Forward Slash (4 page)

He leans closer, and whispers into my hair. ‘Have you got one of those?’ he murmurs.

‘One of what?’ I ask brightly, feigning innocence. As a matter of fact, I don’t possess a vibrator; I don’t like them. An ex bought me one once in the last gasp of our relationship, but I was never sure whether it was meant to be for us to use together, to try to rejuvenate our sex lives, or whether it was an acknowledgement that things had got so dire between us in that department that I’d be better off going it alone. I gave it a try, because Kath swears by hers, but I didn’t like it at all. I wrapped it in a Tesco carrier bag and threw it in the outside bin.

‘You know what I mean,’ Shaun replies, his lips brushing my ear. ‘You certainly won’t need one of those when we’re—’

I can’t hold it in any more. I burst out laughing, too loudly, but I can’t help myself. I laugh so hard that I almost fall off the bar stool. The crush at the bar has thinned out a bit, and I see the woman who spoke to me earlier looking over at me and laughing too, with me. I can tell she’s guessed that I’ve reached my limit with Mr Dull, and it makes me even worse. I can’t speak for laughing. I wish that woman were a bloke; she and I would get on like a house on fire. Why can’t I meet a man I’m on the same wavelength with?

‘It’s not that bloody funny,’ says Shaun, looking offended. He waves at the barman, who brings over a bill on a silver tray. ‘Well, I’d better be going. I’ve had a great time, it’s been lovely to meet you. Let’s split this, shall we? Thirty-eight pounds each should do it.’

He must have ordered one of the priciest wines on the menu, knowing he was going to make me pay half, the bastard, I think, tears of mirth streaming down my face. I hadn’t even touched any of the second bottle – I was driving, so I changed to tap water.

I’d never normally do this, but for some reason I just don’t care. I stand up, make a show of peering in my bag and say, ‘Gosh, Shaun, I’m terribly sorry, but I seem to have forgotten my purse. Can I leave you to sort this one out? It’ll be on me next time, honest. Give me a call sometime?’

I peck him on the cheek, grab my coat and rush out before he can say anything, waving at my new friend on the way, still heaving and gulping with hysterics.

The text comes when I’m halfway home, so I pull over and open it. It says, ‘You are an insane bitch and I’ve totally wasted my evening and my money on you.’

What happened to, ‘I had a great time, it was lovely to meet you?’ I wonder, roaring with fresh laughter. I pull out my phone to ring my sister and tell her about it – but then remember that I don’t want her to know I’m Internet dating; she’s so paranoid about it after what happened with her and that freak, even though it was years ago. She’ll get too involved and start insisting that she vets all the guys, even though I keep telling her that she was just unlucky. She wouldn’t understand that although I do want a relationship, I also just want some good old uncomplicated sex … I might tell her, at some point. Just not yet.

‘Do you think I should call the police?’ Amy asked Gary.

He pulled a face. ‘I don’t know. Maybe it’s a bit early? I mean, assuming the email was a wind-up, she could walk in at any moment. She probably
will
walk in at any moment.’

‘I’m not worried about looking foolish. I think I should—’

‘Call them. Yeah, well, maybe.’

She was seated on Becky’s desk chair, with Gary perched on the edge of the sofa, one leg bouncing back and forth, one of the most pronounced cases of restless leg syndrome she’d ever seen.

‘You can go now,’ she said. His expression made her realize she’d sounded dismissive. ‘I mean, if you need to.’

He checked his watch. ‘I suppose I really ought to get going – I’m playing five-a-side this morning … Will you be all right?’

‘Yes, don’t worry, I’ll be fine.’

‘If you hear anything, let me know, OK?’ He wrote down his mobile number for her on the back of a copy of
Heat
magazine, ripped it off and handed it to her.

‘Of course. Can you leave me the spare key?’

He gave her the key, went to leave, hesitated in the doorway as though he was about to say something else, then changed his mind. He was an all-right guy, Amy thought, despite his annoying little habits. It was a truism that people in London didn’t get to know their neighbours, and Amy’s main interaction with the people next door to her had been listening to passive-aggressive comments about her noisy bike, so Becky was lucky to have a friend living next door.

