‘You know damn well! All those stupid Russian dolls, all those emails. Why make me think that Layla was back? Do you realise what it’s been like for me? How could you be so cruel?’
‘Whoa, buddy, I think you need to calm down. First of all, I don’t know anything about emails and secondly, the only Russian dolls I have any knowledge of is the one I found and the ones you told me about.’ He stops and I hear a woman’s voice in the background. ‘Hold on,’ he says, ‘I’m going to pass you to Ruby. Maybe she can work out what you’re on about.’
I feel as if I’ve been hit with a brick. Ruby?
Her voice comes down the line. ‘Hello, Finn.’ She sounds hesitant, wary. ‘Is everything alright?’
It takes me a while to answer, to get my thoughts in some sort of order.
‘No, not really,’ I say eventually. ‘Ellen’s gone missing and when I couldn’t get hold of Harry, I thought – well, I thought she might be with him.’
There’s a stunned silence. ‘Harry and Ellen? No, that just wouldn’t happen.’ In the background, I hear Harry groan. ‘But listen, Finn – when you say that Ellen’s missing, what do you mean? Since when?’
‘We had a row last night. I left for a bit and when I came back, she was gone.’
‘But she’ll be back, surely, once she’s cooled off? I mean, it’s only a question of hours. It’s not as if she’s been missing for days.’
‘I think she might be with Layla.’
‘Layla? So she’s turned up, then?’
‘Yes, I think so. Last night, she told me to go to the cottage in St Mary’s, so I went, but she wasn’t there. When I messaged her to see where she was, she told me she was at the house – here, in Simonsbridge. So I turned around and on the way back a message came in saying that I should have got rid of Ellen. And when I got back here, Ellen was gone.’
‘She didn’t leave a note or anything?’
‘No. But because of the message I got from Layla, I’m worried she might be in some kind of danger.’
She’s silent for a moment. ‘You don’t seriously think that Layla would harm Ellen, do you?’
‘I don’t know. I hope not. But Layla’s actions over the last few weeks suggest that she’s not exactly rational.’
‘I take it you haven’t told the police that Ellen is missing.’
‘No, I was going to give it a few more hours. Peggy’s missing too,’ I add.
‘Oh Finn,’ she says softly, because she understands how much of a blow that is to me.
‘It’s OK,’ I say. ‘I’m hoping she’s with Ellen. She won’t let Layla harm her.’ I hear Harry saying something to her in the background.
‘Harry says to tell you that we’ll leave in the next few hours and be with you tomorrow. We’re in the Bahamas so we can’t get there any quicker,’ she adds apologetically.
‘The Bahamas?’
‘Yes. We’ll check flights and get back to you.’
‘No, don’t come back, it’s fine.’
‘We should have told you,’ Ruby says, ‘but it was one of those weird things. When I told Harry – you know, when you brought him to the pub that time and he stayed behind for a drink – that I fancied a break somewhere exotic, he recommended the Bahamas and said that if I went, he’d join me. I didn’t think he would,’ she adds. ‘Yet here he is.’
‘So when are you due back?’
‘In three days.’
‘Well, hopefully Ellen will have turned up by then,’ I say, trying to inject my voice with a little light-heartedness.
‘Phone the police. Let us know if you have any news. And if you need to talk, you know where we are.’
I hang up. At least I know Ruby and Harry are there if I need them. I take a minute to work out how I feel about the two of them being together and realise that I’m fine with it. Then I remember Ellen and how she’s still missing.
I dial her number again, leave another message. As I put my phone back in my pocket my hand comes into contact with the little Russian doll I found on the landing. I take it out and examine it closely, wondering if it comes from the pile that Ellen threw down on the bed upstairs, the ones from my office. Maybe she’d had it in her hand and dropped it on the way out to the car. Not dropped it, put it there, because if she had dropped it, it wouldn’t have been standing upright. This doll had been placed as carefully as all the others I’d found. Did that mean that it was Layla who left it, not Ellen?
I go upstairs onto the landing. I had found it about halfway along, bang in the middle of the floor, equidistant from each wall. I crouch down and examine the wooden floorboards, not really knowing what I’m looking for. But there’s nothing, and disappointed, I get to my feet. I’m reading too much into it; it’s just a Russian doll. It’s still in my hand so I stoop and place it in the middle of the floor, more or less where I found it. Straightening up again, I look down at it. Why there? I ask it silently. Why were you standing there? I look up and down the corridor, up and down the walls, up at the ceiling. And see, directly above where the Russian doll is standing, the trapdoor to the attic.
FIFTY-FOUR
Finn
The hairs on the back of my neck, on my arms, stand on end. I haven’t been up to the attic since I first moved into the house when Harry asked me whether I’d mind if his friend, the owner, kept some of his things up there. As far as I’m concerned, it’s out of bounds and Ellen, to my knowledge, has never been up there. The weirdest thought comes to me – what if Layla has been hiding up there? It would take her closer than you think message to a whole new level. It would also explain how she’d been able to leave the Russian dolls so easily. I dismiss the idea almost at once. I’ve been wrong about many things today but to think that Layla could have been living in the attic without me and Ellen knowing is ridiculous. There’s always one of us around. Before, Ellen and I would take Peggy for a walk every afternoon, and be gone for at least an hour, but we hadn’t been doing that lately. One of us usually takes Peggy on our own, so there’s always someone here. Even though I spend a lot of time in my office, I could come in at any time. Unless Ellen had helped Layla hide. Maybe Layla turned up one day and begged Ellen to hide her. But why? And would Ellen really have hidden Layla in the attic without telling me?
There’s only one way to find out. I stretch up, push the trap door open with one hand, release the ladder that’s there and pull it down. I go up the first couple of rungs, testing it for my weight, then carry on up and into the loft. The roof is too low for me to stand upright so I stay hunched over, looking for the light switch. I flick it on and a dull gleam fills the attic.
I look around. Nothing seems out of place and there aren’t any signs of someone having lived up here, no mattress, no personal belongings, no remnants of food lying around. I walk over to the carefully labelled boxes stacked against the far wall and, using my mobile to throw a little more light over them, I check that none have been displaced. Everything seems in order; they don’t look as if they’ve been disturbed in all the years they’ve been up here. I turn to the wall on the right where a couple of chairs, an old writing desk and a chest of drawers are propped. I go over and take a closer look. They’re covered in a thick layer of dust, reminding me of the cottage in St Mary’s. In the writing desk I find a couple of old pens, and in one of the drawers, some old coins. But the others are empty.