The Night You Left

by Emma Curtis

  ‘That’s fine by me.’ But not a promise, I add silently.

  ‘Back then, Tim was starting a restaurant, but his main investor pulled out. I can’t remember his name, but anyway, that doesn’t matter. What matters is that it turns out it was Angus who warned this guy off; basically told him that it was dodgy. The restaurant folded pretty quickly after that. I doubt Ritchie’s would have succeeded anyway, but I’d imagine that put the knockers on it.’

  ‘Angus?’

  ‘Angus Moody. His family owned the house we stayed in that summer.’

  My stomach flips. ‘But he’s Nick’s boss.’

  ‘Shit, is he?’ He pauses, looking suspiciously like a man trying to work out what this means, but if I’ve learned anything in the last twenty minutes, it’s that thinking on his feet is not Alex Wells’ strong point. ‘Angus spent a lot of time talking to him, so maybe they stayed in touch.’ He smiles ruefully. ‘I wish he’d given me half the advice he gave Nick.’

  All I know about Angus Moody is that Nick did an internship with his company before he went to university. Three years after graduating Nick was head-hunted by Angus from HSBC. I had no idea that their connection went back further than that. Why wouldn’t Nick have told me? He talked about him often enough.

  ‘Can we backtrack a little? How did you all know each other?’

  He looks at me as if I’m slow. ‘Angus and his wife Lorna are old friends of my parents.’

  I rub the space between my eyes. If Angus was instrumental in ruining Tim, that would have crushed Nick if he found out.

  ‘He tried to warn Mum and Dad, but unfortunately they ignored his advice. I was supposed to keep it quiet, but …’

  I look at him steadily and he flushes and shrugs.

  ‘But you told Nick? Is that it, Alex? You told him that Angus Moody killed off his father’s dream?’

  ‘I thought it would help.’

  I grit my teeth. Talking to Alex Wells is like wading through treacle. ‘And this was on Friday?’

  ‘Yes. Is it important?’

  I close my eyes for a second. The noise of the baristas taking orders, the hiss of steam and clunk of stainless steel bombard me. When I open them Alex is looking at me anxiously.

  ‘It might be,’ I say.

  ‘It affected us too, you know. We lost a shedload of money. Dad was overly impressed with Tim and couldn’t see past his bullshit. When the restaurant folded, Dad felt like an idiot. He was embarrassed. Tim never said sorry; he just walked away from it. Dad’s never forgiven him for that.’

  ‘Will you tell him about Angus?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t see what it would achieve, apart from reminding them of a horrible time.’

  I debate whether to mention the visit that Angus paid me on Monday evening. I need to think what it means, in combination with this new piece of information, but I don’t believe his story about the supper party. His appearance on my doorstep was so outlandish.

  ‘When was the last time you spoke to Angus?’

  ‘God, I’ve no idea. Mum kept in touch with Lorna for a while, but it was all so painful that they kind of let the friendship slide.’ He shrugs. ‘Ten years or more? Sorry. I don’t remember.’

  As I leave, he says, ‘Say hi to Cora from me. I was fond of her. I missed her when we moved out of London. The Ritchies were a big part of my childhood.’ He hesitates, then adds, ‘Are you and Nick married?’

  ‘We’ve just got engaged.’ I like the way that sounds.

  ‘Pity,’ Alex says. ‘Legally, you’d be on a stronger footing if you were. In the current circumstances, I mean.’ He sees my horrified expression and grimaces. ‘Sorry. I’m a lawyer. It’s the way my brain thinks.’

  My answering laugh is dry; more cough than mirth.

  As I walk away, it’s Angus who occupies my thoughts, not Alex. There were four reasons why he might have come to see me. He genuinely cared about Nick; he was suspicious that Nick was lying about why he was taking time off; that perhaps he’d taken an impromptu holiday; he knew Nick wasn’t there. His visit was a taunt or a threat of some kind. An implication that he’s watching us.

  I smile. Things must be bad if I’m weaving conspiracy theories. Angus came because he was ‘just passing’, and he wished to show concern for an employee he values.

  Of course, there were the mythical papers he said he had for Nick and which he didn’t leave behind.

  ‘Where’s Cora?’ I ask Tim.

