by Sofia Grey
The fire that swept through Alun’s carriage had been so intense, some of the passengers had been reduced to ash. The usual identification methods had been useless.
I took a sip of almost cold coffee, and forced back a rising tide of nausea. I should be attending the inquiry with Tom and Luce, but if I couldn’t even cope with the newspaper headlines, there was no way I could listen to the details.
Wait a minute.
There’d been almost nothing left of Alun or the backpack he’d have been carrying, but jammed underneath a metal briefcase, they’d retrieved the remains of his wallet. His credit card and travel pass, while badly damaged, were clear enough to read.
That, combined with his silence, and his last known position, made us all believe he was on the train, but what if we were wrong?
The breath caught in my lungs. What if it wasn’t Alun carrying his wallet? It might have been found by someone. Stolen even. If they’d identified the wrong guy, Alun might still be alive.
Hope flooded through me, washed away quickly by common sense. Alun would have told us if he’d been robbed. He wouldn’t have dropped off the face of the earth.
Jesus. I was really grasping at straws.
For the rest of the day, as I walked in slow circles around that part of London, I couldn’t get the idea out of my head that it might not have been him on the train. I waited eagerly for Tom and Luce to reappear, and then we all went to another bar. I avoided Tequila this time, though, and stuck with water.
They picked at a bowl of tired looking peanuts, and shared the little they’d learned. Security measures. Eyewitness statements. Other meaningless, useless words floated around in the air. I waited until they ground to a halt, and then leaned forward on our small, sticky table.
They looked at me expectantly, as I groped for the right words. “What if he’s still alive?”
After a long, painful moment, Tom and Luce glanced at each other, and then Tom sighed. “Livvy, believe me, I know how you feel. Alun was like a brother to me, and if there were the slightest chance he was still alive, I’d be knocking on doors and demanding answers.”
“We saw pictures of the carriage.” Tears glistened in Luce’s eyes. “Livvy, nobody could survive that.”
“How do we know he was on the train?” I rushed on before they could interrupt. “By his credit card. It might have been stolen.”
“In that case, where is he?” Tom’s words were harsh. He blinked. “Sorry, but we’ve been over this—me and Luce. He wouldn’t just vanish. If his gear was nicked, he’d phone. He’d let us know.”
“It’s been weeks,” added Luce. “If he’d been mugged, even if he’d been hurt, we’d know.”
“He wasn’t supposed to be on that train, or even on the Tube.” Now I’d gotten the idea, I wasn’t letting it go. “He was supposed to be at Euston Station, but maybe he went somewhere else first.”
They exchanged another loaded glance, before Luce touched my hand. “What makes you think this now?”
My dead lover has convinced me he’s still alive?
No, maybe not.
“I don’t know.” I adored Luce and Tom, trusted them implicitly, but trying to convince them I’d been talking to Alun in my sleep smacked of crazy. “The evidence, it’s just not conclusive, is it?”
“It’s circumstantial,” murmured Luce, the lawyer. “But it’s compelling, since we have nothing else to go on.”
“What about Sasha? If I wanted to talk to Sasha, did you say he lives in New Zealand?”
“Yeah.” Tom was hesitant, a worried furrow digging into his brow. “What can Sasha add?”
Alun wants me to talk to him. Nope, that pushed me firmly into crazy territory again, so I improvised. “He was talking to Sasha that day.”
Tom’s frown deepened. “I thought you didn’t know who he was.”
I made a vague gesture with my hand. “I forgot the name; that’s all. So if I wanted to talk to him, do you have his phone number?”
Luce kept darting anxious looks at me, and Tom was clearly worried, but he came up with Sasha’s phone number. “They’re eleven hours ahead of us at the moment.”
I stared at my phone, and shuffled numbers in my head. “So it’s early morning for them?”
He nodded.
I deliberated some more, and composed a text.
Hi, this is Olivia. I think we met at Alun’s funeral, and I’d really like to talk to you. Please text or call me back. Any time is good. Thank you.
