by M K Farrar
Across the other side of the office, she caught Ellen’s eye. Ellen’s head immediately went down, hiding behind a curtain of her blonde hair, but not quickly enough for Liv not to notice how pale she looked, with dark smudges hollowing her eyes. Had her friend only just come in? Stupidly, the thought she’d given Ellen her bug went through her mind, but then she had to remind herself that she’d not actually been sick, had she? Perhaps she had, and that was why she’d felt so awful. She’d put it down to a hangover, but she might have picked up something, but it hadn’t come into full force until later that night, after she’d already had a couple of drinks.
But Ellen’s eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot. She looked more like she’d been crying than anything else.
Liv slid out from behind her desk and went over to her friend. Ellen had taken a seat at her own computer but had the fingers of one hand pressed against her temple as though she was trying to hide her face.
“Hey, are you okay?” Liv asked in concern. “You don’t look so great.”
Ellen sniffed. “Thanks.”
“You know what I mean. What’s wrong?”
She plucked a tissue out from a box on her desk and rubbed it angrily across her nose. “Ryan and I had a massive fight. He says he doesn’t know if he wants to be with me anymore.”
“What!” She dropped to a crouch beside her friend and rubbed her back. “I’m sure he doesn’t mean it. People often say things like that in a middle of an argument. He probably just said it to hurt you.”
“Well, he did hurt me, and it wasn’t even said in an argument, though that came later. He was acting strange on Friday night, kind of distant and sniping at everything I said and did, and then when I woke up on Saturday morning, he was just sitting on the sofa, with his head down, and his elbows on his knees, and then blurted that he didn’t know if he wanted us to be together. He said he cared about me, but he wasn’t in love with me anymore.” Fresh tears fell down her face, her voice growing thick with emotion.
“Oh, Ellen. I’m so sorry. Why didn’t you call me?”
She looked up. “I did. Lots of times. You never answered.”
Guilt twanged her nerve endings. She’d been with Michael most of the weekend and hadn’t even thought to check her phone. But then she realised she’d set the alarm on her mobile phone last night in order to get up for work that morning, and she was sure she’d have noticed if there had been a whole heap of notifications of missed calls from Ellen.
“That’s weird. Hang on.”
She went back to her desk to retrieve her phone from her bag. There were definitely no notifications, but when she checked the call log, she could see all the missed calls from her friend.
“I’m so sorry, hon. There must be something wrong with my phone. It didn’t show me that you’d called.”
“You didn’t hear it ringing?”
“No, but I tend to keep it on silent anyway at the weekends. It’s bad enough having it ringing all week with work stuff.”
Ellen sniffed and nodded.
Liv rubbed her back again. “Try not to worry about Ryan. He loves you. I’m sure it’s just a blip. Maybe he’s frightened about how serious the two of you have become. Give him some space, and I’m sure he’ll realise he’s madly in love with you and can’t live without you.”
She blinked back tears. “I hope you’re right. I don’t know if I can live without him.”
“Hey, of course you can. Don’t say that! He’s just a man. There are plenty of others out there.”
“But I want that one.”
She started to cry again and Liv gave her a hug. She didn’t like to abandon her friend when she was so upset, but she was aware of the mounting work still building on her desk.
“I’d better get back to work. You going to be okay?”
“Yeah, thanks, Livvy.”
“Any time.”
Liv slid back to her desk and got to work trawling through the mountain of paperwork and emails. The time slipped by slowly, and she glanced up every now and then to check that Ellen was okay. Others in the office had noticed Ellen was upset, too, and made her cups of tea and dropped the occasional chocolate bar from the vending machine onto her desk.
A text message came through, and a call from a client, which she allowed to go through to answer phone. She checked the screen and saw the missed call notification come up. How strange nothing had shown up from Ellen that weekend. She felt bad that she’d been loved up and enjoying herself while her friend had been having her heart broken.
The morning finally reached lunchtime, and she and Ellen grabbed a sandwich together from a local deli, then sat outside, both nursing coffees and bottles of water.
“You didn’t tell me how your weekend went?” Ellen asked between nibbles of her sandwich. “Sorry, I was so caught up in my dramas. Were you feeling any better?”
Liv suppressed a smile, feeling bad for her happiness. “Yes, it was fine.”
“Just fine? You didn’t do anything exciting? What about the new guy?”
“Well, I might have bumped into him.”
“You did? That’s great! How were things?”
The smile broke out across her face, and her cheeks heated at the memories of the weekend. “He came back to mine.”
Ellen nudged an elbow into her side. “Oh, you dirty minx. You did it, didn’t you?”
“Maybe. Once, or twice, or possibly three times.”
Ellen gave a wan smile. “Lucky you. So when do I get to meet him properly?”
“Oh, I’m not sure we’re quite at the meeting friends part yet. It’s only been a week. It’s not like we’re serious.”
Her phone buzzed, and she picked it up. A text message from Michael. She opened the text and read it.
Missing you. X.
“That’s from him, isn’t it?” Ellen snatched at the phone.
Liv held the phone out of her reach then turned the screen to show her.
