Road Kill

Sean laughed, a momentary brightness. Then I heard a woman’s voice in the background and he was all business again. “Madeleine says she’ll get straight onto it as soon as she gets home later,” he said. “Meanwhile, does Jacob keep an address book? If so you might want to try and pinpoint any Irish-sounding contacts and give them a call. If he’s in the south, look for phone numbers that start zero-zero-three-five-three. What’s he doing over there?”

I wondered briefly why it didn’t surprise me in the slightest that Sean would know international phone codes off the top of his head.

“Clare mentioned a buying trip. He’s probably heard about some private classic bike collection coming up for sale and he’ll have nipped over to snap the whole lot up,” I said with a smile.

“Hmm,” Sean said, noncommittal. “If he’s hired a van to go over that might explain why his car’s still there. Look, he must have a fax machine there. Get a list of likely-sounding contacts to me as soon as you can and I’ll have someone check out the local hire companies first thing in the morning. Meanwhile, change the outgoing answering machine message, just in case he phones home. Just tell him to call you urgently and leave him your mobile number. And for heaven’s sake leave the damned thing switched on.”

I thought of my recently-acquired mobile which was currently languishing in the pocket of my leather jacket.

“OK,” I said meekly. “I keep forgetting about it.”

“I know,” he said, and I could tell he was smiling again. “Whenever I try and call, it’s always switched off.”

He’d called. The realisation pleased me far more than it should have done. I found myself grinning silently to the empty room.

“Oh and Charlie,” he added, more sober now, “when you do finally get hold of Jacob, you might want to work out what you’re going to tell him about what Clare was doing out with this guy Slick in the first place.”

“I know,” I said, stripped of my smile. “I’m hoping I won’t have to – that by the time Jacob gets home Clare can tell him herself. I’m sure it’s not how it looks.”

He paused, almost a hesitation. “I realise I don’t know them half as well as you do, but you really don’t think there might be anything in what this Tess girl said – that Clare was fooling around while Jacob was away?”

“No,” I said, immediate and adamant.

“Think about it for a moment. There was quite a difference in their ages and—”

“No,” I said again. “You’re right, Sean. You don’t know them well at all. Trust me on this. She wouldn’t cheat on Jacob. And certainly not with a waster like Slick.”

“I admire your loyalty to your friends,” he said dryly. “There’ve been times when I wish you’d had the same kind of blind faith in me.”

I put the phone down slowly after we’d broken the connection and leaned back in the swivel chair. Blind faith, Sean had said. But it was more than that. It was utter conviction.

But even so there was a finger of doubt poking at me. After all, however devoted Jacob and Clare were to each other, and however much I protested on her behalf, Clare had still gone off willingly with Slick while Jacob was conveniently out of the picture in another country.

Three

That night I dreamed of Sean.

It was a kind of buried longing I seemed only able to give free rein to when my subconscious was in control. Talking to him again, hearing his voice and picturing the face behind it as he spoke, had provoked a reaction so strong it frightened me.

The job in Florida back in March was supposed to have been a new beginning for us, an easy couple of weeks in the sun where we could relax in each other’s company. But it hadn’t turned out that way.

I’d spent four nightmare days on the run with my teenage charge, all the while believing Sean was dead. And then, when I’d found out he was still very much alive, I’d had to stand by and watch him commit what was little more than cold-blooded murder. I’d had to kill to survive, but not for personal gratification. And not for revenge either, however close I may have come to it.

Sean had accused me of not having faith in him, but it had been five months since our return and I was still trying to find a way to bridge the gulf between us. He’d pulled away from me, or maybe it was me who’d pulled away from him. I hadn’t even felt able to ask him to come to me now, when I needed him. And – worse – he hadn’t offered.

Then, from somewhere above me a small sound broke through the outer layers and crashed through my unconscious mind like a falling stone.

I came bounding out of sleep much too fast, with my heart screaming. My eyes snapped open allowing the darkness and silence to pour in. For a long suspended second I struggled there, locked between dreams and reality. Then the sound that had woken me came again, and it was reality that elbowed its way to the fore.

Someone was moving about downstairs. Why on earth the dogs weren’t kicking up an unholy stink I had no idea. I was a light enough sleeper to have heard the driveway alarm, too – if it had gone off – which meant no one had tripped it.

For a moment my hopeful brain formed Jacob’s name and I got as far as opening my mouth to call out to him. Sense kicked in and I shut it again.

My eyes were adjusting to the gloom all the time. I’d left the curtains open and the moon threw a trickle of thin silver-grey light into the room. I swung my legs out of bed and carefully picked up the old-fashioned alarm clock from the bedside table, squinting at the luminous figures. It was a little after two-thirty in the morning. I suppressed a groan as I groped for my shirt and jeans.

My father had finally called just before midnight with the news that Clare was out of surgery and doing “as well as could be expected,” and I’d crawled into one of Jacob and Clare’s spare beds soon after.