The Likeness: A Novel (48 page)

"To Glen
skehy
? And I’m not driving all the way back into town for him, just because he feels like being an idiot—”
“Well,” Daniel said, “I’m sure he’ll find a way.” He tucked a stray sheet of paper into the pile he was carrying. “Let’s go home.”

* * *

By the end of dinner—a half-arsed dinner, chicken fillets from the freezer, rice, a bowl of fruit shoved into the middle of the table—Rafe hadn’t rung. He had switched his phone back on, but he was still letting our calls go to voice mail. “It’s not like him,” Justin said. He was scraping compulsively, with one thumbnail, at the pattern on the edge of his plate.
“Sure it is,” said Abby firmly. “He’s gone on a bender and picked up some girl, just like he did that other time, remember? He was gone for two days.”
“That was different. And what are you nodding about?” Justin added, sourly, to me. “You don’t remember that. You weren’t even
here
for that.”
My adrenaline leaped, but no one looked suspicious; they were all too focused on Rafe to notice a slip that small. “I’m nodding because I’ve
heard
about it. There’s this thing called communication, you should try it sometime—” Everyone was in a prickly mood, including me. I wasn’t frantic with worry about Rafe, exactly, but the fact that he wasn’t there was making me edgy, and so was the fact that I couldn’t tell whether this was for solid investigative reasons—Frank’s beloved intuition—or just because without him the balance of the room felt all wrong, off-kilter and precarious.
“How was that different?” Abby wanted to know.
Justin shrugged. “We didn’t live together then.”
“So? All the more reason. What’s he supposed to do, if he wants to hook up with someone? Bring her here?”
“He’s supposed to
ring
us. Or at least leave us a note.”
“Saying what?” I demanded. I was chopping a peach into tiny bits. “ ‘Dear guys, I’m off to get laid. Will talk to you tomorrow, or later tonight if I can’t score, or at three in the morning if she turns out to be a crap shag—’ ”
“Don’t be vulgar,” Justin snapped. “And for God’s sake eat that bloody thing or stop messing about with it.”
“I’m not being vulgar, I’m just
saying.
And I’ll eat it when I’m ready. Do I tell you how to eat?”
“We should call the police,” Justin said.
“No,” Daniel said, tapping a cigarette on the back of his wrist. “It wouldn’t do any good at this point, anyway. The police wait a certain amount of time after someone goes missing—twenty-four hours, I think, although it may be more—before they set any kind of search in motion. Rafe’s an adult—”
“In theory,” said Abby.
“—and he has every right to stay out for the night.”
“But what if he’s done something stupid?” Justin’s voice was rising towards a wail.
“One of the reasons I dislike euphemisms,” Daniel said, shaking out his match and dropping it neatly into the ashtray, “is that they preclude any real communication. I think it’s a safe bet that Rafe has in fact done something stupid, but that covers such a wide variety of possibilities. I assume you’re worried that he’s busy committing suicide, which frankly I think is extremely unlikely.”
After a moment Justin said, without looking up, “Did he ever tell you about that time when he was sixteen? When his parents made him move school for the tenth time or whatever it was?”
“No pasts,” Daniel said.
“He wasn’t trying to kill himself,” Abby said. “He was trying to get some attention from his dickhead dad, and it didn’t work.”
“I said
no pasts.
”
“I’m
not.
I’m just saying this isn’t the same, Justin. Hasn’t Rafe been completely different, these last few months? Hasn’t he been way happier?”
“These last few months,” Justin said. “Not these last few weeks.”
“Yeah, well,” Abby said, and sliced an apple in half with a crisp snap, “we’ve none of us been at our best. It’s still not the same. Rafe knows he’s got a home, he knows he’s got people who care about him, he’s not about to hurt himself. He’s just having a hard time, and he’s gone off to get hammered and chase skirt. He’ll be back when he’s good and ready.”
“What if he’s . . .” Justin’s voice trailed off. “I hate this, you know,” he said softly, to his plate. “I really hate this.”
“Well, so do we all,” said Daniel briskly. “It’s been a trying time for all of us. We need to accept that and have patience with ourselves, and with one another, while we recover.”
“You said to just give it time and it would get better. It’s not getting better, Daniel. It’s getting
worse.
”
“I was thinking,” Daniel said, “of a little more time than three weeks. If you consider that unreasonable, then do by all means tell me.”
“How can you be so
calm
?” Justin wasn’t far off tears. “This is
Rafe
we’re talking about.”
“Whatever he’s doing,” Daniel said, turning his head politely to the side to blow smoke away from the rest of us, “I fail to see how it would make any difference if I became hysterical.”
“I am not hysterical. This is how normal people react when one of their friends
vanishes.
”
“Justin,” Abby said, gently, “it’s going to be fine,” but Justin didn’t hear her.
“Just because you’re a bloody robot . . . My God, Daniel, just once, just
once
I’d like to see you act as if you
care
about the rest of us, about
anything
—”
“I think you have every reason to be aware,” Daniel said coldly, “that I care very deeply about all four of you.”
“I do not.
What
reason? I’ve got every reason to think that you don’t give a damn—”
Abby made a small gesture, palm upturned to the ceiling, the room around us, the garden outside. There was something about it, about the way her hand fell back into her lap; something tired, almost resigned.
“That’s right,” Justin said, slumping down in his chair. The light caught him at a cruel angle, hollowing out his cheeks and raking a long vertical groove between his eyebrows, and for a second I saw like a time-slip overlaid on his face what he would look like in fifty years’ time. “Of course. The house. And look where that’s got us.”
There was a tiny, sharp silence. “I have never claimed,” Daniel said, and his voice had a dangerous depth of some emotion that I’d never heard there before, “to be infallible. All I’ve ever claimed is that I try, very hard, to do what’s best for the five of us. If you believe I’m doing such a bad job of it, feel free to make decisions of your own. If you think we shouldn’t be living together, then move out. If you think we need to report Rafe missing, then pick up the phone.”
After a moment Justin shrugged miserably and went back to picking at his plate. Daniel smoked, gazing into the middle distance. Abby ate her apple; I turned my peach into purée. Nobody said anything for a long time.

