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Definitely different. His eyes had raced round. There had still been a rackful of her clothes hanging on her side but it had looked thinner somehow. His eyes had gone to her vanity unit. It had been cleared of all her stuff. He didn’t know what the stuff was exactly, but it took up a lot of space: bottles and pots and tubes and God knew what. They hadn’t been there. Without realising what he was doing he had pulled open one of her drawers at random.
It had been empty.
He’d opened another one. That had had some designer lingerie in it, the next was empty again. He’d opened her shoe cupboard—again, there had been shoes there, but fewer of them. He’d stared a moment, then something else had registered. The pair of worn house-sandals she loved to wear—and that he always wanted her to throw away because they were so worn out—had gone.
Realisation had dawned through him—and relief. She’d had a clear-out. That was what she’d done. The typical reaction of a woman under stress—defragging her wardrobe so she could restock it.
The tension had ebbed from him, and as it had, he’d realised just how tense he’d been.
Light-hearted again, now that he’d figured what she’d done—of course she was still shopping to replace what she’d chucked out—he had changed into casual clothes and headed out to the lounge to help himself to a beer. He’d felt he needed one.
But by nine that evening he had realised he needed more than beer. He needed Vanessa—and she hadn’t come back yet. Relief had turned to irritation long ago, but now irritation was turning to concern.
By midnight concern had become a deep, gut-wrenching fear.
His entire personal security staff had been on the case by then, checking police and hospitals and taxi firms. The concierge who had summoned a taxi for her mid-afternoon had been grilled repeatedly, but had been able to give no more information. Nor had the taxi driver who’d been traced. He’d dropped Vanessa off in Oxford Street and that was that.
She’d been carrying a suitcase, but that hadn’t bothered Markos. It would simply have contained the clothes she was getting rid of. He already knew that she never threw stuff away—if he told her he’d gone off an outfit, she gave it to a charity shop.
By noon the next day however Markos had known, with a dull, bleak fury that the suitcase had not contained old clothes for charity shops.
Vanessa had run out on him.
When the realisation had finally dawned on him, when no other explanation was possible, despite his best effort to come up with one, his fury had been absolute. What the hell did she think she was playing at? Six months with him and she walked out without a word? Christos, he deserved better than that! OK, so he’d been a bit hard on her that last morning—but what the hell reason was that for flouncing out in a huff, for God’s sake? It was out of all proportion to react that badly!
Unless she’d needed an excuse to leave….
The thought had come like a cold knife-blade in his guts.
Cosmo Dimistris and his offer to take her over and fly her out to Mexico.
No! Every atom in his body had rejected the idea. This was Vanessa, not some ambitious, gold-digging chancer who traded protectors at the drop of her knickers! Nor was she an experienced sophisticate who selected men according to their bank balance and social circle. This was Vanessa. His Vanessa.
Who’d just walked out on him.
The knife had twisted savagely.
Griml
y, he’d ordered Taki to follow through on Cosmo Dimistris. If she had gone off to him, he’d… He didn’t know what he’d do, but it would be savage. As savage as the feelings stabbing through him.
But it wasn’t her with Cosmo in Mexico. The relief he felt as he disconnected was brief. Where the hell was she?
And why the hell had she gone?
His security team had turned up nothing. Nothing at all. He’d cursed them for incompetents, then accepted that they had nothing, after all, to go on. Her last sighting had been in Oxford Street, late afternoon, the day he’d arrived back from Australia.
Since then Vanessa had disappeared off the face of the earth.
Markos had ordered his team to leave no stone unturned, but when he’d been asked for mundane details, like her home address, place of birth, date of birth, he’d realised, with a strange, chill feeling, that he hadn’t the faintest idea. In the early days, in Paris, Vanessa had talked of her background and family circumstances, but she hadn’t, to his best recollection, mentioned the town she’d grown up in, or given her address. His security team had had to start from scratch with her name, tracing it through electoral rolls and registers of births. They’d found an address for her, all right, but it was no longer valid. It hadn’t been since before Christmas. The house had been sold early in December, and though the new owners had given him the name of the conveyancing solicitors, the latter had no address for the seller other than that of the house itself and, ironically, the address of his own Chelsea apartment. Enquiries of neighbours and all other possible avenues had given no information as to where Vanessa might now be.
No one knew.
Least of all him.
He went on staring out over his office.
Keep looking, he’d told Taki. But was there any point? Vanessa had gone because she’d wanted to go, that was all.
