A flash of recognition in his eyes. ‘What’s he got to do with anything?’
‘That’s what I was hoping to ask Kathy.’
Behind me I heard the door opening. A girl in her late twenties stepped out on to the porch. Kathy. Her hair was short now, dyed blonde, but a little maturity had made her prettier. She held out her hand and smiled.
‘I’m Kathy,’ she said.
‘Nice to meet you Kathy. I’m David.’ I glanced around at her father, whose gaze was fixed on me. Water tumbled out of the hose on to the toes of his boots.
‘What are you, an investigator or something?’ she asked.
‘Kind of. Well, not really.’
She frowned, but seemed intrigued.
‘Where’s Kathy fit into all this?’ her father said.
I glanced at him. Then back to Kathy. ‘I’m doing some work for Mary Towne. It’s to do with Alex. Can I speak with you?’ She looked unsure. ‘Here,’ I said, removing my driving licence and handing it to her. ‘Unofficial investigators have to make do with one of these.’
She smiled, took a look, then handed it back. ‘Do you want to go inside?’
‘That would be great.’
I followed her into the house, leaving her father standing outside with his garden sprayer. Inside, we moved through a hallway decorated with floral wallpaper and black-and-white photographs, and into an adjoining kitchen.
‘Do you want a drink?’
‘Water would be fine.’
It was a huge open area with polished mahogany floors and granite worktops. The central unit doubled up as a table, chairs sitting underneath. Kathy filled a glass with bottled mineral water then moved across and set it down.
‘Sorry to turn up unannounced like this.’
She was facing away from me slightly. Her skin shone in the light coming from outside, her hair tucked behind her ears. ‘It’s just a surprise to hear his name again after all this time.’
I nodded. ‘I think Mary feels like she needs some closure on his disappearance. She wants to know where he went for those five years.’
Kathy nodded. ‘I can understand that.’
We pulled a couple of chairs out and sat down. I placed my notepad between us, so she could see I was ready to start.
‘So, you and Alex met at a party?’
She smiled. ‘A friend of a friend was having a house-warming.’
‘You liked him from the beginning?’
She nodded. ‘Yeah, we really clicked.’
‘Which was why you ended up following him to Bristol?’
‘I applied for a job there. It was supposed to be a marketing position. Alex had already got his place at university, and I wanted to be close to him. It made sense.’
‘What happened?’
‘It wasn’t marketing. It was cold-calling; selling central heating. I gave it a week. In the interview, the MD told me I could earn in commission what my friends earned in a year. I never stuck around long enough to find out.’
‘So, you started waitressing?’
‘Yes.’
‘What did the two of you use to do together?’
‘We used to go away a lot. Alex loved the sea.’
‘You used to go to the coast?’
She nodded.
‘How often?’
‘Most weekends. Some weeks too. After uni, Alex got a job in an insurance company. He had a kind of love-hate thing with it. Some Monday mornings he wouldn’t want to go in. So we bought an old VW Camper van and took off when we wanted.’
‘Did his parents know about him skipping work?’
‘No.’
‘I didn’t think so,’ I said, smiling. ‘What about your job?’
‘They were pretty good to me there. They let me come and go as I pleased — they sometimes even let me choose my own hours. So, if we disappeared for a couple of days, when I got back I worked for a couple of days to make up for it. The pay was terrible, but it was useful.’
She drifted off for a moment. I waited for her to come back.
‘What did you think of Alex’s dad?’
She shrugged. ‘He was always very pleasant to me.’
‘Did Alex ever tell you what they talked about?’
‘Not really. Not what they talked about. More where they went and what they did. I’m sure if there was anything worth knowing, he’d have told me.’
I nodded.
‘Alex didn’t contact you in the five years before he died?’
‘No.’ A pause. ‘At first, I just used to wait by the phone, from the moment I got home until three or four o’clock in the morning, begging, praying for him to call. But he never did.’
I looked at my notes. ‘When was the last time you spoke to him?’
‘The night before he left. We’d arranged to take the Camper down to Cornwall. He had some time owed to him at work, so he’d been back to his parents’ for a couple of weeks to use up some holiday. When I called him, his mum said he had gone out and hadn’t come home. She said she wasn’t worried, but that he hadn’t phoned and he always tended to.’
‘Was he depressed about work at the time?’
‘No,’ she said, seeming to consider it. ‘I don’t think so.’
I changed direction. ‘Did you have any favourite places you used to visit?’
She looked down into her hands, hesitating. I could tell they’d had a favourite spot, and that it had meant everything to her.
‘There was one place,’ she said eventually. ‘A place down towards the tip of Cornwall, a village right on the sea called Carcondrock.’
‘You used to stay there?’
‘We used to take the Camper there a lot.’
‘Did you go back after he disappeared?’
Another pause, longer this time. Eventually she looked up at me. It was obvious she had — and it had hurt a lot.
‘There was a place right on the beach,’ she said softly. ‘A cove. I went back about three months after he disappeared. I didn’t really know what to expect. I guess in my heart of hearts I knew he wouldn’t be there, but we loved that spot and never told a soul about it. Not a single person. So it seemed like the most obvious place to look.’
‘You two were the only ones who knew about it?’
‘Only myself and Alex. And now you, I guess.’ She looked at me, her eyes half-closed, as if she had something else to add. When it didn’t come, I got up to go.
‘Wait a second,’ she said, placing a hand on my arm, then blushing slightly as she took it away again.
I looked at her. ‘Was there something else?’
Kathy nodded. ‘The cove… If you go right to the back of it, there’s a rock shaped like an arrowhead, pointing up to the sky. It’s got a black cross painted on it. If you find it, dig a little way beneath and you’ll find a box I left there for Alex. Inside are some old letters and photographs — and a birthday card. That was the last time I ever heard from him.’
‘The birthday card?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did he give you the card before he went back to his parents for those two weeks?’
‘No. He sent it from their place. By the time it got to me, he’d already disappeared.’
‘I’ll take a look,’ I said.
‘I don’t know what you’ll find,’ she replied, looking down into her lap. ‘But the last time we saw each other he said something strange to me: that we should use the hole by the rock to store messages, if we ever got separated.’
‘Separated? What did he mean by that?’
‘I don’t know. I mean, I asked him, but he never really explained. He just said that, if it ever came to it, that was our spot. The place I should look first.’
‘So, did he ever store anything in there for you? Any messages?’
She shook her head.
‘You checked regularly?’
‘I haven’t been down for a couple of years. But for a time I used to go back there and dig up that box, praying there would be something in there from him.’