It’s when I park in the garage and the door closes behind me that the apprehension starts to creep into my stomach once more. When I get into the house, I call out Olivia’s name but there’s no reply. I even shout for Dan, despite knowing he has a parents’ evening. The house is empty but it’s hard to forget walking in through the double doors and sensing that something wasn’t quite right.
I check the back door but there’s no glass on the floor this time. After that, I make a point of putting my work pass, car keys and house keys in the drawer of miscellaneous things. After closing the drawer, I reopen it to double-check they’re still there.
All is well.
Then the doorbell sounds.
I’m nervous at first, assuming it’s Frank back to start shouting again. There’s no Dan this time, and I can’t be lucky enough to have Jason walking past a second time – unless he really is stalking the house.
I edge towards the hall, wondering if I could get away with pretending there’s nobody in. The garage doors shield my car and there’s no reason to assume the house is occupied. I slip along the hallway wall until I’m close enough to the peephole.
It’s not Frank – it’s Mr Rawley from across the road. Mr Curtain-Twitcher. I open the door but not too far. Don’t want him to think there’s an open invitation.
We exchange a few niceties – the weather’s getting cold, his grandkids are growing fast, the usual – and then it’s on to business.
‘I was just making sure everything was all right after…’
He tails away but I’m not letting him off that easily. Whatever I say will be halfway around the town before I’ve closed the front door.
‘After what…?’ I reply.
‘After, um…’ he swirls a hand. ‘After this morning.’
‘This morning…?’
Even if I do say so myself, I’m doing an amazing job of appearing clueless.
‘The, erm, incident on your driveway…’
‘Ohhhhh, right… I didn’t know you’d noticed anything.’
He squirms awkwardly on the spot, which is perhaps a little harsh. I’m bad enough at living through other people but he’s in his seventies. If it wasn’t for the neighbourhood watch programme and a bit of day-to-day gossip, he’d not have much going. This will be his highlight of the month.
‘It was a bit a loud,’ he replies. ‘I was about to call the police.’ He hesitates and then jumps back in: ‘On your behalf, of course. Didn’t want things getting out of hand.’
‘No, you’re right. Thanks for keeping an eye out. Good job it didn’t come to that.’
‘Your man seemed very angry.’
‘He’s not my man but, well… yes. Sorry about the noise. I hope it didn’t wake you. If it’s any consolation, he did wake me.’
Mr Rawley says he’s up at half past five every morning – ‘have been since 1973’, he adds, without specifying what happened in the year that made him start getting up so early.
I put a hand on the door, signalling that the conversation might be over, when Mr Rawley takes a half-step forward: ‘So, um… who was he?’
Things are awkward now. I don’t particularly want everyone on the street gossiping about me and, more importantly, about Olivia. But I also don’t want to fall out with the bloke across the road. He’s a nice man, even if his life is a little empty.
Whenever I’m asked that clichéd survey question, ‘What’s your greatest fear?’ I always reply ‘spiders’, simply because it sounds good. In truth, I don’t particularly mind spiders, nor any creepy-crawlies. My greatest fear is what’s in front of me right now. It’s growing old and lonely. It’s being ill and having no one who cares. It’s waking up in the morning and not knowing what to do with myself.
‘My daughter’s boyfriend is missing,’ I reply. ‘That was his father. He’s upset about his son, obviously – and he was wondering if we knew anything.’
‘Oh… well that’s a turn-up.’
At first I think he says ‘turnip’ and it takes me a second or two to figure it out.
He continues: ‘Is there anything I can do?’
‘Probably not. Her boyfriend’s name is Tyler. The last place he was seen was on our road on Saturday night. Sometime around nine o’clock. He’s got longish black hair and is usually wearing a leather jacket.’
‘Oh… him. I’ve seen him around a few times with your Olivia.’
‘Did you see anything on Saturday?’
Mr Rawley pouts out a bottom lip and glances upwards. ‘I don’t think so… I can ask around some of the neighbours if you want. Perhaps help put up a few posters…?’
I wonder why I never thought of that. Olivia’s grown up in the digital age. Her first thought is always going to be social media and the internet – but knocking on a few doors on the street should have been the first thing to do.
‘That’s really kind of you,’ I say. ‘I think I’ll do that with Olivia, though.’
‘Of course. Is there anything else I can do?’
I’m about to say ‘no’ when another thing that should have been obvious occurs to me.
‘Someone broke a window at the back of our house on Tuesday,’ I reply. ‘It might have been nothing but I was wondering if you saw anyone hanging around…?’
Mr Rawley scratches his head, as if the movement of his fingers might nudge the grey cells along. ‘Tuesday,’ he mutters to himself. ‘Tuesday… Tuesday…’
‘It would have been between about midday and six.’
I’m half expecting him to bring up Jason – the bloke in the military jacket – but he starts to shake his head.
‘Tuesday’s the day that I’m at bridge in the afternoon.’
‘Right.’
‘I did see your Dan on the way out, though.’
I’ve almost started to close the door when this stops me still. ‘You saw Dan on Tuesday?’
‘Right. I was getting into my car to head to bridge club. I waved but I don’t think he saw me.’
‘This was in the morning…?’
A shake of the head: ‘Lunchtime.’ He clearly sees the confusion in my face, adding: ‘Everything’s all right, isn’t it?’
‘Of course, yes.’
‘He was doing his running – with all the tight clothes and that. I don’t know how he does it.’
‘He’s marathon training,’ I reply.
Mr Rawley starts to back away as he looks at his watch. He mentions something about ‘having to get back’ and then we go through the motions of saying goodbye. It’s never simple. I tell him to say hi to his children for me; he says he’ll ask around about Tyler ‘just in case’. We each hope the other has a good evening. He reminds me it’s supposed to be cold tomorrow – and finally, mercifully, that’s that.
I close the door and then press back against it, trying to remember precisely what happened on Tuesday. It takes a moment for the memory to come – but I know I’m right. After he’d noticed the broken glass on the floor, I asked Dan if he’d been home for lunch. He specifically said he didn’t leave school until after five.
Why would he lie?
Chapter Twenty-Five
The more I think over things, the more something about my husband doesn’t seem quite right. When I awoke in my car in that field in the early hours of Tuesday, his text was already waiting for me. He told me to call anytime. I went along with that because I was confused – but, in retrospect, it was an odd thing to do. He had to be up early for school and, though he’d texted primarily about Olivia not coming home, when we spoke, it never felt as if he was overly concerned for her. I wasn’t, either. I assumed she was staying over with a friend, or Tyler. Not only that, when I called at three in the morning, he answered straight away. If he’d been sleeping, it would have taken a few rings. He’d have sounded disorientated.
It was almost as if he’d been waiting for my call.