by Kitty Sewell
‘Ten thousand.’
‘What? Pounds?’
‘Euros.’
‘Jesus!’ He got up and walked around the table. ‘What has that girl been up to?’ He grabbed hold of the edge of the table, swaying slightly. His face had gone deathly pale. ‘Could it be drugs?’
‘I doubt it, but to be honest, I have no idea.’ She went to him and made him sit back down on the chair. ‘I’m going to make you something to eat, honey. You look like you’ve not seen food for days.’ He did look terribly gaunt. He was unravelling. It was all too much for him. Mimi was right, he was not so strong, emotionally.
As she cracked some eggs into a pan, she thought about Mimi and her disappearance. Would she really have been so insensitive as to go off on some venture of her own, after Sebastian had been left high and dry by his woman? Somehow she didn’t believe it. Mimi could be bloodyminded, but she was sensitive, and her heart was in the right place. No – Sebastian was absolutely right – she would not be off for a fuck somewhere, not with her brother in this fragile state.
What could they do? She hoped that their mutual love and concern for Mimi could restore something of their tattered relationship. Perhaps, when Mimi came back, they could become some semblance of a family again.
That night, Sebastian slept in Mrs. Cohen’s bedroom and Eva laid down on the rumpled sheets on which her lover had tossed and turned. She would have loved to be in his arms and comfort him in any way she could, but he claimed he needed to be alone and would just keep her awake. They had barely talked. He’d asked no questions about her escape from Gibraltar, nor about her motives for what she’d done, nor about the dead husband. He was lost in his own thoughts.
In the morning, she woke to hear him talking to someone. Quietly, she got dressed and opened the bedroom door. She gathered that he was on the phone to the police.
‘But I’m telling you…this is highly irregular… No, she never…of course she doesn’t… Now, come off it…she’s a missing person and I expect you to do something about it!’ His voice had risen an octave. She’d seen him agitated – even frantic with worry over Mimi – but his voice had a note of desperation she’d not heard before.
When he’d rung off, she joined him in the kitchen. They looked at each other in silence and she went to him. At last he let her hug him, and they clung desperately to each other, each for a different reason.
‘What did they say?’ she asked, releasing him.
‘The usual. But someone is coming over to take some particulars. I think they’re just doing it to humour me.’
‘Let’s be straight with them, Sebastian.’
He seemed to think about this for a moment, then said, ‘Just leave out the money. Just in case she’s been involved in something…illegal. All right?’ He frowned at her to force her approval. ‘It would just be too much to bear.’
‘But, Sebastian…what if she’s in trouble because of a drug deal gone wrong or something?’
‘Oh God, Eva. Let’s explore the most likely avenues first.’
She reluctantly agreed. ‘Yes, well. All right.’
Mimi
She had screamed for some time…hours, maybe. Perhaps it had just been minutes, but in fact it felt more like days and days. She hadn’t moved from the mattress, not knowing what was beyond its boundaries. It felt like a raft, surrounded by nameless horrors. Pits of snakes and rats or bottomless crevices. Centipedes, scorpions, bats. She came to feel that, as long as she stayed put, she wasn’t going to suffer some monstrous fate. Occasionally, she harnessed her panic and tried to think rationally. Bit by bit, she made sense of her predicament. She was a prisoner, entombed in some underground cave. When this fact became totally clear in her mind, she began screaming for help again.
After a while, the sound of her own screaming scared her more than silence, so she stopped. Her throat was raw. The chemical she’d inhaled and the vomiting had scorched it, and it felt swollen, almost closed. Her breathing was ragged, and panic tore at her again. What if she could no longer draw breath? She’d had a touch of asthma as a child, and she remembered that horrible feeling of not being able to empty her lungs. Whilst trying to control her breathing, she soon found that panic could take other forms. It was a welling up from the very core of herself, like a surge or an explosion. This was followed immediately by an implosion, a shrinking or caving-in.