  ‘She’s putting her feet up for an hour. It’s a strain, all this.’

  He gives me a glum smile and I nod, noticing the invisible eye-roll, the way he looks at me as though we both know what she’s like. For some reason it annoys rather than pleases me. Cora may be difficult, but she’s his wife. He should be loyal.

  She must have heard me come in, because she appears, refreshed from her nap, just as Tim is asking me where I’ve been.

  ‘To see Alex Wells.’

  ‘Oh?’ Cora says. Their surprise is evident. Tim looks nervous.

  ‘He’d arranged a meeting with Nick, so I thought I’d go along and see what it was about. Alex has some stuff he’s working through. He’s been in therapy. He wanted to talk about his sister.’

  ‘Well, of course, that was a tragedy,’ Tim says.

  ‘He thought Nick might have unresolved issues. Alex certainly does. I got the feeling that no one talked about it properly after it happened. That you dealt with it by losing sight of each other.’

  Tim sighs. ‘Yes, that’s true to an extent. We did lose touch with the family. It was so incredibly difficult, so painful. It’s not a nice thing to admit, but I was relieved when they moved away. How is he?’

  ‘I don’t know him, but he seemed uncertain, in a bit of a rut, maybe. The impression I got was that he was trying to move his life forward by tracking Nick down. On the other hand, it’s hard to believe that the timing was a coincidence.’

  ‘It certainly seems odd,’ Tim says.

  ‘Why wouldn’t Nick have told me about this?’

  ‘Perhaps he thought you wouldn’t understand,’ Cora says. ‘Or that you would play it down in some way.’

  ‘He knows I’d never do that.’ I swallow back the hurt and instinctively fight back. ‘What about you two? Alex told me about the restaurant. About losing your friends’ money. He didn’t think you cared.’

  ‘Of course I did,’ Tim protests. ‘I felt terrible. But it was business. You win some, you lose some.’

  ‘Do you?’

  He ignores my tone. ‘Nick was going through adolescence. He was very up and down at the time. After the accident he withdrew. He was diagnosed with depression the following year.’

  Depression. There’s too much to take in; I pull out a chair and sit down hard.

  ‘I’m sorry, that’s obviously a shock to you.’

  There’s a long silence. After a few moments, I take a deep breath and look up. ‘How did she drown?’

  ‘No one knows,’ he says. ‘It was one of those things. We didn’t even know she was outside.’

  ‘Do you think it might have something to do with what’s happened?’

  ‘We don’t know,’ Cora says. ‘We’re just looking for something to explain the unexplainable.’

  TAISIE

  July 2000

  THE RAIN KEPT UP THE NEXT DAY, SO THEY SPENT THE morning in Totnes visiting the museum, where they had to suffer the humiliation of dressing up as Victorian children. After that they shopped for food.

  The car journey back was a nightmare, because Nick managed to work things so that he was sitting next to her. Actually, Taisie suspected it was the twins’ fault. They were sitting in the back, whispering and giggling. It was precisely the sort of situation they would find funny. Izzy sat in the front. The little boys had gone in Cora’s car with Lorna. Obviously, her mum orchestrated that arrangement. She didn’t want to be cleaning mud off the seats, and the ancient Volvo Estate Lorna and Angus kept down here was filthy anyway. La
st time Taisie sat in it, she got straw stuck to the backs of her thighs.

  Back home, they fell out of the car and sprinted to the house. Not that it made any difference. They were all soaked to the skin anyway. God, what a waste of time that was. The only people enjoying themselves were Rory and Alex, who were so easily pleased it was pathetic.

  ‘Find something to do,’ Lorna said, as soon as they were inside.

  Taisie and the twins wanted to go upstairs and chill, but no, they had to ‘do’ something that involved ‘all of you’ and not ‘leave anyone out’. As if they hadn’t wasted an entire morning doing exactly that.

  ‘Let’s play Sardines!’ Rory shouted from the downstairs toilet.

  Taisie rolled her eyes and glanced at Pansy. She rolled hers back.

  ‘I think that’s a wonderful idea,’ her mother said.

  ‘Are you going to play too?’ Taisie asked, raising her eyebrows to make it obvious she was being sarcastic.

  ‘I don’t think so, darling. We’ll tidy up downstairs.’

