Alex Preston - The Revelations

‘Yes, that’d be fine. Seven o’clock?’

Marcus and Abby sat at the dining table in silence as the clock crept towards seven. Darwin was sleeping in Abby’s lap. The television flickered in the corner of the room but neither of them was watching it. Marcus had brought the Chinese document home and was using a thesaurus to try and force meaning into the nonsensical sentences; Abby was reading one of the anti-religious texts that so fascinated her. When the doorbell rang they both jumped up from their seats. Darwin yelped as he was deposited onto the floor. Marcus let Farley into the flat.

The policeman was a tall man in his late thirties, with a thick head of black hair. He was wearing a suit with a blue pinstripe. Marcus thought he looked like a lawyer. He carried the same air of fragile amiability.

‘I won’t take up too much of your time,’ he said, sitting down opposite them at the table. ‘I just have a few questions.’

‘Would you like a coffee? Some tea?’ Abby half-rose from her chair, again sending Darwin tumbling to the ground.

‘No, I’m fine, thank you.’

The policeman drew out a leather notebook and a thin silver propelling pencil. He opened the book and Marcus watched him make a careful note of the date.

‘You were both very close to Lee Elek, is that correct?’

They nodded.

‘When was the last time you saw her?’

Abby looked across at Marcus and then spoke. Her voice quivered and Marcus could see her worrying at the hem of her cardigan under the table.

‘I went upstairs with her on Saturday night. It was quite late, perhaps two thirty. We had been for a walk to get some fresh air, we came back, Marcus and Mouse — that’s Alastair Burrows — stayed in the dining room to clear up while Lee and I went to bed. I said goodnight to her at the door of her room and that was the last I saw of her.’

‘And had anything happened that evening that made you think she might disappear like this? An argument, for instance?’

Abby placed her hands flat on the table. Marcus could see that she had been biting her nails during the day. The skin around her cuticles was red and frayed.

‘No. I mean, Lee was always a little bit volatile, a bit up and down, but nothing out of the ordinary.’

‘What about you, Marcus?’

Marcus tried to keep his voice steady. The policeman was staring down at his notebook and so Marcus couldn’t look him in the eyes, but he fixed his gaze where he thought the policeman’s eyes would be were he to look up.

‘No. Nothing. As Abby says, Lee was prone to feeling quite low.’

‘So no arguments between you and Lee.’

‘No.’

The policeman wrote something down, the book now tilted away from Marcus so that he couldn’t read it. There was a long pause, then Farley looked up, fixing Marcus with impassive grey eyes.

‘Right, that’s funny, because we have accessed Lee’s mobile phone records and there’s a message from you on Sunday night apologising to her and begging her to come back. Now, if nothing had happened, doesn’t that strike you as a trifle strange? Hold on, I have it here.’

Farley drew out a digital dictaphone, fiddled for a moment and then placed it down on the table. Marcus heard his own voice, tinny and tired-sounding, fading to a whisper at the end. Abby turned to him, her eyebrows boomeranging questions. He could see her struggling to control her expression as she turned to the policeman. Marcus looked down with horror at the dictaphone.

‘Oh, I know what that’s about,’ Abby said brightly. ‘Lee had asked us to look after Darwin for a few days while she went away. She was always saying she needed to clear her head, get away from London. I said we couldn’t. We both work and — well, these few days with the dog have been a pain. Marcus was just letting her know that she should come back, that we were sorry we hadn’t been more understanding. Lee took offence very easily. We were always apologising for one thing or another.’

The policeman scribbled a few lines and then looked up at them sharply.

‘This whole process is going to be much easier if you answer my questions clearly and truthfully. Otherwise, I fear we’re going to run into some difficulties. Now that’s all for the moment. I’ll let you know when I need to speak to you again.’

Marcus showed Farley to the door. When he came back into the drawing room, Abby was still sitting at the table staring straight ahead.

‘Was that true? Did she ask us to look after the dog?’ he asked, crossing the room to stand in front of her, placing his hands on the table and leaning down to position himself in her line of vision.

‘Why did you call her and apologise?’ Her voice was very flat and she refused to meet his eyes. ‘I think you need to tell me why I just lied for you.’

‘I don’t. . I can’t really. .’ Feeling things spiralling away from him, Marcus pressed down on the table to try to still his spinning mind. He forced himself to take slower breaths, attempted to make his voice measured and rational. ‘It was nothing. We had an argument while you and Mouse were down at the bridge over the motorway. I told her she needed to see a shrink. She thought I was being patronising. You know how she is.’

Abby sat silently for a while, seeming to weigh his words. Then she stood up, lifting Darwin from her lap and placing him in Marcus’s arms.

‘David and Sally asked me over for dinner. I’m supposed to be there at eight. Will you be able to fix something for yourself?’ Her voice softened suddenly. ‘I’m sorry I’ve been tetchy. It’s been difficult, with Lee and everything. .’

When Abby had left, Marcus sat and watched a game of football with the dog sleeping at his feet. When the final whistle blew, he staggered to the kitchen to find something to eat. He was very tired. He looked in the fridge and couldn’t find anything he wanted. Darwin came and sniffed at his feet. He put some slices of ham on a plate and went back to sit on the sofa. He and Darwin shared the food; he amused himself by making the dog jump in the air to catch bites of the tasteless, watery meat. Marcus went to bed before Abby came home, vaguely aware of her sliding in next to him very late, her large, hot body pressing against his in the darkness.

*

After the service on Sunday morning, Marcus and Abby went for lunch at the rectory. It was a bright, crisp day. A smudge of pigeons wheeled high overhead as they walked down the path that led from the church through the graveyard to the tall white house. Marcus was always touched to see fresh flowers on graves here. It comforted him that forty, fifty years after death there were still people who cared enough about those who had gone before to leave these lavish bouquets, tied with lengths of bright ribbon, rarely allowing the flowers to grow withered and yellow like the bones beneath them.

Marcus sat facing the window. A slab of sunlight cut across the table and dazzled him. He shifted his chair first one way, then another, but couldn’t escape the searing light that burned green and purple patterns across his retinas and left his head pounding. Marcus gulped glass after glass of water and half-listened to Abby and Mouse talking at the end of the table.

David seemed distracted during lunch and rose several times to use the telephone in his study upstairs. Marcus heard the low mutter of his voice coming down through the floorboards, but couldn’t make out any words. Only once they were drinking coffee, and the sun had moved round enough that Marcus could at last escape its interrogatory light, did David speak to the table.

‘There have been some developments,’ he said, then cleared his throat. ‘They have found Marcus’s car. It was parked near Banbury railway station. They are looking at CCTV images from last Sunday to try and work out which direction she took. Once she’s on the rail network it simplifies tracing her. I had a long conversation with D.I. Farley last night and he remains confident that she’ll turn up safe and sound.’ The priest smiled.