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His mobile phone rang. ‘Look, I have to go. I’ll phone you.’
Thea stood outside the museum, watching him answer his phone as he walked away. She heard him say, ‘Yes, I know I said I’d be there, and I will. It’s not my fault I had to pull an all-nighter.’
Thea hoped he wasn’t going to get in trouble with work. He was obviously late for whatever meeting he had on a Saturday morning.
She turned on her heel and walked along Montague Place, wondering what she was going to do with the rest of her afternoon.It’s not my fault I had to pull an all-nighter.She wondered what he had meant by that.He wasn’t at work last night – he was with me.
Thea took a bus back to Pimlico and decided to spend the afternoon tidying up her flat. There was a mountain of washing-up in the sink from the dinner party the previous night. Miles had said he’d help her with the washing-up in the morning, but that hadn’t happened. It never did. It was always left to her to do all the chores once he’d left. She didn’t normally feel bothered. After all, as he always said, this was their quality time together. But today, the thought of all that washing-up wasn’t exactly encouraging her to return to her flat. It didn’t help that when she’d mentioned the state of the kitchen, he’d asked what she expected after a dinner party.
Thea stepped off the bus and returned home. She walked into her flat, looked at the state of it, and didn’t know where to start. She glanced in at the kitchen, heaved a sigh, and walked down the hallway to her bedroom. She was going to start by making the bed and tidying her room. She would leave the kitchen until last.
Thea was kneeling down to tuck the sheet in under the mattress when she noticed something on the floor by Miles’s side of the bed. ‘Oh, no,’ she exclaimed when she realised it was his wallet. It must have dropped out of his pocket when he had got dressed that morning. She walked into the lounge and found her mobile phone where she’d left it on the coffee table.
She’d already called his number when she realised he might be in a meeting by now. As expected, his phone when straight to voicemail. ‘Oh, hi – it’s me. Look, I’ve found your wallet. It was in the bedroom.’ Thea didn’t want to wait in all day for him to pop round and collect it; she had no idea how long he’d be at work. ‘When you get this, let me know – we could meet up later.’
She smiled. Wouldn’t this be the perfect excuse to get together again later that day or even that evening? She eyed the stack of washing-up through the open doorway to the kitchen and decided that she fancied a meal out that night. She put her mobile phone down and picked up the wallet, intending to put it in her bag so that she didn’t forget it when they met up later. The wallet was open. She glanced at the cards inside and had a thought. What if his meetings went on until really late? Sometimes they’d have conversations on their mobiles at really odd times, very late at night or in the early hours. She imagined that when he was back in England, and he had work meetings with colleagues abroad, it would be the same story – unsocial hours. Thea decided she would prefer it if he didn’t call round very late, or early on Sunday morning. It wasn’t herself she was thinking about, but her upstairs neighbour, Gracie.
She looked through the wallet, trying not to feel as though she was prying. It was only a wallet, with bank cards, a driver’s licence, and a little hotel card; just what she was looking for.
Thea took the card out. If she hadn’t heard back from him by the time she’d got her apartment back to some semblance of normality – which for Thea would involve cleaning, hoovering, dusting, and making sure everything was in its place – then she thought she’d take the wallet to his hotel and text him. Perhaps he’d be there later, or the hotel staff could keep it in a safe and leave a note by his hotel key for him to collect it when he arrived after his meetings.
Thea set to work. It occurred to her, not for the first time, how she’d cope if she lived with someone twenty-four seven; someone who would disturb her daily routine and cleaning rituals. She didn’t mind clearing up after herself, but what would it be like if she had to clear up after someone else all the time? She was thinking of Miles. He didn’t exactly go out of his way to do anything on the domestic front.
She finished plumping the cushions on the sofa and went to fetch the hoover.Am I a bit over the top when it comes to cleaning?she thought.But I like everything in order, she said to herself. She’d seen a therapist once, after the breakdown of her last relationship. At first, she’d thought it hadn’t been her fault that things had fallen apart when she and her partner had moved in together. Although the therapist had suggested they try couples’ therapy, and had assured her that, to borrow a phrase, it invariably takes two to tango, it was too late for couples’ therapy; they’d already split up permanently. But she had brought up Thea’s mild OCD and discussed where it might have originated.
