The Disappeared (36 page)

She
indulged herself in a moment of defiance: perhaps, unwittingly, he had made her
stronger.

The
lights in the cottage were on, the front path lit up by the powerful halogen lamp
she'd had installed for the winter. And there was a dark blue BMW parked
outside in the lane. She recognized it at once: it belonged to David, her
ex-husband.

As
she drew close and pulled up, he stepped out from the driver's seat. He looked
even slimmer and fitter than the last time she had seen him over three months
ago. He wore chinos and a T-shirt beneath a snug lambs-wool v-neck. Forty-seven
years old and his hair was still its natural deep brown, his face sufficiently
lined to lend him gravitas but the boyishness still lingering in his features.
And somehow he managed his feat of agelessness despite working fifteen-hour
days as a cardiac surgeon. There was no justice in his getting better looking
as she slowly faded. He strolled forward to meet her as she climbed out of her
car, his bearing as casually arrogant as ever.

'Jenny.
We wondered where you were.' He looked at her in that way of his that said
everything about her would inevitably prove mildly amusing.

'I
switched my phone off - people pester me at the weekend.' She glanced up at
the house and saw Ross pass the uncurtained landing window. 'I thought he was
staying with you tonight.'

'He
is . . .' He offered a more placatory smile. 'But he's decided he'd like to
extend it for a while.'

'He's
what? How long for? What have you been saying to him?' She heard the
brittleness in her voice.

'Calm
down, Jenny. I didn't come here for any sort of confrontation, quite the
opposite. It's cold out here. Why don't we go inside?'

He
motioned towards the gate. She stood her ground.

'When
did he decide this? I thought he was happy here. He's got his girlfriend down
the road — '

'He
sees her at college.'

'The
whole idea was to keep him out of the city. He hasn't touched drugs since he's
been with me.'

'He's
grown up a lot since last summer. I probably notice it more since I'm seeing
less of him.'

'How
did this happen? What's prompted it?'

'Can't
we talk about this calmly?'

'I'm
perfectly calm, David.'

'You're
shaking.'

Jenny
closed her eyes, telling herself not to react.

'All
I'm asking,' she said with enforced restraint, 'is for you to tell me what's
changed. You must have spoken to him.'

'Do
you really want to have this conversation out here?'

'Wherever
you want.'

She
strode up the path.

David
said, 'Do you want me to come in or not?'

'It
might be an idea, as you're proposing to take my son away.'

The
front door was ajar. She shoved it open and went straight through into the
sitting room, wrenching off her coat and throwing it over a chair. David
followed hesitantly.

'It
sounds like he's upstairs,' Jenny said. 'You'd better shut the door.'

She
remained standing, arms crossed, waiting for an explanation. David glanced
around the room with its stone- flag floor, low beams and draughty windows, his
expression saying: no wonder he doesn't want to stay.

'Well?'
Jenny said.

David
stepped over to the sofa and perched dubiously on the arm as if it might give
way beneath him. 'I'll be honest with you, Jenny. He's concerned about you. He
thinks you might have too much pressure on you to worry about looking after him
as well.'

'He
said that?'

'Yes.'

'Because
I don't have dinner on the table every evening at six? You work even longer
hours that I do.'

'I
do have Deborah.'

'She's
got a career, too.'

'She's
just gone part-time.'

'Has
she? Did you give her any choice in the matter?'

David
rode the punch with a hint of a wry smile. 'Actually, it's her decision. I was
going to tell you - she's pregnant.'

'Oh
... I see.' She felt numb. 'I suppose I should say congratulations.'

'Thank
you. It wasn't exactly planned.'

Jenny
didn't respond. Desperate as she had been to escape from David at the end of
their marriage, part of her still resented the presence of another woman in his
life. The fact that Deborah was still in her twenties, attractive and sweetly
compliant made it all the more galling.

'I
didn't mean to surprise you with that today,' he said with a trace of apology.

'No
need to feel guilty on my account.'

But
he did. She could see it in the heaviness that had settled around his eyes.

In
the brief silence that followed Ross's footsteps moved across the creaking
boards in the room above. Drawers opened and closed, the wardrobe door slammed:
the sounds of hasty packing.

'I
assume you would prefer me to be honest?' David said.

She
resisted further sarcasm. How would dishonesty ever be preferable? It was
always his way to make the wounds he inflicted feel self-imposed. She presumed
it was a technique he had learned in his practice, his instinctive method of
distancing himself from his patients' suffering and not infrequent deaths.

David
braced himself. 'He doesn't think you can cope, Jenny. He's not being selfish,
it makes him feel a burden. And if he stays and sees you struggling, it makes
him feel even guiltier.'

'What
makes him think I'm struggling? I love having him here ... I thought we were
getting on fine.'

'There's
never any food in the house.'

'That's
not true—'

'It's
not a judgement. I wouldn't do any better by myself.'

'Why
isn't he telling me this? We'll get a delivery.'

David
sighed and drew a hand around his sinewy neck. 'Christ, Jenny, you're not well
enough to be looking after someone else.'

'What
do you know? I'm fine.'

'He
told me about the other night, the state you came home in.'

'I
was just tired.'

'He
had to help you into bed. You don't even remember, do you? What happened? Did
you take too many pills?'

