I had received a commission, an imperative, a cry for help… and I’d got nowhere. I’d learned that the plea was genuine, shortly before it had been smothered by my own bull-headed carelessness, insensitivity and stupidity. I hadn’t found out anything at all about where Bethan was now, or come any closer to learning about her state of mind. The void that Bethan had vanished into was still a void, issuing nothing but a trio of backward-looking letters. I could not shake the feeling that I’d failed somehow – the sensation one must have when one runs to a panicked shout heard in a wilderness, only to find a bloody garment nosed by wild animals, or a piece of rope hanging over the edge of a precipice, the frayed end wafting in a mountain breeze.
I tried to tell myself that the reconstruction had literally only just aired, but my spirits would not lift.
She was still with me; she was almost tangible. But I knew, in my heart of hearts, she would offer no more material help. The distance between herself and me bristled with tension, and her badly contained panic as she waited for her rescue; waited for the eyes hunting through the darkness to light on her, for the first and last time.
I walked into the kitchen, and switched on the light. The kettle rested on the counter, empty, and I picked it up, pulling out the plug. I took it over to the sink, placing the red and chrome spout under the tap. Before me was the kitchen window, looking into my back garden. I peered through it, swiping at the condensation on the cold glass.
There was nothing out of the ordinary, just the night and the fog.
What had I expected?
Disquieted, I turned off the tap.
The house phone rang – a sudden shrill squawk of electronic noise. Shocked, I dropped the kettle, which crashed into the stainless steel sink, water gushing everywhere. I swore and lifted it out, sure it had scratched the metal. Wiping my wet hands on my trousers, I hurried out to answer the phone.
I moved into the dark hall and swiped up the handset.
‘Hello?’
There was no reply, just a dense electronic silence.
‘Hello, can I help you?’
Nothing. But not quite nothing – there was breathing; not heavy, but light, silent, controlled. Expectant.
‘Who is this?’ I asked, though I knew by then they would not reply.
The click and purr of the receiver being replaced was my only answer. When I hit 1471 on the keypad, I was told that the caller had withheld their number.
The next morning, I was walking through St Andrews churchyard after my run, on my cool-down, and the bells were ringing. Today I felt a fierce, sharp optimism.
Watery daylight touched the shrivelled grass, the sky was pearly grey and thick as cream. Nearby, an old couple, smothered and muffled in heavy winter clothes, negotiated the broken and buried graves. The woman held a stiff brush of sturdy flowers, a no-nonsense winter bouquet. They were making their way to the newer part of the graveyard.
A pair of magpies fluttered down from the church tower, to strut and bob over the bodies of the ancient dead. I smiled at them, and they ignored me with cavalier indifference.
I paused by the old church door, and sat down on the step, delaying the start of my morning, with its fuss and bustle, just wanting to breathe in the peace and space. The bells chimed happily into the white sky. The magpies paused, too, as though listening. Then they hopped up into the cold air and in a few quick flaps were gone.
I had to go too.
I should have been terrified, or at least nervous. But I can honestly say that I wasn’t. These swinging fits of despair and hope seemed normal to me. I suppose Eddy would say that I wasn’t in my right mind. Maybe I wasn’t; maybe I was in some other mind – a mind that was more my own than any other. I think I was excited, more than anything, terribly excited. Perhaps I was terrified, but I enjoyed the terror. Is that strange? I was menaced, but for once it wasn’t the ghosts of my own mind that haunted me so tirelessly, so inconclusively, but something active, something evil, something cruel and decadent, something I could hate with a will.
I was sitting on the church steps, and instead of being in a frenzy of fear, I felt tensely calm and utterly vindicated. Let them do their worst. I was hunting for lost things, and if I could find Bethan then I would prove to my doubting and querulous heart that nothing was lost for ever. That peace and contentment and innocence and justice were not lost for ever. That I was not lost for ever.
I stood up, dusted my hands on my sweatpants, and went home to get changed and get into work.
When I got back to the house, Eddy was there.
I had a little warning beforehand, but not much – I had been strolling along our road in the morning sunshine, enjoying the cool breeze against my hot, sweaty skin, and the birds as they flitted through the tree branches while I wound the cord of my headphones around my iPhone.
I was wondering if there was any way to go in and check Dear Amy’s post without having to run into Wendy, who, since my first television appearance, had raised her game in terms of passive-aggressive digs. I had been led to understand in no uncertain terms that all of this extra work and fuss I had put the staff through was extremely inconvenient.
And yet, when I came into the Examiner’s office last night after school, looking for any more letters, she had practically run from the other side of the office, shooing away the intern standing directly in front of the cubbyholes and reaching to fetch my post, in order to hand the bundle to me herself with the maximum possible bad grace.
In short, I was deeply preoccupied that morning, so I didn’t spot Eddy’s smoke-grey Porsche Carrera parked up on my right until I was nearly on top of it – I could have reached out and touched the bonnet. The driver’s seat was empty.
I felt a little giddy, a little sick. What now?
I shoved my phone into the pocket at the back of my running leggings and pulled out my house keys while considering my strategy.
The truth was, I didn’t have one. I simply didn’t want to fight with Eddy at the moment. I had things to do, things to think about. The idea of it exhausted me and left the fragile accord I’d come to with myself on the church steps in shreds.
Why couldn’t he just sign the arbitration? If he signed the arbitration, we could talk about the rest. I didn’t want anything unfair. Why was he behaving this way?
I was going to have this conversation with him now, and ask him. Like a grown-up. There would be no repeat of the scenes at Ara’s house the other day. I forbade it.
I turned on to my path, past the high hedges of unruly leylandii, and sure enough he was waiting on the step.
‘You’re still running?’ he asked. The sun gleamed in his golden hair. ‘I keep telling you it’s terrible for your joints.’
His voice was faintly hoarse.
Straightaway I could see that something had changed, and not for the good. When he had appeared here last time he had been impeccably turned out, as was his habit when going to or from work.
This new Eddy looked as though he’d been out all night. His shirt was crumpled and limp, his coat thrown over it, the jacket missing, the tie just a little off-centre, his shoes dull with a slight patina of dust. I daresay anyone else would have found him respectable enough – he’d shaved and his hair was neat – but I’d had four years of getting to know all of Eddy’s idiosyncracies. Something was wrong.
‘And yet I still persist in it,’ I said, coming to a stop before him. ‘Like you. Why are you here?’
‘What, we can’t talk any more? Do I have to book an appointment with you now you’re a TV celebrity?’
‘I thought we were doing this through your lawyers.’
‘We could still discuss it like reasonable people.’
I folded my arms. I was shaking a little, and it wasn’t just because I was cooling down.