“Except in this case,” Hannah said, “we know very well that it was. Alex was beating her up.”
“Once.”
“No.”
“That’s all we-you-have proof of, once. And only your word for that.”
“You think I’m making it up.”
“Of course not.”
“Then why won’t you act upon it?”
Resnick resumed walking and, almost reluctantly, she fell in step beside him. “I still reckon, the most likely thing, she’s gone off somewhere. Maybe just to clear the air. You said, that thing at Broadway, she was excited at the way it went. Buoyed up.”
“And that made her run away?”
“Maybe it convinced her that she could.”
Hannah shook her head.
“When we get back,” Resnick said, “you could make a list of people she worked with at school, talked to; anyone other than yourself she might have confided in. You never know, sometimes it’s just a chance remark …”
“Yes,” she said a little stiffly, “of course.”
There were fourteen names, for almost all of which Hannah had been able to supply addresses or telephone numbers or both; those Jane would have spent the most time with, members of her department, had been neatly asterisked in red. Resnick read through the list twice slowly, eight women, six men. The coffee that he’d made while Hannah was making the list sat, almost finished, by his side.
“You don’t think,” he asked, “she could have been having an affair?”
Hannah shifted a little in her seat and smiled a wry smile. “With Alex breathing down her neck the whole time, logging her every move? I don’t see how she could.”
Back at the station, mid-afternoon, Resnick tried Diane Harker’s number again and she picked up on the second ring. It was soon clear that, unlike the others Resnick had contacted, this was the first she had heard of Jane’s disappearance.
“I thought perhaps you’d already spoken to Alex,” Resnick said.
“He’d not phone here. Not if hell were freezing over.”
“You had a row?”
“You could say that.”
“Can I ask what it was about?”
“My lifestyle, that’s what he’d call it, I dare say. Irresponsible. Getting myself pregnant and scrounging off the State.”
In the background, Resnick could hear a small child calling, the voice more and more insistent. “You haven’t heard from Jane, this weekend?”
“I haven’t heard in a good three months.”
“You’ve not seen her?”
“I just said …”
“She’s not there with you now?”
“You don’t take no for an answer easily, do you?”
“It’s important. I need to be sure.”
“Well, no, I haven’t seen my dear sister and no, I don’t know where she is, but one thing, if after all this time she’s come to her senses and left that prick of a husband I shall hang out of the upstairs window and cheer.”
Twenty-four
Hannah carried the small radio into the bathroom and let Radio 4 voices mill around her as she soaked. It was only when the sound of the telephone interrupted with a new urgency that she realized she had also slept. Clutching a towel against her and dripping water liberally, her hand was reaching for the receiver as the ringing ceased. She immediately punched 1471, but the operator’s voice informed her that her caller had exercised his or her option to keep their number to themselves.
Hannah swore, dialed Resnick’s number, and got no reply.
She was almost at the bathroom door when she heard the front gate swing closed, the tread of feet, heavy upon the path. Grabbing her robe and hurrying downstairs, she had the latch turned back almost before there was time for the bell to sound.
“Charlie, I …”
But, no, it was Alex, white-faced, strained, standing there at her door.
“Hannah, I’m sorry, I … I didn’t know where else to go.”
She looked at him, those light blue eyes appealing out of the half-dark, and despite wanting to say no, she was sorry, but she was busy, too tired, this wasn’t a good time, she found herself taking a step backward and inviting him in.
“Alex, has something happened? You haven’t heard from Jane?”
“No. No. Nothing. Nothing at all.”
They were standing in Hannah’s kitchen at the back of the house and suddenly it seemed cramped and small, the ceiling unnaturally low, Hannah conscious of her nakedness beneath her robe.
“Sit down, Alex. Here. I’ll just run upstairs and get changed.”
“It’s okay, I won’t stay, I …”
But she pulled out an upright chair from the table and waited until he was sitting, elbow on the table, shoulders slumped.
“Just one minute, right?”
Passing the first-floor living room, she denied an impulse to try Resnick’s number again, even have him bleeped from the station. What did she think was going to happen there in her own house? However many times had Alex been there before, Alex and Jane? She knew this was different. In the bedroom, she dressed quickly in functional underwear, a dark, three-button top, loose and shapeless, and blue jeans.
Alex seemed scarcely to have moved, save that his head was resting in his hands. He sat up and turned as she came in. “Look, Hannah, I’m sorry. I probably shouldn’t have come.”
“Nonsense. Here, let me get you a drink.”
“Not a good idea, really. Most likely had too much already.” He smiled at her quickly, his eyes searching for sympathy. “My way of getting through the afternoon.”
“She’ll be in touch, Alex. Really.”
“You think so?”
“Yes, of course. She’ll phone, make contact somehow. A letter, maybe, first post tomorrow.”
“But from where? Where? Where the hell is she?” Surprised to see tears in his eyes, Hannah was tempted to reach out for his hand. “I don’t know,” she said quietly. “But I’m sure it will be fine.” Why was she saying these things, these banalities, words she didn’t truly believe? She didn’t know a thing, couldn’t think, except in dark imaginings, what might have happened to Jane, where she might have gone.
“There’s one thought, Hannah,” Alex said, “keeps going round and round; this one thought I can’t shake. Whatever it is Jane’s up to, you must know.”
“Alex, I don’t. I can assure you.”
“She’s your friend.”
“I know.”
“This is where she comes running, any time she’s upset, any little disagreement we might have had. Spilling it all out to you.”
“Alex, it isn’t like that.”
“Isn’t it?”
Hannah gasped, surprised, as he seized hold of her wrist. All tears had gone now: this was the old Alex, staring at her with the same blue eyes, his fingers biting tight against the bone beneath her skin.
“She made you promise, didn’t she? Promise not to tell.”
“No.”
“Hannah, you’ve got to tell me.”
Straining, Hannah prized back first one of his fingers, then another before wrenching herself away. “Alex, listen to me. I’ve no idea where Jane is, not a clue where she might be. I’m as much in the dark as you.”
He slumped back, his breath accelerated by the effort of holding her.
“Believe me, Alex, I only wish I did.”
With a sigh, he bowed his head, hands trapped tight between his knees. “I’m sorry. Really sorry. I didn’t mean … I don’t know what else to do.”
“It’s all right. You’re upset. I understand. But now I think you must go.”
At the door, she watched as he hesitated halfway along the path and turned toward her, his face a rough oval of light. Uncertainly, he raised a hand and then walked on. Hannah stood there several moments longer, gazing out across the empty recreation ground, its gradations of dark.
Inside, she locked the door and slid the bolts across; checked the windows, front and back. In the bathroom, she cleaned her face, tied back her hair, and brushed her teeth. Naked in the attic room, the moment before slipping on the T-shirt in which she slept, a wave of cold ploughed through her, head to foot, the imprint of Alex Peterson’s hand clear as daylight on her skin.