'I'm not quite sure how I got it.'
Cross looked puzzled but didn't pursue it. 'How have you been?' he asked instead.
'Scared shitless.' I poured water over the tea bags, keeping my back to him. 'Among other things, of course. But that's not why I asked to see you. I've got some new information. Do you take sugar?'
'One, please.'
'I should offer you a biscuit but I don't think there are any. I could make you some toast.'
'I'm fine. Have you remembered something?'
'It's not that.' I handed him the tea and sat down opposite him, in my armchair. 'The thing is, well, there are two things, really. First, I think I've just talked to him.'
His expression didn't alter. 'Him?' he said politely.
'The man who grabbed me. Him.'
'You say you talked to him.'
'On the phone.'
'He rang you?'
'No. I rang him I mean, I rang my mobile phone, because it's gone, and someone answered. I knew at once. And he knew I knew.'
'Let me get this straight. You rang the number of your lost mobile phone, and someone answered and you're now saying that the person who answered is the person who you claim grabbed you.'
'I don't claim,' I said.
Cross sipped his tea. He looked rather tired. 'What was his name, the man who answered?'
'I don't know. I didn't ask well, he wouldn't have told me, and
I felt all of a sudden so very terrified. I thought I was going to keel over. I asked to speak to myself.'
He rubbed his eyes. 'Oh,' was all that he managed to say.
'I didn't want him to know it was me, but I think he did anyway.'
'Abbie, mobile phones get stolen all the time. It's a crime epidemic'
'And then he asked me who was calling, and I said, 'Jo.'
'Jo,' he repeated.
'Yes. You see, this flat belongs to someone called Jo. Josephine Hooper. I must have met her, but I can't remember that. I just know I moved in here when she was here too. In that week, just before I was grabbed and held prisoner.' I said this last fiercely. He just nodded and looked into his tea. 'And that's the second thing: she's gone missing.'
'Missing.'
'Yes. She's gone missing and I think the police should take it seriously. I think it may have something to do with what happened to me.'
Cross put his mug of tea down on the table between us. He reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out a large white handkerchief. He blew his nose loudly, folded the handkerchief and put it back in his pocket. 'You want to report her missing?'
'She's not here, is she?'
'You say you can't remember meeting her?'
'No.'
'Though you're living in her flat.'
'That's right.'
'Presumably this woman has family, friends, work colleagues.'
'People keep ringing up. I've just spoken to someone she was doing a job for. She was some sort of editor, I think.'
'Abbie, Abbie,' he said, infuriatingly, as if he were trying to calm me down. 'In what sense is this woman missing?'
'In the sense that she's not here and she should be.'
'Why?'
'She hasn't paid her bills for a start.'
'If you haven't met her, then how the hell did you come to be here?'
So I told him. I told him about Terry, and the car in the pound, and the receipt and the key; about the rotting garbage, the dead flowers, the cross publisher shouting down the phone. My story didn't sound as authoritative as I'd expected it to, but I didn't falter. I ended with the video footage of Jo and myself.
'Perhaps you're flat-sitting for this woman you can't remember,' he said.
'Maybe.'
'Perhaps she asked you to deal with the rubbish and the bills.'
'I have dealt with them.'
'There you are.'
'You don't believe me.'
'What's there to believe?'
'She's gone missing.'
'Nobody's reported her missing.'
'I'm reporting her missing now.'
'But .. . but.. .' He seemed baffled and unable to find the right word. 'Abbie, you can't report someone missing if you don't know anything about who they are or where they're meant to be or anything.'
'I know,' I insisted. 'I know something is wrong.'
'Abbie,' he said gently, and my heart sank. I forced myself to meet his eyes. He didn't look irritated or angry, but grave. 'First you reported yourself missing, with no evidence. Now you are reporting Josephine Hooper missing.' He paused. 'With no evidence. You're not doing yourself any favours, Abbie.'
'So that's it, is it? But what if I'm right and she's in danger, or worse?'
'I tell you what,' he said kindly. 'Why don't you let me make a couple of calls to establish if anyone else has expressed concern over her disappearance? All right?'
'All right.'
'May I use your phone?'
'Jo's phone. Go ahead.'
I left the room while he was making his calls, went into Jo's bedroom again and sat on her bed. I very badly needed an ally;
someone who would believe in me. I'd called Cross because I thought in spite of everything that had happened he might be on my side. I couldn't do this on my own.
I heard him put down the phone and went back to join him. 'Well?'
'Someone has already reported Josephine Hooper missing,' he said.
'See?' I said. 'Was it a friend?'
'It was you.'
'Sorry?'
'You did. On Thursday January the seventeenth, at eleven thirty in the morning, you rang the Milton Green station.'
'There you are,' I said defiantly.
'Apparently, she hadn't even been gone for a full day then.'
'I see.'
I did see I saw several things at once: that Cross wasn't going to be my ally, however nice he was trying to be to me; that in his eyes, and perhaps in the eyes of the world, I was hysterical and obsessed; and that I had still been free on Thursday, January the seventeenth. Jack Cross was chewing his lip. He looked concerned but I think he was mainly concerned about me.
'I'd like to help,' he said. 'But.. . look, she's probably in Ibiza.'
'Yes,' I said bitterly. 'Thanks.'
'Have you gone back to work?' he asked.
'Not as such,' I said. 'It's a bit complicated.'
'You should,' he said. 'You need some purpose in your life.'