  The three men wandered out of the kitchen, holding half-drunk bottles of beer. Taisie looked such a mess, standing there in her socks and damp clothes. Tim barely looked at her. Yesterday he said that he must introduce her to Tom Gale because they’d get on like a house on fire. She had wanted to ask why, but her mum had flicked a stony glance her way. She had returned it with a scowl. What was her problem, for Christ’s sake?

  She risked a quick glance at Tim, but he was messing with Rory, his hand on her brother’s head as he flailed with his fists, giggling hysterically. Tim was brilliant with children. It was scary how hard she was falling for Nick’s dad. Now she couldn’t stop thinking about him. At least it took her mind off Nick. He was so immature.

  ‘What about the dads?’ Pansy asked. ‘Are you going to play Sardines, or sit around drinking beer all afternoon?’

  ‘Don’t be cheeky,’ Angus said.

  Taisie’s father clapped his hand on Tim’s shoulder. Taisie groaned inwardly. He was pissed. Great.

  ‘Go on, kids. Make yourselves scarce. Give us a break.’

  ‘Another one?’ Lorna said wryly.

  But she was on the men’s side. Taisie turned to the others. They were waiting for her to make the decision, as usual.

  ‘Come on, then. We might as well. Ip dip sky blue, who’s it, not you …’

  GRACE

  Thursday, 19 April 2018

  BEFORE I HEAD TO THE POLICE STATION, I CALL PHILLIPA at Financial Logistics. Since Nick is now officially missing, I can’t put it off any longer. She’s sympathetic, but what happens next is not up to her.

  ‘I’ll need to speak to Angus,’ she says.

  Ah, Angus, I think. The man who, unbeknownst to me, has known Nick since he was a teenager. I’d love to know what the policy is for when employees vanish into thin air or if they even have one. I presume this isn’t something they’ve had to deal with before, but you never know.

  ‘OK.’

  She must have heard the tremor in my voice because she offers to wait until Monday.

  ‘He’s taking a long weekend and he’s already left the office,’ she says. ‘And he hates being disturbed at home.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘A lot can happen in three days. Hang on in there.’

  After I put the phone down, I feel oddly distant, as though I don’t belong here any more. I’m the woman whose boyfriend has apparently vanished into thin air. My house isn’t empty, but the atmosphere is hollow. Absent, I keep thinking. There’s no smell, no shadow, no noise from the shower, no extravagant sneezes. And in bed at night I’m alone.

  Leaving the Vespa in the Asda car park, I walk along the busy high street to the police station for my appointment with DI Marsh. The detective is in his early forties, balding, his head shaved. He has a raised mole at the side of his nose, near his right eye, that I have to keep telling myself not to focus on. He briefly outlines what’s been done so far, warning me not to expect much because it’s too early in the process. He has one of his officers checking local CCTV footage but so far there have been no sightings beyond the Queen’s Arms.

  It’s bewilderingly noisy in here; officers on the phone, phones ringing incessantly, conversations and banter. Marsh ignores the cacophony and focuses on me, and soon has me settled in the bubble of his attention.

  I tell him everything I know, from the death of Alex Wells’ sister to the business with Nick’s boss. I mention the In-Step app and Anna, even though I’m a little ashamed to, because it makes me feel like a stalker.

  ‘I’ll make a note,’ he says. ‘But it seems to me that there are good enough reasons for all of this. People do go into therapy years after an event and they do try and track down the other people involved. Something will trigger a need, it may be a decade or even four decades later, but it can be a force that’s too strong to resist.’

  ‘But what if the trigger for Alex getting in touch was also the trigger for Nick’s disappearance? Alex told me a bit about the dynamics of the three families that summer. There were underlying tensions. And what about Angus Moody’s involvement? He scuppered that restaurant. Nick knew nothing about it until Alex told him. He would have been extremely angry.’

  ‘Ms Trelawney, what you’re talking about is life. Restaurants go under. Your partner works in banking. I’m sure he has a healthily pragmatic view about the vagaries of any business, and restaurants are particularly risky. I very much doubt he would blame his boss for making what appears to have been a sensible decision. Presumably Moody hasn’t got where he is today without being able to spot a bad bet when he sees it.’

