‘It’s fine,’ Alicia said, her eyes filling up. Only a truly special man would worry about her at all under the circumstances. ‘Are you all right?’
Topping up her glass, Jessica picked up her own phone and made a face at her, indicating she was off to make one of the many calls she preferred to do in private. Vaguely, Alicia wondered whether there might be a new man in her life. A man she was possibly avoiding bringing home, thanks to her sister moving in with baggage by the trunkful.
‘As all right as I can be,’ Justin answered. ‘I just wanted to check you were.’
Now Alicia was definitely taken aback. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Ish. Why?’
‘No specific reason. It’s just…’ Justin faltered. ‘The things I see when I’m out walking – homeless people, young people,’ he went on tiredly. ‘It gets to me sometimes, to be honest.’
Immediately empathising, Alicia’s stomach wrenched as she imagined how affected he must be, the things that must inevitably go through his mind. Witnessing such things in her job, they went through hers too, causing her to tear herself from the warm bed in which she lay sleeplessly every night. And then, for fear of waking Jess, she would end up standing silently, gazing uselessly out of the window, where the images would only be starker. Justin was in the thick of it. She doubted he would even bother to lie down at night half the time. ‘Do you want to talk?’ she asked him, tentatively, wondering whether there was anything specific troubling him.
Justin sighed. ‘No, not really. I think I just needed to hear a familiar voice,’ he said. And then went quiet.
Unable to bring himself to talk more, Alicia guessed, to someone he’d once trusted implicitly with his inner feelings and who’d so badly deceived him.
‘So, are you back at work?’ he asked her, changing the subject.
‘No.’ Alicia sighed, despairing of her apparent inadequacy on all fronts. ‘I tried, but I couldn’t handle it. The children…’ She left it there, guessing he would understand what she meant. ‘I’m keeping busy though. I’ve set up a Twitter account and a “Find Sophie” Facebook page. I thought it might be a good way for people to communicate anything that might help, any likely sightings. I also thought that if her friends wanted to message us privately for any reason…’ She trailed off, realising Justin would gather what she meant there, too.
‘Good idea,’ he said. And went quiet again.
Alicia waited, sensing there was something else he needed to say.
‘Can I ask you something?’ he asked, after what seemed like an eternity.
Alicia felt a prickle of apprehension run through her. ‘Yes, obviously.’
‘Radley,’ he said, causing Alicia’s insides to turn over. ‘You said he’d had no contact with Sophie, right?’
‘Yes,’ Alicia said quickly. ‘I mean, no. He hasn’t, as far as I’m aware. Why?’
Justin breathed in long and hard. ‘It seems he has.’
What? A million emotions assaulting her, Alicia felt her legs turn to rubber beneath her. ‘He’s spoken to her?’ she whispered. She had to see him. She headed for the hall. Went back for her keys. Why hadn’t he mentioned—
‘He rang her. Just once, according to Taylor,’ said Justin. ‘She’s staying with a friend. She didn’t say where.’
‘When?’ Alicia asked, feeling desperate. She needed to do… something.
‘Two days ago, apparently,’ Justin said. ‘Alicia… did you give him her number?’ He paused, giving her a few seconds as she tried to assimilate the information. ‘Did you give him Sophie’s number?’
‘No! I wouldn’t. Why would I have?’
Justin’s silence spoke volumes.
‘Justin, I didn’t. I swear to God, I didn’t,’ Alicia repeated, tears streaming down her cheeks, the phone clutched tight to her ear. ‘I don’t want him to have access to her. He must have got it from my phone, or from someone else. Please believe me,’ she begged.
‘I have to go,’ Justin said, over another tight intake of breath. ‘We should talk,’ he added.
‘About?’ Alicia asked fearfully.
‘Things,’ Justin replied vaguely. ‘At some point, I mean. Take care, Alicia.’
He signed off, leaving Alicia emotionally floundering. The ‘things’ he wanted to talk about were presumably to do with their marriage. At ‘some point’ soon, she would have to face the reality that they would have no future together.
Hesitating for a second, Alicia steeled herself and then rang Paul Radley’s number, only to get his voicemail. After trying again minutes later, she grabbed the wine from the fridge. It would do nothing to anaesthetise her beyond the first alcohol-induced hour of total oblivion, after which she would end up going over and over things, until her recollection was more clouded than ever. Yet she needed it – needed somehow to try to numb the pain.
Did Justin believe she hadn’t passed Sophie’s number on to Paul? Why would he? He would never be able to trust anything she said ever again.
Draining half a glass in one, she topped it up again.
Why hadn’t Paul Radley rung her?
Forty-Nine
JUSTIN
After fruitless hours ringing around Sophie’s friends again, hoping to find out the identity of the mysterious friend with whom Sophie might be staying, Justin headed to the hospital. He wouldn’t stay. There was no way to concentrate. He couldn’t possibly trust himself with people’s lives until he knew his daughter was safe. Whether he would still have a job then, Justin felt didn’t much matter without his family.
Picking up the results he’d come for, he went to the hospital restaurant, where he bought a coffee but didn’t drink it. A colleague spoke to him. He hardly heard her. Dragging his hands over his face, he sat motionless, staring out over the car park, watching people coming and going, attempting to digest this latest news, until his coffee went cold. Then, sucking in a long breath, he left, going straight from the hospital to room he was renting.
Weary with exhaustion, yet knowing sleep would elude him, he barely noticed the sparse furnishing as he dropped his keys onto the single chest of drawers. He’d stopped craving material things the day Sophie had disappeared and his marriage had disintegrated. Before that, when Luke had been cruelly snatched away from them, he’d begun to wonder how much one really needed in life. The fancy cars, flat-screen TVs, the latest in technology – they were just things, accumulated throughout a life. Stuff you couldn’t take with you when you ceased to exist. It was all meaningless without someone to share it with.
Justin didn’t miss those things. He didn’t need them. There was no point in living luxuriously any more. He wondered whether there would be any point in living at all if he didn’t find Sophie. Whatever the hell was going on with Radley, he knew Alicia felt the same: she was existing, rather than living, waiting and praying for news, for any shred of information that might lead them to her.
Refusing to entertain the thought that he might never find her; that she might choose never to contact him again, he pulled off his coat and dropped onto the bed. He should ring Alicia. He’d wanted to believe her – badly needed to – but how could he? How could he begin to believe anything she had to say when their whole life together had been a lie?
But would she really be carrying on with the charade if it was Radley she wanted to be with? Justin had considered that too, but had reached no conclusion. Part of him hated her for what she’d done, but part of him still loved her. It was pathetic, but there it was. He wanted to reach out to her. A couple of times he almost had, when he’d seen the tortured look in her eyes and felt her palpable pain, but he’d stopped himself. He couldn’t take any more hurt. There just wasn’t room inside him for any more.