Breakfast arrived. He pushed it around the plate and forced himself to take a mouthful of scrambled egg, which had the consistency of seafood. His body wouldn't accept it; he placed the fork on the edge of the plate. He sipped tea and tried to read the paper, but his eyes skipped over the words. He left two papers for the builders and stuffed the other two in the book-sized pocket of his jacket. He lit a cigarette. The nicotine nauseated him and made him giddy. He walked home.
The door to the flat looked blankly at him. He felt like a burglar.
This was Sara's place. He wondered what he'd do about finding another place to live.
At 3 p.m., when the sun grew low in the sky and dazzling, he scuttled round the flat turning on the lights. He turned on the television and watched it without seeing until it was time to go to work.
He took a second shower, more hurried than the first. He left the shower curtain open, fearing whoever might be standing there, waiting, when he opened it again.
When he'd dried himself, he didn't feel clean. He could smell his own breath, the smell of truffle, or tumour. He tried to clean his teeth and retched until luminous fish darted and wriggled in his peripheral vision. He dressed in his work clothes and the plaid jacket. He found his beanie and his wallet. From habit, he put a paperback book in his pocket. And then, as he did every weekday at the same time, he stepped out and caught the bus to work.
As he signed in at the desk, the security guard gave him a strange look.
He caught the lift to the second floor and walked to the studio.
Howard was making a cup of tea in the narrow kitchen; there were cold, squashed teabags dotted all over the glittery Formica.
Mark Derbyshire was in the tiny, shared office. Most of the lights were off. Mark's screen saver scrolled unread across his monitor, its beige casing smeared with inky fingerprints.
Stubble sprouted in the normally contoured beard that Mark believed made him look a bit less like a beaver. He was sitting at his desk, looking down into his cup of tea; his cuffs were loose, exposing his hairy forearms and gold identity bracelet.
Nathan rapped on the door. Mark looked up.
'You've got some fucking nerve, sunshine.'
'Are you going to sack me?'
'Oh, fuck. I don't know. Probably. Whatever.'
'Mark. What's wrong?'
'A friend of mine. Graham. He lost his daughter.'
Nathan wanted to sit down. He shifted his weight so it was borne by the doorway.
'What?'
Mark's scalp was naked, but for some baby-like fluff that sometimes caught the light and made him look simple and surprised, like a gigantic duckling.
'My friend, Graham. His girl. Elise. She's gone.'
'Gone where?'
'That's the thing, mate. Nobody knows. She was at the party.'
'What -- your party?'
'Yes -- my party. Then . . .' He made a fluttering, bird-like motion with his hand. 'She was gone.'
Nathan pulled up a moulded plastic chair. He hoped the gesture looked intimate and concerned. He could no longer stand.
'Where'd she go?'
'Nobody knows. That's the point.'
Howard arrived.
'Kettle's boiled.'
'Yeah,' said Nathan. 'Cheers. Has somebody called the police?'
'Graham's got friends on the force,' said Mark. 'They're already on it. None of this "missing for twenty-four hours" bollocks. They were round my place by Sunday evening. I was still in bed.'
'Well. That's great. That's good news.'
Mark knuckled at his raw eyes. 'You really are a little prick, aren't you?'
Nathan looked at Howard. Howard raised an eyebrow and shrugged.
Mark said, 'Unless she turns up, and soon, the show's fucked. I've already been interviewed by the police. How long do you think it'll be before the tabloids get hold of that?'
'I see,' said Nathan. 'Right.'
'Right.'
There was no show that evening - they'd be playing a 'best of compilation, one of several they kept behind for illness and other emergencies. Howard and Mark had turned up simply from habit, to sit in the half-lit offices, drinking coffee. Neither was married. Not any more.
Nathan said, 'I'm sorry. For Saturday night. Trying to hit you and that.'
Mark waved it away. They could hear the late-night traffic outside.
Nathan
felt insubstantial.
He said, 'I thought she was going to sleep with you.'
'Who? Your bird?'
'Yeah. Sara.'
'Fat fucking chance. All she did was jabber about you. Rabbit fucking rabbit.'
Nathan's head twitched.
'I'm sorry?'
'All she did was talk about you. How brilliant you are. How I could use you better. Blah blah blah.'
Nathan smiled at his lap.
'Right,' he said.
'The funny thing is, I was sort of starting to believe her.'
Nobody spoke until Nathan said, 'Fuck it. Shall we go for a drink ?'
The only place they could find was a cheesy nightclub. The music was too loud for conversation -- so they just sat round a table and drank, and got drunk, and caught taxis home.
The next morning, a smiling snapshot of Elise Fox was on the front page of the Daily Mirror. But the main photograph was of Mark Derbyshire. He looked unshaven and haunted, snapped getting into his BMW. He wore a polo shirt that was too small for him, and a leather jacket that was too young for him, jeans that were too baggy, and a baseball cap and sunglasses that did not suit him.
The headline read FEARS GROW FOR PARTY GIRL, 19. The subheading was Elise 'Not Seen' Since Disgraced DJ's Showbiz Party.
In the snapshot, Elise was smiling. Nathan stared at it. He couldn't connect the face to the dead girl they had lain face down and naked in the soil.
The full story was on pages 9--13, and Nathan looked it up. But all he saw was a rehearsal of Mark Derbyshire's previous, disastrous run in with the tabloid press -- and a sneering list of the Z-list celebrities 'rumoured' to have been in attendance at his party.
In the evening, Nathan turned up for work as usual. But again, Mark Derbyshire didn't.
The deep scores in Howard's face were deeper. Tonight there was no 'best of tape. Instead, the station had pulled Dave Huckabee, a retired breakfast DJ from a chair on the local television news. Dave had agreed to host the show until Mark Derbyshire returned.
Mark Derbyshire had been accused of no crime, but from the moment another man slipped on his headphones and sat before his microphone, that became a technicality. So did Mark's acquittal, fully thirteen years before. All that mattered to the press was the past accusation and the humiliation that followed it: Mark's 'fall from grace'.
Nathan looked at the newspaper photograph of Mark and was moved to a terrified pity. But he knew he'd let Mark go to prison forever before he allowed himself to be implicated in Elise Fox's disappearance.
He thought of his own face in the newspapers, and felt the world spinning out of control.
The next afternoon, two police officers came to his door.
10
The man -- who was compact, with reddish hair - introduced himself as DS William Holloway. With him was PC Jacki Hadley.
Nathan invited them in.
Holloway asked if he might have a glass of water, then went to the kitchenette and took a mug from the drainer. The mug had been sitting there so long its base was filmed with dust.
The woman, Hadley, stood by the window. A double-decker bus went past. Hadley was watching it. Nathan understood. There was something surreal and fascinating about it: an upper deck of oblivious strangers, sailing directly past your living-room window.
Holloway drained the water.
'Do you mind if I sit?'