by Louise Voss
Meredith had to stop chopping to rub her throat, to try and ease the constriction in it. You didn’t shag your friends’ husbands. How could she have done it?
‘Can I ask you something?’ Paula wasn’t looking at her, but at her glass, running her thumb frantically up and down its stem.
Oh shit, please don’t, Meredith thought. She had a flashback of Ralph’s buttocks in the low mirror of the disabled loo, clenching and thrusting, her leg wrapped around his thigh. ‘Of course.’
‘Yesterday … at work … how drunk was Ralph? He rang me in the afternoon and he sounded pissed. Said you’d all been at the staff lunch, that it had gone on longer than intended, and he’d have to stay late to catch up. I teased him. I said, did he mean “catch up” or “sleep off the hangover under his desk”?’
Meredith cored a tomato, seeds spilling onto the chopping board in a gelatinous shiver. ‘He’s always quite pissed after the monthly lunch,’ she replied carefully. ‘I think he might have carried on drinking in his office.’
‘How did he seem, at lunch?’
Meredith shrugged, turning away from Paula to start on a red pepper.
‘Same as usual. He was on a different table so I didn’t talk to him – he was sitting with the Earl and Sebastian and the other bigwigs.’
She remembered Ralph winking across at her, trapped between the Earl and Sebastian, all three of them knocking back the Chianti.
‘I was sitting with Ceri and Mumblin’ Mo. Ralph was still there when I left to go back to my office.’
Which was when Ralph had texted her to ask her to come and see him after work…
Where was his phone, she wondered?
‘How can he just have disappeared?’ wailed Paula.
‘What did the police say?’ Meredith pretended to be engrossed in scraping the brittle white seeds out of the pepper’s heart.
‘Not a lot. Someone came over, about an hour ago. She just took down all the details. They said they won’t make it public for another day, though.’
‘What else did she say?’
‘Nothing very useful. Just “I’m sure he’ll turn up” – that sort of thing. She wanted a photo of him and to know if he had any medical conditions, and so on.’
‘And did he? Does he, I mean?’ Meredith tried to keep the treacherous hope out of her voice, although she wasn’t sure what exactly she was hoping for.
‘Nothing serious. Oh Meredith, do you think he’s left me? I know I moan about our lack of a sex life, but I do love him, you know.’
Meredith put down the knife and went over to Paula, putting her arms around her, trying to keep her juice-stained fingers away from Paula’s crumpled, white linen shirt.
‘He adores you too. He told me so just yesterday.’
About half an hour before he slipped his fingers inside my knickers. She cringed.
‘Did he really?’ Paula hugged her back. ‘Where do you think he is, then? Surely he’d have rung if he could.’
Meredith extracted herself from the embrace. It felt too hypocritical. She hesitated. ‘Like I said, he texted me, mid-afternoon sometime, asking me to pop into his office for a drink after work. That’s what makes me think he kept going, that he was on a bit of bender.’
Paula was still for a moment. ‘Does he do that often?’ Her voice was very small. And then: ‘Did you go? I can’t remember if you said you did or not.’
Meredith looked straight at her. ‘I don’t know, and no I didn’t. I didn’t want to drink Scotch at five-thirty in the afternoon, especially not after I’d had two glasses of wine at lunch. I had to work late – getting ready for a stocktake next week.’
There were several truths in that sentence, but none of them went anywhere near diluting the one that was a barefaced lie.
‘So we know that he was OK at – what time did he send the text?’
Meredith took her phone out of her bag and checked it, glad to be able to direct her gaze somewhere else. ‘That was at … four o’clockish.’
‘Can I see? I should let that policewoman know.’
Handing it over, Meredith felt relieved that Ralph hadn’t put anything suggestive in the text; it merely read: Post-work snifter?
She hadn’t even intended to go, that was the irony, she thought.
‘Let’s just say, hypothetically, he kept drinking all afternoon, then felt too wasted to get home. He knew he couldn’t drive, so he left the car there. Perhaps he lost his phone, felt ill, got a hotel room somewhere to sleep it off?’