The
feeling retreated from her hands and feet. Each breath became a conscious
effort as her nervous system began a systematic shutdown.

'It
was late, that's all.'

'What
are you doing, Jenny? Are you getting help? You may not believe it, but I do
worry about you.'

'I
see someone.'

'Good.
These things can be overcome. I've colleagues who assure me — '

'You
discuss me with your colleagues?'

'In
the past. . .'

Her
look arrested his lie.

'Only
in the strictest confidence. Of course I want to know what more can be done for
you.'

'To
hear you talk, you wouldn't think I held down a responsible job, conducted
inquests, consoled grieving families—'

'I
know you do. But just holding it down isn't enough, is it? You've nothing to
prove to me, Jenny, and money isn't an issue. I just want you to be right. So
does Ross.'

'And
this is your way of helping me along?'

'Sorting
out other people's problems won't fix your own.'

Above
them a door closed. Ross's footsteps sounded on the stairs.

'Give
up my career as well as everything else, is that what you're suggesting?'

'Please
don't be like that. You know what's right, I know you do. And our son has
problems of his own to work through. He needs security.'

Ross
reached the bottom of the stairs.

'We're
in here,' Jenny said, as brightly as she could manage without sounding
hysterical.

The
latch lifted. He looked in, pale and awkward.

'Hi,
Mum.' He glanced to his father.

'It's
OK, Ross. We've had a chat.'

Jenny
forced a smile. Words wouldn't come.

'We'll
sort something out with weekends and what have you,' David said, more to Ross
than Jenny. He got to his feet. 'We ought to hit the road. I'm sure you've got
work to do.'

Ross
looked at the floor. 'I'll see you.'

'Soon,
I hope,' Jenny said.

He
nodded, hair flopping over his eyes.

David
moved towards the door placing a fatherly hand on Ross's shoulder. 'We can see
ourselves out.'

Their
footsteps retreated swiftly down the path. The boot clunked, the engine fired
and David sped off down the hill, leaving a silence as absolute as the
blackness of the night.

Jenny
lowered herself into an upright chair and sat quite still, wishing she could
feel the shame that should have accompanied the images playing through her
mind: waking in her clothes, the pills spilled across the floor, the incoherent
scrawl in her journal lying open at the foot of the bed. He would have read it,
of course, if only for a clue as to why his mother had arrived home staggering,
unable even to make it to her own bed. He would know about a man called McAvoy,
her guilt, her lust, her ghosts. He wouldn't tell his father of course; that
would only double his confusion at having a semi-lunatic for a mother. He would
keep it to himself.

And
the worst of it was David was right. She wasn't fit to nurture an adolescent
with troubles of his own. She'd deluded herself into thinking that Ross had
straightened himself out under her roof, when in fact his relative calm was due
to her drama constantly upstaging his own. She hadn't given him space, she had
stifled him.

It
felt indecent to think in terms of irony, but she remembered what her late
mother, who had abandoned her own family while Jenny was still at school, had
once said when she had first talked of divorcing David - that children fared
better with unhappy parents together than happy ones apart. How she had railed
against that thought. How she had resented the notion that a woman oppressed
and miserable could do better for her child. Another of her mother's axioms
forged from bitter experience: a woman who leaves home, leaves everything.
Perhaps she was right after all. She had experienced nothing to disprove it,
nor for that matter had Mrs Jamal.

The
telephone rang with a suddenness that jarred her nerves. She answered with a
clipped hello but was met with an electronic voice informing her that she had
messages on her answer service. Dumbly, she obeyed its request to play them.

There
were eight. DI Pironi had called twice, first to stress that events at Mrs
Jamal's flat were strictly a police matter, and second to emphasize that the
investigation into the source of the radiation was secret. The press had been
told that the white-suited operatives who had descended on the apartment block
were searching for further forensic evidence. There were two calls from local
journalists fishing for information, one from Gillian Golder asking abruptly
for Jenny to call at her earliest convenience, and two from Simon Moreton, the
senior official at the Ministry of Justice with responsibility for coroners. In
the polite, faux-friendly manner he adopted with his wayward charges, he asked
her to call 'on a matter of importance', leaving his home number. The last
message was from Steve, asking how she was, and saying he'd like to come over
if she was around.

With
blunt fingers she punched in his number, not sure why, or what she would say to
him. He answered on the second ring.

'It's
me. You left a message,' she said.

'Yeah.
Look, I ... I shouldn't have left it like that the other night.' There was a
quiet urgency in his voice, as if he had been on tenterhooks waiting for her
call.

'Right,'
she said distantly.

'I've
been going through some things myself, you know . . .'

'Uh
huh.'

A
pause. He sighed, impatient with himself. 'What I was saying to you - about
choices - it cuts both ways. I've been hiding away for ten years trying to
avoid the issue.'

She
knew she was meant to say something meaningful, meant to react to the subtext,
but she couldn't fathom what it was. 'What issue?' she said.

'Commitment,'
Steve said. 'What I stand for. What I feel.'

'I
see.'

'I
need to speak to you, Jenny. There's something you should know.'

'Steve,
I'm very tired . . .'

'Jenny-'

'David
took Ross away.'

'Oh.
You're by yourself?'

'I'm
no good to you right now. Don't come over ... I need to sleep.'

'Jenny

'Please,
don't.' She set down the receiver and felt only relief.