Thea put the dishcloth down and looked around the kitchen. It had taken her an hour to wash and dry the dishes and put them back in the kitchen cupboards. It wouldn’t have taken her that long if she hadn’t felt compelled to wipe every surface, clean the front of her kitchen cupboards, mop the tiled floor, and clean the sink until the stainless steel gleamed.
Normally, she felt satisfied when she’d finished going around her little apartment. Today, she just felt sad when she caught sight of the time by the clock in the kitchen. Three hours of her life wasted. Had it really taken that long?
Chapter 6
Thea thought again about her past therapy sessions. She supposed that what had happened twenty-five years ago – her father’s disappearance – had been bound to come up. The therapist had told her that the event was something outside her control, so it could well be bound up with her need for things to be orderly, and to feel in control.
Thea hadn’t liked the therapist reading too much into her past, so she’d left, deciding that there was nothing wrong with being a tidy person, even though she knew she was a little over the top. She looked around her sparkling kitchen and mumbled to herself, ‘Okay – perhaps a lot over the top.’
She walked out of the kitchen, taking her mobile phone out of the back pocket of her jeans. It was now late in the afternoon and there had been no call or text from Miles; no acknowledgement whatsoever of her message.
Thea threw on her jacket, grabbed her bag and popped his wallet inside. She strode out of the door with the hotel card in her hand. It had the address on the back. She found Google Maps on her phone and discovered that the hotel was only a thirty-minute walk away. It probably wouldn’t be any quicker on the bus in the traffic.
Thea set off through Pimlico. She loved this area of London. It wasn’t as posh as Belgravia next door, but Pimlico had its own little vibe, with its Regency architecture and its residential streets laid out around garden squares that were a haven for wildlife.
As she closed the front door of the house, she thought of her mum, who had inherited the property from her parents. Rather than sell it, she’d decided to keep it as an investment for Thea and her sister. Little had she known that a few years later, she’d be moving in to live permanently as a single parent with her daughters. Thea had only been nine at the time, her sister twelve. Perhaps her older sister had understood, but Thea remembered the scary feeling when she realised that something bad had happened; living on the Suffolk Coast, in a rental cottage near the sea, was all she’d known. She had often spent time in her father’s bookshop in the town, and her dad had always said that he was saving up his money to buy the cottage they were renting.
She remembered her favourite bedtime story – the one he had often told her about finding a very special lost book that would make their fortune. That was why he had travelled a lot, leaving the three of them to mind his shop when he was away, buying and selling books.
They hadn’t had much in the way of material things – even the cottage hadn’t been theirs – but they had always had each other. That was what her father had often said. They had enjoyed spending time together, with cosy evenings around the open fire playing board games, or walks on the beach.
Everything had changed when he failed to return from a book fair he’d said he was attending in London. Worse still, when their mum eventually reported him to the police as a missing person, there were no leads as to where he had gone. It was then that her mum found out he had not attended the book fair at all.
Her mum had wanted them all to go with him in his campervan – the one he used to travel around the country. She had not long inherited her parents’ house in London, and was in the throes of deciding what to do with it; whether to sell it and buy the cottage they were renting, or wait for her husband to buy the cottage – he was still insisting that he would find the money. In the meantime, her parents’ house stood furnished but vacant.
She saw it as an adventure that they could all travel down to London to stay in the house while her husband visited the London Book Fair. Years later, Thea remembered the tremendous row between her parents when he’d refused to let them accompany him to London. Her parents never rowed, or fell out. They had always been very much in love – she remembered that. She had always been catching them kissing and holding hands, carrying on like two love-struck teenagers.
Her mother had been bereft when he had disappeared, and had been left wondering if the row had precipitated his disappearance. Of course, Thea had no notion of that when she was nine – just of the ramifications of the disappearance when she had to leave the cottage, and her school, and the little bookshop in which she’d adored spending time with her father, and move to London.
It was only later, when her older sister and her mum spoke a little of that painful time, that it came to light what her mother was afraid of; that she’d driven him away. ‘Of course you didn’t,’ Thea had told her mum. ‘He wouldn’t have left you, or us.’ But of course, no one could answer the next question: ‘So, where is he? Why didn’t he come back?’ And for a very long time, Thea’s mum had not stopped searching, looking, hoping that one day he’d come back. Thea had an idea that it was the reason her mum had kept the house – because then he would know where to find them if he ever reappeared.
Thea locked the front door and stood for a moment on the porch. London was the last place he’d been – or so her mum had thought. But the police had found no evidence of his old campervan in London.
