“Hello?” says a woman with long brown curls that look like they’ve just been coiffed at an expensive salon. “Can I help you?” If she recognizes me, she doesn’t show it.
She looks about the same age as me but could well be ten years older, judging by her taut, wrinkle-free brow and feline features.
I clear my throat to speak. “Erm, hello, my name’s Naomi Chandler,” I say, watching her carefully. Her expression doesn’t change, though I don’t know whether it’s because it can’t or because the name means nothing to her.
“I’m looking for Michael Talbot,” I press on. “Does he live here?”
She smiles sweetly and holds the door open. “Yes, he’s expecting you, do come in.”
I’m taken aback and find myself floundering on the doorstep, wondering what my next move is. What if this woman is the one who has embarked on an elaborate plan to frame me? She must have thought all her Christmases had come at once when she saw me at the door, and now I’m about to walk straight into her trap. I imagine her husband in a soundproofed room in the basement, with just a few inches of concrete between us, and know that I have to go in to make absolutely sure that he isn’t. It’s only as I step over the threshold that I wonder if I might be about to join him.
I almost expect the woman to push me to the ground as soon as she shuts the door behind me, but she directs me into the “drawing room on the left” and tells me Michael will be down shortly.
All my senses are on high alert, looking and listening for anything out of the ordinary. I scan the console tables for photos, but the room is too elegant for anything personal to be on show. Instead, the floor-to-ceiling bookcases are filled with tomes I can’t pronounce, let alone recognize, and the two overstuffed sofas facing each other don’t look like they’ve been sat on in years.
There’s mumbled talking from upstairs, but I can’t quite hear what’s being said, or more importantly a voice that I recognize.
What am I going to do if Michael, who I know as Jacob, walks through that door? I’m filled with panic that I may be breaching his confidence, consumed by the thought that I’ve got this all wrong. Were the police really looking for him? Was I honestly the prime suspect in his disappearance? It sounds so preposterous that in that moment, I wonder if I’ve made it all up.
As I hear a male voice getting nearer, I’m unable to separate fact from fiction in my head.
“Hello, sorry to keep you,” says a distinguished-looking gentleman who I don’t recognize. “Michael Talbot, pleased to meet you.”
A rush of relief floods through me as he shakes my hand and offers me a seat on one of the high cushions.
“Erm,” I say, not having anticipated how to handle this eventuality.
“May I start off by saying that I love the work that you do,” he says, smiling kindly. “And my wife and I are very keen to get involved.”
I’m not sure that I could feel any more wretched than I do now. “I’m sorry,” I say, because it’s all that I have to offer. “I think there’s been a misunderstanding.”
“Oh?” he says, taken aback. “But I thought—”
I throw my bag over my shoulder and bolt for the front door, leaving him no doubt open-mouthed in my wake. I only feel mildly appeased by the young woman walking down the street toward me with a Young People Matter brochure tucked under her arm. I sincerely hope she’s who Michael was really expecting.
21
As soon as I’m back in the safety of my car, I look at my phone to see that the same number has called me three times in quick succession and left a message. I’m shaking as I hold the phone to my ear to hear Detective Robson’s voice booming from my voicemail.
“Hello, Mrs. Chandler, there have been some new developments in the case and we’re outside your house now. Could you please give me a call as soon as you get this?”
The thought of her being at the house when I’m not there sends me into a blind panic, even though I’ve got nothing to hide; even less now that Leon knows what they know. Yet it still feels as if I’m a mouse with a cat clawing at my tail, holding me still before releasing me again.
I go faster than I should on the A290, spurred on by the Foo Fighters at high volume and my dark thoughts. As I pull into the gates of Tattenhall, I doubt the police will still be there, but as the cottage comes into view I see Robson leaning against her car in the driveway. The look on her face, when she sees me approach, is one of smug superiority.
“Naomi Chandler,” she says, as I open my car door. “We have a warrant to search your property.”
“I’m sorry?” I say, my brain scrambling to understand what she’s saying. “What do you mean?”
“We have a warrant to search your property in connection with the disappearance of Michael Talbot.”
I feel like I’m stuck in a low-budget police drama and I almost want to laugh.
“What are you honestly expecting to find?” I ask.
“Our investigation is ongoing,” says Robson, studying me carefully. “But we have reason to believe that serious harm has come to Mr. Talbot.”
“And you think you’re going to find evidence that I’ve got something to do with that?”
“I don’t know, Mrs. Chandler. Will we?” She cocks one eyebrow.
“You’re wasting your time,” I say in answer.
“Well, I’ll be the judge of that,” she says, moving me aside at my own front door.
I numbly fall back onto the porch, wishing I could melt into the wall, as two, three, four plainclothes officers make their way into the house, the last giving me an apologetic tight smile.
I swallow my pride, forcing myself to believe that the truth will out. If I don’t, I may as well ask them to handcuff me now because they seem pretty set on me knowing more than I’m letting on. They wouldn’t be wrong though, would they? It takes all my willpower not to bang my head against the wall. How could I have been so stupid? Why didn’t I just tell them the truth in the very beginning? It had seemed insurmountable then, but not half as much as it does now.
I walk in, looking at the home I love being ransacked by strangers. It doesn’t feel any different from how I’d imagine it would feel if they were burglars looking for valuables. It’s just that the valuables the police are hoping to find don’t exist.
“Is this the only computer in the property?” calls out Robson, from the dining room.
“My husband Leon has his own system set up in the spare bedroom,” I say wearily.
“And where is Mr. Chandler right now?” asks Robson.
“At work,” I say, hoping that suffices, because I really do not want to be answering questions about his whereabouts and the current state of our marriage.
I pull myself up, swallowing down the threat of tears as I wonder how we’ve all but fallen apart in such a short space of time.
But then I wonder if I should really be that surprised. It was always going to happen at some point; in fact, my subconscious has probably spent the seventeen years since we first met waiting for it.
If I’m honest with myself, it’s what I’ve done with every relationship I’ve ever had. Certainly before Leon, I would almost go out of my way to destroy it before it had the chance to destroy me. That way, I felt I had some control over the way people treated me, but in reality, it was my defense mechanism kicking in.
It’s still a great surprise to me that Leon had somehow slipped through the net, especially when he’d come so close to being caught up in it. Because despite his concerted efforts to woo me in the reading room of the New York Public Library with the promise of coffee and bagels, he wasn’t quite so convincing when I’d spotted him in Central Park with his arm around another woman.
We weren’t dating, but the man I’d shared my thesis woes with had certainly not shared the fact that he was with someone else. I’d avoided the library for weeks after that, unable to bear the thought of him waxing lyrical about how pretty my eyes were or asking when I was going to let him take me out.