I nuzzle her neck, about to agree, when my eyes fall on the family of Russian dolls standing on the side behind her.
‘I wish I could,’ I sigh, removing my arms and stepping away from her. ‘But I need to go back out to the office and prepare a couple of things for the meeting.’ Her face falls with disappointment. ‘I’ll try not to be too long,’ I promise, eyeing the Russian dolls balefully, wondering how it’s possible for them to emasculate me just by being there. Tomorrow, I tell myself, tomorrow I’ll know who wants me to think that Layla is alive.
TWENTY
Before
I told the police so many lies. I hadn’t wanted to use the toilet, we hadn’t been eating in the car, we had no rubbish to throw away. I didn’t tell you to lock the doors as I got out of the car, I didn’t promise to hurry and, after, I didn’t drive the car back up to the toilet block so that you wouldn’t have to walk all the way back in the dark.
Some things came back to me. I remembered that when I went into the toilet block, I passed a man coming out, that was never a lie. I remembered hearing the car drive off, the one that had been parked outside, and seeing the lorry drive down the slip road, those weren’t lies either. But I couldn’t recall those vital minutes before walking into the toilet block.
Under interrogation, I told the police that we’d been blissfully happy the whole time we were in Megève, I told them that I’d asked you to marry me and that you had accepted, because I needed to get them to stop looking at me as a suspect. Sometimes we lie for the greater good, don’t we? I wish that’s what you had done, I wish you hadn’t told me that you’d slept with someone else. If you hadn’t, we’d still be together, you’d be here with me right now. But it wasn’t a total lie. I had been going to ask you to marry me, on your birthday in April. It’s important that you know that.
I was allowed to make a phone call so I called Harry. I hadn’t seen or heard from him since the night I’d beaten him up seven months before. His calm ‘What’s up, buddy?’ reduced me to tears, because he automatically knew that if I was phoning in the middle of the night, it was because I needed him to get me out of a shit-load of trouble again. Within an hour I had a lawyer, within five Harry himself was with me.
I owe him so much.
TWENTY-ONE
Now
On my way to St Mary’s, I stop off at my bank in Exeter and access my safety deposit box to get the keys to the cottage. It’s hard opening the wooden casket because Layla’s jewellery is there and a thousand images rush through my mind, of her slipping the silver bracelet onto her wrist, of her arms around my neck when I gave her the gold watch, of the sudden glimpses I’d get of her earrings when she threw back her head in laughter. I close the box on my memories, and with the keys safely in my pocket, I leave the bank and drive to Sidmouth, where I sit with a pint and a sandwich in a café on the seafront, trying to calm myself. I check my mobile for any new emails, but there’s nothing from Rudolph Hill, so I take a look at the markets and when I see that the stocks I bought yesterday have plummeted, it seems like an omen.
I have no idea how the next few hours are going to play out. A lot depends on whether Rudolph Hill is waiting for me outside the house, or inside. If he’s outside, it means that he’s just some sick bastard who has never met Layla. If he’s inside, it means he has her keys, because there have only ever been two sets, mine and Layla’s – which means that Rudolph Hill is probably the person who took her from the car park that night. Or at least knows who did.
For the first time, it occurs to me that this could be about money. If Rudolph Hill is Layla’s kidnapper, maybe he knows I am wealthy, maybe Layla told him when he first took her that I would pay him if he let her go. But why wait twelve years, why not make his demand sooner? Nothing makes sense. Unless he kept her alive all this time and she really is with him. I chase the thought away, before hope can set in. But it comes straight back. What if he brings her to the cottage?
I close my eyes and see myself walking through the gate of the cottage at four o’clock, going into the house and seeing Layla standing there, looking just as beautiful as she did twelve years ago. I open my eyes and do a quick reality check. She wouldn’t, though, would she? Twelve years would have changed her, especially if she’s been kept prisoner. She probably wouldn’t look anything like I expect. And what would she think when she saw me? I look every one of my forty-one years. Although I still have my hair, I also have a beard, and my hair is streaked with grey at the sides, a legacy of her disappearance and my subsequent depression. And despite all the running, I’m a little heavier. I shake my head impatiently, because it’s a wasted exercise. Layla won’t be there. Rudolph Hill, whoever he is, is just using her as bait.
Checking the time, I finish my sandwich and leave for St Mary’s. When I arrive, I park outside the cottage. There isn’t anyone waiting for me in the road. I get out of the car; nobody comes out of the house. My feet are heavy as I open the gate and walk down the path, my heart hammering so hard I’m sure whoever is inside can hear it. Inside. So he has Layla’s keys. I feel such a rush of violence towards him that I hammer on the door with the full force of my fist, as if I’m driving it into his face. He doesn’t appear, so I take my keys from my pocket and look for the right one. It jams in the lock, but eventually it turns. I push the door open and, ducking my head automatically, step into the hall.
The smell of mustiness and neglect hits me straightaway. I’m assailed by so many memories that my legs are almost pulled out from under me – of Layla standing here in the hall, of her sitting on the stairs to pull her boots on, of her running down them and into my arms. I wait for the images to fade, listening for the sound of somebody’s presence, a movement from one of the rooms, a floorboard creaking upstairs. But there is only silence, and the dust of hopes never fulfilled, taunting me with what could have been, if only I’d acted differently.
The front door is still open and as I turn to close it, I notice a large pile of musty letters, leaflets and free newspapers pushed back against the wall behind it. Another couple of leaflets lie by themselves on the mat, newer, cleaner. Realising what it means, sweat prickles my spine. The only way the mail could have become squashed up against the wall is by somebody opening the front door wide enough to let themselves in. The leaflets on the mat have come in since, maybe earlier this morning. Which means that someone was here, might still be here.
I reach out and push open the door on my left, which leads to the kitchen. There are so many familiar things – the pottery mugs that hang from hooks beneath a rack where we stored our plates, the row of eggcups sitting on the window sill, the low armchair where Layla would sit curled up in front of the wood-burning stove. They are all there – but they are almost unrecognisable. Twelve years of dust has obliterated all colour from the room and the pervading air of neglect and abandonment shocks me to the core. I remember how I had wanted to keep everything as it was, in case Layla came back. But if she had, how would she have felt to see the cottage unloved and uncared for?