It was best to lie completely still with her eyes closed, and force pictures of life as she’d known it into her mind’s eye. She found it was the only thing that kept her from dying, though at the same time she thought sensibly about death. She understood that she might soon welcome it.
Her thoughts took her back to a counsellor she had seen a couple of times who had tried to teach her a simple form of meditation. She remembered the stillness it brought to her body and mind. Trying it now, she just focused on her breath. After a while it slowed her gasps and unknotted her belly, and in this calm she began to hear something, a faint, rhythmic sound. It was the dripping of water. Hadn’t he said that there was food and water? At once her tongue felt like a wad of cotton wool, stuck fast within a cavity of parched flesh. The sound of the drips began to torment her, until the yearning for water became greater than her fear.
Finally, she turned on the torch and pointed it around the chamber. It was big, like Mrs. Cohen’s bedroom. The floor seemed to have no pits or crevices, nor did any snakes or rats scuttle across it. Slowly, she rolled herself onto her hands and knees, and began to explore her prison.
Sebastian
When he heard the knock on the door, he dashed to open it. There were two police officers, and unfortunately one of them was PC Malcolm Garcia. His heart sank. Why did it have to be him? The guy was already thoroughly prejudiced against him, and with good reason. To give him credit, no adverse feelings showed in his expression. He introduced his colleague.
‘This is PC Marianne Peralta. She deals with most of the missing persons cases in Gib.’
Sebastian invited them into the kitchen and they sat down around the table. Eva put the kettle on to boil and started making a pot of tea.
PC Peralta began to ask the obvious questions. Did Imogen have a boyfriend?
Sebastian saw Eva look at him. He had to be totally honest. ‘She’s been seeing quite a bit of Mr. Carlo Montegriffo who lives in the apartment below us.’ He glanced at Malcolm Garcia. ‘I suppose you remember the visit we had there a couple of months ago?’ Garcia nodded but said nothing. ‘She’s apparently also been seeing a young Moroccan fellow, who is in the employ – directly or indirectly – of Mr. Montegriffo. His first name is Mohammed. That’s all I know.’
The two police officers exchanged glances. ‘Has there been any kind of argument or conflict in the family that might have made her want to leave home?’
‘No,’ said Sebastian. ‘Not really.’
‘That’s not true, exactly,’ said Eva. He looked up at her sharply. ‘Sebastian and I were temporarily separated. That’s to say, I left home and went to stay in Spain for a few days.’
‘Could that have made Imogen want to – say – get out of the home situation?’ asked Peralta.
‘Not any more than normally,’ said Sebastian, then wondered whether this had come out right.
‘So normally the home situation is quite volatile, perhaps?’ said Garcia in a friendly tone.
‘No, that’s not what I meant.’
Eva intervened. ‘Imogen is quite a sensitive girl and she’d be very unlikely to take off, considering Sebastian had been left here on his own after I’d gone.’ Sebastian looked at her with appreciation. At least she saw the best in Mimi.
Peralta sipped the cup of tea that Eva had just put before her, then asked, ‘Has Imogen run away before, I mean when she was a minor?’
Sebastian shook his head. ‘No.’
‘Yes,’ said Eva. ‘She ran away several times before she came to live with us.’
‘So, it’s not unusual behaviour for her, then?’
<
br /> Sebastian threw Eva a warning glance. Why contradict him? Why reveal things that might make them take Mimi’s disappearance less seriously? He turned to Peralta. ‘Not exactly. She’s never run off since she came to live with us here. Since Dad died, she lived with her mother, our so-called mother, and it was a very unhappy situation, not at all Imogen’s fault. But the company she keeps now – and I’m referring to Carlo Montegriffo specifically – is quite worrying. The age difference, for a start. She’s eighteen, and he must be at least forty, perhaps more.’
Malcolm Garcia looked at him intently. ‘From your phone calls to the station, I understand that you’ve already spoken to Mr. Montegriffo about Imogen’s whereabouts, and he has no knowledge of it.’
