Alex Preston - The Revelations

Marcus couldn’t remember what they had talked about as they drank. He did remember Lee crossing to the window and looking out. The view from her room was extraordinary: across the roofs of the town to the first traces of dawn in the east. Marcus came up behind her and put his arms around her. She swigged from the champagne and then held the bottle up. Marcus put his lips over it and she tilted the bottle as he gulped. She turned to face him. A gentle breeze came through the window smelling of mown grass. He leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. She sniggered. He leaned forward again, running his hands down her sides. He kissed her other cheek and then tried to find her lips. She turned her head away.

‘This is naughty.’

Marcus picked up the bottle and went back to the bed. Lee looked over at him. Very slowly, she crossed her room and sat down next to him. Taking his face in her hands, she kissed him on the lips. Marcus stood up and took her in his arms and this time she pressed her pelvis against his and forced her tongue into his mouth. Marcus pulled her skirt up so that it sat around her waist and then slipped his fingers into her pants. He eased his middle finger into her. Someone knocked on the door.

‘Lee? Marcus? Are you guys in there? Tell me you aren’t drinking the champagne I gave you, Lee? That was for us to share.’

Abby walked into the room as Marcus and Lee sprang apart. Lee struggled to pull her skirt back down around her thighs. Abby looked blearily at them.

‘Oh, you are here. And you are drinking the bloody champagne. I woke up with a stinking headache and I really fancied some proper booze. Is there any left?’

Lee handed it to her.

‘I’m still really very pissed,’ Abby said, slumping down on the bed. ‘But this is delicious.’

As soon as possible Marcus had guided the girls downstairs to the party.

He was woken from his memories by his phone. He thought it might be Abby and so he rushed to find the bleating machine. It was in a pocket somewhere and he almost missed it.

‘Hello Marcus?’ It was a man’s voice. ‘Detective Inspector Farley here. Listen, I know it’s a bit late, but do you think I might drop by? I go past you on my way home and I just wanted a quick chat.’

‘Of course.’

The policeman arrived twenty minutes later. Marcus heard him pull up outside and buzzed him in. Farley accepted the offer of a drink and they sat on the sofa sipping a beer together.

‘I’m sorry for being so late. It’s almost ten o’clock, isn’t it? You know when the day just seems to get away from you?’

Marcus took a swig of his beer.

‘We have made no progress with Lee. She’s not on any of the cameras at Banbury Station. We have her driving into town at about ten to five in the morning — one of the cameras that they use for traffic control picked her up — but nothing after that. It seems she disappeared somewhere in Banbury.’

‘I suppose you’ve looked into whether there might be anyone she knows there, someone who might be putting her up while she gets her head together?’

‘It was one of the things I was going to ask you. You’ve heard about the diaries, I suppose?’

‘Yes.’

‘They’re bleak. The girl certainly had issues. But I’m not sure they are the work of someone who was actually going to kill herself. A bit too poised, too much thought about the aesthetics of the whole thing, if you know what I mean.’

Marcus nodded.

‘The other thing that gives me pause is that it’s very rare for a suicide to go undiscovered. A murder, yes. Easy enough to place a body somewhere it won’t be seen for a while if you have a spade or a cellar. But for someone to kill themselves and for the body not to turn up, that’s rare.’

‘So you’re hopeful?’

‘I didn’t say that. People go missing the whole time. You couldn’t imagine the number of cases sitting on the books of police forces around the country where people just vanish, thin air so to speak. But girls like Lee don’t just vanish. And I’m afraid I’m not going to be allowed to let her become another statistic. There’s something about it in one of the tabloids this weekend. You know how the press are. She’s young, she’s posh, she’s pretty, she’s a member of the Course. They’ll be all over it. My superiors will be on at me day and night until I get this one solved.’

‘Listen,’ said Marcus, ‘I know we didn’t have a great start the other night, but I really want to help you. Anything I can do, I will. It’s. . it’s really strange, but people have started to speak about her as if she’s dead. It’s this no man’s land where everyone pretends to be optimistic, says “When Lee gets back” and “Let’s save that for Lee”, but then in the next sentence she’s in the past tense. I’m just not ready to bury her yet.’

Marcus looked up at the policeman.

‘I don’t think she killed herself,’ he said.

‘Neither do I,’ replied Farley.

They finished their beers in silence and then Marcus walked the policeman down to his car. Farley turned to him with a thin smile.

‘You’ll let me know if you think of anything? Can I rely on you to pass things on to me?’

‘Of course.’

Marcus went back inside and carefully placed the photographs back in their boxes, stacked the boxes in the spare room, and went to bed.

On Saturday afternoon Mouse turned up at the flat. He looked hungover and sleep-deprived, and his velvet jacket bore several new cigarette burns. His eyes were puffy and bloodshot.

‘The bloody shower’s broken,’ he said as he walked in the door. ‘I was over for dinner with David last night and the twins and Neil were there and we decided to go for drinks afterwards. We went to a bar on Walton Street where Neil had some corporate deal and there were all these very beautiful Russian ladies, and my glass kept getting refilled and I ended up ridiculously drunk. I seem to remember walking along the Embankment with the twins, but after that, nothing. I’ve no idea how I got home. Christ, my head.’

Marcus ran him a bath and placed some painkillers and a glass of water by the sink. He sat watching TV while Mouse bathed, smiling as he heard his friend singing to himself and splashing about. When he was done, Mouse came into the room wearing Marcus’s dressing gown. He sat down next to Marcus on the sofa.

‘What’s the plan for tonight? I thought maybe a quiet one? Film and a curry?’

‘Actually, I have plans. I’m going over to east London to see Daffy.’

‘Daffy? Really? How brilliant. Can I come?’

‘Of course.’

They dressed together in his bedroom, and it reminded Marcus of the excitement he used to feel as they got ready for a night out at university: music on the stereo, sharpening drinks and then a spray of aftershave and out into the night with its endless potential. They strolled down to the Tube together and then made the long trip across town on the Central Line.

Marcus liked the way each Tube line had its own identity. This identity was fashioned partly from the upholstery of the trains and the feel of the stations, partly from the districts of London which the line linked and the passengers who travelled upon it. The Central Line was bohemian and trendy, linking Notting Hill to Bethnal Green via Oxford Circus and Tottenham Court Road. The District Line was more sedate, old-world, running from the City through St James’s Park to Sloane Square. He liked the hurried dependability of the Victoria Line and the deep, dusty donnishness of the Northern Line, while the shimmering futurism of the Jubilee Line and the down-at-heel Bakerloo left him cold.

They got off the train at Liverpool Street and walked along Bishopsgate towards Shoreditch. Marcus had arranged to meet Daffy in a pub behind Hoxton Square. They strolled through crowds of young people wrapped up against the cold, the haircuts and jewellery becoming more inventive as they moved up into Shoreditch. Daffy was sitting facing the door when they came in, and he raised his arm and waved, grinning.