Over Your Shoulder

by C J Carver

  I told her about Etienne’s phone call.

  ‘If he was in Ibiza,’ Clara said, ‘he never told me. I don’t get it. If he’d been there he would have told me. He would have brought back presents for me and the kids, you know what he was like when he went away.’

  I hadn’t told her about the money Rob supposedly owed, just that Etienne sounded under stress from an unknown Spanish man.

  ‘Had he been to Ibiza before?’ I asked.

  ‘A couple of times. We spent nearly a whole summer on the Med back in the day, do you remember?’

  It had been when I was in my third year at uni. Both of them had helped crew a luxury catamaran from the UK to Greece and from there had found other crew work, island hopping and generally having a glorious time in the sun while I ground my teeth in fruitless envy. They’d returned soon after they discovered Clara was pregnant with Finn, and since then, she’d mainly stayed in the UK with the kids while Rob continued what I’d thought to be a feckless lifestyle. Until he’d landed the job in London, that was.

  What did MI5 have to do with his owing money to this Spanish man? If MI5 were involved at all, of course. Perhaps Rob had suffered a mid-twenties crisis and hit Ibiza for some partying. I know he’d been struggling with family life at the time because he’d told me. We’d taken Dad’s Moody out for a sail one Sunday, just the two of us, a crate of beer, and stacks of sandwiches cobbled together in his kitchen with Finn banging at our knees and Honey screaming next door.

  ‘It’s not that I don’t love them,’ he told me. ‘But it just gets so wearing.’

  ‘I think Clara would probably agree with that,’ I said neutrally.

  He pulled a face. ‘I sound like a prize shit, don’t I. I know she bears the brunt of it all, but I miss what we had before. Clara’s permanently knackered, the house is a tip, the kids creating hell. Sometimes, I work late specifically so the kids are in bed asleep when I get home.’ He ran a hand over his face. ‘It will get better, won’t it?’

  I didn’t have kids, but he looked so miserable that I did what many older brothers have probably done over the years and told him what he was going through was completely normal, that things would definitely get better, and had he considered getting a babysitter in so they could both have the occasional break?

  ‘We can’t afford it,’ he said glumly. ‘We can’t afford anything much.’

  ‘Mum and Dad will be happy to help,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t want to ask them.’ He set his jaw. ‘Mum will look disappointed that I’m not the provider I should be, and you know Dad. He’ll take it as an excuse to rant about my getting a proper job, when am I going to grow up, all that crap.’

  Fair enough.

  ‘How about if I stump up for a babysitter every couple of weeks?’ I offered. After all, I was single and earning a fairly decent wage so I could afford to be generous. ‘Say every first and third Sunday so you and Clara can spend a day sailing together?’

  A rush of emotion crossed his face and for a moment, I thought he was going to cry.

  ‘Christ, Nick. You’re tops.’ He punched me on the shoulder. ‘That’s a great idea. I miss sailing with Clara so much and I know she misses it like hell too. I’ll pay you back, I promise. Soon too. I didn’t tell you because I don’t want to jinx it, but I’ve got a job in the pipeline that may come off. It pays pretty well. But I won’t know for a bit. Even though I’ve yet to meet the big boss, I still need extensive vetting, apparently.’

  He wouldn’t say what the job was, but now I guessed it was with MI5 because I only stumped up for four babysitting sessions, and in retrospect, this was the lowest I ever saw him. As Clara had intimated, from that time things had improved immeasurably. I frowned, trying to think why he might have been in Ibiza before he disappeared. I couldn’t think how to make it work with the Saint and the security services, unless Rob had been undercover.

  That would make sense.

  A sense of urgency dropped over me. I had to speak with Rob’s case officer. The sooner, the better.

  I dialled Susie but got her voicemail. I left a brief message saying I’d spoken to Etienne, but no more. I didn’t want to irritate her more than I had already.

