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Against my shoulder, my baby boy’s tiny body rises and falls. A human being at peace, in blissful ignorance of the horror of all that his parents have been through. What must that be like, to be at peace? Is Abi at peace? My eyes fill. Bella’s tipsy face swims in my mind’s eye.
Justwant you to know that Neil did everything, no matter what.
A throwaway line – less, a half-line. No matter what. As if to say he did everything despite… something.
‘No.’ I stand up, pacing the living room, rubbing Fred’s back in circular motions. ‘No, no, no.’
Fred burps adorably. Outside, street lamps splash yellow on the deep blue sky. If Abi were returned to me right now, right this second, what damage would we have to repair? Could we repair her? Who would she be now? Who on earth would she be? Would she know me?
‘Where are you?’ I whisper, weeping softly into the strange calm that loneliness brings. ‘Where did they take you, my darling girl? What did they do to you?’
Neil and Bella are our friends. I cannot seize upon throwaway comments uttered in a tearful drunken fit; I cannot. I’m starting to feel like I did after that day. Matt might be right. I might need help again. The party has been traumatic; Neil has become my focal point, my obsession, the lightning rod for my own not-quite-grief. Our foreheads touched on the empty street. He pulled me out of the water. There’s a connection between us; I can feel it but I don’t understand it. To suspect him is mad. I can see that; I can see it at the same time as believing that very suspicion. But our houses were searched and sniffed, for God’s sake. Every house on the street, every garden, was searched. We made formal statements at the station but there was no evidence, none whatsoever, of any of us having done anything sinister. Our stories matched. That Bella had a selection of recent photos of our child on her phone was only because she took them at Sunday lunch, the day before Abi disappeared. It’s possible she was hiding behind the camera while she made sense of her feelings, although I had no idea about that at the time.
It’s Matt. He is to blame. Then and now. To be betrayed by the person closest to me has unhinged me. There is nothing left, nothing safe for me to hold on to, and because of that, I am unstable. But… but… there is still something I can’t reach. A lost baby. A toy. Neil and Matt beneath the willow tree. Bella’s drunken tears. All easily explained. And yet… like the seconds, small things accumulate. Seconds become minutes become hours. Small things become bigger things become… information?
Call me if any new information comes to light. Another whisper in the silent dusk. DI Farnham. Her number is in my phone.
But first, I’m going to talk to Bella. I rang her this morning and told her I needed a chat; she said she’d meet me in Starbucks this evening. I find my phone in the kitchen and text:On my way.
Thirty-Four
Matt
Neil is in the kitchen, the air an aromatic cloud. Curry. Matt realises this is what he could smell coming into the house a few minutes ago. The back door is open and a soft breeze drifts in. Soon the weather will cool. Soon it will be the anniversary.
‘Where’s Bel?’
‘Gone out with a couple of the girls from the salon.’ Neil hands him a beer.
They touch bottles and drink. Neil has almost finished his. Matt wonders if it’s his first.
‘Chicken tikka masala,’ Neil says. ‘The rice’ll be a few minutes.’
‘Cool. Cheers.’ Matt could not feel less like eating.
Neil busies himself with the rice. Matt takes a seat. The table has been set – properly, with place mats and glasses and, rather optimistically, a jug of water. The sight moves him. Neil is looking after him, as he always has. His and Bella’s kitchen is still structured in the old-fashioned way: a small space at the back of the house with a modest pine table, no bar, no high stools, no pendant lights, no range cooker, no ample patio doors. He remembers Neil’s mum in this kitchen when he came here after school, how she always asked him if he was stopping for dinner. It feels homely. Authentic. From a time when people called in on one another, when the choice was tea or coffee. Round here, they call tea ‘builder’s tea’ – he wonders what Neil feels about that, whether he asks his clients for Earl Grey or rooibos or herbal, to make a point.
Soon, like everyone else, he and Bella will knock out the wall adjoining what estate agents would call ‘the snug’ at the centre of the house and open it out into this kitchen. They’ll knock most of that back wall down too.So much light!they will say, opening out their bifold doors and clinking their flutes in celebration. It is what everyone does. It is what he and Ava did last year. Neil did the extension for them, of course. Did he ever feel like ‘the staff’ as he did with Johnnie? Was he irritated to be the one in overalls while Matt left for work in his suit, his hands pink, his nails white? Matt doesn’t think so. Neil loves to get stuck in. Hates standing there pontificating. And it was almost a joint project – Neil altered Matt’s initial sketch (improved it) and Matt did some hands-on stuff at weekends – loaded sand and cement into Neil’s mixer, helped him shift the washing machine, made countless mugs of coffee and tea for him, his electrician, his plumber, running out to the corner shop to buy umpteen packets of chocolate digestives.
But if Neil could keep the huge heartache of his life hidden, has he kept other things hidden too? Resentment? Jealousy? What was it he said at the party?They think just ’cos they dossed around for a few years at uni, they think they’re better.They.
Is Matt one ofthem?
‘Do you want to talk about it?’ Neil is placing two plates of chicken curry on the table. ‘You’re in a world of your own there, mate.’ He returns to the fridge, retrieves a jar of mango chutney and a pot of Greek yoghurt and brings those over too.
‘It’s not the Maharajah,’ he says, sitting down. ‘Just from a jar, like. Sorry there’s no poppadums. Bella made it before she went out. She’ll tell me off for not putting this lot in little bowls.’ He gestures to the condiments before shovelling a forkful of food into his mouth.
‘That was kind of her.’
Bella is kind, he thinks, while Neil eats, quickly, as he always does, as if someone might snatch it away. And Neil is kind too. He is not the jealous type. Bella is materialistic, they both are, but not like that, not to the point of getting bent out of shape about it. Neil is the opposite of entitled, has always expected to work for what he has, and has always been proud of Matt’s academic and professional success. He prefers to be his own boss, that’s all, and is successful in his own right – it’s mostly a lack of time that has prevented him from upgrading his house before now.
Isn’t it? And what the hell does any of this have to do with anything anyway?
‘It’ll be all right, you know,’ Neil says.
Matt shakes his head. Neil has cleared his plate by half; Matt’s looks like he hasn’t touched it. Which he hasn’t.
‘It’s over,’ he says.
