‘About Daan Janssen?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you suspect him of hurting her?’ He immediately sets down the bottle, glares at her. The brief liberation from his intense need to know what she is struggling to tell sputters and dies.
Fiona reaches for the wine bottle, fills up both glasses, takes a sip and a deep breath. ‘I don’t know.’
Mark looks something approaching excited. ‘But maybe and you’ve only just met him, yet you have your suspicions of him. That’s something. That’s huge.’
‘Well, that’s just it. I haven’t only just met him. I’ve actually dated him. I knew him before.’
‘What?’ Confusion floods Mark’s face.
Fiona rushes on. ‘Obviously, I didn’t know he was married and even if I suspected he was, I certainly did not think it was to Leigh. How would I know that?’
Mark, normally so tanned and robust-looking, turns pale, she thinks she can see through him to the wall behind where the kitchen knives are displayed on a magnetic block. ‘I don’t understand. When did you date him? I don’t remember you ever talking about dating a Dutch millionaire.’
‘Well, I don’t tell you all about everyone I date. I do have a private life.’ Fiona knows she sounds defensive and more importantly she is not being honest with him or herself. She sighs and gestures towards the sitting room. ‘It’s a long story, can we sit somewhere comfortable?’ She feels she might collapse.
They sit at either end of the couch and she tells him about the dates she had with Daan Janssen. It’s humiliating, far from her finest hour, so she is vague. So vague Mark is eventually compelled to ask, ‘So did you have sex with him? Look, I don’t want to be indelicate here, Fiona, but I need to know what sort of bloke Leigh was mixed up with.’
Fiona blushes, it feels very close to the conversation she had with the police officer. Why is everyone so obsessed with whether they had sex? She knows she is being disingenuous. Sex is nothing. Sex is everything. Sex disrupts.
Detonates.
‘Yeah, we are adults, we had adult dates. For God’s sake, Mark, what do you want me to say?’
‘So, this man was betraying her? He’s not to be trusted.’
Even though she has just called the police, pointing out the same, she wants to appear composed, reasonable in front of Mark. ‘Well, he wasn’t faithful, but that doesn’t mean he’s responsible for her disappearance. It’s dangerous to jump to conclusions.’
Fiona can’t quite read Mark’s face. He seems to be calculating something. Piecing things together. He swallows back the rest of the wine in his glass, bounces out of his seat, goes into the kitchen. Returns with the bottle. Fiona senses he’d like to swill the lot down from the neck, but he shows restraint, shares what’s left between their glasses. ‘And you knew this straight away, the moment the police mentioned his name? You knew who he was? You knew it all the time we were looking at his profile and social media accounts?’
Fiona nods, embarrassed. ‘I didn’t know how to tell you.’ She pulls her eyes to meet his. ‘You needed me. You’ve been hurt so badly by Leigh. I thought I would be twisting a knife.’
‘By admitting that not only my wife, but my friend too had been seduced by this Daan Janssen?’
Fiona nods again, contrite. ‘I am so sorry.’
Mark’s face softens. He realises that she was simply trying to protect him, trying to be a friend to him. He’s grateful to have someone on his team. ‘You have to go to the police with this. It will help them understand what sort of man they are dealing with.’
‘I’ve already spoken to them.’
This at least pleases him. He nods, allows a smile to slide to parts of his mouth, not a full commitment but some level of grim satisfaction. ‘Good. Good.’
Fiona can’t see any good in this.
It is an unreasonable hope – because Mark is naturally focused on Leigh and on his own trauma – but she is disheartened that he hasn’t noticed or recognised her disappointment, her disillusionment. She was in a relationship with Daan, OK not a decade-long marriage admittedly, but there had been something. Even if it was only on her side. Even if it was illusory. She’d like her loss to be acknowledged. She knows Mark has been reeling since Leigh’s disappearance, but she too has lost Leigh. Her longest, most meaningful relationship.
Fiona gives him the information he craves. She talks about the penthouse apartment, the jacuzzi and swimming pool. She imagines hearing details about the other man’s extreme wealth is concurrently irritating and a relief. If Mark can square this away by reasoning Leigh was attracted to Daan’s wealth – a wealth Mark could never attain – then maybe that is easier than admitting to any nuance about why else she might have needed both men. However, as Fiona describes the expansive rooms, the hardwood floors, she notes Mark hasn’t asked any questions, he’s barely nodding along. He doesn’t seem interested.
He cuts her description short and asks, ‘How could I have lived with her for all that time and not known what was going on behind her eyes, behind her smile? I thought we were an exceptionally close couple. We used to laugh and mock couples who were not as close as we were. Or as close as I thought we were. I was the one she was laughing at really.’
Fiona is out of her depth. She knows Mark feels humiliated, idiotic. She wants to comfort him, she’d like to be the one to do that, but she doesn’t know what to say because in all honesty how can she defend her friend? She treads carefully. ‘I guess it’s possible to be close, you know, to see each other all the time, and yet not be aware. I mean, she was taking pains to hide stuff from you. You’re not a mind reader. It’s not your fault.’
‘I thought what we had was not only meaningful, but everything.’ The
