Madison sat next to her, her arms now folded tight around her waist, silent and mulish.
The silver car did not move.
More time passed.
At 01:19:20 one of its doors opened and Dominic Tate climbed out. He looked scruffy, in a pale jacket and worn sneakers not suitable for the weather.
He did not approach, not straight away. He stood next to the car, looking up and down the street, and when a man in a trench coat passed across Madison’s side of the road, he stepped backwards, into the shadows.
When the man was gone, he reappeared.
Another quick look from left to right, and then he was hurrying across the road, for the front door, and his urgency, his furtive glances around for witnesses, made Fiona and Madison reach out and tightly grip each other’s hands.
Dominic Tate stood on the steps, at the front door, shrinking against the porch, obviously trying to avoid being observed from the street. He peered into the frosted glass panel above the door knocker, rising up on tiptoes, his eyes luminous, darting here and there, and then he moved towards the picture window. The angle was such that it was not possible to see his face, just the crown of his head, though his jaw was working, his hands shaking.
He had something in his fist, something thin and sharp that glinted.
‘What’s he holding?’ demanded Madison.
‘I don’t know,’ lied Fiona, her heart in her mouth.
He backed away from the house, keeping low, and in turning to look at the street again he bumped against Madison’s car, its tyres now buried in a couple of inches of snow.
He paused, his ungloved hand resting for a moment against the passenger-side window, where it dislodged a thin flurry from the bonnet.
Then he bent down, and with quick, careful movements, jammed whatever he was holding into the gaps in the treads of the tyres, his arm levering up and down with enormous restrained force each time. The car sank a little further into the slush, unevenly, causing the powdery snow to shift and tilt on its roof, its bonnet, its windows, until he had slashed all four tyres.
He stood upright, then paused, hands on hips, as though surveying a job well done.
Then, without a moment’s hesitation, he strode out, back to his own car, and got in. The lights came on again. He pulled out and drove off, slowing only once, as he passed Madison’s house, and his white face was stretched into a horrible, satisfied grin.
Then he was gone.
‘Holy fucking shit,’ breathed Fiona.
Mads did not reply, but her hand clutched Fiona’s own.
‘Have you driven that car since …’
‘No,’ said Madison. ‘Not since Saturday.’
‘We need to check the tyres.’ Fiona rubbed her eyes. ‘We need to call the police.’
There was no answer.
Fiona turned to Madison. She was white and shaking.
‘Mads, don’t worry,’ said Fiona, though Madison’s fear, a thing so alien to them both, was making her afraid. She strove to appear confident, blithe. ‘We have all of that on tape. He’s not going to get away with …’
‘Fee …’
‘What?’
Madison’s green eyes were saucer round. ‘Is he out there now?’
Fiona stilled.
‘I … I dunno.’
‘Fee, will you go and look?’
‘Will I …? Um, Mads …’
‘Fee, it has to be you. I can’t go. He’s been wandering around the place, peering into the windows, with a knife. Do you see? He’d go for me. If you go out, he won’t get into it with you. Just see if that silver car is there …’
‘I don’t know, Mads …’
‘I am not going to be able to sleep tonight if that psycho is out there!’ Madison was nearly in tears. ‘Please, Fee. Just look for me.’
12
Fontarabia Road, Clapham, London, January 2019
It was dark and the street was quiet, though the wind was high and shook the empty branches. The snow of a few days ago had all but vanished now and the streets shone with new rain. On any other night it would have felt mild, fresh.
Fiona stepped out of the door, her hands thrust deeply into the pockets of her coat, her phone grazing the knuckles of her right.
Shit, Madison, she thought. How do you talk me into these things?
The plan was for her to walk to the Tesco Express on Cedars Road. It was only five minutes away. If Dominic Tate’s car was on the street or there was any sign of him, she would act as though she had forgotten something and then return immediately to the house.
Madison would then call the police.
She tried to school her face into an unconcerned expression as she stepped out of the yard, attempting not to notice Madison’s mutilated car as she turned into the street. She paused, looking from left to right, but in the darkness car colours were almost impossible to spot and a third of them could conceivably have been silver.
She realised she was shaking. She wanted to go back in.
But she’d promised she’d do this, so she would. She struck out, walking slowly, making way for a young couple talking animatedly about a movie they had seen. (‘It was sick,’ the boy kept saying with passionate admiration. ‘Those cars were sick.’ ‘It was fucking rubbish,’ said the girl, her voice rising in contempt. ‘Next time I choose the film.’)
Their quarrelling voices grew fainter as Fiona pushed on. It was Saturday night so every space that could be parked in was taken, cars bumper to bumper. She trod slowly past them all, her eyes gliding over drivers’ seats and through windscreens, as if in passing. That’s right, she said to herself, just look like you’re not looking at anything in particular …
When she walked past a tree and saw him there, sitting in his car, mere feet away from her, she should have been prepared, and yet somehow wasn’t. He looked straight at her, making no attempt to hide his presence, nor did he seem embarrassed. His mouth was a flat white line, his chin unshaven and speckled with grey.
She hesitated, nearly stumbled, fixed to the ground in shock.