  Chapter 17

  Checking my watch, I saw I was running late. As a family, we’d agreed to give one of the newspapers our exclusive story, and we were supposed to have congregated at Mum and Dad’s ten minutes earlier. I pulled on my sailing jacket and jogged outside. My parents lived on the other side of the harbour, in a Grade II listed house called Sea Flax, originally a pair of coastguard cottages. With extensive harbour views, open fireplaces and oak-beamed ceilings it was probably worth a fortune but they would never sell, and we would never let them unless it was a dire emergency.

  It was a house made for kids. Six bedrooms, loads of space and extensive gardens, and where Rob, Kate and I used to play endlessly in the garden – our tree house had been refurbished and rebuilt several times – or fix up our skiffs on the lawn. Rob’s kids had done the same and we hoped the next generation would too.

  Susie and I had talked about having children, but now I knew the extent of her ambition I wondered if it would happen. Perhaps if I offered to be a full-time house husband? That might work. I’d love to have kids. A brace of them, preferably. A boy and a girl.

  As I neared the house, a journalist tried to ask me a question but I held up a hand, telling him I was giving an exclusive, sorry.

  ‘Who with?’

  When I told him, he cursed, but I was gratified to see him pull out his phone and move away.

  We’d sold our story to one of the major national newspapers and were giving the money they were paying us to the RNLI since they’d worked so hard to try to find Rob the day he went missing. The paper had provided us with an experienced journalist and photographer both of whom were intelligent and empathetic, and exactly what we needed.

  We’d agreed on a cohesive story between us, and it was Clara who told it. Lots of pictures of her and the kids, Finn looking awkward, probably due to his acne, and Honey in full make-up looking way too grown-up and sexy for a fourteen-year old. Talking about the past, Rob as a boy, a teenager, and how each of us remembered him took far longer than any of us had planned, mainly because every memory seemed to be fraught with emotion.

  It was well past lunchtime when we wound up.

  I stepped outside and for the first time, didn’t see a single journalist lurking. Word had obviously gone around.

  A watery sun was trying to break through the clouds but the breeze was stiff and cold, so I zipped my jacket up to my chin. To save time, I walked across the harbour even though the path was slimy with weed. The tide had started coming in so I increased my pace, and I’d just made it to the other side when Susie rang.

  ‘Etienne?’ she asked. She was brusque because she was at work, so I was as brusque as I could be so I wouldn’t waste her time. When I finished, she said, ‘I’ll arrange a meet between you and Rob’s case officer. But I’ll have to be there too, okay?’

  I nearly fell over. I hadn’t thought she’d do it.

  ‘Brilliant,’ I breathed. ‘Thanks, Suze. I really appreciate it. I think once I meet him–’

  ‘Sorry, Nick. I’ve got to go. Love you.’

  ‘Love you too.’

  After checking in with Ronja and catching up with various bits of work, I headed into Chichester and spent the remainder of the afternoon with the Sussex Police going through mug shots and supposedly trying to help them identify the two men who’d attacked Clara and me. I hated every minute, and loathed every lie. I knew I was doing it to protect Clara and the kids from any fallout from the Saint, but it didn’t make me feel any better and I left as soon as I could, convinced I looked like one of their felons pasted on their wall: guilty and hangdog as hell.

  It was dark as I left the station and most of the cars had left the car park, heading home after their working day. My phone gave a ting as I buckled up and I pulled it out to
see it was Susie texting me. She was already at home and wondering where I was. I checked my watch to see she must have caught an earlier train. Spirits lifting, I texted her back. On my way. See you in ten.

  I parked outside the cottage, glad to see the street was empty of journalists and photographers. I walked up our little front path and pulled out my keys but when I fitted the Yale into the lock it was to find it wasn’t locked. I frowned. This was odd. Susie was a stickler for security and not just because of her job but because of her attack. I’d never known her not to keep the doors locked.

  I pushed open the door, calling out, ‘Hi Suze, it’s only me.’

  ‘Hi, only you.’

  Barefoot and bare-legged, she padded down the stairs dressed in nothing but one of my V-neck sweaters that stopped mid-thigh. Damp hair indicated she’d just had a shower. God, she looked beautiful. I scooped her close. She smelled of ginger and some kind of spice.

