‘Yes. It won’t be plain sailing, Cathy,’ I said, and I felt awful, because I think she really cares whether I get sober or not. ‘But I’m doing my best.’
‘If you need me to, you know, come with you …’
‘Not at this stage,’ I said. ‘But thank you.’
‘Well, maybe we could do something else together, like go to the gym?’ she asked.
I laughed, but when I realized she was being serious I said I’d think about it.
She’s just left – Damien rang to say he was back from his mother’s, so she’s gone round to his place. I thought about saying something to her – why do you go running to him whenever he calls? But I’m really not in a great position to give relationship advice – or any advice, come to that – and in any case I feel like a drink. (I’ve been thinking about it ever since we sat down in Giraffe and the spotty waiter asked if we’d like a glass of wine and Cathy said ‘No, thank you’ very firmly.) So I wave her off and feel the little anticipatory tingle run over my skin and I push away the good thoughts (Don’t do this, you’re doing really well). I’m just putting my shoes on to go to the off-licence and my phone rings. Tom. It’ll be Tom. I grab the phone from my bag and look at the screen and my heart bangs like a drum.
‘Hi.’ There is silence, so I ask, ‘Is everything OK?’
After a little pause Scott says, ‘Yeah, fine. I’m OK. I just called to say thank you, for yesterday. For taking the time to let me know.’
‘Oh, that’s all right. You didn’t need—’
‘Am I disturbing you?’
‘No. It’s fine.’ There is silence on the end of the line, so I say again, ‘It’s fine. Have you … has something happened? Did you speak to the police?
‘The family liaison officer was here this afternoon,’ he says. My heart rate quickens. ‘Detective Sergeant Riley. I mentioned Kamal Abdic to her. Told her that he might be worth speaking to.’
‘You said … you told her that you’d spoken to me?’ My mouth is completely dry.
‘No, I didn’t. I thought perhaps … I don’t know. I thought it would be better if I came up with the name myself. I said … it’s a lie, I know, but I said that I’d been racking my brains to think of anything significant, and that I thought it might be worth speaking to her therapist. I said that I’d had some concerns about their relationship in the past.’
I can breathe again. ‘What did she say?’ I ask him.
‘She said they had already spoken to him, but that they would do again. She asked me lots of questions about why I hadn’t mentioned him before. She’s … I don’t know. I don’t trust her. She’s supposed to be on my side, but all the time I feel like she’s snooping, like she’s trying to trip me up.’
I’m stupidly pleased that he doesn’t like her either; another thing we have in common, another thread to bind us.
‘I just wanted to say thank you, anyway. For coming forward. It was actually … it sounds odd, but it was good to talk to someone … someone I’m not close to. I felt as though I could think more rationally. After you left, I kept thinking about the first time Megan went to see him – Abdic – about the way she was when she came back. There was something about her, a lightness.’ He exhales loudly. ‘I don’t know. Maybe I’m imagining it.’
I have the same feeling I did yesterday – that he’s no longer really talking to me, he’s just talking. I’ve become a sounding board, and I’m glad of it. I’m glad to be of use to him.
‘I’ve spent the whole day going through Megan’s things again,’ he says. ‘I’ve already searched our room, the whole house, half a dozen times, looking for something, anything that would give me an indication as to where she could be. Something from him, perhaps. But there’s nothing. No emails, no letters, nothing. I thought about trying to contact him, but the practice is closed today and I can’t find a mobile number.’
‘Is that a good idea, do you think?’ I ask. ‘I mean, do you not think you should just leave him to the police?’ I don’t want to say it out loud, but we must both be thinking it: he’s dangerous. Or at least, he could be dangerous.
‘I don’t know, I just don’t know.’ There’s a desperate edge to his voice that’s painful to hear, but I have no comfort to offer. I can hear his breathing on the other end of the line; it sounds short, quickened, as though he’s afraid. I want to ask him if he has someone there with him, but I can’t: it would sound wrong, forward.
‘I saw your ex today,’ he says, and I can feel the hairs on my arms stand up.
‘Oh?’
‘Yes, I went out for the papers and saw him in the street. He asked me if I was all right, whether there was any news.’
‘Oh,’ I repeat, because it’s all I can say, words won’t form. I don’t want him to speak to Tom. Tom knows that I don’t know Megan Hipwell. Tom knows that I was on Blenheim Road the night she disappeared.
‘I didn’t mention you. I didn’t … you know. I wasn’t sure if I should have mentioned that I’d met you.’
‘No, I don’t think you should have. I don’t know. It might be awkward.’
‘All right,’ he says.
After that, there’s a long silence. I’m waiting for my heartbeat to slow. I think he’s going to ring off, but then he says, ‘Did she really never talk about me?’
‘Of course … of course she did,’ I say. ‘I mean, we didn’t talk all that often, but—’
‘But you came to the house. Megan hardly ever invites people round. She’s really private, protective of her own space.’
I’m searching for a reason. I wish I had never told him I’d been to the house.
‘I just came round to borrow a book.’
‘Really?’ He doesn’t believe me. She’s not a reader. I think of the house – there were no books on the shelves there. ‘What sort of things did she say? About me?’
‘Well, she was very happy,’ I say. ‘With you, I mean. Your relationship.’ As I’m saying this I realize how odd it sounds, but I can’t be specific, and so I try to save myself. ‘To be honest with you, I was having a really hard time in my marriage, so I think it was a kind of compare and contrast thing. She lit up when she spoke about you.’ What an awful cliché.