* * *

“I see you’ve lost the lady boy,” Frank said, when I rang him from my tree. We had apparently inspired him to have a health-food moment: he was eating something with seeds—I could hear him spitting them, attractively, into his hand or wherever. “If he turns up dead, then maybe everyone will start believing me about the mysterious stranger. I should’ve had money on it.”
“Stop being a git, Frankie,” I said.
Frank laughed. “You’re not worried about him, are you? Seriously?”
I shrugged. “I’d rather know where he is, that’s all.”
“You can relax, babe. A lovely young lady of my acquaintance was trying to find out where her friend Martin was this evening, and just happened to dial little Rafe’s number by mistake. Unfortunately, he didn’t mention where he was before the misunderstanding got cleared up, but the background noise gave us a general idea. Abby was bang on: your boy’s in a pub somewhere, getting gee-eyed and chasing the ladies. You’ll get him back safe and sound, except for a five-star hangover.”
So Frank had been worried, too; worried enough to dig out some woman floater with a sexy voice and get her making phone calls. Maybe Naylor hadn’t been just a way for Frank to get at Sam; maybe he had been serious about him as a suspect, all along. I pulled my feet farther up into the branches. “Great,” I said. “That’s good to know.”
“So how come you sound like your cat just died?”
“They’re in bad shape,” I said, and I was glad Frank couldn’t see my face. I thought I was about to fall out of the tree from sheer exhaustion. I grabbed a branch and held on. “For whatever reason—because they can’t handle me getting stabbed, or because they can’t deal with whatever it is they’re not telling us—they’re coming apart at the seams.”
After a moment Frank said, very gently, “I know you’re getting on well with them, babe. That’s fine; they’re not my cup of Earl Grey, but I’ve no objection to you feeling differently if it makes your job easier. But they’re not your mates. Their problems aren’t your problems; they’re your opportunities.”
“I know,” I said. “I know that. It’s just hard to watch.”
“No harm in a bit of compassion,” Frank said cheerfully, taking another big bite of whatever he was eating. “As long as it doesn’t get out of hand. I’ve got something to take your mind off their troubles, though. Your Rafe’s not the only one gone missing.”
“What are you talking about?”
He spat out seeds. “I was planning on keeping tabs on Naylor, from a safe distance—get a handle on his routine, his associates, all the rest; give you a little more to work with. But it’s not turning out that way. He didn’t show for work today. His parents haven’t seen him since last night, and they say this is out of character; the father’s in a wheelchair, it’s not like John to leave his mammy to do the heavy lifting on her own. Your Sammy and a couple of floaters are taking turns sitting on his house, and we’ve told Byrne and Doherty to keep an eye out. For whatever that’s worth.”
“He won’t go far,” I said. “This guy wouldn’t leave Glenskehy unless he was dragged away kicking and screaming. He’ll turn up.”
“Yeah, that’s what I figure. As far as the stabbing goes, I don’t think this cuts one way or the other; it’s a myth that only the guilty ones run. But here’s one thing I do know: whatever has Naylor running, it’s not fear. Did he look scared to you?”
“No,” I said. “Not for a second. He looked furious.”
“To me, too. He wasn’t one bit happy about that interview. I watched him leave, afterwards; two steps from the door, he turned around and he spat at it. That’s one very pissed-off bogger, Cassie, and we already know he’s got a temper problem—and, like you said, he’s probably still in the area. I don’t know whether he’s gone missing because he doesn’t want us surveilling him, or because he’s got something up his sleeve, or what; but watch yourself.”
I did. All the way home I kept to the middle of the lanes, with my gun cocked and ready in my hands. I didn’t put it back into my girdle until the back gate had clanged behind me and I was safe in the garden, at the edge of the bright tracks of light from the windows.
I hadn’t rung Sam. This time it wasn’t because I’d forgotten. It was because I had no idea whether he would answer, or what either of us would have to say if he did.

