by Louise Voss
I am pleased and surprised – unless of course he’s just trying to flatter me. But I think he means it. The photo I’ve got up on the website is, even by my standards, not bad. I look almost sexy, and it’s not often that I’ll admit to that. It was taken by my ex, Harry, when we were on a weekend away in Bournemouth, and right before he clicked the shutter, he told me what he was planning to do to me in bed later, so I have a sort of ‘cat who’s about to get the cream’ grin.
Shaun isn’t too bad himself. Despite our flirty texts, I don’t feel any spark of attraction, but I tell myself not to be too hasty. I scrutinize him while he’s pouring the wine. I hadn’t planned to drink wine tonight, because I have a tendency to guzzle it when I’m nervous – but never mind. He has a good profile, but a slightly petulant mouth. He keeps his lips tight when he talks, and I wonder if it’s because he’s embarrassed about the gap between his front teeth, which I’ve had flashes of. He probably is quite a good-looking man, but even though I’m trying to keep an open mind, I can’t help my heart sinking.
He hands me a glass of wine, steers me onto a bar stool and starts to tell me all about himself.
Two hours later, he’s still telling me all about himself, his motorbike, his planned trip around Canada with ‘the lads’, how many followers he’s got on Twitter. He hasn’t asked me a single question, apart from what I do for a living, which was on my profile, so he ought to have remembered anyway. When I tell him I’m a French teacher, his face lights up:
‘Oh, yes! I was going to be a teacher, I’m great with kids. But then I realized that my skills really lay in business, so I did an MBA …’ blah blah blah.
I switch off, and study the collection of pottery jugs hanging on hooks around the top of the bar. I’m bored, but I don’t want to go home just yet. I’ve had three glasses of wine and soon the bottle is empty. I hope I have more fun than this on Saturday, with my next date. Shaun is doing me a favour by being so completely tedious. Onwards and upwards, I think. There are always more.
‘I’m just going to the little boys’ room,’ says Shaun, standing up. I notice that the top half of his body is a lot longer than the bottom half, and his hips are quite wide. I bet he looks stupid on a motorbike. ‘Can I leave you to order another bottle; the same as we just had? Do you think you can manage that?’
I look sharply at him to see if he’s joking, but no, it appears that he isn’t.
‘Yes, I think I’m quite capable of ordering a bottle of wine, thank you.’ But my sarcasm appears to be lost on him.
‘Blimey, is he always that patronizing?’ asks the woman next to me at the bar, applying a thick layer of lip gloss.
‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘I’ve never met him before. But I would imagine so.’
We watch him walking away towards the men’s toilet. ‘And he’s got a big arse,’ she says and, although I know it’s mean, we both laugh.
‘Good luck, anyway,’ says the woman, after she’s paid for her drinks.
‘Thanks. I’ll need it,’ I reply, and she fights her way out of sight through the crush around the bar.
The pub is very full now, and I’m being jostled and bumped by people trying to squeeze around my stool to get to the bar, and Shaun has to speak even louder to be heard. I don’t want to suggest that we go and sit at a table, because that implies more commitment than I’m willing to offer. Plus, if I catch the woman’s eye, I’ll get the giggles. So I allow myself to be jogged and cramped and yammered on at. I notice myself withdraw, like a tortoise, closing down, just nodding occasionally and punctuating his monologue with the odd ‘Really?’ and ‘Oh, right.’
Just when I think I might actually weep with boredom, my mobile phone beeps in my bag. I fish it out and retrieve the text message, while Shaun continues unabated with his life history. I don’t bother to apologize for looking at the message. I get the feeling that he’d continue talking to the empty bar stool if I wasn’t there. The message is from my friend Katherine, and reads:
Hhello iis tthiis tthhe oownnerr off the sshhopp tthatt ssolldd meee tthee vvibrattor? Hhow ddo uu tturn tthhe ffuccckkinngg thingh oofff?