‘Why not just come home, then, if he felt ill?’
Paula slid off her stool and walked over to the jumble of items on the counter. She picked up several of the leaves and shuffled through them, holding one out. ‘What’s this one?’
Meredith shrugged. ‘Not a clue. Ash? Oak? Sycamore? Not yew, I know that much.’
‘That’s my point.’
Sometimes talking to Paula was very tiring. ‘Your point?’
‘I don’t know either. I’d have known when I was a kid. I knew them all then, everybody did. Now nobody knows. I thought I’d stick them in a scrapbook or something.’
‘You can probably get an app that—’ Meredith broke off. There was a sound from the front of the house, a faint crunching on the gravel, and she felt sick to see the way that Paula’s entire appearance changed in a second; the years and cares fell away from her as she stuck her chin in the air, almost sniffing it like a pointer, already smiling with relief as they both held their breath and waited to hear the grind of a key in the door.
But there was no key. Just the rattle of the letterbox as someone stuffed a flyer through it and the faint swish of it sliding across the hall floor.
‘He’s dead,’ said Paula flatly. ‘I know he is.’
Meredith had no idea what to say to her.
12
Meredith
She left Paula’s house in a daze. She’d had to put her to bed at 8.15 p.m. with a sleeping pill, Paula drunk and sobbing and clutching Meredith’s arm with her bitten nails. Meredith didn’t think she should leave her, but Jackson, Paula’s taciturn twenty-year-old, home from uni for the summer, had come back from a fruitless search of Ralph’s local haunts. He assured Meredith he would look after his mother.
Somewhat to her shame, Meredith couldn’t get out of there fast enough, her guilt practically shoving her between the shoulders and through the front door. She was heading home, but as she drove through the village, past the immaculate, chocolate-box whitewashed cottages, the turning down to the marina loomed up ahead of her and suddenly she only wanted to be with Pete again.
She parked on the marina road and trudged down the metal steps to the water’s edge. It was a perfect summer’s evening, the river as calm as a millpond, the late sun creating a golden hue that suffused everything it touched. There were people out on the water, canoeing or punting, looking like they didn’t have a care in the world, when Meredith felt as if she had a huge black cloud above her head.
‘Evening Meredith! How’s your week been? Want to come in for that trim I promised you?’
It was Pete’s neighbour, Andrea, who was at the outdoor table on the rear deck of her wide-beam barge, a large drink in one hand and her phone in the other.
‘That’s bad for the baby,’ Meredith said grumpily, gesturing towards her glass.
Andrea laughed. ‘Is tonic only, silly! I am not so stupid. Come. You look like you need a drink too – one with gin.’
‘Let me check if Pete’s in – I need to talk to him. If he’s not, I will. Thanks.’
‘Bring him too,’ Andrea said with a cheeky smile, and, despite herself, Meredith smiled too. Those two were crazy about each other, she was convinced of it, but neither would admit it.
‘I’ll try.’
Meredith was very fond of Andrea, who was unfailingly generous with her time and never, ever seemed to be miserable, despite getting knocked up on a one-night stand when she’d gone home to Hungary to visit her elderly parents
earlier in the year.
Meredith climbed onto Pete’s boat and tried the door, but it was padlocked. Peering in through the glass panel, it looked as if he hadn’t been there all day – a cereal bowl and empty cafetière sat on the galley counter. She had a spare key to the padlock, but suddenly she was glad of Andrea’s offer of company. She didn’t want to be alone with the jumble of thoughts swarming around her snowglobe head like white noise.
She jumped off Barton Bee and strode up Andrea’s gangplank to join her on the deck. Andrea was sitting at a slatted wooden table covered with a ferociously detailed puzzle on a roll-up jigsaw mat. Most of it was completed, with just one chunk of the middle left to do.
Meredith picked up the box lid and looked at the picture – a park scene with far too many identical-looking trees and white clouds, populated by people in sixties dress, boys fishing for minnows, girls in miniskirts and tank tops, skipping rope. She could see why Andrea had left that particular middle section till last – it was almost all pink cherry blossom. The remaining pieces in the bottom of the box were a muddle of pink and white.