  ‘Hmmm,’ I said. I slipped my hand to cup her naked buttock, smooth and warm and as round and sweet as anything I knew.

  ‘Hmmm.’ She reached up and wound her arms around my neck. ‘Is now a good time?’

  I put my head on one side and pretended to think. ‘Well, I’m pretty busy right now, protecting the United Kingdom against malicious threats to national security from the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and I’m–’

  She pressed her open lips against mine, silencing me. Her tongue slipped inside my mouth, small and narrow, darting like a minnow. We must have kissed a thousand times, but whenever she did that I seemed to lose my senses and she knew it, because she’d then tease me, holding out until I felt as though I would happily murder someone, anyone, to be inside her. But I didn’t want to be teased. I wanted her now and she seemed to realise it because she took my hand and drew me upstairs to bed.

  When I came, I made an unholy sound as I half-groaned, half-shouted her name.

  Afterwards, we lay curled together, her head on my chest, our limbs entangled.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘It was a bit quick.’

  She turned her head. Her eyes, as dark and deep as the night sky, bored into mine. ‘Never apologise,’ she said. Then she gave a snort of laughter. ‘Sometimes it’s useful. Remember the Marshfields?’

  How could I forget? We’d been at their wedding and I’d been watching Susie from afar, admiring the way she moved, as slender and sinuous as a cat, and when our eyes met, she’d lower her lashes and send me a coquettish smile. She disappeared in the crowd for a minute or two, and then I heard her whisper behind me. I can’t remember exactly what she said, it didn’t matter, the lascivious invitation caused the effect.

  We’d made frantic love in one of the guest bathrooms with people knocking on the door, wanting to use the loo, both of us caught in that sexual heat that made you do insane, crazy things you never would normally.

  We weren’t as in lust as we once were, it’s not sustainable over the long-term, but she could still twitch her finger at me and I’d respond, a happy cohesion of love and lust twining between us.

  After a while, we rose and showered, pulled on sweatpants and shirts and padded downstairs. I opened a bottle of beer while Susie moved to put on the TV, wanting to see the news.

  ‘What’s this?’

  She was staring down at the coffee table.

  ‘What?’

  She picked up what looked to be a plain white cardboard CD or DVD sleeve. Wordlessly she passed it to me. It had no image on the cover. Just a hand-penned message, in rough capitals, on the cardboard. IF YOU WANT TO SEE WHY YOUR BROTHER DISAPPEARED, WATCH THIS.

  I withdrew a vivid blue and silver DVD.

  ‘You’ve watched it?’ she asked.

  ‘No. I didn’t know it was here.’

  Her eyes widened. ‘I didn’t bring it in. And it certainly wasn’t here when I got home. So who put it on the table?’

  My heartbeat picked up. I licked my lips. ‘The front door was unlocked when I came in.’

  Susie stared at me. ‘Fuck.’

  We both went to the front door to find it locked. I’d automatically dropped the latch as I’d come in. We checked the rear door to find it was also locked. So were all the windows, apart from the one in the bedroom, which we’d opened a crack to air the room when we came downstairs. Susie closed it.

  ‘It has to be one of your family,’ she said. Her tone was tight.

  We all had keys to one another’s places, which didn’t bother Susie as much as our somewhat lax attitude towards them. We’d let plumbers and electricians use them when necessary, as well as friends, and it didn’t matter that we knew these people, had been to school with some of them, Susie still insisted on changing the locks, cutting new keys for everyone and labelling them against a list she held on her phone so she knew who had keys and where they were at any given time.

  ‘They must have come in while I was in the shower.’ Twin spots of red bloomed on her cheeks. ‘Jesus Christ, Nick…’

  Anger spiked in my gut, along with a sickening dose of fear. What if it wasn’t someone in the family?

  I was still holding the disc and looked down at it. ‘I guess we’d better seen what’s on it.’

  Chapter 18

  We booted up Susie’s laptop and slipped the disc inside. Asked it to play. A grainy grey image appeared, shadowy and faint, but after a few seconds it steadied and became clearer.

  CCTV video.