I snort into my wine, accidentally spitting some out. It lands on the leg of Shaun’s beige chinos, leaving a wet splatter mark, and – finally! – halting him in the middle of a diatribe about his appalling neighbours, who apparently play very loud music until two in the morning every night. Probably to drown out the sound of his voice, I think, and it makes me giggle even more. I can feel something give inside me, like snow melting and shifting, the beginnings of an avalanche of pent-up hysteria.
‘Sorry.’
He doesn’t look amused, and I half expect him to say, ‘If it’s all that funny, Becky Coltman, would you care to share it with the class?’ He almost does: ‘What’s so funny?’
‘Um … Just a silly text from my mate.’ I swallow the laughter hard, and it feels as if my nose is going red from the effort of suppressing it.
‘Let’s see?’
Mutely, my shoulders beginning to shake, I hold out the little screen for him to inspect. He looks at it without expression. ‘Very droll,’ he says in a flat voice. Then something changes in his face, and a lascivious glint pops into his eyes. Ewww, I think, he must be thinking about me with a vibrator.
He leans closer, and whispers into my hair. ‘Have you got one of those?’ he murmurs.
‘One of what?’ I ask brightly, feigning innocence. As a matter of fact, I don’t possess a vibrator; I don’t like them. An ex bought me one once in the last gasp of our relationship, but I was never sure whether it was meant to be for us to use together, to try to rejuvenate our sex lives, or whether it was an acknowledgement that things had got so dire between us in that department that I’d be better off going it alone. I gave it a try, because Kath swears by hers, but I didn’t like it at all. I wrapped it in a Tesco carrier bag and threw it in the outside bin.
‘You know what I mean,’ Shaun replies, his lips brushing my ear. ‘You certainly won’t need one of those when we’re—’
I can’t hold it in any more. I burst out laughing, too loudly, but I can’t help myself. I laugh so hard that I almost fall off the bar stool. The crush at the bar has thinned out a bit, and I see the woman who spoke to me earlier looking over at me and laughing too, with me. I can tell she’s guessed that I’ve reached my limit with Mr Dull, and it makes me even worse. I can’t speak for laughing. I wish that woman were a bloke; she and I would get on like a house on fire. Why can’t I meet a man I’m on the same wavelength with?
‘It’s not that bloody funny,’ says Shaun, looking offended. He waves at the barman, who brings over a bill on a silver tray. ‘Well, I’d better be going. I’ve had a great time, it’s been lovely to meet you. Let’s split this, shall we? Thirty-eight pounds each should do it.’
He must have ordered one of the priciest wines on the menu, knowing he was going to make me pay half, the bastard, I think, tears of mirth streaming down my face. I hadn’t even touched any of the second bottle – I was driving, so I changed to tap water.
I’d never normally do this, but for some reason I just don’t care. I stand up, make a show of peering in my bag and say, ‘Gosh, Shaun, I’m terribly sorry, but I seem to have forgotten my purse. Can I leave you to sort this one out? It’ll be on me next time, honest. Give me a call sometime?’
I peck him on the cheek, grab my coat and rush out before he can say anything, waving at my new friend on the way, still heaving and gulping with hysterics.
The text comes when I’m halfway home, so I pull over and open it. It says, ‘You are an insane bitch and I’ve totally wasted my evening and my money on you.’
What happened to, ‘I had a great time, it was lovely to meet you?’ I wonder, roaring with fresh laughter. I pull out my phone to ring my sister and tell her about it – but then remember that I don’t want her to know I’m Internet dating; she’s so paranoid about it after what happened with her and that freak, even though it was yea
rs ago. She’ll get too involved and start insisting that she vets all the guys, even though I keep telling her that she was just unlucky. She wouldn’t understand that although I do want a relationship, I also just want some good old uncomplicated sex … I might tell her, at some point. Just not yet.
3
Amy
Sunday, 21 July
‘Do you think I should call the police?’ Amy asked Gary.
He pulled a face. ‘I don’t know. Maybe it’s a bit early? I mean, assuming the email was a wind-up, she could walk in at any moment. She probably will walk in at any moment.’
