I step back, wrong-footed. ‘Sorry. Come in.’ He fills the hallway, as he always did. The flat was too small for him. He had filled every space in it. It’s much more suitable for a spinster like me. Sam peers into the sitting room as we pass on our way to the kitchen.
‘Wow, it looks really different.’ He hasn’t been into the flat since that time when I almost gave in to my loneliness and let him back in to my life. That was a good eighteen months ago, but I remember the way it felt: the longing, how much I wanted to let go. Since then, I’ve tried to make sure I only see him at handovers, which always happen at the door. On the odd occasion we have needed to meet to discuss something to do with Henry, it’s been on neutral ground.
‘Oh, I’m sorry, what did you expect?’ My voice is harsher than I’d intended. ‘That I’d keep it a shrine to you? Add a big photo of you over the fireplace?’
He looks stung. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean… it looks nice. Just different.’
In the kitchen Sam looks around, clearly trying to keep his expression neutral in the face of the dirty cups, unswept floor and general air of neglect.
‘It’s not normally like this,’ I mutter. ‘Not had a very good few days.’
‘It’s fine, Louise, don’t worry about it,’ he says, looking worried nonetheless.
‘Give me a minute, will you?’ I say.
I dive into the bathroom and brush my teeth, splash cold water on my face and have a cursory wash, trying not to think about why I am doing so. In the bedroom I take off the stained sweatshirt and pull on something that at least falls into the daywear category, reappearing in the kitchen feeling slightly more human.
‘Tea?’ I ask, gathering up used bowls and stained cutlery and hastily wiping down the kitchen worktop.
‘I’d rather have something stronger,’ he says, pushing a crumb-strewn plate to one side as he sits down at the kitchen table. I snatch up the plate and shove it along with the rest of the dirty crockery haphazardly into the dishwasher.
‘There’s wine in the fridge. Can you get it while I…’ I gesture to the dishwasher.
He stands up easily and gets the wine, reaching up to the top cupboard to get two glasses. He knows where everything is. I haven’t changed a thing in here since he left. He pours us both a glass and pushes mine towards me.
‘Sit down, Louise. Don’t clean up on my behalf.’
I give up, promising myself that when he’s gone I will throw off the lethargy that has settled on me since I saw Pete in Dulwich.
‘So now you’re in and you’ve got your drink, what are you doing here? Henry’s asleep.’ I sit down and take a gulp of wine. I’m not in the mood for games and it’s liberating to realise that I don’t care what he thinks of me, not in this moment.
‘I came to see you, not Henry. I wanted someone to talk to, I suppose. About Sophie and everything. It’s all so awful.’
He looks genuinely upset and I feel myself softening.
‘I know. It’s so hideous. Have you spoken to the police?’
‘Yes, they were trying to make something of the fact that Soph spent a lot of time talking to me and Matt. I mean, she was one of my best friends at school, of course I was speaking to her.’
‘Was she really? One of your best friends?’ When I think of my friends at school, I never consider any boys as part of that group. There were boys, of course, but in my sixteen-year-old head, boys couldn’t be friends. There was always a difference, an edge, whether you fancied them or not.
‘Not best friends maybe, but part of the gang. You know.’ I suppose I do. My feelings about that time, about Sophie, Sam, Maria, they’re so complicated. And now it’s all got mixed up with the Facebook request, and what’s happened to Sophie. I’m in a hall of mirrors, full of distorted reflections and false endings. I’ve lost track of which way I came in and I have no idea how to get out.
‘Did you… mention the Facebook thing? Maria?’
He looks uneasy. ‘No. I knew you didn’t want the police to know and… well…’
‘You got us the E,’ I finish the sentence for him.
He twiddles the stem of his wine glass.
‘It’s made me think, you know?’ he says.
‘About what?’
‘Oh, you know, the past. That kind of thing. You know what I mean?’
I raise my eyebrows, determined not to make this easy for him.
‘You and I, we’ve got all this history together. It makes things easy between us, doesn’t it?’
‘Does it?’ Things don’t feel very easy right now. The air is thick with the unsaid.
‘Oh, Lou. I know you’re still angry with me, and you have every right to be. I hurt you and I handled things badly. I am so sorry for that, I really am. But I hoped that maybe we could be friends. I thought… that you might need a friend at the moment, one who understands. Who knows what really happened. I know I do.’
He’s right, of course, that is what I desperately need. What I don’t need is to get entangled with him again, to allow him to weave himself back into the fabric of my life. But he’s the only one now who understands. He’s standing below me with his arms outstretched and it’s so tempting to let myself fall.
‘Have you heard any more from… whoever’s behind this page?’ he asks. I realise that he doesn’t know there have been more messages. I daren’t tell him about the one mentioning Henry. He’ll be furious with me for not telling him at the time. Instead I answer him with a question of my own.
‘Sam, do you think it’s possible… that Maria’s still alive?’ I am suddenly close to tears. ‘What if the request really is from her? She must have worked out that she’d been given something. Or someone else has.’
He takes my hand and despite myself, my fingers curl around his.
‘No, Louise. I don’t think it’s possible, honestly. Not after all this time. Whoever’s doing this is just some sicko trying to scare you.’
‘But Esther… she’s been getting presents from Maria on her birthday every year since she disappeared.’
‘What?’
‘She gets presents in the post, they say they’re from Maria.’
Sam frowns, and I can almost see the wheels in his mind turning, trying to process this information.
‘Sorry, who’s getting these presents?’
‘Esther Harcourt. From our year at school? I was talking to her quite a bit at the reunion?’
‘I don’t remember her.’ He shrugs, and that one little gesture encapsulates the tragedy of the teenage years: the difference between the haves and the have-nots. Of course he doesn’t remember Esther. She simply never crossed his radar, being neither attractive nor popular. I wouldn’t have crossed it either if it hadn’t been for my association with Sophie. I am overtaken by a desperate wish that I had never become friends with Sophie, that I had been brave and stuck with Esther. It’s my own cowardice, my own craven desire for acceptance, for popularity that has led me here.
‘It must be the same person who’s put up the Facebook page,’ he goes on. ‘Like I said, some sicko. Do the police know?’
‘I don’t know. I haven’t told them, but maybe Esther has. I know she went to the police when she first started getting them, but they weren’t interested.’
He sits back in his chair, releasing my hand.
‘Will you tell me what happens, next time you speak to the police?’ he says.