  The camera was placed high above what appeared to be a reception area. Plain, no pictures on the walls, no comfy seats. An office block maybe. A male receptionist – Asian-looking, jacket and tie – sat behind a wrap-around desk. In front of him stood a computer and screen, two phones and what I took to be a reception folder. Automatic doors opened onto the street. Acres of tiled floor. People were walking across it. Mostly heading outside.

  I checked the clock at the bottom of the screen.

  1745.

  Office workers, leaving work at the end of the day. All of them stopped at the desk and signed themselves out before they left the building. Very safety-conscious.

  Then I took in the date.

  Friday twenty-third August. Twelve years earlier.

  The day before Rob vanished.

  I heard Susie’s breath hiss between her teeth. She’d obviously taken it in too.

  Gradually the office-worker rush lessened. The receptionist packed up and left at 1803 handing over to what I assumed was a night watchman or caretaker. Nothing else happened for a while, then at 1810, the automatic door spun and a young woman stepped inside. Briefcase, plain white shirt with the sleeves pushed up, figure-hugging skirt, stilettos. Sexy but professional. I couldn’t see her face clearly but even so, I might have been tempted to wolf-whistle, except of course it was now illegal and I was firmly married and standing next to my wife.

  The woman signed herself in with the caretaker and walked away, to the lifts, I assumed.

  Two minutes later my breathing hitched.

  Rob walked inside.

  He wore jeans and what looked like a linen jacket over a T-shirt. Deck shoes. His hair was shaggy and long enough so it almost brushed his shoulders. He looked casual and sporty, as though he’d just walked off the deck of a swanky motor yacht in the Mediterranean. He signed himself in. Walked in the same direction the young woman had taken.

  Neither Susie nor I moved to press the pause button. We sat there, waiting for the CCTV to play out.

  At 1813 another woman appeared. Middle-aged, grey-ish bob. Dark suit, flat heels, briefcase. She signed in, headed out of view.

  A couple more people dribbled out. Then nothing happened for ten minutes. They had to be the longest ten minutes of my life, waiting for something to happen.

  1828.

  Suddenly, the middle-aged woman appeared at a run. Not a jog or a trot, she was sprinting for the door as fast as her sensible shoes would carry her. The caretaker rose to his feet in alarm. Then Rob appeared. He was running flat out too. It looked as though he
was running after the woman.

  My heart hollowed when I saw what he had in his hand.

  A gun.

  The automatic doors swung open. The woman tore outside, hotly pursued by Rob.

  The caretaker was already on the phone. Calling the police, I guessed.

  1837, the police arrived. Four of them, in a rush. They didn’t sign themselves in. They spoke briefly to the caretaker, then raced out of view.

  1842, two cops returned. One spoke to the caretaker. Another looked at the reception folder. The first cop jotted notes in a notebook. Took a photograph of the reception folder on his phone. The other kept talking to the caretaker.

  Time passed.

  The cops moved away from the reception desk. Disappeared back into the building.

  More time passed.

  We watched the caretaker fidget at his desk. I fidgeted too, but Susie remained perfectly still with her cloak of ultra-alertness wrapped around her.

  1917.

  The caretaker took a call. He went and stood by the door. Two large men in suits appeared. Behind them strode a tall figure in a suit I thought I recognised. My hand hovered near the pause button but there was no need.

  It was the Saint.

  1919.

  They disappeared from view. They hadn’t looked at the caretaker. Just swept through the doors and straight across the foyer.

  1933.

  The Saint walked back across the foyer and disappeared outside. He was alone.

  1934.

  The tape ended.

  Chapter 19

  I stood staring at the grey screen feeling as though I’d eaten a bag of razor blades. Susie didn’t move for a while either. Finally, she turned and looked at me.

  ‘What the hell?’ she said.

  I stood up and went into the kitchen area. Put my hands on the worktop and leaned over them, head bowed.

  He must have been on assignment, I told myself. He was on a job for MI5, hence the gun. But why was he chasing that woman? What was all that about? Was she a criminal of some sort? A terrorist? She looked so unlikely. What had a dowdy businesswoman done to antagonise Rob?