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

‘Perhaps he’s gone back there,’ said Becky.

‘But he hasn’t,’ said Sally. ‘He just hasn’t. I know. He wouldn’t have just gone. He would have said. Look, I don’t understand this. If someone comes and reports a missing person, isn’t it your job to go out and find them? That’s what you see on TV—lines of people searching forests, dragging lakes.’

I felt a twinge when Sally said that, as if someone had jabbed me with something deep inside.

When Becky spoke, it was in a gentle tone, like a mother soothing a hysterical child. ‘The word “missing” can mean different things. If a toddler has been missing for half an hour, it’s an emergency. When it’s an adult, it’s more of a problem. Adults have the right just to leave, if they want. It can be very distressing for their loved ones. We hear terrible stories of husbands abandoning their families. But unless we have reason to believe that a crime has been committed, there’s not much we can do.’

‘But there is reason to believe it,’ said Sally. ‘Haven’t you heard all I’ve been saying?’

‘This man is some sort of rock musician, is that right?’

‘Sort of.’

‘I don’t know much about this kind of thing, but I understand that people like that have quite irregular lifestyles. They go on tour, they suddenly get jobs, they come and go.’

‘He hasn’t just gone,’ said Sally. ‘He’s vanished off the face of the earth.’

Becky’s expression changed to one of slight suspicion. ‘Were you involved in some way with this man?’

I saw Sally’s eyes flickering in distress. What was she going to risk?

‘We were friends,’ she said.

Now there was a long pause. I could see that Becky was weighing this up, wondering whether to tell us to go away.

‘If you give me your address, a colleague or I will come round and talk to you again, and see if there’s a basis for further inquiry.’

‘Thank you,’ said Sally. ‘That’s all I ask.’

‘And remember,’ said Becky, ‘it may be nothing. He’ll probably be waiting for you when you get home.’

Before

Sometimes everything is wrong and there’s nothing you can do about it. I had no time to arrange anything remotely acceptable so the next rehearsal took place at my flat. There really wasn’t space for them in the living room and I had to start by telling everyone that we’d have to play as quietly as possible because I couldn’t risk falling out with my new neighbours.

Guy didn’t turn up, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. There wouldn’t have been room for him and his drums, and the noise would have been disastrous. I felt acutely self-conscious about Hayden. We’d only got out of bed just before the rehearsal was due to start, and although I had showered and cleaned and scrubbed, I felt they’d be able to smell him on me. And he had such an air of possession: he looked at my stuff, picked up books, left bits of clothing around. Of course, he was like that everywhere. He always seemed to take over any space he occupied but my flat now seemed permeated by him. It must be obvious to everybody.

I thought of telling him to go out and come back but he would have been utterly baffled by the idea or turned it into some kind of impromptu stunt at my expense. Then the bell rang and Joakim arrived. There was a glow about him. Some of it was probably the forbidden excitement of seeing the real-life place where your teacher lives. He was always a bit on edge around Hayden, but no more than I was at that moment.

I didn’t particularly like having Amos in my flat. He thumbed through books, seeing whether they were his. ‘We need to have a final sort-out,’ he said.

‘This is not the time,’ I said.

He got a diary out and suggested dates until I snapped at him. Then he became huffy. Worst of all was the playing—I’m not sure why. Maybe it was the constraints of space or my strange Hayden-induced state of nervousness and agitation. Sometimes it’s like the weather, that jangling feeling when you know a storm is due and you long for it to come and be over with. Sonia wasn’t at her best. She was suffering from hay fever and her voice had gone croaky. Not croaky in a sexy way, like Nina Simone, but just squeakily out of tune. She edged her way to the kitchen to make herself a warm drink.

I was trying out a new tune on them, ‘Honky Tonk’, which I thought might get people moving at the wedding, but it wasn’t working out. Neal was in a foul mood. There was a sort of arpeggio pattern he had to play on his bass—it was the rock on which the whole song rested—but he couldn’t get it. Three times in a row we started the song, then the bass-line collapsed and the performance with it. People looked at each other awkwardly.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ I said. ‘Maybe we should just move on to something else.’

‘No,’ said Neal, too loudly. ‘I’ve got it. I did it perfectly when I went over it last night. Come on. One, two, three . . .’

We started, and then we stopped again, like a slow-motion car crash. It was almost funny, except that it wasn’t funny at all. I heard Neal swearing at himself under his breath and then not under his breath. He started playing it over and over on his own, still getting it wrong. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m losing it. It’s getting worse instead of better.’

‘Hang on,’ said Hayden.

He put his guitar down and took the bass from Neal, who was too astonished to speak or react.

‘Listen,’ said Hayden.

He played the bass-line, and it immediately flowed and swung and brought a smile to my face that I instantly suppressed. I hoped Neal hadn’t seen it. Hayden carried on playing, apparently oblivious to us all, his eyes closed, a smile