So, the police. This would only be the second time in her life she’d called them. In a flash, she was transported back to that moment – the bleak loneliness underpinning the utter panic and disbelief at what had just happened to her at the hands of someone she loved. She hugged herself for comfort and shook the memory away, as she had so many times before.

She was about to look up the number of the local station on the iMac when it struck her that the police might need to examine the computer, and any more activity she did on it could muddy the trail more than she had already. So she looked it up on her phone, then called them.

‘Camberwell Police.’

She took a deep breath. ‘I want to report a missing person.’

She waited while she was put through to somebody who identified himself as Police Constable Ian Norris.

‘How can I help?’

She cleared her throat to unstick the words. ‘I want to report my sister as missing.’

‘Can I take your name please?’

‘Amy Coltman.’

He asked for her address and phone number, which she gave him.

‘And your sister’s name?’

‘Becky … Rebecca Coltman,’ she said, and gave him her sister’s full address and date of birth.

‘How long has your sister been missing?’

‘Well … I haven’t seen her for a couple of weeks, but I got an email from her last night.’

She heard an intake of breath at the other end of the line. ‘Last night?’

‘Yes.’

‘And what did the email say?’

‘I know this sounds silly, and that it was only last night, but she said she was going away – going abroad – and that I shouldn’t try to find her.’

His tone changed entirely. ‘Right.’

Before he could say anything else, Amy said, ‘It’s completely out of character. I can’t believe she would go away like that and ask not to be found.’

‘She’s never done anything like this before?’

‘No. She went backpacking around Asia for her gap year but it was all pre-arranged.’

‘What about work? Have you checked with them?’

‘She’s a teacher. The school broke up for the summer holidays last Wednesday.’

‘Last Wednesday. Right …’ He paused, and she imagined him tapping details into his computer. She imagined him as the kind of bloke who typed with one finger, seeking out each letter as if for the first time.

‘What about friends? Family?’

‘Our parents live in Spain. I haven’t checked to see if they’ve heard from her yet. And I haven’t spoken to any of her friends yet.’ Despite what she’d said to Gary, she felt embarrassed now.

‘And have you been to her address?’ Norris asked.

‘I’m there now.’ Pre-empting his questions, she said, ‘It’s hard to tell if she’s packed up and gone away. But the door wasn’t double-locked. I can’t believe she’d go away without doing that.’

‘You’d be amazed, miss. Some people might as well hang a sign on their front door: “Burglars welcome”. What about her passport?’

‘Oh. I don’t know where she keeps it. Please, Officer Norris, I need you to take this seriously. There’s something … not right about the email. I’m sure something has happened to her.’

‘We take all reports of missing persons seriously, miss, I can assure you. Was there anything in the email that suggested that she planned to harm herself, or that she was being threatened?’

‘No. Let me read it to you.’

Before he could stop her, she read out the email, in a rush.

Norris didn’t respond immediately. Eventually, he said, ‘Here’s what I suggest, Miss Coltman. Why don’t you speak to your mum and dad, call some of your sister’s friends, and have a look for her passport? It sounds very much like Rebecca has gone away of her own volition. People do things that are out of character all the time, believe me.’

‘I know, but—’

‘I expect you’ll get another email in a day or two, or a postcard, saying she’s having a lovely time in Vietnam, wish you were here.’

She could feel him closing down the call, and she tried to hang on. ‘So you’re not going to do anything?’

‘I’m sorry, miss, but if she hadn’t sent the email it would be a different story. The fact is, though, that she did. She has clearly told you where she’s going and what she’s doing.’

‘But what if someone else wrote the email? Or forced her to write it?’

‘There’s no evidence of that, is there?’

‘No, but …’

She hung up, feeling utterly deflated.

As the call had gone on, her conviction that something had happened to Becky had become increasingly weaker. Norris was probably right. Becky had decided to go away. Her wheelie suitcase wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Maybe what she should be worried about was
why
Becky would do something so uncharacteristic. What had driven her to it?

She rubbed her face, feeling totally confused. More than that, though, she was sick with worry. Had Becky had some kind of breakdown?