“Missing you?” Ellen lifted her eyebrows. “And you said you weren’t serious? That looks like it’s getting serious to me. So, when are you going to see him again?”
“This week. He said he’d call me. He has a lot on at work, and I’m busy, too, what with missing the end of last week. I shouldn’t even be sitting here talking to you. I’d planned to have lunch at my desk.”
“You’ve got to take a break. It’s literally the law.”
“I know. I just feel guilty.”
Ellen shrugged. “Don’t be. You couldn’t help being sick.”
Guilt swirled around her gut. She almost told Ellen the truth of what had happened, how she’d gone out with Michael and had got so drunk she’d blacked out, and then hadn’t been able to face work the next day. The words balanced on the tip of her tongue, on the verge of flying off. She also wanted to tell Ellen about Tony and the fruit basket, but she didn’t want to make things even weirder in the office. If Ellen knew, she’d be forever teasing Liv about it, and anytime Tony called her in to speak with her or came to her desk, Ellen would be pulling faces or miming things at her, trying to make her laugh.
It was easier to keep her mouth shut.
SHE FINISHED HER WORKDAY and left Ellen with promises of keeping her phone close by so she could call if she needed. Ellen hoped Ryan would be home after work, and that they’d be able to talk things through and figure out what was going on.
It was a beautiful spring evening, and Liv couldn’t bring herself to cram onto the Tube with thousands of other tourists. She also wasn’t in a rush to get home, knowing that when she did, her flatmate Tammy would also be there. Tammy was never in a good mood on a Monday. Liv had heard her come in late last night, which meant she’d spent most of Sunday partying, too, so she’d be in an even worse mood than normal today. The idea of going home only to tiptoe around Tammy on a comedown didn’t appeal.
Instead, she decided to walk and enjoy the sunshine. People sat outside at bars, drinking and laughing, while tourists stood taking selfies, and
businesspeople marched along, swearing at the tourists getting in their way.
Liv wasn’t in any rush.
She kept checking her phone, making sure she hadn’t missed any calls from Ellen. She hoped her friend was all right, and had made things up with Ryan. Ellen and Ryan had been together for as long as Liv had known them, and while Liv thought Ryan was a fairly ordinary, basic guy, Ellen loved him. She didn’t want to admit it to herself, but she was also checking in case Michael called, too. He’d already warned her that he was busy this week, but that didn’t stop her heart from hoping he’d find time to meet. She hadn’t connected with a man like him in some time, and though the prospect both terrified and elated her, she also started to think maybe it was time. She’d need to allow a man into her life at some point, and hope he’d accept her, warts and all. It was either that or she’d end up as a dried up old spinster with far too many cats, and she didn’t even particularly like cats.
To her surprise, she found herself near Hyde Park Corner. She hadn’t intended to come this way, but she’d been lost in thought, and her feet must have had other plans. The stands and stalls that were here over the weekend were still here, and Liv found herself slowing. Was she looking for the blonde again, the one she’d seen Michael arguing with? She hadn’t even realised it had been playing on her mind until she’d shown up here. But there was no sign of the other woman. She hesitated near the stall where she’d bumped into Michael on Saturday. Should she go and ask the people who worked there if a blonde woman helped them out at the weekends. She could only assume that was the situation, as the blonde wasn’t working there now. Even if she asked, what would she say? She’d look crazy if they did produce the woman and she asked Liv what she wanted. What could she say? Did she remember short-changing a man on Saturday? Liv would look as though she was trying to pick a fight, and the chances of her remembering one man out of the thousands who must pass through here every day was remote.
You want to know if there was more to it than he told you, a little voice spoke inside her head. You want to know if he was lying to you.
Liv shook the voice out of her head. She was being paranoid and ridiculous. And even if there was more to it, she didn’t have any hold over Michael. Maybe the blonde was an ex-girlfriend, but he just hadn’t wanted to tell her. It wasn’t as though she’d told him everything about her past yet—hell, she hadn’t told him anything, and there was a lot she might never tell him, so she wasn’t one to judge.
With her mind made up, Liv turned her back on the stalls and vowed to put the blonde out of her head.
Chapter Twelve
Three Weeks Earlier
“WHAT THE HELL WERE you playing at last night?”
Liv sat up in bed, her head foggy from sleep, wondering what was going on. Tammy stood over her bed, her face puce with anger, glaring down at her.
Her mind whirred, trying to put the pieces together of the last twenty-four hours and figure out what she’d done to make her flatmate so mad. She’d grabbed something to eat on her way home, and then had managed to sneak in without Tammy noticing she was home, and taken herself to bed. At no point had she done anything to upset Tamsin.
She sat up and pushed her hand through her mass of red curls to get it out of her face. “What are you talking about?”
Tammy’s glares didn’t subside. “You left the front door wide open.”
Liv frowned in confusion and shook her head. “No, I didn’t. It was locked when I went to sleep.”
Her flatmate jammed her hands on her hips. “You went out again. I heard you.”
“You’re imagining things.”
“And am I imagining the door being wide open when I got up this morning? Jesus, Olivia, it’s not as though we live in the safest of neighbourhoods. We’re two women alone. What if someone had come in and raped and murdered us both?”
