The Disappeared (33 page)

'You've
been talking to him a lot. . .' Jenny replied, fishing.

'Here
and there.' He blew out a thin trail of smoke. 'He worries about you.'

She
licked the paper and performed the final roll. Not bad. She poked it though the
iron slats of the brazier to catch a light.

'He
really does,' Steve said.

'What
can I say? I do my best ... Is this what you wanted to talk about?'

'No.
You mostly.'

'What
about me?'

He
held his cigarette hesitantly in front of his lips.

'What?'
she insisted.

'The
other night when we were in bed ... it was as if you weren't there. And it's
not the first time.' He turned and held her gaze. 'You don't feel the same way
any more.'

'That's
not true.'

'You
hardly call me.'

'I'm
a working mother.'

'And
I go to an office, too . . . I'm not the same, am I?'

'The
same what?'

'The
fantasy. The guy with no chains.'

Wounded,
Jenny said, 'I think you're confusing me with your ex-girlfriend. If you
remember, I encouraged you to go back and qualify.'

'I
really didn't want to argue, Jenny.' His head sank towards his knees. 'I just
want to know what's going on with us, what you're expecting.'

She
drew hard on her cigarette until the hot smoke scorched her mouth. 'I'm sorry
if I seem that way. It's probably the pills my shrink put me on. I'll be off
them soon.'

'Didn't
I used to make you happy?'

She
felt her legs twitching nervously. A shiver passed through her, physical
sensations taking the place of thoughts. 'You know what I am, Steve. I try to
keep the parts of me I'm trying to deal with separate, but sometimes they
escape from the box.'

'You
know you can talk to me all you like. I wish you would.'

'It
doesn't work like that. That's not what I need from you.'

'Can
you tell me what you do need?'

To
touch me, hold me, reassure me, give me a place to hide
. . . The words tripped out of her mind but stumbled and fell somewhere short
of her mouth. All she could manage was to shake her head.

Steve
said, 'Do you love me? Or just the idea of me.'

'You're
not leaving?'

'I
need to know what the future is, I need to know how you feel. A girl at work
asked me if I was with anyone the other day. For a moment I didn't know what to
say.'

'Was
she pretty?'

'For
God's sake, Jenny.' For once he was closer to tears than she was. 'You've got
to stop being afraid. Letting yourself feel loved is a gamble, don't I know it,
but you won't even try.'

'I
... I do ... I try all time.' The words sounded empty even to her.

Steve
said, 'I've been thinking more about your dream - the part of you that died.
Why would you have it again now? When we got together I watched you come alive.
You smiled and laughed and lost yourself. And then it was as if you felt too
guilty to let yourself be free again.' He tossed his cigarette end onto the
fire and drew his palms back across his face. 'What I'm trying to say is,
sometimes being faced with a choice is the best way to get bounced out of a
rut.'

He
stood then leaned down and kissed her lightly on the forehead. 'Think about it.
Give me a call.'

He
disappeared down the steps and into the night.

Jenny
had suffered many insults from many men over the years, but no one had accused
her of being lifeless in bed. True, she'd allowed herself to think about
someone else during sex, but she'd done that many times with her ex-husband and
even in the midst of their acrimonious split David had had the good grace to
say that he had few complaints about the physical side of their marriage.

Studying
her face in the mirror she did detect a certain absence, a dullness in her
eyes, a lack of vitality in her features. She felt sure these changes had
occurred since she had been on her latest regime of medication. Yes, the
malaise Steve had detected was partly existential, but she could see in her own
reflection that it was partly physical too. The pills had been a useful support
at her low points, they'd staved off the melancholy and anxiety which forced
their way in when her mind wasn't absorbed with work, but they'd blunted her
edge, diluted her passion.

Steve
was right: part of her had died, the part that wasn't afraid to feel the rush
of life.

It
was time for a new strategy; to cut loose. The deadening drugs must go. Across
the wet grass and into the dark stream with Dr Allen's poisons. She'd rather
live raw and true, be like McAvoy - a force of nature, a raging gale or a
barely moving breeze depending on how the spirit moved her.

And
if she faltered, a glass of something nice or a tranquillizer or two couldn't
do any harm.

She
checked in the bottom drawer of the oak chest where she kept her special things
- silk underwear, white cotton gloves with delicate pearl buttons, a pair of
stockings she had worn only once - and dug down to the bubble-wrapped package
she'd stashed there months before, when she'd vowed that the single container
was for life-saving purposes only. She slit the sticky tape with nail scissors
and released the small brown bottle. Xanax 2mg. Contents 60. A reassuring
rattle. She unscrewed the lid and pulled out the plug of cotton wool just to make
sure.

She
had her parachute. Now she could jump.

The
phone woke her shortly before seven a.m. on Sunday morning. Jenny went
downstairs, turned the ringer to mute and had breakfast in peace. She had no
intention of answering any calls today. She had nothing to say to anyone until
she had some more answers. Two cups of strong coffee took away her
sluggishness. She felt more exposed without Dr Allen's pills; a small hard
kernel of fear sat stubbornly between her throat and diaphragm, but there was
also an energy she wasn't accustomed to. A sense of excitement, of unleashed
emotion. The day felt fresh and full of possibility.

She
arrived outside the Crosbys' home in Cheltenham shortly after nine. It stood in
a terrace of identical regency townhouses, distinguished from one another only
by the varying designs of their intricate wrought-iron porches and balconies.
Built with the first flush of serious colonial money to reach the hands of the
merchant classes, these stuccoed streets in the heart of the town were an
idealized vision of what it was to be English and civilized. Even on a dull
February morning the buildings seemed to shine.