  ‘I know, but—’

  ‘I understand that you’re frightened, but try to be rational. Nick has walked out. No one has seen him, as far as we know, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t staying with a friend, trying to get his head straight. Something will have shaken him so badly that he feels he can’t face his family, but that doesn’t mean he’s in any danger. In fact, the most likely scenario is that he’s holed up somewhere. You have to be patient and have faith. From what you tell me, Nick has plenty of common sense. He doesn’t sound like the sort to misjudge a situation.’

  ‘I know something’s happened to him. You have to believe me.’

  In my distress I squeeze my hand round the white plastic beaker I’ve been holding, and it collapses in on itself. Water splashes over my coat, trousers and the back of Marsh’s desk. I leap up and try to mop up the mess with my sleeve, but water trickles around the base of his keyboard and soaks into a pad of paper. Marsh remains calm, moving everything to one side. Another officer hands him a box of tissues. He pulls out a wad and dabs at the mess.

  ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it.’ He dries a pen and puts it to one side.

  ‘Will you speak to Nick’s boss? He’s out of London, but his assistant will have a contact number for him.’

  ‘Do you think he’ll be able to shed some light on what’s happened?’

  ‘I have no idea. I thought I knew everything about Nick, but it appears I don’t. For all I know, he’s embezzled the company’s millions.’

  Marsh’s eyes show a flicker of interest. ‘Has he been spending large sums of money recently?’

  ‘I was joking. Nick’s very careful with his money.’

  Back at home, I put on one of Nick’s sweaters. It envelops me and I can smell him in the soft wool. Tim and Cora are out, and it’s such a relief to have the house to myself that I feel a surge of physical happiness as I reclaim my space. Armed with a coffee, because I need as much caffeine as I can get to mitigate the effects of a succession of bad nights, I push open the door to Nick’s study, half expecting to find him there. He’s not, of course. I run my fingers along his shelves, pick up the photograph of me and Lottie and set it back down. I take his seat, swivel it round and settle myself at his desk.

  I force my mind back to the days before Nick vanished. There were several significant
events: he had a nightmare that terrified him; he asked me to marry him; he was contacted by Alex Wells. And one seemingly insignificant event – the one thing that Marsh showed no interest in – he went for a walk and paused at the same time as Anna Foreman. She could have been somewhere else entirely. Kai was at Hannah’s sleepover too, so she may have taken the opportunity to have a night out. It could be nothing, but now that I know Evan saw him with a woman, I don’t think it is; I think it may be everything. My gut feeling is that this has something to do with the part of his past Nick has kept hidden from me. The part that spills over into his dreams from time to time and causes those horrible hallucinatory visitations.

  A woman. The thought leaves me breathless with anxiety, it sends heat racing up into my face. It sickens me. I ram my feet into the carpet and stop moving.

  Stop it. Stop thinking this way. For heaven’s sake, if it was something like that, I would know by now. Think about practicalities. I cannot afford to let things slide, not with Lottie to consider. And Nick wouldn’t want me to either; he’d tell me to pull myself together. There is a very expensive roof over our heads and it’s up to me to make sure it stays here.

  I have a good idea of the general day-to-day stuff, and I know that our mortgage costs us four hundred pounds a month. He has a company car, but my little runabout is on a lease, and he pays that too, with its insurance, MOT and tax. I cover the costs of my Vespa. What I earn from my job pays for our supermarket bills and our immediate needs, but not the Direct Debits or standing orders.

  Beside me Toffee gets bored and curls up, makes a soft snuffling noise before burying his muzzle in his paws. I wish I could do the same. Outside a gust of wind sends pink blossom swirling. I lean over the monitor to watch the flurry drift on to the lawn, then sit down again with a thump. Toffee whines, confused.

  ‘Settle down,’ I say, and go back to my calculations.

  Twenty minutes later, I push the chair back and weave my fingers through my hair. Ball park, our joint outgoings add up to a vast two and a half grand a month if I factor in everything I can possibly think of and add a hundred for contingencies. And that’s not counting the money Nick gives his parents. It’s amazing how much we spend without even thinking about it. We’re not extravagant – Lottie’s school is a state primary and we only have one foreign holiday a year – but there’s no way I can support us on my income alone.