'We should go and look, anyway.'
'I guess so.' He sounded dispirited. I opened the door and got out, and he followed. Our feet crunched over the icy grass. I went up to a window and pressed my face against it, but could see little. I rattled the door, but of course it was locked.
'We have to get inside.'
'Is there any point? You can see no one's been here.'
'You've just driven for four hours to get here. What shall we do? Break a window?'
'I could try getting up to the upstairs window,' he said dubiously.
'How? And, anyway, that looks all locked up as well. Why don't we just break the window that's cracked? We can get it repaired later.'
Before he had time to object, I took off my scarf, wrapped it round my fist, and punched hard and fast against the cracked pane, bringing it back quickly as soon as I felt the impact so that I didn't cut my wrist. I felt rather proud of myself- it was just the way they do it in movies. I picked out the remaining shards of glass and laid them in a pile on the grass. Then I opened the window from inside.
'If I stand on your back, I can climb through,' I said to Ben.
TOO
But instead, he put his large hands round my waist and raised me up to the window. The memory of being in the cellar, gripped and lifted down from the ledge, was so powerful that for a moment I thought I would gag or start screaming hysterically. But then I was through the window in an undignified scramble and inside the kitchen. I turned on the lights, noticed that the fireplace was full of wet ashes, and let Ben in through the front door.
In silence, we checked the whole house. It didn't take long -there was just a bedroom and a box room upstairs, a kitchen-living room and a lavatory and shower downstairs. The bed was not made up. The heater for the water was not turned on. The place was chilly and deserted.
'It was a fool's errand,' said Ben dully.
'We had to do it.'
'Maybe.' He prodded the ashes with the toe of his boot. 'I hope she's all right.'
'I'll buy you breakfast,' I said. 'There must be somewhere, by the sea, where they do warm food. You need to have a rest and something to eat before you drive back.'
We got into the car and drove through Castleton, which only had a post office and a pub, to the next small town. We found a little cafe that was probably full of tourists in the summer months but now was empty. It was open, and they did English breakfasts. I ordered the 'Special' for both of us sausages, eggs, bacon, mushrooms, grilled tomatoes and fried bread and a large cafetiere of coffee.
We ate the greasy, comforting food in silence.
'We should go if you're going to be in time for your meeting,' I said, after the last mouthful.
We didn't talk much on the way back. There was more traffic on the road, thickening as we approached London into a slow crawl of cars. Ben kept glancing at the clock worriedly.
'You can leave me at an underground station,' I said, but he drove me to the front door and even got out of the car and saw me to the door.
'Bye,' I said awkwardly. Our long journey together already seemed unreal. 'Let me know what happens, will you?'
'Of course,' he said. He looked tired and despondent. 'I'll talk to her parents as soon as they're back from their holiday. I can't do anything else till then, can I? And maybe she's with them.'
'I hope your meeting goes well.'
He looked down at his clothes and attempted a smile. 'I don't really look the part, do I? Never mind. Goodbye.' He hesitated as if he was about to say something else, then changed his mind, turned and got back into his car.
Sixteen
I didn't know what to do with myself for the rest of the day. All my plans had petered out and there didn't seem to be any other trails to follow. I had a bath, washed my hair, did my laundry. I played back the messages on the answering-machine. There was only one new one. I opened my laptop and checked for emails. There was one, warning me about a computer virus.
I prowled around the living room, looking at my lists tacked to the wall and trying to focus on what I actually knew. I had been grabbed either on the Thursday evening or on the Friday, Saturday or Sunday. My mobile was being answered by a man. I had had sex with someone. I came to a decision: every time someone rang, I would pick up the phone and speak to them. I would open all her mail. I would try to contact her friends.
I started with the mail. I took the letters I'd left propped up on the mantelpiece and slit them open one by one. She was invited to take part in a time-share in Spain. She was asked to rewrite an educational textbook about the Gunpowder Plot. She was invited to a school reunion. A friend she hadn't seen for years wanted to get back in touch. Another friend sent a newspaper clipping about the pros and cons of Prozac - I wrote down her name and phone number on a scrap of paper, and the phone number of the man who'd sent her an estimate for a new boiler. I looked at the postcards, but they were just scribbles from foreign holidays or thank-you notes.
Then I went through all the messages stored on the answering-machine. I'd already talked to her editor. Few of the callers had left their last names or their numbers. I rang someone called Iris, who turned out to be Jo's cousin, and had a confused conversation with her about dates. She had last seen Jo six months ago. I rang the woman who'd sent the Prozac cutting. Her name was Lucy, she'd known Jo for years, through all her ups and downs. She had seen her on New Year's Eve, when she'd thought Jo had been subdued but more in control of her life. No, she hadn't heard from her since and, no, she had no idea of her plans. She started to sound worried, and I said it was probably fine, not to worry. The boiler-man was out and I left a message on his machine.
I went to Jo's computer, on her desk in the corner of the room, and turned it on. I looked at the files, and wondered if I should call her publisher to say that I was pretty sure that the project she'd been working on for her was here. I clicked on her mailbox and scrolled down the more recent emails. I considered sending out a standard message to all the people in her address file, asking if they had heard from her, but decided to wait for a day or two.
Ben had said Jo was a private person, and I'd invaded that privacy pretty thoroughly by now. I hoped she would understand. He had also said that she was neat. I decided I'd better have a thorough clean-up. I washed the plates we'd used the night before, scrubbed down the bath, put things away. I looked around for the vacuum cleaner and found it in the tall cupboard near the bathroom, along with a cat-litter tray and some unopened cat food, and a black bin-bag which, when I inspected it, had skiing stuff in it. I vacuumed my room and hers. The washing-machine had finished its cycle, so I hung clothes out on radiators. I made myself another cup of coffee, though I was already feeling twitchy with caffeine and strangeness. I put on some music and sat down on the sofa, but I was restless. Then I heard someone downstairs, shutting a door, and it struck me that I hadn't even done the obvious thing of asking Jo's neighbours when they'd last seen her.
I finished my coffee and went out of the flat and round to the ground-floor entrance. I rang the bell and waited. The door opened a crack and one eye peered out at me.
'Hello, I'm Jo's .. .Jo's flat mate Abbie, and I .. .'
The door opened wide. 'I know who you are, my love. Jo introduced us. Remember? Peter. You said you'd visit me but you never did, did you?'
He was a tiny old man, much smaller than me. I wondered if he'd shrunk with age or if he'd always been the size of a pre-pubescent schoolboy. He wore a yellow jersey that was -unravelling at one sleeve, a checked scarf round his thin neck, and slippers. He had a small amount of grey hair and his face was crumpled and grooved. 'Come inside,' he said. I paused. 'Come on, don't stand outside, come inside. I can make us tea. Sit down. There. Don't mind the cat. Sit down and make yourself comfortable. You'll want biscuits too, I dare say. Sugar? Do you take sugar? You've been rushing around, haven't you? I've seen you come and go. I've got the time to notice these things.'
The room was very hot and scrupulously tidy. Books lined the walls. He had all of Charles Dickens in leathery-looking hardback. I sat on the squashy leather sofa and took the tea he was holding out. The cat twitched in its sleep; it looked like the fat tabby I'd seen out of my window. 'Thanks, Peter. Lovely. Remind me, when did we meet?'
'Wednesday,' he said promptly. 'The day you arrived. I happened to come out on to the pavement, just for a
