Emily Barr - The Sleeper

The train had come, but without her on it. She had decided not to return home today. I did not like to bring up this glaringly obvious potential scenario.

Sam sat at the table beside the window that looked out at the Docks train station, and called her mobile every few minutes.

‘Where does she live in London?’ I asked, cradling my coffee. ‘Could you call her flat?’ I wanted him to catch her out, to force her to admit to whatever she was doing.

‘She doesn’t have a flat.’ He did not take his eyes off the train station. There were a few people waiting on the platform, and so I supposed that a train was due soon. ‘She stayed at her sister’s place for a while but that didn’t work out. That’s why we haven’t paid half the bills yet. She’s been at a hotel. Terrible idea financially, but it’s made her happy. I think it has.’

‘Well, call the hotel, then.’

I saw him think about that. ‘Will you do it? Sorry. I don’t even know you. Will you ring the hotel and see if she’s left for the weekend?’

He was looking more wretched by the second.

It took me ages to get through to a human being, but eventually I was talking to a man who was brisk and efficient, with a slight eastern European accent.

‘Lara Finch?’ he said, and I could hear his fingers tapping away. ‘Oh yes. She’s always here on a Monday, and they always leave on a Friday morning. No change this week. She checked out yesterday. Is there a problem?’

‘Yes,’ I told him firmly. ‘There is. She’s missing.’

That startled him. ‘Missing? Do the police know?’

‘We’re about to call them. Um.’ I looked over at Sam. A train had pulled into the little station with a dramatic squeaking of brakes, and he was on his feet, his hands pressed to the window. I left the room and took the phone into the hallway, out, I hoped, of earshot. ‘Is anyone else in her room? Could you go and have a look in there?’

‘I’m sorry, madam. The room has been cleaned and it’s now being occupied by other guests. We have a quite different clientele at weekends from during the week, you see. If Mrs Finch is missing, we will be more than happy to help out in any way we can. I do urge you to call the police. I will ask the cleaner if Mrs Finch left anything behind, of course.’

‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘Can I give you a number, just in case?’ I had no idea what Sam’s mobile number was, so I gave him my own number and made a mental note to turn the phone on. Then I wandered into the kitchen and spotted a postcard pinned to the fridge: landline: 551299. I gave him that number too.

‘I am sure she’ll turn up safe and sound,’ he said, talking to me in the same tone I had been using with Sam. ‘We hope to see her on Monday.’

One look at Sam’s face told me that, again, she had not stepped off the train.

‘Sam,’ I told him. ‘You need to speak to the police.’

I sat next to him on the sofa and took his hand, which was squashy and hairless and completely different from Laurie’s. Laurie’s fingers were long and slender and beautiful.

‘Can you put your hand on my arm?’ he said. I looked at him.

‘What?’

‘It’s what Lara does. When we’re talking and things. She puts a hand on my arm, right here.’ He pointed to the spot. ‘And keeps it there while she talks. It’s comforting. Silly, I suppose.’

I put a hand on his forearm, in the spot he had shown me. I had no idea how long I was supposed to leave it there.

I came here to visit my tentative friend Lara, on a whim, and now I was sitting on her sofa, self-consciously holding her husband’s arm, waiting for the sound of her key in the door. This was why I never did impulsive things: you had no idea how they were going to turn out.

Sam was so close to me that our thighs were touching, and I wanted to move away but I couldn’t. I did not want to be that close to him. I wanted her to come back. At the very least I wanted her to get in touch. It was horrible of her to leave him waiting like this, imagining unspeakable accidents.

I imagined it so hard, harder with every second that passed, that it seemed I really heard it. I heard the metallic fumble of a key being fitted into a space that precisely enclosed it. The twisting of the lock mechanism. The pushing of a large wooden flap so there was a gap in the wall. The rustles and footsteps of a person entering the building. A voice. ‘Sam?’

There was a dead weight in my stomach. That was not real. It was not going to happen.

chapter fifteen

When somebody did come to the door, I got to my feet slowly. It was not going to be her, and yet there was the smallest of chances. Perhaps this would be the moment when she walked in with a breezy explanation and salvaged it all, and I got to go home. Maybe, I thought, she was ringing the bell rather than using her key as a gesture of sheepishness, because she knew she had done something bad by not letting Sam know what had happened to her.

Lara had always been full of life and energy. The air around her sparkled with bright white light. If she were there now she would be in a cloud of apologetic maroon. That would be fine.

Sam stayed on the sofa, conspicuously pretending to be casual. I made my steps stay measured as I strolled to the front door, past a formal photograph of the two of them at their wedding, past a framed film poster of Hitchcock’s Vertigo . Neither of us alluded to the fact that this was the first approach of the outside world since she had gone. This was, in a way, much the closest she had been to coming back.

There were two police officers. I instantly felt that I was guilty of some terrible crime. The outside world rushed in with an icy blast: it was colder out there than I remembered. I quelled my sudden urge to run down the hill and find my bike and ride home, puffing and frozen.

‘Hi there,’ said the woman, who was much shorter than me. She had hair cropped slightly shorter than her face could handle, and earrings that were studs in the shape of little hearts. She also wore the face of a person who would take no nonsense. ‘We had a call about Mrs Lara Finch.’

The man nodded, looking into my face, assessing me. I looked back, at his Harry Potter glasses and his smooth face, so cleanly shaven that it was still pink, and reminded myself that I had nothing to hide. He was so much taller than she was that together they looked almost funny, but both of them bristled with brisk efficiency, and since they were police, I decided not to point out the comic disparity.

I thought of Laurie, and reminded myself not to say or do anything that would make these people turn up at my house.

‘She’s missing,’ I said, wondering how many times you would have to say those two words before you stopped feeling as though you were parroting lines from a TV drama. If Lara had left Sam, then she was missing on her own terms.

‘Come in.’ I stepped aside like a gracious hostess, noticing the man giving my hand-knitted cardigan an amused once-over as he passed. Sam was on his feet, his hand outstretched before they even came in. He was transparently, pathetically grateful for the attention.

‘I’m Iris,’ I told the woman. ‘A friend of Lara’s. I actually just dropped by to see her. I had no idea …’

‘DC Jessica Staines,’ said the woman.

‘Lovely view from here,’ the man said. ‘DC Alexander Zielowski.’

‘DC Alexander Zielowski? That’s like a cop’s name from the telly.’

He nodded, apparently mildly amused, but not very.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Though it will astonish you to discover that I’m not actually the hard-bitten New Yorker you might expect from my name.’

‘Can I get you a coffee?’ I said. He nodded.

‘Yes please.’ Jessica turned to me, taking charge. ‘That would be great. Thanks. So, we understand that Mrs Finch was travelling on the sleeper train last night, and that she has failed to come home. Could you tell me all about the circumstances, please, Mr Finch?’