But there’s still no answer. Which can only mean he’s not in his room.
“Are you looking for the American bloke?” says a voice from behind me.
Resisting the impulse to say that no, it’s someotherguy called Elliot whose name I’m shouting at a hotel room door, I turn around to find myself face to face with Sandra, who’s carrying a pile of fresh bed linen and pretending not to recognize me, even though she’s seen me here every day since Elliot and I met,andwe were in the same year in high school.
“Hi, Sandra,” I say with a friendly smile, wishing I had Elliot’s easy way of instantly winning people over, rather than my own version of resting bitch face. “Yes, I’m looking for Elliot. Have you seen him?”
“Did he not tell you, then?” Sandra replies, a look of delight replacing her usual, vaguely hostile expression. “My, my, fancy that!”
“Tell me what? Has he gone out somewhere?” My stomach gives a tiny lurch, which I ignore, telling myself this is just Sandra’s way of entertaining herself by messing with me.
“Well, youcouldsay that,” she replies with a chuckle. “Youcould.”
“Okay, well, did he say where he was going?” I reply, still hoping I can coax the information out of her if I’m patient enough. “Was it The Brew? He sometimes goes there to write.”
“The Brew! That’s a good one.” Sandra chuckles in a way that strongly reminds me of Gollum, when Bilbo’s trying to persuade him to help him find his way out of the cave.
“Nah, he’s gone to the airport, hasn’t he?” she says, relenting at last. “Said he had a flight to catch. All stressed he was, poor love.”
“The … the airport? But … no, that’s not today. That’s not until tomorrow. Surely…”
I pull my phone out of my pocket to check the date, suddenly convinced I’ve somehow managed to sleep through an entire day and miss my flight. But the broken screen of the phone remains frustratingly blank, and now I come to think of it, it’s not particularly likely that would happen: either me sleeping for a full 24 hours without anyone noticing, or Elliot just getting up and leaving without me?
No. He would’ve come to wake me up. He wouldn’t have just gone to the airport on his own.
So why is Sandra trying to tell me he has? And a day early, at that?
My stomach lurches again as Sandra pushes past me and inserts a key into Elliot’s door.
“See?” she says, triumphantly pushing it open and letting me see inside. “I told you, didn’t I?”
I step into the room, my legs suddenly feeling a lot like they did that time I decided to take a step class at the village hall, rendering myself unable to walk for 24 hours afterwards.
Sure enough, Elliot’s room is empty. The bed has already been stripped; the covers piled untidily on top of a suspiciously stained mattress, the sight of which does nothing to settle my stomach. The wardrobe doors are wide open, clearly showing the empty interior, and the shabby little dressing table that Elliot used to use as a desk has been completely cleared of all the papers, notebooks, and other writing equipment that’s usually piled up there.
He’s gone.
Elliot has gone.
But … no. No, he can’t have. He can’t have justgone. And especially not to the airport, of all places. I refuse to believe it.
Iwon’tbelieve it.
“Do you have his number?” I ask Sandra desperately. “Elliot; did he give you a number when he checked in? Hotels take that kind of information, don’t they?”
Sandra’s eyes widen. She’s thoroughly enjoying this, I can tell.
“Well, now,hotelsmight, I suppose,” she says thoughtfully. “But The Rose is really a pub, you know? So no, we don’t take down numbers. And I wouldn’t tell you even if we did. Er, because of the data protection thingy,” she adds quickly, realizing she’s gone too far now. “We’re not allowed.”
“I need to go,” I mumble, suddenly desperate to get out of here. “I have to go and find him.”
“You okay? You’re not going to be sick, are you?” Sandra says, sounding only mildly concerned as I brush past her. But I’m not listening. Instead, I’m stumbling my way downstairs and out into the street, my mind frantically scrabbling to make sense of what’s happening, and how I can possibly figure it out.
But I can’t. I can’t think of a single person I know who’d have Elliot’s phone number, other than me; and my phone’s not working.
I stand there in the street in front of The Rose, frantically looking this way and that, as if I might spot him in the crowd, coming smiling towards me with the collar of his coat turned up against the wind, and his cheeks red from the cold.
Instead, all I see is Martin Baxter — whose cheeks arealsored, as it happens, but who doesn’t carry it off quite so well.