Chapter Eight
We were still in the pub when Sasha replied to my text.
FaceTime in 1 hour?
It gave me time to get back to the hotel, settle my nerves with some chamomile tea, and then get nervous again. I had no idea what I was going to say. Sitting cross legged on my bed, I made the call, and stared at the guy halfway around the world, on my screen.
Young and handsome, he had soft-looking dark hair, and the same brilliant blue eyes as Alun and most of his Welsh friends. Sasha ran a hand through his already rumpled hair, and then hid a yawn.
“Sorry. Late night with Megan and her brothers. I’m sure they’re trying to kill me through alcohol poisoning.” He flashed me a lopsided smile. “It’s good to talk to you, Olivia. How are you doing?”
“I don’t think we spoke at the funeral.”
“There were a lot of people there.”
Alun had trusted this man, if my dreams were to be believed. Then again, Alun also morphed into a wolf in my last dream of him. I stared at his childhood friend, and tried to pull some words together.
“Did you speak to Alun before he… Before the accident?”
He blinked, once, twice, and then a third time, before he replied. “Yes,” he said eventually. “I gave him the address of an artist I know. He wanted to commission a piece of work.” His mouth twisted. “That was the last time we spoke.”
Out of everything I might have considered, I hadn’t expected that. “An artist?”
Sasha gave an awkward one-shouldered shrug. “A jeweler. He has a little workshop near Leicester Square in London.”
Why would Alun be getting a piece of jewelry commissioned? As though he’d read my mind, Sasha broke into my thoughts. “He wanted a special present for you.”
“Oh.” Warmth flooded my chest, and tears pricked my eyes. “That’s where I am now. In London.” I gazed at this man, so similar in appearance to my lover. “I feel closer to Alun here.”
“I’ll text you the address. Maybe check them out, in case he did order something?”
“Thanks.” I didn’t want to let him go just yet. Alun had talked about a different conversation. Yeah, in my imagination. I pressed on. “Was there anything else significant?”
Sasha’s gaze sharpened, his eyes narrowing. “Significant?”
He was thousands of miles away, and I was unlikely to ever speak to him again. If I let a little of my crazy slip out, there wasn’t much he could do. I took a rapid breath, my heart already thumping hard. “He told me about a conversation he had with you, when he asked how you told Megan.” I studied his face. There was no flicker of recognition, but he stared back at me, alert and watchful. Like a hunting dog that had scented prey. “She thought she would turn into a werewolf.”
Sasha was silent for an age. I was on the verge of caving in, and admitting it was all in my overactive imagination, but he finally cleared his throat. “When did he tell you this?”
“Oh my God, you really had that conversation?” I babbled with giddy relief. “I thought I imagined it.”
“When did he tell you that, Olivia?”
“This morning. I dreamed about him. Well, I dream about him every night, but this one was different.”
Sasha frowned. “Tell me what happened.”
He wasn’t laughing, or telling me I was insane. That was a good start.
“We went to somewhere in Snowdonia, and he...umm...took off his clothes. Then he turned into a dog in front of me. A wolf. And then he turne
d back, and we talked.” My cheeks burned, and I covered my mouth with my free hand. “Crazy, huh?”
“This morning? And he’d never done that before? I mean, you’d never dreamed anything like that before? Ever?”
“Never.”
“Fuck.” He leaned forward, his face filling the screen on my phone. “I don’t know what to think. Is there any chance it wasn’t Alun on the train? Any chance at all?”
The tiny spark of hope I’d been nurturing lifted its head and nodded. “That’s what I think too. But how is he doing this?”
“We’re a bit psychic. It’s pretty common for us to share dreams.”
“He talks to you in your dreams too?”
“What?” He snorted. “No, I mean with our— uh, partners. But that doesn’t matter. He might still be alive, Olivia. We have to find him.”
He believed me. “Thank you. I thought I was going mad.” The whole psychic dream-thing made no sense, but that wasn’t important right now.
I drew in an unsteady breath, and considered the implications. “What can we do? If I go to the police, they’ll just laugh.”