Liv scrubbed her hand over her face. She felt just as tired as when she’d gone to bed. “No one raped and murdered us. We wouldn’t be having this conversation if they had.”
“That’s hardly the point!” Tammy declared.
“It’s exactly the point. No harm’s been done, and I don’t even think it was me. I went to bed, and it was fine. Maybe the latch is faulty or something.”
“What? And the wind blew it right open?” It was impossible to miss the sarcasm in her tone. The door to their flat led out onto a hallway with no outside doors or windows.
“I don’t know what happened. Maybe you left the door open. You can’t say for sure it was me.”
“There was no one else moving around the flat last night.”
She almost said, you don’t know that, perhaps you heard whoever left the door open, but managed to keep her mouth shut. It would only freak Tammy out more.
“Look,” she said with a sigh, “we’ll both have to be more careful in future, okay? Double check it when we come in and go out, to make sure it’s properly locked. I can’t say any more than that.”
This seemed to placate her flatmate—for the moment, anyway. “Fine. I’ve got to go to work.” And she turned and stormed from the room.
Liv resisted yelling, make sure you shut the door on the way out. Tamsin could be such a headache at times.
How strange for the door to be left open, though. She didn’t think she’d done it, but maybe she hadn’t shut it properly when she’d come in from work. She had been tired.
She reached down to the side of her bed for her phone. Ellen hadn’t tried to call her, so she hoped that meant she’d made things up with Ryan. Michael hadn’t called or texted either, but then she hadn’t expected him to.
Olivia hauled herself out of bed and completed her usual routine of shower, dress, and breakfast, and was soon on the Tube with thousands of strangers, all squashed together to do the commute to work.
Ellen wasn’t in yet, but Tony was. He’d been out of the office all of the previous day, and she couldn’t help feeling like he was avoiding her. She didn’t blame him. She’d have avoided him, too, if she’d had any choice about the matter, but she’d had to come to work.
She’d barely sat down at her desk and fired up her computer when movement came beside her. Her stomach lurched as she looked to find her boss standing there, hovering.
“Everything okay, Tony?” she asked tentatively.
“Ellen won’t be in today,” Tony told her, not quite meeting her eye, “so I’m going to need you to pick up on some of the work she’s got lined up.”
“Oh, of course. Sure. Is she sick?”
“Stomach bug. Most likely got the same thing you had.”
Her cheeks heated. “Of course. Poor thing.”
No mention was made of him coming to her flat, and she wasn’t going to be the one to bring it up. Out of nowhere, a flash of Tammy shouting at her about leaving the front door open jumped into her head. There was no chance someone else might have got access to the keys and let themselves in while she was sleeping, was there? Someone who was around her stuff all day, and who had already shown up at her place unannounced.
No, she had no reason to think Tony would do something like that. He’d only ever been kind to her, even if the others in the office thought he was a bit creepy. She didn’t think he was creepy, just a bit socially anxious, though she had to admit him showing up like that on Sunday evening had been weird.
Still, the squirming worm of anxiety was wriggling away at her guts now, and she was struggling to shake the feeling that something wasn’t quite right.
Back at her desk, she fired off a text to Ellen.
You okay? Let me know if I can do anything. X.
No reply came back, so she started on her work, going through emails and working through the pile of paperwork. She was struggling to concentrate, however, her mind jumping back to the open door.
Liv ate lunch at her desk to try to catch up, only using ten minutes while she wolfed down a sandwich to scroll through the apps on her phone, checking out social media. As she scrolled, a post ca
ught her eye. It had been shared by several people she knew as acquaintances.
Local missing woman, London area. Has anyone seen Holly Newie? Didn’t return home on Monday night. Police are increasingly concerned for her safety. Please share.
Olivia stared at the post, her heart in her throat. Was it her? The same blonde she’d seen Michael arguing with last Saturday? It was hard to tell. After all, she’d only managed to catch a glimpse of the other woman. Plenty of women had their hair dyed that same ash blonde at the moment, and for all she knew, it might even be different from the photograph posted here. But if she could convince herself of that, then why did her stomach churn so sickeningly, and her mouth run dry? Her hand was shaking as she held the phone, and she blew up the picture, trying to get a better look. The girl smiled out at a million strangers, completely unaware of what her future held.
Just because she was missing didn’t mean anything bad had happened to her, and it certainly didn’t mean Michael had anything to do with it. He had said he’d bought something from her at one of the stalls, and she’d short-changed him. That was no reason to harm someone.
Unless he’d been lying.
With a fresh sense of urgency, she read through the post again and tried to see any mention of a job. There was none, so she took to Google, trying to find out more about the girl. It didn’t take long to track her down. It seemed Holly Newie was a twenty-three year old post-graduate student. Maybe she did have a job working the stalls at the weekend as a way of paying for her degree, and so what Michael had said was the truth, or maybe this wasn’t the same girl she’d seen Michael arguing with at all, and she was just being paranoid.
She hesitated with her phone, wondering if she should come right out with it and ask him. She could say it in a ‘hey, this is weird’ kind of way, and hope he would dismiss her worries outright. But what if he didn’t? What if he took offence and thought she was accusing him of something, which she wasn’t, was she?