Sun soaked into her tired bones, and she tipped her head back to feel its rays warm her cheeks, letting the box lid fall onto the deck.
‘Lovely evening.’
‘Yes. I get you a drink, then you tell me what’s wrong.’
Meredith made a face. ‘Don’t ask. Really.’
Andrea came over and gave her a spontaneous hug. Then she picked up a strand of Meredith’s hair. ‘Let me cut. Is too long for you.’
Andrea had converted one of her tiny bedrooms into a fully equipped mini salon, complete with spotlit mirror, basin and one black chair for a customer. She was one of the most in-demand hairdressers in the area – as long as clients were nimble enough to get down the often-slippery steps to the waterside.
‘Maybe later. Thanks, though.’
Andrea disappeared into the galley and Meredith sighed, feeling about ninety years old. She must only stay for one, she decided, otherwise she might end up telling Andrea what had gone on this week, and not just the bit about Ralph being missing. Meredith idly scrutinised the jigsaw, all the stylised caricatures of people going about their business, mostly on a pathway through the park. A glamorous-looking young mother sat smoking on a bench while holding the handle of one of those huge old prams, presumably rocking it.
She picked up a piece that looked like it might belong in the flowerbed next to the bench, but it didn’t.
Meredith wished she could have a cigarette, but until last night she hadn’t smoked for fifteen years, and she didn’t want to start again now.
Andrea returned and handed her a tall, cold G&T, the condensation on the glass sparkling in the sun, a thick chunk of lime bobbing in the fizz. No drink had ever looked so appealing. Meredith took a long swallow.
‘Thank you – oh God, that’s so good. Just what I need.’
‘The baby is missing,’ Andrea said, seemingly apropos of nothing.
‘What?’ Meredith was alarmed, thinking Andrea meant her own baby.
‘Look,’ she said, pointing at the empty pram in the puzzle. ‘And face is not in box, I have searched and searched.’
‘Did you buy it in a charity shop? They often have missing pieces.’
Andrea shook her head. ‘My dad give it to me for Christmas. We always give each other a new jigsaw.’
She was right, though; Meredith sifted through the few dozen pieces left in the box, but none had a baby’s face on them. They were all cherry blossom.
‘It must be on the floor somewhere.’ Meredith leaned down and peered beneath the table. ‘Could it have fallen through a crack in the decking?’
Andrea shrugged. ‘Must have done. Is annoying.’ She paused. ‘And worrying.’
‘Worrying?’
Her hand flew to her belly, and she rubbed it gently, looking embarrassed. ‘I think is omen.’
Meredith had forgotten how superstitious she was. ‘Oh Andrea! Of course it’s not an omen. You mustn’t think like that, you’ll drive yourself crazy.’
She wondered if it would be insensitive or non-PC to suggest it might be Andrea’s hormones. She’d never really known any pregnant women before and, obviously, hadn’t ever been one herself. But was that the accepted wisdom, that your hormones went berserk? Or maybe that was after the birth … She wasn’t sure.
‘How many weeks are you now?’ she asked instead.
‘Twenty-two,’ Andrea replied, smiling properly. ‘And he just kick me.’
She was such a beautiful woman, with delicate bone structure and high cheekbones. For the first time Meredith realised with a slight shock that she reminded her of Samantha. If her colouring hadn’t been so different – dark, instead of a Celtic-looking freckly redhead – they’d have looked quite similar. It was the smile, the figure and the profile. She studied her, thinking about Samantha, wondering what ever happened to her. She hadn’t seen her for more than thirty years. Strange how she didn’t find Andrea sexually attractive, seeing as she’d found Samantha irresistible. But that was probably just because Samantha always looked at her as if she was the most beautiful woman in the world. She, Meredith, had been young and naïve, lapping it up. Meredith always wondered if she would ever have had any sort of gay relationship if she’d never met Samantha. She hadn’t since.
‘Want to feel?’