“You’re right.” He screwed up his forehead. “When you talked in your dreams, did he give you any indication where he was?”
“No. Should I just ask him?”
“Definitely, although if he’s not volunteered the information, he might not know.”
This was surreal. I felt overwhelmed. I’d gone from believing Alun gone, to thinking I was losing my mind, and now to something even crazier. If he was still alive though, I’d do whatever it took to find him.
I wiped away the tears that trickled down my cheeks, and found a smile for Sasha. “What can we do?”
He shook his head. “I’ve no idea. I’m just… Yeah, I’m kinda blown away by this.”
“I have to ask. What’s the whole werewolf thing about?”
“Huh?” Sasha flashed me a grin that lit up his face. “It’s a private joke. I guess he knew you’d get my attention with it.”
Something didn't ring quite true, but I pushed it to the back of my mind. I had bigger things to think about.
Chapter Nine
I sent texts to Luce and Tom, asking them to come back to the hotel, and I braced myself to tell them of my conversation with Sasha. I needed help, and they were best placed to provide it.
It sounded too bizarre to ever be plausible.
We sat around the table in my room, and I haltingly relayed the conversation with Sasha. I wrapped my arms around myself, and took a deep breath when I’d finished. They’d think I was mad. I looked up to see tears in Luce’s eyes.
“Oh, Livvy.” Luce scrambled out of her seat and hugged me tight. “That’s fantastic. You might be right.”
What? My thoughts scrambled. “You believe me about the dreams?” I looked into Luce’s blue eyes—absurdly bright, like Alun’s, but with a hint of green. “Don’t tell me. You’re both a bit psychic too?”
Her laugh sounded choked. “You could say that. But now we have to figure out what to do.” She squeezed my hand. “Let’s work out some details.”
Luce retrieved her laptop, and called up a map of the London Underground. “Right.” She pointed to Euston, roughly in the middle. “It’s not representative of positions above ground, but it’s enough to work with. We know he arrived in Euston on the Brighton train, and we can guess what time that would be.”
“Ten-ish in the morning,” I added. “And we know he was supposed to arrive in Manchester at three oh-seven, because he asked me to pick him up at the station.”
Luce frowned. “How long does it take from London to Manchester on the train? No more than three hours? He’d have two hours to wait in London.”
“He told Sasha he was going somewhere near Leicester Square, so he must have planned to get there and back in plenty of time for his train.” Tom gazed at the map. “Quickest way from Euston to Leicester Square?”
“Tube.” Luce and I spoke together.
“Five minutes on the Underground,” she continued. “It’s only three stops on the Northern Line. We’ll go to the jeweler’s first thing tomorrow, to see if they remember him visiting.”
“And then somehow”—Tom’s voice was somber—“his wallet ended up miles away, in Bethnal Green.”
Luce gazed intently at the map, and traced a line with her finger. “Bethnal Green is on the Central Line, which doesn’t intersect with either Euston or Leicester Square. But”—she paused, a frown on her face—“it would only take you ten minutes to walk from Leicester Square to Holborn, which is on the Central Line.”
Tom slung an arm around my shoulder, and gave me a squeeze. “I guess this all seems a bit strange,” he said. “You need to ask Alun tonight if he can tell you where he is, what he remembers... That kind of thing.”
A bit strange. Yep, that was the understatement of the decade. If I stopped to think about the past day, I’d go crazy. The changing-into-a-wolf trick. The message to talk with Sasha. The fact that Alun might still be alive, and actually talking to me in my dreams.
No. I could only focus on one thing at a time. Everything else could wait.
When I went to bed, I was eager and excited, and confident that I’d see Alun.
****
I jerked awake to a dimly lit room, my heart racing and palms damp, and I tried to figure what had woken me. I thought I heard Alun call my name. I rolled over, and there he was, in bed with me.
“Babe,” I mumbled, clinging to my half-asleep state, and closing my eyes again.