She read over the email for the tenth time. And then it struck her. How could she not have seen it before – or maybe that was what had been niggling at her?

I’ve always wanted to visit Vietnam and Cambodia.

When Becky had returned from her gap-year travels, she had made Amy sit through all of her printed photos. Thailand, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines – and Cambodia. She had bemoaned the fact she hadn’t got to visit Vietnam – for some complicated reason Amy couldn’t recall, involving trains and visas and a boy from Oxford – but she had definitely been to Cambodia. She had visited the Killing Fields near – what was it called? – Phnom something. The visit had affected Becky badly. She told Amy she’d had nightmares about it for weeks afterwards, about the families who had been brutally murdered. The children. In fact, it had disturbed her so much that she refused to talk about it further, said she wanted to forget she’d ever been. Now, when she talked about her time in Asia, she would list all the places she’d been, and she would miss out Cambodia.

But she had definitely been there. And even though she didn’t talk about it, or want to remember it, she herself would remember she’d been there. So why would she write,
I’ve always wanted to visit Cambodia
?

She picked up the phone, ready to call Officer Norris back. But she hesitated. She could hear his exasperated sigh in her head. There were a couple of things she needed to do first.

She went into Becky’s bedroom and looked around. The blinds were open and sunlight poured into the room. She heard a car pull up outside and rushed to the window to look out, hope flaring. It might be Becky coming home in a taxi. But it was a Royal Mail van, parking up behind Amy’s motorbike.

Where would Becky keep her passport? She opened her bedside drawer and found condoms, assorted jewellery, Vaseline, old keys – but no passport. She checked every drawer in the flat, along with the bookshelves, various boxes and chests, every place she could think of where her sister might keep her important documents. There was no sign of it.

Everything she did made her feel conflicted. Half of her wanted evidence that her sister had indeed gone away through her own free will. The other half wanted confirmation that her instincts were correct.

She sat back down at the computer and brought up Becky’s address-book program. She knew a couple of Becky’s friends from work, had met them at a party last year, here at Becky’s flat. Becky’s best friend from work was called Katherine, and Amy had spoken to her at some length about jewellery-making, Katherine’s hobby. Amy had been trying to get her to write a piece for the website. She was the obvious first port of call.

Amy dialled Katherine’s number, hoping she hadn’t gone away on holiday.

She answered after just a few rings. ‘Hello?’

‘Hi – is that Katherine?’

The other woman paused before answering. ‘Yes?’

‘This is Amy – Becky’s sister.’

Katherine’s tone changed. ‘Oh, hello. Is everything all right?’

‘I just wondered if you’d heard from Becky recently?’

‘No, I haven’t spoken to her since Wednesday, when we broke up. You’re making me worry. What’s happened?’

Amy was about to launch into it when she realized it would be much easier face to face, so she could show Katherine the email. Besides, she wanted to get out of the flat. It was making her feel even more antsy than she would otherwise, with every noise in the hallway making her jump; the hope that it was Becky coming back and then the return of the dread and disappointment when it wasn’t.

‘Can I come and see you?’

Katherine agreed, though Amy detected a hint of hesitation in her voice. Tough, she thought, leaving the flat and taking the spare keys with her. As she walked down the stairs, pressing down the helmet on her head en route, a door opened on the ground floor. ‘Er – hello!’ called a man’s voice. ‘Miss Coltman! Could I have a word?’

Amy stopped, surprised, her helmet as far down as her eyebrows. The man was in his forties, and very square – she could clearly see the vest through his blue nylon short-sleeved shirt. His thick brown hairline grew unattractively low on his forehead.

‘Yes?’

‘Yes. I need to talk to you again about the complaints we’ve had about noise levels coming from your … oh! I’m so sorry. I thought you were Miss Coltman.’

He squinted myopically at her and she lifted the helmet clear of her ears again so she could hear him better.

‘I
am
Miss Coltman – but I’m Amy, not Becky. Becky’s my sister.’

The man laughed in an embarrassed sort of way. ‘I do beg your pardon! You look so alike!’ He thrust out his hand. ‘I’m Damian Fenton, head of the Residents’ Association.’