Karl checked the clock on the bedside locker. Thirty minutes since the last time he looked. That was how he slept these nights, fitful snatches that never lasted beyond half an hour. Sweat trickled under his arms, ran down his spine. He had been dreaming about Constance, the images vivid as she was crowd-surfed at a rock concert. A tiny speck being passed above the heaving crowd, and Blasted Glass had been playing the hard, unforgiving rock they used to compose. He could still hear the music in his head when he left his bed and looked out the window. Two o’clock in the morning and the media had departed. Only Mr Shannon’s light shone from the upstairs window.
A sudden thought, still linked to his dream, struck him. He gripped the window ledge, his knees weakening. The latest Blasted Glass album – he had intended giving a copy of it to Constance. At his request, the band’s promoter had sent it to him and the members of the band had autographed it for her.
He hurried downstairs to the dining-room, which also served as his office when he worked from home. A temporary arrangement, he had believed when he began to convert the attic. Along with crockery and glasses, the mahogany sideboard was used to store general office supplies, and the numerous sample discs that came across his desk every week.
Karl had left the compact disc on the sideboard and had planned on asking Constance to review it. He hadn’t thought about it since. When did he bring it home? Was it the day before she disappeared or the same day? He switched on the dining-room light and immediately saw that it was missing. Maybe he had left it in one of the drawers. He rummaged through the discs, taking each one out and studying their covers. Could he have left it on his desk in the Hitz office or somewhere else in the house? No, he distinctly remembered putting it on the sideboard. Maybe Sasha or Nicole had moved it… He pressed his fist to his mouth. Was it possible Constance had entered his house that night? She would have expected him to be up late, watching television or listening to his stereo with his earphones on. Had she seen the disc and taken it with her? And, if so, how was he to explain that to the police – or to Justin and Jenna? He needed to talk to someone or he would go crazy.
Dominick Kelly’s cottage was easy to miss, obscured by overgrown foliage and a monkey puzzle tree that blocked any natural daylight from the front rooms. His friend’s jeep was parked in the driveway and a light shone from behind the drawn curtains in the living-room. Dominick didn’t answer until Karl rang for the third time. He was walking back down the driveway when the door opened. Barefoot and dressed in a singlet and boxers, Dominick was visible in the spill of light from the naked bulb in the hall.
‘What the fuck are you doing out at this hour?’ he demanded when he recognised Karl.
Karl knew Dominick had been drinking, even though he seemed sober, starkly so. The air in the living-room was rank, trapped between windows that Dominick never opened. He noticed a half-empty bottle of whiskey on the coffee table. Another smell permeated the cottage, a fungal odour that Karl recognised as dry rot. Timber crumbling into dust, like Dominick’s marriage, a bitter, acrimonious break-up. Too many unsociable hours and too much team socialising in the pub, Siobhan, his wife, had said when she demanded a divorce.
Dominick had lived with him and Nicole for a month before moving into the cottage, drinking too much whiskey and complaining bitterly about a wife who was unable to appreciate the stress of entering a burning building. Not knowing what would be found within the flames. Not knowing when a ceiling could collapse or an explosion start a conflagration. They were relieved when he left, tired of listening to him bemoaning all he had lost while doing nothing to reclaim it.
This time, Dominick became the listener. He scratched absent-mindedly at a mass of black chest hair poking from his singlet, his expression grim.
‘That bitch journalist is doing a hatchet job on you, all right.’ He slapped a heavy hand on his friend’s shoulder. ‘Controversial editor, that’s a term she’s far too fond of using.’ He knocked back his drink and raised the bottle. ‘Will you join me? You look like you could do with a stiff drink.’
‘No. I’ll stay with this.’ Karl held up the mug of tea he’d made when he entered the cottage. ‘Four days, Dominick. Where is she?’
‘She ran away because she was pissed off with her father. Justin was an uptight pain in the arse as a kid and he’s not much better now. Constance wouldn’t be the first kid to do a bunk when things got too tough with the parents.’
‘I know her. She wouldn’t put them through this.’
‘Is there any truth to the stuff they’re writing about her? That cult—’
‘It’s not a cult. It’s a gang of kids doing stupid things. Everything’s being distorted and now I’ve discovered—’
‘Cool down, cool down.’ Dominick leaned forward and laid his hand on Karl’s knees. ‘In my line of work I come across tragedy all too often. Even before I reach a fire, I have the sense of it. What’s to come, so to speak. All will be forgiven and forgotten when she’s home again. There’ll be a lot of coverage and speculation until she’s found. You need to avoid reading that crap or it will chew you up. Let your solicitor handle it.’
‘I don’t have a solicitor.’
Olga Nicholls had rung him after the press conference and told him she would be unable to represent him. A conflict of interest, she said, but refused to elaborate on what that meant.
‘Then, my friend, I’d advise you to get another solicitor and do it fast before things get out of control,’ said Dominick.
‘You don’t think I’ve anything to do with her disappearance?’
‘Course not.’ His eyes slid away from Karl and in that shift, that sideways, speculative glance, the atmosphere between them changed. He suspects me, Karl thought, suddenly breathless from the stuffiness in the room. To discuss the missing disc would only add to that suspicion.
Dominick stood up abruptly. The whiskey bottle wobbled when his knee banged against the coffee table. ‘Whoa!’ He grabbed the bottle before it fell and steadied it. ‘Listen, it’s late and I’m wasted. You need to get some sleep.’
‘I can’t sleep.’
‘I’ll give you something.’ He left the room and came back a few moments later with a sheet of tablets. ‘Take one of those when you go home. You’ll feel better in the morning, more clear-headed and able to cope.’