“Livs?” Panic threaded his voice, and I forced tired eyelids open. “How…? What…? Where am I?” He lay beside me, his breathing uneven, and in the glow from the streetlights outside, I saw a sheen of perspiration on his face.
Of all the strange dreams, this was the weirdest. “In bed with me.”
He swallowed hard. “This isn’t real.”
I knew it was just my brain creating a nightmare, stitching together snippets of horror from the previous day, but it felt real. I rolled closer, and wrapped my arms around him. “It’s okay,” I whispered. “I’m here.”
Was I comforting him, or me? He was clammy, his body tense and unyielding.
“I’m here,” I repeated.
I snuggled closer, and pressed my lips against his neck. Long moments later, I felt him sag, the tension leaching out of him. “Something’s wrong,” he whispered. “I don’t know how much longer I can hang on, Cariad.” I clung tighter, his words terrifying me. “Talk to me, Livs. Help me remember.”
My throat was dry, but I whispered to him. “Our first time together. My first time ever.” I paused and collected my thoughts. “You wanted to make it special, and so you booked a weekend away for us in the Lake District. I was intimidated by the hotel owner, and we pretended to be married.” Why had the woman been so scary? Maybe it was just my being nervous about taking the leap into intimacy. I was eighteen, and quite old to still be a virgin according to my friends, but I wanted to wait for someone special.
“You sent me to take a bath, and you lit candles in the bedroom, only they set off the smoke alarms, and the hotel had to be evacuated. I was soaking wet, and wearing just a bathrobe. I had a fit of the giggles, and couldn’t stop laughing while we waited outside. I’m sure the other guests thought I was deranged,” I said.
Alun sighed and held me tight. “I fucked up, didn’t I?”
“It was memorable.”
“I was worried about hurting you.”
He’d been so careful. Kissed every inch of my body, and teased me with his deft fingers until I’d come to pieces in his arms. My first real orgasm, and I’d been ready for more. “And I was worried about disappointing you.”
“You could never disappoint me, Cariad.” He nuzzled my shoulder, and scraped his teeth over the skin. “I left my mark on you.”
I snorted with amusement. “Is that what you call it? You bit my neck. I’d never had a hickey before.”
“I like to
think I fucked you senseless first.”
He had. I’d been loose-limbed and sated, before he even fitted a condom and entered me. All my nerves had been for nothing. “It was one of the best moments of my life,” I said.
I expected to wake up any second and find myself alone, but after a long pause, his hands stilled. There was something important I had to tell him—to ask him—but I couldn’t pull it out of my brain. As I clung to him, desperate to keep him with me, he sighed. The next moment, he was gone.
****
The weather was foul in the morning, as we all prepared to go see the jeweler. Even though the rush-hour traffic meant a cab would take forever, there was no way I’d venture underground, and go on the Tube. Luce pointed out gently that Alun probably hadn’t been on the train at all, but the idea of being so far below the surface now freaked me out.
We climbed out of the cab, onto a busy side street, filled with small independent shops and studios. The jeweler was sandwiched between a leather shop and a tiny café—no more than a takeaway cart. I hesitated, ignoring the wind that whipped my hair, and the rain it carried.
This place might hold the key to Alun’s disappearance. I was scared it might come to nothing.
“Come on.” A bell jangled when Tom opened the door, and I followed him inside.
I stood transfixed when I saw the display cabinets.
The specialist study area for my degree—and my favorite art style—was Impressionism. I loved Monet’s work in particular, and owned many reproductions of his paintings, but nothing like this. The artist here had recreated some of his famous images in stained glass. Water lilies. Lakes. Sunrises. Light and water spilling together in a multitude of exquisite variations.
The shopkeeper perched on a stool behind a messy counter covered with scraps of wire, pots of ink, and a stack of thick, cream cards. He smiled at us, his twinkling brown eyes set in a lined face. He could have been anywhere between forty and sixty, with close-cropped dark hair, and he looked friendly. “Can I help you?”
I glanced at Luce for support, and she nodded. “I hope so,” I replied, stumbling over the words. “I believe my boyfriend may have bought something for me.”