‘I’m not worried about looking foolish. I think I should—’
‘Call them. Yeah, well, maybe.’
She was seated on Becky’s desk chair, with Gary perched on the edge of the sofa, one leg bouncing back and forth, one of the most pronounced cases of restless leg syndrome she’d ever seen.
‘You can go now,’ she said. His expression made her realize she’d sounded dismissive. ‘I mean, if you need to.’
He checked his watch. ‘I suppose I really ought to get going – I’m playing five-a-side this morning … Will you be all right?’
‘Yes, don’t worry, I’ll be fine.’
‘If you hear anything, let me know, OK?’ He wrote down his mobile number for her on the back of a copy of Heat magazine, ripped it off and handed it to her.
‘Of course. Can you leave me the spare key?’
He gave her the key, went to leave, hesitated in the doorway as though he was about to say something else, then changed his mind. He was an all-right guy, Amy thought, despite his annoying little habits. It was a truism that people in London didn’t get to know their neighbours, and Amy’s main interaction with the people next door to her had been listening to passive-aggressive comments about her noisy bike, so Becky was lucky to have a friend living next door.
So, the police. This would only be the second time in her life she’d called them. In a flash, she was transported back to that moment – the bleak loneliness underpinning the utter panic and disbelief at what had just happened to her at the hands of someone she loved. She hugged herself for comfort and shook the memory away, as she had so many times before.
She was about to look up the number of the local station on the iMac when it struck her that the police might need to examine the computer, and any more activity she did on it could muddy the trail more than she had already. So she looked it up on her phone, then called them.
‘Camberwell Police.’
She took a deep breath. ‘I want to report a missing person.’
She waited while she was put through to somebody who identified himself as Police Constable Ian Norris.
‘How can I help?’
She cleared her throat to unstick the words. ‘I want to report my sister as missing.’
‘Can I take your name please?’
‘Amy Coltman.’
He asked for her address and phone number, which she gave him.
‘And your sister’s name?’
‘Becky … Rebecca Coltman,’ she said, and gave him her sister’s full address and date of birth.
‘How long has your sister been missing?’
‘Well … I haven’t seen her for a couple of weeks, but I got an email from her last night.’
She heard an intake of breath at the other end of the line. ‘Last night?’
‘Yes.’
‘And what did the email say?’
‘I know this sounds silly, and that it was only last night, but she said she was going away – going abroad – and that I shouldn’t try to find her.’
His tone changed entirely. ‘Right.’
Before he could say anything else, Amy said, ‘It’s completely out of character. I can’t believe she would go away like that and ask not to be found.’
‘She’s never done anything like this before?’
‘No. She went backpacking around Asia for her gap year but it was all pre-arranged.’
‘What about work? Have you checked with them?’
‘She’s a teacher. The school broke up for the summer holidays last Wednesday.’
‘Last Wednesday. Right …’ He paused, and she imagined him tapping details into his computer. She imagined him as the kind of bloke who typed with one finger, seeking out each letter as if for the first time.
‘What about friends? Family?’
‘Our parents live in Spain. I haven’t checked to see if they’ve heard from her yet. And I haven’t spoken to any of her friends yet.’ Despite what she’d said to Gary, she felt embarrassed now.
‘And have you been to her address?’ Norris asked.
‘I’m there now.’ Pre-empting his questions, she said, ‘It’s hard to tell if she’s packed up and gone away. But the door wasn’t double-locked. I can’t believe she’d go away without doing that.’
‘You’d be amazed, miss. Some people might as well hang a sign on their front door: “Burglars welcome”. What about her passport?’
‘Oh. I don’t know where she keeps it. Please, Officer Norris, I need you to take this seriously. There’s something … not right about the email. I’m sure something has happened to her.’
‘We take all reports of missing persons seriously, miss, I can assure you. Was there anything in the email that suggested that she planned to harm herself, or that she was being threatened?’
‘No. Let me read it to you.’
Before he could stop her, she read out the email, in a rush.