17

R
afe showed up in the library the next morning, around eleven, with his coat buttoned wrong and his knapsack swinging carelessly from one hand. He stank of cigar smoke and stale Guinness, and he was still pretty unsteady on his feet. "Well,” he said, swaying a little and surveying the four of us. “Hello, hello, hello.”
“Where have you been?” Daniel hissed. His voice had a tense edge of anger, barely suppressed. He had been a lot more worried about Rafe than he’d let on.
“Here and there,” Rafe told him. “Out and about. How are you?”
“We thought something had
happened
to you.” Justin’s whisper cracked, into something too loud and too sharp. “Why didn’t you ring us? Even text us?”
Rafe turned to look at him. “I was otherwise occupied,” he said, after considering this. “And I didn’t feel like it.” One of the Goon Squad, the mature students who always appoint themselves the Library Noise Vigilantes, looked up over his stack of philosophy books and went, “Shhh!”
“Your timing sucks,” Abby said coldly. “This was not a good moment to take off on a skirt hunt, and even you should have been able to figure that out.”
Rafe rocked backwards on his heels and gave her a deeply miffed look. “Fuck you,” he said, loudly and haughtily. “I’ll decide when I do what I want.”
“Don’t talk to her like that any more,” Daniel said. He didn’t even pretend to care about keeping his voice down. The entire Goon Squad went, “Shhh!” at once.
I tugged at Rafe’s sleeve. “Sit down here and talk to me.”
“Lexie,” Rafe said, managing to focus on me. His eyes were bloodshot and his hair needed washing. “I shouldn’t have left you on your own, should I?”
“I’m fine,” I said. “I’m a happy camper. Want to sit down and tell me how your night went?”
He stretched out a hand; his fingers trailed down my cheek, my throat, slipped along the neckline of my top. I saw Abby’s eyes widen behind him, heard a quick rustle from Justin’s carrel. “God, you’re so sweet,” Rafe said. “You’re not as delicate as you look, are you? Sometimes I think the rest of us are the other way around.”
One of the Goon Squad had dug up Attila, who is the narkiest security guard in the known universe. He obviously went into the job in the hope of getting to crack the heads of dangerous criminals, but since these are thin on the ground in your average college library, he gets his kicks by making lost freshers cry. “Is this fella giving you any bother?” he asked me. He was trying to loom over Rafe, but the height difference was giving him trouble.
The wall went up straight away: Daniel and Abby and Justin snapped into attitudes of cool, poised ease, even Rafe straightened up and whipped his hand away from me and managed to look instantly, effortlessly sober. “Everything’s fine,” Abby said.
“I didn’t ask you,” Attila told her. “Do you know this fella?”
He was talking to me. I gave him an angelic smile and said, “Actually, Officer, he’s my husband. I did have a barring order against him, but now I’ve changed my mind and we’re off to shag deliriously in the Ladies.” Rafe started to snicker.
“There’s no fellas allowed in the Ladies,” said Attila ominously. “And yous are causing a disturbance.”
“It’s all right,” Daniel said. He stood up and took Rafe by the upper arm—the grip looked casual, but I could see his fingers digging in hard. “We were just leaving. All of us.”
“Get
off
me,” Rafe snapped, trying to shrug off Daniel’s hand. Daniel steered him briskly past Attila and down the long aisle of books, without looking back to see if the rest of us were following.