But awkwardness is a risk I’m going to have to take, as I can’t possibly drive away without seeing him and knowing he’s OK.
I clear my throat as I press the buzzer for Flat A. There’s a click as if someone has answered the intercom and then nothing. I push the door, wondering if the noise was the door being let off the latch, but it’s stuck fast. I wait a few seconds and try again. There’s that click again.
“Jacob?” I say. “Are you there?”
It sounds as if the line’s open, that someone is there but not responding.
I call his mobile again and walk around to the front window, pressing my ear up against the glass. It’s muffled, but there’s no mistaking the persistent ringtone of an incoming call. He’s definitely in there.
My finger presses down on the doorbell until it clicks again.
“I know you’re in there,” I say into the speaker, lowering my voice as a passerby looks my way. “Look, I’m sorry about what happened the other night, but surely we’ve got to be a bit grown-up about this?”
Although it’s a rhetorical question, I’d quite like a response. But there’s nothing except a loud silence.
“Why don’t you just open the door so we can talk?”
It occurs to me for the first time that this might not actually be a simple case of embarrassment and dented pride.
“Is she in there with you?” I ask, unable to stop myself from picturing him bound to a chair and gagged. “You’re going to need to come out,” I go on, sounding braver than I feel. “Because I’m not leaving until I see you.”
“I don’t think he’s in,” comes a voice as the door finally opens. A weary-looking woman stands there with a baby on her hip, jiggling him up and down. “But if you know where to find him, I’d appreciate you asking him to turn off the music that’s blaring from the back room on repeat—it’s keeping my baby awake.”
“Oh, right,” is all I’m able to offer, my head a fog of confusion, as I picture Vanessa conducting a Reservoir Dogs-style interrogation to “Stuck in the Middle with You.”
“Would you mind if I come in?” I say to the woman. “Just to make sure he’s not here.”
“Be my guest,” she says, opening the door a little wider. “If it goes on much longer, I’m going to have to call the landlord.”
“But I…” I say, confused, before remembering that Leon is the contact she’s likely to have. I wonder what he’d make of a complaint of loud music from a flat he thinks is empty.
Once I’m in the hall I knock on the door, and when there’s no movement from the other side I reach into my bag, feeling my way past the lip balm, hand sanitizer, receipts, and tampons, for the keys on a Canterbury Cathedral fob.
My stomach lurches as I silently slide the Yale key into the lock, my head fast-tracking forward to what I might find. Of all the broken pieces in this sorry state of affairs, it’s the neighbor’s reports of incessant loud music that’s spooked me the most.
As soon as I push the door slightly ajar, I can hear Alanis Morissette blaring out from down the hall. Her bitter words resound in my head as I tiptoe ever closer to the source, forcing myself not to look anywhere but straight ahead, to where the music’s coming from; Jacob’s bedroom.
The door’s closed and my heart is in my mouth as I grab hold of the handle, knowing this is my last chance to back out. But as much as I want to, how can I?
With trembling fingers, I turn the knob slowly, desperately trying to rid myself of the image of Jacob’s lifeless body hanging from the ceiling. Would he have done that to himself, before she had the chance to? Or might she have set it up so that it looked like he couldn’t live without her?
My chest heaves and I swallow the retch that pushes its way up my windpipe.
As soon as it’s off the latch, I throw the door open, forcing myself to acknowledge that whatever’s there, it isn’t going to be any easier to deal with in slow motion.
The music is deafening, but besides Alanis reminding me of the mess I left when I went away, there’s nothing to suggest that anything is amiss. The bed is neatly made, photos of Jacob’s children stand proudly on the nightstand, and a suit in dry-cleaning cellophane hangs on the wardrobe door.
“Alexa, turn the music off!”
The sudden silence makes me want to cry, as all the pent-up nerves and emotion rush to flood out of me. But I sink my teeth into my lip in an effort to hold it together.
I call Jacob’s mobile again and follow the sound to the front room, giving the bathroom and kitchen a cautionary glance as I pass by. There’s a pan on the stove and a bowl of pasta beside it, abandoned halfway through, it seems. I go in, lift the pan up to check that the gas isn’t on.
Jacob’s phone has stopped ringing, so I call it again before following its trail once more. It leads me to his jacket, slung casually over the back of a dining chair. The flashing screen lights up the blue lining and I reach in to reject the call.
Where the hell is he?
I slide the screen up, in the unlikely event that it will give me access without a password, but it immediately asks for the four-digit code.
“Who goes anywhere without their phone these days?” I ask aloud.
It’s then that I’m struck by the two fear-inducing options. The first being someone who doesn’t want to be found. The second: that they already have been.
10
I’d set my alarm for six thirty, ready to try to call Jacob again first thing, but it turns out that I didn’t need to be woken, as I never actually fell asleep.
I’d spent the night tossing and turning, going over everything Jacob had said and done in the lead-up to him disappearing off the radar. At one point, somewhere between four and five a.m., I’d tiptoed out of bed, careful not to wake Leon, and gone down to the garden office to retrieve Jacob’s file.
Taking it to my desk, I’d put the lamp on and pored over every scribble and nuanced doodle in the hope that something jumped out at me; a clue as to where he might be and who with.
Looking back on the notes from our first session, I’d asked him to tell me about a time in his life when he had been at his happiest. I often use it as the pathway to open up someone’s mind; to take them back to when they weren’t bogged down by the troubling thoughts and negative energy that had made them book an appointment to see me.
He’d told me about a week he’d spent at the beach in Whitstable, with his wife and three boys.
“When was this?” I’d asked.
“Just over ten years ago,” he’d said. “Before we bought a place here.”
“And what was so special about it that you’re able to take yourself right back there, all this time later?”
“It was the children’s summer holidays and we’d rented one of the fisherman’s cottages on the beach,” he’d mused. “The kids just loved being by the sea, and on that particular day we’d taken them out on a boat to see the seals at Horse Sands. Our youngest loved animals and his face was so full of wonderment as he watched them sunbathing on the sand bar.”
Jacob had lost himself for a moment and when he came back, his eyes were shimmering with tears.
“It was a magical day,” he’d gone on, pulling himself up. “And when we got back to the cottage, the kids were in hysterics as I hosed them down by the back door, trying to get the sand and salt out of every crevice.”
He’d laughed heartily at the memory. “Though no matter how much you wash them, you’ll still be finding hidden grains a month later.”
I’d smiled, though was unable to relate to the trials and tribulations of parenthood.
“Anyway,” Jacob had said. “Once they were all clean, I got a fire going on the beach and the little one snuggled up to me as I read him a story.”
“It sounds idyllic,” I’d said.
“It was,” he said. “I couldn’t imagine being happier. I had everything I could possibly ask for; three beautiful sons, a gorgeous, loving wife who I loved more than anything, and a new job that I’d worked my whole career for.”
“So what changed?” I’d asked gently.