Burial

'Oh my God, don't be sorry.'

She stopped him. 'I had a boyfriend, at the time. Well, I say boyfriend. Fiance. We were supposed to get married. Three years ago, last June. Anyway. The strain was too much. You know, for the relationship.' She said this in an embarrassed, faux transatlantic accent and Nathan snorted in bitter complicity. 'It wasn't his fault, not really. I stopped being his girlfriend. All I could think about was Elise.'

'Well, what did he expect?'

She took his margarita and poured half into her own glass. Neither of them wanted to call back the Australian barman.

'It's easy to say that. But, you know, he's only human. And this thing, it sort of took over our lives: it was like there wasn't anything else in the world. It was impossible to do anything, to go anywhere, to, I don't know, have a conversation about something. It was like it was rude to be happy. So, anyway. We sold the house. I wanted to be close to Mum and Dad, so I left my job and moved back home.'

Nathan drained the last of the slush from his glass.

"I see.

'I'm sorry to lay all this on you.'

'Not at all. Don't be stupid.'

'So. This is really the first time I've done anything since.'

'Gone out with somebody?'

'Gone out, period.'

He stared into his empty glass.

'Right.'

'Anyway. So I told Mum about it--'

'About tonight?'

'Yeah. This is a new dress.'

'It's lovely.'

'Ha. Thank you. Anyway. I told Mum I was going out. I had to. I came home with this new dress and these new shoes. And, I don't know, I was excited. And so was Mum. She had this look in her eyes.

And she asked me who you were, how we met. So I told her, and she asked where we were going and where I'd bought the dress and how much I'd paid for it. . .' She re-tucked the stray lock of hair behind her ear. 'And then we both began to cry.'

'Right,' said Nathan.

Holly laughed at herself as she wept, then took a big, long sniff, and wiped her nose again.

'So you see. I'm sorry.'

'I don't know what to say.'

'It's all right. Nobody ever does.'

The passing barman set down before them two chrome bowls of green olives and peanuts.

'Okay,' said Nathan. 'What do we do now?'

Through the corner of his eye, he could see her as she lifted her handbag from under her coat. She fossicked around inside and withdrew a tissue and blew her nose. Then she quickly withdrew a compact, flipped it open, examined her puffy eyes and smudged make-up in the small mirror, said 'God', closed the compact, put it back in her bag and slipped the bag beneath the coat again.

She stood up, saying: 'I'm sorry to do this to you.'

'It's okay. I understand.'

'Thanks for the cigarettes.'

It sounded like the most desolate thing he ever heard.

He said, 'I'll give you a call.'

She seemed to think for a moment. Then she shook her head and wrinkled her nose.

'Best not.'

She pulled her winter coat over her new dress, then belted it around her waist. She tested the clasp on her handbag, then slung it over her shoulder. She leaned in to kiss his cheek. She had to stand on tiptoes.

She squeezed his hand, and then she walked away.

He watched her go. Then he turned and signalled to the Australian barman to order a long, cold gin and tonic. The barman placed it on the bar with an impact like a gavel. Then he stood, his hands on his narrow hips and his bar towel stuffed into the belt of his smart barman's trousers.

'You all right there, mate?'

'Not really.'

Nathan drained the drink. Then he passed some cash across the bar and - without waiting either for his change or for the Australian to acknowledge the size of the tip - he too gathered his coat and left.

17

The next morning, Nathan parked across the street from the offices of Morris Michael estate agents. It was on a main road, so he parked on a double yellow, two wheels on the pavement, his bonnet nudging into a bus stop.

He didn't even know why he was doing it. Holly wouldn't come in via the front door: she'd drive her Golf Cabriolet round the back, via Merrily Road. Probably she'd make herself a cup of tea in the tiny kitchen at the back, and chat with a few colleagues before wandering through and turning on her computer. Somebody would raise the shutters and turn the lights on.

He wondered what she might do, if she wandered to the window and saw him out there, disconsolate at the wheel. He imagined there would be a moment - a jolt of surprise and fear, more appropriate than she could imagine -- and he went weak with shame.

But, nevertheless, he waited until the lights came on.

Then he fumbled with the keys in the ignition and leapt headlong into the traffic.

He was an hour late for work.

That morning, he'd risen quickly. There was a raw patch of shaving rash round his throat. One sideburn was slightly longer than the other. He was not followed by a diffuse trail of Acqua Di Parma. He might as well have turned up naked but for a ragged blanket.

Eyebrows were raised.

He closed the office door and set his briefcase on his tidy desk.

Then he sat down and logged on.

He left it as long as he could stand it, a full working week, and then he phoned her at work. Deepak asked for his name. This was followed by a weighted pause. Deepak told Nathan that Holly was currently out of the office and could Tim maybe take his call?

Nathan thanked him and said, 'I'll call back later.'

But when he did, the same thing happened.

Sometimes it was difficult -- even during meetings - to resist the urge simply to drive to her place of work and sit outside. He just wanted to see whatever she saw. This made him feel close to her.

He knew how dangerous this was. Holly's tolerance for peculiar behaviour from interested men was probably low. Given her occasional media profile -- and the lack of success in solving Elise's disappearance -- the police were likely to take any of her complaints seriously.

If she complained about Nathan, it wouldn't take the police long to learn that he had been a guest at Mark Derbyshire's Christmas party. If that happened, Nathan could be in serious trouble.

But he needed to be near her. Sometimes he fooled himself that a wry and apologetic smile would win her over; that she could not fail to see the benevolence of his intent.

But he feared she'd see the gargoyle's face that leered beneath his own - the beast whose eyes he sometimes glimpsed while shaving.

He

lay in the soft glow of his bedroom, drawing patterns in the irregularities of the ceiling and thought about following her home.

He dismissed the idea as impractical.

Then he thought about it again.

Eventually, under bright electric lights, he slept. Every night came the same dream. In the dream, he was Bob. He stood in the dark corner of a room he knew to be Holly's. In the dream, she slept - a shape under the blankets that Nathan did not want to see.

That morning - as once more he cleaned his vomit from the bathroom floor - Nathan realized that he knew how to find her. He went to the chest of drawers and opened the lowest of them.

He removed the various work-related files and documents he'd brought home over the years, including some paperwork of Justin's that he'd surreptitiously lifted and photocopied, in an effort to protect himself legally from the ramifications of one fuck-up or other.

Beneath all this were collected a number of newspaper clippings: the articles that had appeared around the fourth anniversary of Elise's disappearance.

Two of these articles featured similar sentences.

From the Telegraph:

The Elise Fox Trust, which June runs from their family home in Sutton Down. . .

And, from the local press: