The Other Side of the Door, Nicci French [new reading .TXT] 📗

pull out the plug to let out some water, then put it back and turn on the hot tap for a bit. I could barely make him out through the fug.

‘She sounded very upset. I think Richard’s put his foot down.’

He reached up a big toe and turned on the tap. ‘There’ll be somewhere else.’

After

It wasn’t the way I expected a police station to be. It—or, at least, the bit of it we were allowed into, just walking off the street—was more like a very downmarket bank, with the police officer sitting on the other side of a plastic grille. You could imagine strange people hearing voices, brandishing weapons, coming in demanding justice or revenge or something they didn’t quite understand. Even the police needed protecting.

The officer seemed engrossed in filling out a form and he barely looked up when Sally started to speak. His face was screwed up with concentration, his balding head shining with the effort of it. When Sally said she was there to report a missing person, his head jerked up, but as she gave her meandering account of what had happened and why it was so important, his interest visibly waned.

‘So, are we meant to make some sort of statement?’ said Sally.

‘When was it you last saw him?’ said the officer.

‘Nine days ago,’ said Sally. She turned to me. ‘When did any of us see him, Bonnie?’

‘The eighteenth, I think. Or something like that.’

‘Of this month?’ said the officer.

‘That’s right,’ said Sally. ‘Ten days ago. Almost. He’s just vanished without a word. Something’s happened to him. I’m sure of it.’

The officer rapped his pen several times on the desk but he didn’t write anything down.

‘We’re not going away,’ said Sally. ‘Somebody has to look into this.’

The officer turned to me. I made a face that I hoped would demonstrate a vague support of Sally without being too persuasive.

‘Please take a seat over there,’ said the officer. ‘I’ll send someone out to see you.’

We sat on a wooden bench opposite posters advising us of our rights and urging us to lock our doors and mark our valuables. A succession of people arrived and made their complaints at the desk about acts of vandalism, petty crime and other grievances that were almost incomprehensible. It was as if they just had to tell their story but it wasn’t clear whether they needed a policeman, a doctor, a priest or just someone who would listen. Sometimes the officer wrote something on a form, but mainly he nodded patiently and murmured something we couldn’t hear from our side of the waiting room.

Finally there was a buzz. The reinforced door opened and a uniformed policewoman came out and sat next to us. She introduced herself as PC Horton (‘but call me Becky’) and said she understood we had some concerns.

‘Concerns?’ said Sally, crossly, and began the story once more—but then she stopped. ‘Aren’t you going to write any of this down?’

The policewoman leaned forward and placed a hand on her arm. ‘Tell me about your concerns first.’

Sally looked suspicious. ‘Are you here as some kind of therapist? Are you going to reassure me or are you going to find Hayden Booth?’

‘First we need to be clear about what’s happened,’ said Becky. She felt like a Becky, rather than a PC Horton. She was being our friend. That seemed to be the point of her. ‘Then we’ll decide what to do.’

So Sally told the story, as she saw it, of Hayden’s appearance and disappearance and how she was sure that something serious must have happened.

‘Don’t you see?’ she said, looking at me, as if for validation. ‘He was rehearsing for an upcoming concert and then, without a word, he’s gone and nobody knows where he is or what’s become of him.’

‘Have you made any attempt to find out?’

‘Of course. Bonnie here and a couple of other people went round to his flat to check up on him.’

‘What did you find?’ Becky said, to me.

I felt like an actor who had been pushed on stage suddenly. It wasn’t just that I didn’t know my lines properly but that I hadn’t decided what part I should be playing. It was crucial that I seemed loyal to Sally, that I was backing her up and supporting her. But it was far more crucial that I wasn’t so convincing in the role that I persuaded the police to mount a full-on search for Hayden. I ought to have thought about all this but there hadn’t been time.

‘He didn’t show up at a rehearsal and we couldn’t reach him, so we went to his flat to see if he’d left something to show where he’d gone.’ An idea occurred to me. ‘When I say his flat, I don’t really mean that it’s his. He didn’t . . .’ I corrected myself: ‘He doesn’t own it. He’s not even renting it. A friend of mine’s gone away and he was just staying there for a bit.’

‘What did you find?’

‘Nothing, really. We couldn’t find his passport or mobile phone or wallet or anything like that, so we assumed he’d taken them with him.’

‘They found his guitar broken,’ said Sally. ‘Don’t you think that’s suspicious? He’s a working musician and his only guitar is smashed and he’s gone.’

‘It’s not exactly his only guitar,’ I said.

‘It’s his favourite, then.’

‘Did you contact his employer?’ said Becky.

I didn’t reply. I left Sally the task of damaging her own argument.

‘He doesn’t have an employer,’ she said. ‘He’s a musician.’

Becky seemed puzzled by that. ‘What kind of musician? Does he have a group or a regular venue where he plays?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Sally. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘How long has he been . . . Well, where he is now?’

‘I don’t know. A few weeks,’ said Sally.

‘And where was he before that?’

Sally’s face had gone red. She was flustered. ‘I don’t know. Do you, Bonnie?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Before he moved into Liza’s flat, he was staying on people’s floors.’

‘Floors?’

‘Or sofas. Before that, he was playing somewhere out of London, I