phone through the material, grabbed it, and answered.
“Yeah.”
“Hello… Marc? Is this Marc Price?”
He recognised the voice but couldn’t place its owner. “Yes, this is Marc. What’s up?”
“Marc, this is Vince… Vince Rose, from yesterday. I’m sorry to call like this… I hope I’m not disturbing you.”
Marc remembered the old man, and how they’d promised to keep in touch. “Oh, yeah… Hi. How are you?”
“Listen, Marc, I’m at my brother’s house. I’m at Harry’s place. I’ve found some stuff that you might like to see. Are you free at all any time today?”
He looked at his watch. It wasn’t even noon. “Tell you what, offer me some lunch and a couple of cans of lager and I’ll be round in half an hour. How does that sound?”
“Splendid,” said Rose. “That would be fine. I’ll pop out to the shop and get us some booze and sandwich makings. There’s tea and coffee here, but not much else.” He paused, as if he couldn’t quite select the right words he needed to continue. “I think it’s in your interest to see what I’ve found… there might be something useful here. Perhaps even something that’ll help you with your book. I’m not sure what most of this stuff is, but I think it’ll mean a lot more to you than it does to me.”
The book: Marc had almost forgotten about the fucking book.
The project had really started to come alive for him when he’d met Harry Rose, and he was afraid that it might die along with the old man if he didn’t make an effort to carry on with his research. But this phone call seemed promising; it might lead to the book actually being finished. He already had a publisher interested, and if he managed to show them something interesting the advance would pay his bills for a few more months of freedom while he weighed up his options.
“I’ll see you soon, Vince. We’ll talk more then. I can’t wait to see what you’ve found there.” His lips were dry. He hung up the phone and headed back towards the kitchen.
CHAPTER NINE
THE LIGHTS ARE off. The house is silent. A solemn gloom fills the empty rooms, making them seem occupied by something patient and unmoving; a thing that lies in wait.
Abby Hansen is flat on her back, naked, in the bed that she once shared with Tessa’s father. Her eyes are open, but she does not see. Her legs are parted and her hands are cupped there, over her pudenda, in a protective gesture. The bedroom curtains are closed, filtering out the light, but the room is nowhere near dark at this time of day.
The house creaks and settles. Other noises sound outside: car engines, yelling children, somebody calling loudly for a dog or a child named Socrates. Far off, a police helicopter prowls the skies, its unseen occupants looking for wrongdoers.
Abby does not move. She hears none of these sounds. The only noises she registers are internal: trees and brushes rustling within the confines of her mind, the gentle thrumming of a tiny bird’s wings, a small animal padding through undergrowth, and a light breeze stirring close to the ground.
She sits up jerkily and stares at the wall —
Abby Hansen has one foot in this world and one in another, far stranger place.
She is conscious but she is not awake; nor is she asleep, not really.
Whatever she does during this fugue-like state, she will remember nothing of it later. She will simply assume that she took a nap; that the previous night’s exertions tired her out and she’s been catching up on her rest. After all, a woman like Abby needs all the rest she can get these days.
A car radio booms outside the house; tinny dance music fills the street. Somebody starts to shout and swear; another voice joins in, but softer, less aggressive. Laughter. A car wheel-spinning away along the road, churning up loose stones. The music fades into the distance, becoming an imitation of itself, just another sad piece of aural flotsam cast adrift on the currents of life.
Still Abby Hansen does not blink. She does not move. She grips herself between the legs, as if she needs to urinate, or masturbate — perhaps she’s caught between the two acts, unsure of which is the more appropriate response.
After a short while, she twitches. It is just a slight jerk of the head, which she then tilts to the side, like a dog listening to its master’s call. She removes her hands from between her thighs. Her fingers are wet; her pubic hair glistens. The muscles in her thighs are twitching rhythmically, as if a weak electrical current is passing through them.
She slides her legs across the duvet, placing her feet on the floor and twisting to face the door. She sits like that for quite some time, as if waiting to be summoned into another room. Her face is blank, expressionless; her hands are open at her sides, as if she is balancing an invisible item in each palm. She rubs her still damp fingers together, then raises her hands and licks away the residue.
She freezes, her head still tilted to one side.
Finally, she moves again. In one smooth, clean motion, she stands and turns to face the door. Her movements are much more graceful than usual, like those of a dancer. She steps lightly across the room, her bare feet making little sound on the carpet. She walks slowly and softly, barely making an impact on the world — either this world or the other, the one contained within her. As her reflection passes across the glass of the long mirror on her dressing table, she does not even glance that way. She walks through the door and out onto the landing, not noticing that her reflection is fuzzy, faded, as if she is barely there at all.
She knows who she is — she is aware of her name — but that is all. She has no past, no future; all that exists is the present, this moment. Nothing else matters; it isn’t there, doesn’t touch her at all.
She reaches the stairs and descends them silently, heading down and towards the kitchen. She walks across the kitchen floor, to the cupboard under the sink. Bending her legs in a fluid motion, lunging so deeply that her bare buttocks almost brush against the floor tiles, she opens the cupboard door. Her head does not move; she keeps it fixed straight ahead. The muscles in her neck are tensed and bunched, standing out like cables beneath the skin.
She takes a small plastic bag filled with candles out of the cupboard, closes the door, and stands up straight. The candles are the type used for decorating cakes. These are all she has in the house. She turns around and goes into the living room, where she picks up a photograph of Tessa. The one she took in the park, a few days before the girl disappeared. In the photo, Tessa is wearing her bright red quilted gilet over a grey long-sleeved fleecy top, and her favourite dark jeans and running shoes. It is the same outfit she was wearing the day she vanished.
Abby moves across the room, not caring that she is naked. Her thighs are soaked; she’s been secreting sweat from her skin and fluid from her vagina, as if her waters are breaking prior to giving birth.
The curtains are open but nobody is passing by in the street outside. She opens the bureau beside the bookcase and takes out a brown package. She unfolds the paper package and removes the old pair of Tessa’s pyjamas, the ones the girl was wearing the night before she went away. They are still stained with her urine. She wet the bed that night for the first time in years, as if she was afraid of something or experienced a premonition of what was to come.
She returns to the stairs and ascends, holding tightly onto these items. She turns right at the top of the stairs and stands outside Tessa’s room, gazing at — no,
