“I’m pinging,” says Rowan, the words sounding a slight echo in his skull. “He nods at the pocket of his sodden trench-coat, where Snowdrop had slipped the phone when the deluge began. She rummages, quickly while Rowan stands in absolute silence, uncomfortable.
“Violet’s accepted your ‘friend’ request,” reads Snowdrop, as raindrops begin to jewel the screen. “That’s good. And she’s sent a ‘wave’ emoji, so that’s a good sign.” She smears her finger across the screen, skimming Violet’s profile. “Not much more to see as a friend than on a drive-by,” mumbles Snowdrop, sounding briefly like a New York private-eye. “Few more pictures, few more ‘shares’ of political stuff, animal welfare, a bit of a rant about the ignorant driver who cut her up on the Mungrisedale turn-off …”
Rowan watches the rain. Watches the trees bend in the gale: branches stirring the damp air.
“Pictures aplenty,” continues Snowdrop. She runs her finger down the screen. “Lovely sandy beach…. Palm trees.. lovely sandy beach …blue waters … oh good, a tree with coconuts …,” she looks up, grimacing. “This is not an interesting person any more…. sandy beach, oh good, a market, and ah yes, finally, a picture of her.” She turns the phone.
Rowan looks into the cheerful face of Violet Rayner, squinting against the sun, hand raised to push back a tangle of fringe. Her eyebrows are raised so the whites of her eyes seem too-large. She looks paler than in the other image he had seen and she has lost a little weight. She looks tired. Behind her is a triangle of featureless green field. The picture is captioned Let’s Finally F**king Do This Thing! and features what Rowan considers to be a truly certifiable number of emojis. She has garnered 29 thumbs-ups and a lot of smiley faces. The number of enquiries about whatever this ‘thing’ might be is dispiritingly small.
“April,” reads Rowan, and somewhat self-consciously uses the tip of his nose to navigate down the screen. “Plenty of selfies before she went away – none since.” He shrugs. “I don’t know, might be nothing.”
“We could knock on her door,” says Snowdrop, brightly.
“She’s away,” Rowan reminds her. He sags, suddenly tired, as if one of the strings holding him up has snapped in two.
“It’s ringing,” says Snowdrop. “Somebody called Aubrey, hang on…,”
“Don’t,” hisses Roan, waving frantically. “Hang up, hang up…,”
“Oh, sorry, I answered,” says Snowdrop, her smile fading as she glances at the darkening features of her uncle. Desperate to make amends she lunges forward, pressing the phone to his ear. He squawks in protest and suddenly he can hear his editor saying his name. Although her lips move perfectly around immaculate Sloane Square vowels, he forms a distinct impression of a small canine yapping at a postman.
“Aubrey,” he says, making it sound as if this is a real treat. In truth he has been ducking calls from both his agent and his book editor for months. He’s tried to stay optimistic – to cling to the belief that something will turn up. He’s never seen a newspaper with ‘Nothing Going On’ as a front page splash. There’s always a story to be found somewhere. He just hasn’t unearthed it yet. His policy to date has been to keep his new book’s subject matter a closely guarded secret. At present, and with six weeks to go, he’d dearly love to be let in on it.
“Oh Rowan, thank goodness,” she says, and this time he flashes on a mental picture of some fragile heiress in a black and white movie, clutching her pearls with long, elegant fingers. “I’ve been going slightly ga-ga wondering if I might have said something at our last meeting that had caused some upset. I’ve been trying so hard to get hold of you; I’ve had poor Morwenna ringing every 15 minutes. I hate to come down heavy-handed but I’m getting so much pressure from the sales team. Marketing too. They need something to put in next year’s brochure at least.”
Rowan feels his skin prickling beneath the bandages.
“Rowan” she asks, insistent. “It for the brochure, you must understand …”
“Oh so you do plan to put something in the brochure, do you?” he hears himself ask, petulant and stoned. “That’s good, that’s good. Certainly a step up from the last one where you forgot about the paperback …,”
“Rowan, we’ve had several conversations …,” says Aubrey, with a sigh so heartfelt it seems to come from her toes. “Every possible effort was made to ensure the King book hit big ....
Rowan can sense the word ‘bollocks’ making its way brashly towards the conversation. He’s about to give it the stage when he’s diverted by a sudden trilling of the phone, which feels wet as an open oyster against his face. He realises there’s very little point in arguing. If he ever had any moral high ground he has long since conceded it. She’s right to be chasing her for a book she’s bought. He’s the twat for not delivering. Her knows this, believes it – he just can’t seem to stop himself from swinging every time he feels himself under attack. He glances at the phone, vision obscured by his soggy collar and the rain on the glass. It’s only a message telling him he has unopened mail, but in the fraction of a second that he looks into Violet Rayner’s tired eyes, he hears himself start to talk – fast and urgent, as if he hasn’t got long.
“Aubrey, I’m so sorry, it’s just I’m in this thing now. Properly in it. The things I’ve seen, Aubrey – I thought I was a hard man but I tell you, my heart’s in bits…,”
“Rowan,” she whispers, as if calming a feverish child: “Just stop. Just take a breath and a moment. Are you okay? It sounds dreadful where you are …,”
“I can’t tell you where I am,” hisses Rowan, urgently. He looks at Snowdrop and rolls his eyes, his lips tight around an exaggerated smiles. “Look, I know this is unprofessional it’s just I need to protect the few people I care about and I’ve had to stay properly off-grid.” He glances again at Snowdrop, who is mouthing the words ‘off-grid’ at him, questioningly. “Every communication with the outside alerts them. You don’t know what these people can do!”
“When can we speak?” she asks, her own voice falling to a whisper as if the people who she imagines to be threatening Rowan are leaning in to hear. “I just need a few words, just an outline …,”