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Passport?The niggling sensation I’d felt earlier returned.
‘In my experience, Miss Fletcher, people who are going through big life changes very often need to take a “time out”. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything untoward has happened to them.’
‘A time out? From their own wedding?’ I asked incredulously.
The police officer nodded in a way that suggested that nothing the general public did had the power to surprise him any longer.
‘In the majority of cases, these people simply turn up again – usually within a week of disappearing, and your fiancé has only been “missing” for one day.’ He air quoted the word ‘missing’, and I swallowed the urge to scream in frustration.
‘So, what are you saying? That if I wait patiently for the next six days, Finn is likely to turn up of his own accord? What if he doesn’t?’
Inspector Graham looked suddenly less comfortable. ‘I suppose that all depends on why he left and how much he wants to be found.’
*
I left the station in a daze, regretting more than anything that I’d insisted on going alone. Would they have taken Finn’s disappearance more seriously if I’d been accompanied by Hannah or my dad? Possibly. Or would it just have compounded the conclusion that I suspected even those closest to me had already reached: that Finn was simply a groom who’d changed his mind?
I drove on autopilot through the morning traffic as I replayed the interview in my head.Six days.Was that really how long I was meant to wait for Finn to return? What was I supposed to do after that, simply give up on him? I shook my head, unable to imagine a time I would ever do that.
You’re not supposed to lie to the police. But today I had. Because therehadbeen an argument recently. A big one. One I’d told no one about; not Dad, nor Hannah, because there was no need, we’d resolved it. It had absolutely no bearing on Finn’s disappearance. Or was that just another lie I was telling today?
*
I hated how, despite everything, I still looked hopefully towards Finn’s parking space as I drove into the residents’ car park. I reversed into his bay, my thoughts inevitably going back to that other parking spot, the one we’d fought over on the day we met.
Fortunately, a resident from the top floor was leaving the building just as I approached the entrance. She smiled vaguely at me as we crossed paths in the doorway. At least this time I wouldn’t need to bother the irascible Mrs Barnard.
Finn’s flat felt different today, as though it had been holding its breath since yesterday, waiting for me to return.
‘Hello,’ I called out as I pushed the front door shut behind me. Even though I hadn’t expected an answer, I felt ridiculously disappointed when none came.
I glanced briefly into the bathroom before turning towards Finn’s bedroom. His door was shut, and my heart dropped a beat and then hurried to catch up. Had I closed it yesterday? I couldn’t remember. My mouth felt dry as I slowly turned the door handle, desperately hoping to find him there, asleep in a twist of tangled duvet on the king-size bed. But the stripped mattress was bare except for broad chevrons of sunlight shafting in through the window.
My eyes slowly travelled the room, looking for answers I still wasn’t sure I wanted to find. ‘See if any of his clothes are missing,’ Inspector Graham had advised. My legs felt wooden, as if the joints were fused, as I walked to the bank of fitted wardrobes against the far wall. Like a magician on a big reveal, I grasped the handles and flung open the doors.
Everythingwas gone. Every last item that should have been hanging in Finn’s wardrobe was missing. I stared at the long row of empty metal hangers dancing eerily before me.
Breathing heavily, I opened the adjacent doors and was met with another empty clothes rail above a set of deep drawers. It was the top one I went to first, because that was home to both Finn’s socks and his passport.
‘You keep your passport with your socks?’ I heard an echo of my own voice ask with a laugh.
‘Yeah. So I don’t lose it, or forget where it is. This way I get to see it every week when I change my socks.’
That had been early in our relationship. I’d only stayed over at his place a couple of times by then, and I’d been easy to prank. He watched me trying to disguise an expression of horror before gathering me into his arms with a deep, rumbling laugh.
‘You…’ the ghost of me said, punching his shoulder even as I felt us tumbling back on to his bed. It was where most of our conversations had ended in those early days, in either his bed or mine.
Now, in the stripped-bare room, I ran my hand over the checked mattress, as though I could psychically connect with him through the memory foam. Did it remember the shape of him, the way I did? Did it hold in its fibres every moment of passion we’d shared there? BecauseIdid.
On knees that suddenly felt too weak to support me, I folded like a marionette on to the bed, but this time without the man I loved tumbling beside me.
Think, I urged, my eyes transfixed by the row of empty clothes hangers.There has to be a logical explanation for all of this.
Obviously, Finn would have packed some of his clothes for the honeymoon, but not allof them. And anyway, who would take winter coats, ski jackets and jumpers on a trip to Australia? There was still a further two months left to run on the lease for Finn’s flat, so we’d not even begun to think about packing up his stuff yet. Or so I’d thought.
Twenty-four hours earlier, I’d swept through the flat in a panic. But now I took my time, kicking myself for all the clues I’d missed. Where was the row of toiletries lined up in the shower cubicle? Or the toothbrush that should have been in the glass beside the basin?
At first glance the lounge appeared exactly as it should, but the flat was a fully furnished rental, so it took closer scrutiny to finally notice the empty spaces on the shelving unit, the missing photograph frames, and the fact that Finn’s laptop was no longer sitting on the desk in the corner of the room. I yanked open the usually overflowing desk drawers, already knowing by the ease with which they skated on their runners what I’d find. Empty. Every single one of them.
