Abby must have kept the room exactly how it had been when her daughter went missing. He was again reminded of the small table-top shrine in the living room. At the centre of the bedroom there was a large, roughly triangular pile of what at first he took as random objects. Then, when he moved further into the room to take a closer look, he realised what the objects were. Broken toys, the pages from what might have been her favourite books, stuffed animals that were missing an arm or a leg, and in one case even a head. There were doll parts, oversized jigsaw pieces, fractured board games, foreign dolls in national dress, and the remnants of a destructed playroom: all the sad parts from the broken toys that nobody ever got around to fixing.
The pile of discarded playthings formed a small pyramid, the apex of which was level with Marc’s mid-thigh. He stood before it and wondered how long it had taken to build. Had Abby created it all in one go, or had she added to the mound gradually, forming a kind of homemade monument to her memory over the past five years since her daughter had disappeared?
He put out his hand and let it hover above the totem. That was how he’d begun to think of the weird construction: with each layer of toys representing a period in the girl’s life. The older toys were nearer the bottom — baby things, the mobile from above her crib, perhaps even her first stuffed toy — and the newer stuff was at the top.
As he stepped around the mound, he noticed a photograph attached to the top of the pyramid. A small monochrome portrait of the girl, possibly taken not long before she’d gone away: her last school photograph, or maybe one taken by Abby on their final family holiday? The background was a greyish blur, so he couldn’t make out where the picture had been taken. It wasn’t even clear if the girl had been indoors or outside in the open air.
When he looked closer he realised that her eyes were shut. What he’d at first assumed were the girl’s eyes were in fact drawn on; somebody had sketched false eyes onto her eyelids. He bent down to inspect the photograph closer, to try and understand what it was he was looking at.
Was it an image of a dead girl, like Victorian post-mortem photography? Or was she simply asleep, and whoever had drawn the eyes had been playing a joke? There wasn’t enough detail to be sure, but the image disturbed him. Perhaps if the photograph had been in colour, he might have been able to discern more detail. As it was, this was just a girl with eyes drawn onto her closed lids.
He backed out of the room slowly, trying not to make a sound. He could not turn away from the grim totem, and now that he’d seen the photograph he was unable to think of anything else. Even when he closed his eyes, he saw that face: the drawn-on eyes stared at him from the red-tinted darkness.
He shut the door on the dreadful image and went to the next door along the landing. It was the bathroom. He locked the door and sat down on the toilet, trying to clear his mind. But all he could think of — and all he could see, like a flash against his retina — was the girl’s small, white face and those crudely drawn eyes.
He stood and lifted the toilet lid, took a piss and stared at the clean white tiles above the cistern. As he washed his hands, he tried not to meet his own eyes in the mirror above the sink. He knew that they would look haunted, just as this house was haunted by something that was not immediately apparent — a quiet spectre, a ghost of sadness and decay. He wasn’t afraid, he was mournful. The death of this child — if she even was dead, and not simply being held somewhere by another haunted and tormented soul — permeated the bricks and the mortar, the very fabric of the building in which he stood. Her absence was like a physical thing, taking up space that it did not own.
He dried his hands on a frayed towel and left the room, shutting the door and walking back to Abby’s room. He paused outside the door and listened, trying to make out if she had woken or if she was still sleeping. There was no sound from behind the door, so he opened it and went inside.
Abby was in the same position she’d been in when he left the room. She hadn’t moved, not even a fraction, as far as he could tell.
“Abby?”
There was no answer. Either she was fast asleep or faking it. He wasn’t sure which of these options he preferred.
He walked over to the bed and slipped beneath the covers, pulling them down to his waist. He was still warm, despite the chilling sight he’d stumbled across in the second bedroom. He turned over onto his side and stared at the base of Abby’s neck, where the bone was most prominent. She had a small tattoo on her right shoulder; her daughter’s name in a fine, looping script. He moved closer and kissed the opposite shoulder softly, just allowing his lips to rest there for a moment. Her skin was warm and clammy. The thin layer of sweat there tasted of smoke and Chardonnay.
CHAPTER SIX
MARC WOKE LATE the following morning. His head was aching and his hands felt numb, as if he’d been punching walls in the night. He sat up in bed, resting his head against the pillows, and was glad that Abby was not lying next to him. He tried to clear his head. A patch of sunlight moved across the floor towards the bed, as if hunting him. He glanced at the window, and saw that it was bright outside. The day looked new, as if it might turn into something glorious.
He smelled frying bacon and his stomach began to twist and grumble. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten. They’d not got around to ordering takeaway last night and he’d consumed a lot more alcohol than he was used to.
He rubbed his head, clawed at his cheek with his bitten fingernails, feeling the stubble there.
Sounds drifted up the stairs and into the room, through the open door. The radio was playing and Abby was humming along to the tune.
Marc got out of bed and slipped into his clothes. He didn’t want to have a shower; it would be best if he just ate and ran, leaving the woman downstairs to come to her own conclusions about last night. He remembered the ferocity of their lovemaking, as if the act of sex had stripped away her grief for as long as it took her to come. He wasn’t quite sure how he felt about Abby, and even less sure regarding how she might feel about him. She gave little away; her defences were impressive.
He left the room and walked towards the bathroom, glancing over at the other door — the one that led to the absent child’s room, where that bizarre structure was hidden. He tried not to think about it and went into the bathroom. He opened the cupboard door and found a spare toothbrush still in its wrapper. Next to it, on the shelf, there was a packet of cheap men’s razors, a half-used bottle of aftershave, and some shaving foam. He wondered who they belonged to, or if in fact they were there for anyone who needed them. For some reason, Abby didn’t strike him as the kind of girl who said no often. He recalled the comment he’d heard in the pub yesterday, when that pissed-up bloke had told him that she’d sleep with anyone who bought her a drink.
He stared at his face in the mirror above the sink. His eyes were red, the skin around them swollen. His lips were dry and his teeth looked yellow.
“Morning, handsome,” he said, tilting his head and grinning.
He brushed his teeth, took a piss that seemed to last forever, and left the room. This time he’d managed not to look over at the other bedroom door. He went straight for the stairs and walked down them silently, as if afraid to be heard.