‘Yes, but he could be lying.’
‘Is it true to say that your relationship with Mr. Montegriffo is quite tense? You don’t like him much, correct?’
Sebastian shifted impatiently in his chair. ‘Yes… for the very reasons I just said. The man has designs on my teenage sister. What have my feelings about him got to do with her disappearance?’
Eva joined them at the table with her cup of tea. ‘Look, there is something I’d better tell you which I hope is unrelated to Mimi going missing.’ She paused. ‘I’ve been getting some strange phone calls over the last few months. The person making them never said much; mainly just breathed down the phone, but the other day he said he was about to get me and he wasn’t far away.’
Sebastian noted that Garcia looked more interested. Typical! Suddenly this was about Eva. She always drew men’s attention; she just had that vulnerable look about her, plus her beauty, of course. He noticed for the first time that her hair had been cut off. He stared at her in disbelief. He’d been so wrapped up in his fears for Mimi, he’d not even noticed how different she looked. He’d loved her hair – it was part of her; the mermaid he had so loved but now she was gone too.
‘Did you report these calls?’ Garcia asked her.
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘Why not? We can often trace calls even if they are “number withheld” ones.’
‘Because I thought the person was far too shrewd to get himself caught. He was a U.S. Federal Agent.’
Peralta frowned. ‘So you know the caller?’
Eva looked down at her hands and said quietly. ‘All along I thought I knew who it was. The man I’m…I was married to. But yesterday I discovered that he’s been dead for over a year.’
The officers looked at each other.
‘Is there anyone else you suspect making the calls?’ Garcia asked.
‘I did think…in the beginning…that it might have been Mr. Montegriffo. There was just something about him, and the way he felt about Sebastian’s work here, and then his interest in Mimi…well, but…I can’t say I have any proof whatsoever.’
Malcolm Garcia got up from the table. ‘Shall we go and have a word with him?’ He hadn’t touched his tea.
‘He won’t change his story,’ said Sebastian.
Sebastian followed closely behind the two officers as they started down the stairs, but Garcia turned and laid a large hand on his arm. ‘There is no need for you to come, Mr. Luna. In fact, it’s better if you don’t.’
‘I absolutely insist,’ said Sebastian. ‘I have a right to be witness to this.’
Garcia closed his eyes for a moment, reigning in his irritation. ‘Mr. Luna, we need a calm assessment of this situation, so if you insist on being present just don’t…just let us do the talking.’
Sebastian nodded reluctantly and the three of them continued on down to knock on Montegriffo’s door. Almost immediately, the man himself appeared before them in the doorway, looking the picture of health and respectability, clean shaven and well dressed.
He obviously knew PC Malcolm Garcia quite well, as he reached out to shake his hand warmly. ‘Buenos dias, Malcolm. Como ha idoel golf tournament?’
‘Brilliant, gracias. You know why we’re here, Carlo. Imogen Luna has been missing for two days.’
‘I’m aware of it,’ said Montegriffo. ‘Me lo dijo Sebastian here. I’m very worried about her, too.’
‘You’re friendly with her, aren’t you?’ Marianne Peralta said. ‘Was there anything about her – her state of mind or whatever – that you felt was different in the last few days? Did she seem upset? Did she say anything at all about wanting to get away?’
‘No, no more than usual. Obviously her brother here is overbearing and over-protective, and she undoubtedly feels smothered. It’s easy to see why she’d want to have a break from him. I offered her my place in Both Worlds if she wanted to get away, but she’s been really worried about his state of mind, so she declined the offer for the time being. She doesn’t have a key, and I’ve been there to check.’
Worried about his state of mind! What a shamefaced liar! The urge to inflict damage on that smug face rose in him, but it was important not to let his feelings show. At least the police officers would take note of how insolent Montegriffo could be.
