidence, that if NASA were ever to announce they were looking for an inexperienced volunteer to fly the space shuttle, he’d be the first waving his hand in the air, saying, ‘Yeah, no problem, I’m your guy! Sure, how hard can it be?’
But last night he was like a vague shadow of that person; not eating, not sleeping, just trailing round looking like living dead and radiating worry.
Can’t describe how sorry I feel for him, how much I just want to hug him and mind him and tell him not to worry, that it’ll all be OK.
But then, I too have been the rejected sap in my time. All too easy to sympathise.
6.07 a.m.
My thoughts wander. I’ve never even come close either to getting proposed to (pause to snort incredulously here) or, God forbid, ever proposing to a man myself. Probably a v. good thing too; would doubtless be in the divorce courts by now, no question. But I can’t even begin to comprehend the utter pain and humiliation of laying not just my whole heart, but my whole future life on the line for another human being, then having it flung right back in my face. And without even having the decency to have a face-to-face chat, along the lines of, ‘You’re an amazing person, but marriage just isn’t what I’m looking for right now …’ etc.
But just running away like a coward instead?
Kitty wouldn’t do it, simple as. Couldn’t have. It DID NOT happen.
It’s unthinkable.
6.22 a.m.
Minging thing to say, but if Simon’s actually on the money about Kitty finding the engagement ring and bolting, then I honestly won’t be held responsible for what I’ll do to her when she decides to come back. In fact, the ice-cold fury I’m feeling towards her right now is giving me a whole new lease of life. If Simon’s right, then it was an utterly unforgivable thing to do to the guy, not to mention to the rest of us eejits. Like subliminally telling him, ‘Now do you see? This is the measure of how much I don’t ever want to be with you!’
Notice I’m speaking about her in present tense now. V. good sign. Because if she has just taken off with herself, that proves one thing at least.
It means she’s safe and well. And, after all, isn’t that the answer to my prayers?
7.02 a.m.
Can hear Simon’s turned the TV on downstairs now. Kids’ movie, and by the sound of Michael Caine saying, ‘Bah, humbug!’ in a Cockney accent, I’m guessing The Muppet Christmas Carol.
Shag this, I can’t sleep anyway, might as well get up. I throw Kitty’s man-sized dressing gown over me and head down to living room, where he’s making coffee, white-faced and red-eyed. He offers me a mug and puts on some toast.
‘How are you doing?’ I ask, a bit pointlessly. Sure you only have to look at the guy to see the answer.
‘It’s a brand-new year,’ he says. ‘And already I hate it.’
7.15 a.m.
Simon thinks it’s best if he and I go to see Kitty’s foster mum in the nursing home later on this morning. Says we really have to, there’s no choice. For one thing, he and Kitty should have been coming home from their holiday today and, of course, the two of them would have gone straight down to see her, so they’ll be expected.
And not only that, but with any luck, after a re-enactment of Kitty’s last known movements is broadcast on the Crimewatch TV show this week, this story will hit the news in a v. big way again; a second wave of publicity, as Crown puts it. Sure, coppers put out appeals to the public over Christmas, but all with zero per cent success. Mainly because it was the holidays and so people just weren’t reading the papers or watching the news as regularly as normal. According to coppers, tomorrow’s officially the best day to really ‘go public’ with the story; Christmas is properly over and people will generally start reading papers and listening to news again. I’m v. hopeful something will turn up or someone’s memory will be jogged sufficiently when they see this plastered all over the media. Because Kitty can’t have just vanished into thin air.
I
t’s just not possible. Not unless your name is Lord Lucan.
So we can’t take the risk of either Mrs K. or anyone in the nursing home chancing on seeing Kitty’s photo in the paper, then worrying themselves sick. It’s only fair to fill in everyone there beforehand, as best we can.
I’m absolutely dreading it, but deep down I know that Simon’s right. It’s a case of welcome to the wonderful world of got no choice.
7.46 a.m.
Sarah and I have been working closely with coppers for the last few days on the PR angle of this too, aiming for full, blanket coverage. Apart from news, newspaper reports and radio bulletins, we’re hoping to get people posting about this online and on social networks, the works.
Have to say, Sarah’s been a complete wonder throughout all this, like a mini tornado of efficiency. She’s doing all this to help out, in spite of the fact she’s up to her tonsils with work; the only time her family’s sandwich bars closed were Christmas Day, the day after and that was it. Seems there’s still massive demand for cheese toasties and soya lattes, with all the January sales in full swing. And if my phone rings anytime before eight in the morning, it’s almost guaranteed to be Sarah with some PR update.
Small wonder the girl isn’t running the country. Could do it with one hand tied behind her back, easy. She even asked me how I was doing for cash these days. (Broke, broke, broke.) Then unofficially told me that even though I didn’t get hired the last time I interviewed to work at one of the sandwich bars, she’d unofficially keep her ear to the ground in case any part-time work came up.
Bit nervous that my sister Madeline will wander in off the street and find me with a hairnet on buttering sliced pans, but I’m deeply grateful otherwise.
Need dosh so, so badly. The costs of the search by now are seriously starting to mount. (Posters, flyers, bribing local kids to go out and plaster them on every bus stop, train station and any kind of shop for miles round, etc.) So far, Simon has forked out for just about everything himself. Absolutely insisted.
Me and You Page 11