It
was Mrs Crosby who answered the door, her hair still slightly rumpled, though
she'd had time since Jenny's call half an hour before to dress and, judging
from the smell, burn some toast. She took her through to an elegant, unfussy
drawing room that matched tasteful contemporary sofas with an antique
chandelier. The paintings were modern abstract, the huge decorative mirror above
the white marble fireplace was tarnished with age. Eight-feet-high windows
looked out over a mini Italianate garden.

Jenny
said, 'It's lovely. So light.'

Mrs
Crosby offered a sad smile and glanced up at the door as her husband entered,
hair still wet from the shower, his irritation at being stirred so early on a
Sunday morning written across his unsmiling face.

'Found
a body, have you?' he said, taking a seat next to his wife.

'No.
There's no body, nothing to suggest she's dead.'

Husband
and wife exchanged a look of relief tinged with a sense of anti-climax.

'This
may sound odd,' Jenny said, 'but the reason I need to speak to you is that a
small trace of radioactive material was found on the body of woman connected to
another case I'm investigating. You might have read about it - Nazim Jamal.'

Mrs
Crosby looked puzzled.

'I've
read reports,' her husband said, abruptly. 'What's this got to do with Anna
Rose?'

'Maybe
nothing. I don't know. Let me explain.' She gave them the bare bones: a brief
history of Nazim and Rafi's disappearance, Mrs Jamal's campaign, her bizarre
death and the traces of caesium 137 that could only have originated in a
nuclear power plant. She told them that, from what she'd managed to find on the
internet, the main source of black market radioactive material was the former
Eastern bloc, but Anna Rose's job at Maybury presented her with a coincidence
that needed at least to be discounted.

Mr
and Mrs Crosby listened in silence, exchanging the occasional fretful glance.
Jenny sensed she had touched on something, but finished her exposition before
asking if it brought anything to mind.

There
was a pregnant pause. Mrs Crosby spoke first. 'You didn't know that Anna Rose
studied physics at Bristol?'

'No—'

'She
graduated last summer,' Mr Crosby said.

'I
see . . .'

The
three of them sat in silence for a long moment.

Jenny
said, 'When did she go missing, exactly?'

Mr
Crosby said, 'We spoke to her on the phone on the night of Monday, 11 January.
She was at work on the Tuesday, but didn't arrive on the Wednesday.'

'Where
was she on the Tuesday night?'

'In
her flat, we think. The bed looked slept in. Her boyfriend called her
mid-evening. Everything seemed fine.'

'Did
she take anything with her?'

Mrs
Crosby said, 'It looked like she'd packed a bag. Her wallet and passport were
gone. She took five hundred pounds from an ATM near her flat at seven-thirty on
the Wednesday morning.'

'Has
there been any activity on the account since?'

'No,'
Mr Crosby said definitely. 'And no record of her leaving the country that we
can find.'

Jenny
said, 'Was there any indication that anything was wrong?'

'It
was a complete bolt from the blue,' Mrs Crosby said. 'She seemed perfectly
happy. She had a good job, a new boyfriend—' She stopped mid-sentence and
glanced at her husband, who seemed to have been struck by the same thought. She
let him take over.

'We
think she might have been seeing an Asian chap last year,' he said, as if it
was a source of great shame. 'My wife was visiting one day last October and saw
him leaving her flat. She said he was just a friend, but . . . you know. One
has an instinct.'

'Do
you know who he was?'

'Salim
something, I think. She never mentioned a surname.'

'What
did he look like?'

Mr
Crosby turned to his wife, who said, 'Mid-twenties, a little older than Anna
Rose. Perfectly respectable,' adding apologetically, 'quite good-looking,
really.'

Mr
Crosby said, 'Christ, I knew we should have said something. What the hell has
she got herself mixed up in?'

Mrs
Crosby put a calming hand on her husband's back. 'I don't think it was still
going on. She was really taken with Mike. They met at work.'

'At
Maybury?'

'Yes
. . . He was her first line manager, her boss, I suppose. She started a
two-year training programme last September - the graduate programme.'

'This
Asian friend, do you know anything more? Was he involved politically in any
way?'

'I've
no idea,' Mr Crosby said. 'I've never heard Anna Rose talk politics in her
life.'

'What
are her interests?'

'Having
a good time, as far as I could make out,' he said. 'Stunned us both completely
when she went straight into a job. She only took physics because she thought
there would be less competition getting onto the course.'

'Did
she do well?'

'Not
particularly,' Mrs Crosby said. 'A z:z. She was lucky to get on the graduate
scheme at all. She'd always talked about going off travelling for a year.'

'Her
looks probably helped,' her husband said. 'Men would do anything for her.'

Jenny
glanced at the few tasteful black and white family photographs arranged on a
polished walnut bureau. Anna Rose in her late teens had shoulder-length blonde
hair and a twinkling, mischievous smile that spelled trouble. She was more
elemental, less refined than her adoptive parents.

Jenny
said, 'How did she end up in this job? It sounds almost out of character.'

Mr
Crosby shrugged, seemingly at a loss to explain it other than as just another
of his daughter's many surprises. His wife said, 'She got on very well with one
of her tutors - Dr Levin. I had the impression that she pushed Anna Rose in
that direction. Pulled a few strings, probably, but Anna Rose would never have
admitted to taking someone else's help.'

'She
was very independent?'

'Oh
yes,' Mr Crosby said. 'And headstrong. It didn't matter how wrong she was, she
was always right.' His tone suggested he'd already made up his mind about what
had happened: his feisty, naive daughter, too good-looking for her own good,
had got involved with some damn-fool foreigner. If she wasn't already dead,
she was certainly beyond any help they could offer.