Norris didn’t respond immediately. Eventually, he said, ‘Here’s what I suggest, Miss Coltman. Why don’t you speak to your mum and dad, call some of your sister’s friends, and have a look for her passport? It sounds very much like Rebecca has gone away of her own volition. People do things that are out of character all the time, believe me.’
‘I know, but—’
‘I expect you’ll get another email in a day or two, or a postcard, saying she’s having a lovely time in Vietnam, wish you were here.’
She could feel him closing down the call, and she tried to hang on. ‘So you’re not going to do anything?’
‘I’m sorry, miss, but if she hadn’t sent the email it would be a different story. The fact is, though, that she did. She has clearly told you where she’s going and what she’s doing.’
‘But what if someone else wrote the email? Or forced her to write it?’
‘There’s no evidence of that, is there?’
‘No, but …’
She hung up, feeling utterly deflated.
As the call had gone on, her conviction that something had happened to Becky had become increasingly weaker. Norris was probably right. Becky had decided to go away. Her wheelie suitcase wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Maybe what she should be worried about was why Becky would do something so uncharacteristic. What had driven her to it?
She rubbed her face, feeling totally confused. More than that, though, she was sick with worry. Had Becky had some kind of breakdown?
She read over the email for the tenth time. And then it struck her. How could she not have seen it before – or maybe that was what had been niggling at her?
I’ve always wanted to visit Vietnam and Cambodia.
When Becky had returned from her gap-year travels, she had made Amy sit through all of her printed photos. Thailand, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines – and Cambodia. She had bemoaned the fact she hadn’t got to visit Vietnam – for some complicated reason Amy couldn’t recall, involving trains and visas and a boy from Oxford – but she had definitely been to Cambodia. She had visited the Killing Fields near – what was it called? – Phnom something. The visit had affected Becky badly. She told Amy she’d had nightmares about it for weeks afterwards, about the families who had been brutally murdered. The children. In fact, it had disturbed her so much that she refused to talk about it further, said she wanted to forget she’d ever been. Now, when she talked about her time in Asia, she would list all the places she’
d been, and she would miss out Cambodia.
But she had definitely been there. And even though she didn’t talk about it, or want to remember it, she herself would remember she’d been there. So why would she write, I’ve always wanted to visit Cambodia?
She picked up the phone, ready to call Officer Norris back. But she hesitated. She could hear his exasperated sigh in her head. There were a couple of things she needed to do first.
She went into Becky’s bedroom and looked around. The blinds were open and sunlight poured into the room. She heard a car pull up outside and rushed to the window to look out, hope flaring. It might be Becky coming home in a taxi. But it was a Royal Mail van, parking up behind Amy’s motorbike.
Where would Becky keep her passport? She opened her bedside drawer and found condoms, assorted jewellery, Vaseline, old keys – but no passport. She checked every drawer in the flat, along with the bookshelves, various boxes and chests, every place she could think of where her sister might keep her important documents. There was no sign of it.
Everything she did made her feel conflicted. Half of her wanted evidence that her sister had indeed gone away through her own free will. The other half wanted confirmation that her instincts were correct.
She sat back down at the computer and brought up Becky’s address-book program. She knew a couple of Becky’s friends from work, had met them at a party last year, here at Becky’s flat. Becky’s best friend from work was called Katherine, and Amy had spoken to her at some length about jewellery-making, Katherine’s hobby. Amy had been trying to get her to write a piece for the website. She was the obvious first port of call.
Amy dialled Katherine’s number, hoping she hadn’t gone away on holiday.
She answered after just a few rings. ‘Hello?’
‘Hi – is that Katherine?’
The other woman paused before answering. ‘Yes?’
‘This is Amy – Becky’s sister.’
Katherine’s tone changed. ‘Oh, hello. Is everything all right?’
‘I just wondered if you’d heard from Becky recently?’
‘No, I haven’t spoken to her since Wednesday, when we broke up. You’re making me worry. What’s happened?’