They stared at one another.
The plan was that Fiona should now look as though she had forgotten something, turn back to the house, but this was ridiculous. He had clearly seen her reaction to him.
She did not know what to do.
Long seconds passed. The fighting couple were gone, and the streets were empty. From nearby, the faint scratchy sound of a TV came from a neighbouring house.
She had to move. She couldn’t just stand here. This man had threatened to throw acid over Madison.
And then, as she remembered this, a little flicker of rage woke within her.
Who did he think he was, the big bully? Just because he’d been dumped? Fiona had been dumped before, but had never dreamt of destroying someone’s property or threatening to hurt them.
Sometimes relationships just didn’t work out.
What was the matter with him, the spoiled, entitled arsehole?
Before she knew it, she was rapping hard on the car window, her bare knuckles stinging against the glass.
Slowly, with an electronic whine, the window rolled down.
‘Can I help you?’ he asked coldly.
‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded. She could hear the crack of fear in her own voice. ‘Leave right now, or I’m calling the police.’
‘This is a public street,’ he said, and his voice was loud, as though calling attention to the crazy woman harassing him in his car. ‘I can be wherever I want.’
‘You can’t slit Madison’s tyres, though. And threaten her.’
A thin smile moved over his face, like an eel. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘You didn’t slash her tyres?’ She persisted, everything in her wanting to run, and yet somehow, finding she could not. ‘You didn’t park over there,’ she said, gesturing to the place on the street, ‘for all day Tuesday, then sit there all night, then come over at 1:19 a.m. and peer in Madison
’s windows?’
That smile seemed to freeze in place.
‘You’re on CCTV.’ The spark of an idea shot through her. ‘You’re on CCTV right now.’
The smile did not flinch, his mocking eyes didn’t blink, but she had the sense then that behind his malignant, contemptuous front, something was retreating, fleeing in rout.
She realised he was a coward at heart.
That said, it didn’t mean he wasn’t dangerous.
‘You fucking bitch,’ he breathed. ‘You and that filthy cheating cunt better watch your fucking backs …’
But Fiona had seen that flash of weakness.
‘Fuck off, Dom,’ she said, standing upright, turning on her heel, marching with purpose back to Madison’s flat.
There was nothing as she did so, just silence, apart from the wind in the branches, the measured tread of her boots on the pavement.
Then suddenly his engine roared to life. She didn’t look round, filled with relief that he was finally going.
And then he screamed alongside her, and at the last moment swerved in, just a fraction, as the wall of cars lining the street opened up in a gap. She froze, petrified, as his car lights lunged for her.
Then he swerved back again, tore along the road, and she had a final flash of his desperate, malicious eyes as he drove away, vanishing as he turned right.
For a long time she stood there, shaking, as though she had run a long race, her breath pluming in the thin air. It had been years and years since anyone had offered her the threat of physical violence – not since her mother had left home – and the shock of it was visceral, all-consuming.
She felt absolutely fragile and hollow, as though if someone came up and touched her, she would crumble slowly into a pile of glass shards.
A window opened in a flat across the street. A man in a kufi and beard peered out, his expression quizzical. He had been drawn, no doubt, by the roar of engines.
The spell was broken.
She could move again, though her breath was laboured, and as she headed off towards Madison’s flat, she started to run.
13
Kirkwall, Orkney, January 2020
‘Hi, Judy …’ Fiona’s throat was dry.
‘Who is this?’
‘It’s Fiona. Fiona Grey. I left a message earlier.’
‘Oh, sorry, I haven’t listened to my messages yet,’ Judy said airily, her voice breathless with its perpetual slight wheeze.
She didn’t sound very sorry.
Judy, diagnosed with chronic heart failure, had moved to Majorca shortly after Rob, Madison’s dad, had died in a car accident. His Jaguar XJ had skidded off a country road while Mads was still at university, and collided head on with a tree.
Since Rob had not been alone but with his thirty-year-old personal assistant when this happened, and they had been heading for a country hotel in Sussex rather than a previously attested sales conference in Slough, Judy had been inclined to completely reappraise her life and marriage. The move had been the opening step. She had felt that the hot, fresh climate would be ‘just the ticket’.
And maybe she was right. She’d been holding on for the last ten years. Whether that was a result of the change of air or her kicking her twenty-a-day smoking habit was up for debate.
‘So, um, Judy, I just got out of the police station …’
‘What?’ Judy snapped. ‘What did you do?’
Fiona paused for a moment, stunned.
‘I didn’t … sorry, I didn’t do anything.’
‘Oh,’ said Judy.
Fiona was silent, speechless with sudden humiliated fury.
You know, she thought, I can outgrow my past, and I have. I can recover from my untreated bipolar mother and my father who drank himself to death, and our life in a shabby little ex-council house where we’re all on first-name terms with the police and the bailiffs. I can get my doctorate, build an academic career, meet a nice boy …
But it will never make a lick of difference to Judy. To her, I’ll always be Madison’s Unsuitable Friend.
And she’ll never knowingly miss an opportunity to remind me of it.