He approached the door and peered in. Montegriffo must have painted the walls. The dusky green was gone and they were now a sunny yellow. From inside came the sound of the news on radio or TV. Mimi could very well be in there, drugged to the eyeballs, even restrained. He turned to the officers. ‘I think you should have a look around inside. Imogen could be here by her own choice but told Mr. Montegriffo not to disclose it. If she is in there, we’ll know she’s alive and well, and we can all go away.’
Malcolm Garcia looked very uncomfortable with the idea, but Officer Peralta turned to Montegriffo and said, ‘Mr. Luna has a point. If you wouldn’t mind? It doesn’t prejudice you in any way.’
Montegriffo stood aside and, with a gesture of hospitality, motioned the officers inside. When Sebastian was about to enter, he put out his arm to bar his way. ‘Not you.’
There was a horrible déjà vu about this whole visit, especially when Garcia came out and said, ‘There is no sign of Imogen in here, Mr. Luna.’
He could see that he’d lost them. He’d proven himself to be a neurotic and sociophobic squanderer of police time – the head of a hopelessly dysfunctional family.
Grasping at straws, he turned to Peralta, ‘Why don’t you ask the man about the phone calls?’
‘What phone calls?’ said Montegriffo.
He turned to his antagonist. ‘The ones you’ve been making to my fiancée, breathing down the phone to intimidate her, probably to make us move from here. Most likely with the intention of keeping Imogen with you, but without me around to protect her.’
Montegriffo looked to Malcolm Garcia with a deep frown. ‘Pero, hombre! What on earth is he talking about now?’
‘Look, there’s your answer, Mr. Luna.’ Garcia said pointedly. ‘I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We’ll put Imogen on the ‘missing persons’ list the minute you come to the station with a recent photo of her and a description of her ‘last seen’ clothing. But I expect you to inform us the moment she shows up. Which no doubt she will. Buenos dias!’
‘Wait a minute. Hold on,’ Sebastian pleaded. ‘I still think this man has everything to do with Imogen’s disappearance. He actually claimed that she belonged to him.’
Garcia ignored his accusation, but Peralta said, ‘Is this true, Mr. Montegriffo?’
‘Of course it isn’t!’ Montegriffo said, shaking his head in mock disbelief.
Marianne Peralta turned to Sebastian and made a ‘there-you-go’ gesture, then said, ‘Tell your fiancée that she can contact the Nuisance Call Bureau and they can trace the offending calls she’s getting. You can find them in any directory.’
Garcia had already gone ahead, and Peralta threw Sebastian a last concerned look as she followed. Sebastian leaned over the railing and saw them talking in hushed tones as they walked out of the arched entrance.
Montegriffo tapped him on the shoulder. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing, accusing me of kidnapping Imogen and making nuisance calls to your girlfrie
nd? You need help.’
The cursed man was already on his way inside and he slammed the door before Sebastian had time to reply. The slamming door… Suddenly it came to him. Of course. He knew where Mimi was. He knew it absolutely. How could he be so complacent and leave it all this late? He stood there for a moment – stunned by the certainty – then ran up the stairs, all the while thinking what he would need now. His diving gear, torch, rope…a claw-hammer.
Eva
She heard Sebastian come back from the encounter with the police and Montegriffo, and went to meet him in the hall.
‘What happened, honey?’
‘No luck with that bastard.’ Absently, he patted her shoulder. ‘I’m sure it’s not as bad as it looks. You know me, Eva. I’m just neurotic when it comes to Mimi.’
He’d been so distressed and agitated during the interview, she was pleased to see he’d calmed down a bit. It didn’t help her own anxiety, however. Mimi’s disappearance was inexplicable, and not something to take lightly, but then again, how well did she really know the girl?
‘I wouldn’t call it neurotic, Sebastian. You’re a wonderful, caring brother.’
At last he met her eye. He reached out and touched her cheek. ‘I love you, Eva,’ he said. ‘Whatever happens, don’t forget that.’