‘He’s letting you know he’s fine,’ Meredith said, reaching out her hand and tentatively touching Andrea’s taut stomach through the layer of cotton jersey. ‘Wow! That’s amazing. I’ve never felt a baby kick before.’
For some reason it made her think of Ralph again, and she had to swallow hard. He’d been desperate for grandchildren, even though Jackson was only twenty. ‘Give the poor boy a chance!’ Paula and Meredith used to tease.
‘So what is matter, Meredith?’
Meredith sat back in her chair and stared out over the water, watching a lone rower power past, and three ducks flying in a V formation towards the setting sun.
‘I’ve just come from my friend Paula’s house. Her husband, who’s also my friend, and my work colleague, he’s gone missing. Something’s happened to him, it must have done. It’s so out of character.’
Meredith felt an utter heel, being so disingenuous. She knew so much that might help find him, yet she was saying nothing to anybody.
‘Oh no! How long is he missing for?’
‘Just over a day so far. But there’s no way he’d vanish without a word.’
‘I am sorry, Meredith. That is very worrying.’
Meredith gave her a tight-lipped smile. ‘Don’t be nice to me. I might cry.’
‘Let me give you haircut instead. Try to take your mind off it!’
‘OK,’ she said, thinking that it would take a lot more than a trim. ‘Thanks Andrea – if you’re sure. But you must let me pay you.’
Andrea flapped her hands. ‘Certainly not! Come.’
Meredith brought her half-finished drink inside, following Andrea into her tiny little salon. Andrea settled her in the black leather chair and velcroed the plastic cape around her neck, before wetting her hair with water from a squirty bottle and combing it through. The gentle bite of the comb’s teeth against Meredith’s scalp was relaxing and she felt her shoulders drop just a little.
She had to stop worrying. Ralph would surely be found, or come home. He’d managed to get out of the ice house by himself – Meredith refused to believe anybody else could have been involved, in such a short time – so that meant he was still, contrary to all appearances, alive.
Andrea’s salon had been squeezed into the prow, where the smaller of the two bedrooms had once been. It sported two portholes, one in front of Meredith’s seat, overlooking the dockside, and one behind Andrea, who was beginning to snip at Meredith’s split ends. This porthole had a view across the river, and Meredith could see it, reflected in the big flat mirror, which also obscured the view directly in her eye line.
Something caugh
t her eye, a reflected movement, and she jerked out of the chair, making Andrea gasp.
‘Meredith! What is matter? I nearly stab you with scissors!’
Meredith leaped up, peering frantically out. ‘There’s someone on board! I saw a man’s foot going past the porthole!’
‘What?’
They both ran through the living room of the boat – salon, pronounced ‘saloon’, as Pete kept reminding Meredith – and up the three steps to the deck.
‘You look this side, I’ll go the other,’ Meredith said, her heart pounding. The black cape was flapping out behind her and her hair was plastered to her head.
But there was nobody. Unless they’d immediately run back around to the port side, jumped back onto the dock and legged it to hide behind one of the upturned boats. Meredith decided she must have imagined it; they’d have had to be very speedy indeed to do that without being noticed.
Andrea was looking at her strangely. ‘I am worried about you,’ she said. ‘It must have been a duck or something.’
‘I’m sure I saw a foot, in a black trainer. Just a glimpse, and a shadow.’
‘A shadowy foot with no leg?’ Andrea asked in a faintly teasing voice.
‘Well, obviously the leg had already gone past,’ Meredith said, realising how silly this sounded. ‘On that little ledge thing round the side, what’s it called?’
‘The “cant”, I think it is. Come on. Let me spray your hair again. Won’t take long,’ she said, and they went back inside.
‘Just… lock up well tonight, won’t you Andy?’ she said, once she was seated back in the black chair. Their eyes met in the mirror and Meredith could tell Andrea thought she was being ludicrous. Their little dock community was so safe. Everyone looked out for everyone else; they had their own in-built neighbourhood watch. If some random stranger really had been tramping round the outside of Andrea’s barge, Meredith was pretty sure that Pete or Trevor or Johnny would’ve been standing on the dock by now, demanding to know who he was and what he was doing there.