Fiona’s jaw clenched. She fought to keep her temper in check, to calm her racing emotions.
Have pity. You are, after all, about to give her some bad news.
‘It’s not about me, Judy.’ She could hear how fragile she sounded. ‘It’s Madison.’
‘What?’
‘She’s missing.’
As Fiona explained the last couple of days, then the last couple of weeks, Madison’s mother remained silent.
Oddly silent, Fiona thought.
‘So where is she?’ demanded Judy at the end, as though Fiona had somehow concealed Madison somewhere.
‘Well,’ Fiona said, ‘they’re not sure Mads didn’t leave the house herself under her own power for some reason, especially since she seems to have contacted people, but they’re going to look into it. They’ve taken your details. You’ll probably hear from them very soon.’
Judy did not reply.
Fiona swallowed, leaned against the wall of the police station. ‘And you know, it very likely could be something or nothing …’
‘Yes. You said that already.’ Fiona heard the tiny intake of her laboured breath. ‘But what do you think?’
‘I …’ Fiona was once again shocked, but for entirely different reasons. She realised that Judy had never once asked her opinion on anything before today, and that she should do so now signalled how worried she was.
She owed Judy the truth.
‘I’m sorry, I think it’s really strange.’
‘Oh. Oh God,’ said Judy.
‘But, you know, on the other hand, people say they’ve had texts and emails from her, giving different excuses. So I don’t know what to believe. It could be nothing.’
Silence – no, not silence, for there was always the hitched sound of Judy’s breathing, that high, shallow sighing in her lungs.
‘Judy,’ Fiona asked cautiously, ‘are you sure Madison was okay? That she wasn’t having any problems?’
‘Well, you know, I’m not sure … we weren’t speaking. We had a row.’
No change there, thought Fiona. ‘But still …’ she began.
‘No, a real row, Fiona.’ A pause, as though bracing herself. ‘We hadn’t spoken in weeks. About, well, legal things.’
Another tight little pause.
Fiona frowned, waited. Madison had not mentioned a row, but then Madison always spoke about her family in exasperated terms anyway. In many ways, it was a constant, ongoing row – it was just that the volume was louder or quieter depending on personal circumstances and the mood of the participants.
‘I’m flying over,’ said Judy. Her tone was flat, no nonsense.
‘You are?’
‘Yes. And Hugo is coming up too. I’ll phone him now.’
Oh no. Hugo, thought Fiona, scratching her neck nervously. I’m not sure I could cope with Hugo right now.
‘Is he not there with you?’
‘No.’ A pause. ‘He moved back to England with Tara.’
Fiona frowned, puzzled. The idea that Madison’s brother would willingly leave Judy’s beautiful house in Cala Llombards where he and his wife lived rent-free was distinctly strange.
Perhaps Madison was not the only one Judy had fallen out with lately.
‘But are you safe to fly?’
‘I’ll worry about that,’ she replied, almost snapping the words. ‘I’ll book it now and ring you with the details when I’m done. You can pick us up when I arrive.’
There was no hint of a please or thank you.
‘Of course,’ was all Fiona said.
‘Right, I’d better get on. Speak to you soon.’
Judy was gone.
With a sigh Fiona turned to head back to her car, when her phone buzzed in her palm.
It was a text from an unknown number, and she poked it open furiously, wondering if it was from Madison. At last, a
t last …
Hi Fiona – it’s Jack. Are you okay? How did it go with the police? Give us a call if you get the chance. J
How did he get this number? she wondered, then realised that of course she was Mads’ emergency contact. The diggers must have looked it up. She gazed down at the message.
Selfish as it made her feel, she was moved by this, the first time someone had asked her how she felt. It would be polite to give the archaeologists a call, to let them know how it had gone.
When she tried, however, it went straight to voicemail. Of course, there was no signal on Helly Holm. Jack’s message could have been sent at any time.
She glanced up into the cloudy sky with its patches of startling blue. The sun was low, very low – it was only two in the afternoon and yet sunset did not seem very far away.
She was exhausted, done in. It was time to get back to Langmire and do the only thing she could now – sit and wait, and hope that Madison got back in touch.
She pressed the car key, was greeted by the welcome beep and flash of lights.
So Hugo moved back to England, she thought, letting herself into the car.
Now, that I did not expect.
14
Langmire, Grangeholm, Orkney, January 2020
Fiona had returned to the Fletts’ house after her trip to Kirkwall, a pair of new all-weather boots in a carrier bag over her shoulder.
The Fletts were out, it seemed, but to her surprise, they had taped an envelope to their own front door with FIONA written on it in marker pen.
Within, there was a set of keys on a keyring with an enamelled Orkney flag dangling from it.
Fiona tried to imagine anyone doing something similar in London, or Cambridge, and laughed.
As if.
As promised, Langmire was warm when she went in, locking the door after herself. She was touched to see, as she carried her suitcase into the downstairs bedroom, that Maggie had made up the stripped bed for her in crisp blue and white linen.
She went into the comfortable sitting room, let herself collapse in a heap, switching on the wall-mounted television with the remote, putting her phone on the table.
Night Falls, Still Missing Page 9
