they were talking about names again, and schools. They stood in the doorway of the empty bedroom, looking to the future.
And then Bob came back, to tell Nathan they were digging up the woods to build a housing estate.
23
Bob looked at the photographs for a long time.
When he turned to Nathan, his voice had gone.
'What the fuck is this?'
'I told you not to come in.'
Using the wall for balance, Bob lowered himself. He sat on the stripped Victorian floorboards. He looked wrong, like an optical illusion, like a drawing where the perspective and the scale have been altered.
Fingertips brushed the hair on Nathan's nape.
In the living room, the TV flickered - and it seemed to Nathan that the lights dimmed, and flickered, then rose again.
Nathan said, 'My wife will be home.'
'I need to talk to you.'
'Then give me your number.'
From his pocket, Bob produced a diary. Once, he had constructed a makeshift Ouija board from an identical book. Now with a shaking hand, he scribbled a number in it, tore out the page, handed it to Nathan.
'You must call me.'
'I will. Now, you really need to be fucking off.'
They were lit yellow by the sweep of passing headlamps. It immobilized them. They heard the sounds of a parking car, nudging and edging into a small space.
Nathan said, 'Oh Jesus.'
'Is this your wife?'
Nathan followed the line of Bob's eyes and began to understand.
Bob had assumed he was lying. Bob thought Nathan lived alone, surrounded by stolen images of a girl they'd buried in secret, face down, a decade before.
And now Bob was confused. What kind of woman allowed her husband to hang up so many photographs of a missing girl, a girl who never came home?
Nathan felt a flare of savage pity.
Then he heard the sounds of Holly's approach: the slamming of a car door, the small beep of remote central locking, the sound of jingling keys.
Holly always walked at night with her substantial key chain clamped in her fist. The urban self-defence classes she attended before taking classes in judo had taught her that keys were an excellent first weapon: ram them into an attacker's eyes, gouge his face with them.
Holly also carried mace in her handbag. In their bedroom was a stun gun that, at Holly's insistence, Nathan had nervously smuggled back from Paris on the Eurostar.
Holly was scared of strangers.
The key turned in the lock. By then, it had occurred to Nathan that he and Bob should have hurried to the kitchen and tried to do something normal
but they simply stood in the hallway, waiting until Holly opened the door. She was wearing a belted raincoat and indigo jeans. Her hair had gone to frizz in the damp air. Over her shoulder were a laptop bag, an overstuffed briefcase and a handbag. They made her walk leaning at an angle, like a vaudeville drunk.
She saw Bob and said, 'Oh, hello.'
'Hello,' said Bob, and extended his hand. 'I'm Bob.'
Nathan had to watch him, touching his wife.
'Holly.'
'Pleasure to meet you.'
She set down the bags by the telephone and closed the door.
'Bob's an old friend,' said Nathan. 'From university days.'
'Oh,' said Holly. 'Right.'
Bob said, 'He hasn't mentioned me, has he?'
Holly brushed a wet ringlet from her forehead, sheepish. 'Sorry.
Not really. He doesn't talk much about the old days.'
'Well,' said Bob. 'They weren't much fun.'
Holly nodded. She glanced at Nathan and beamed a big, bright, private question.
'Anyway,' said Nathan. 'Bob popped round.'
'Right,' said Holly.
'But he's just off. So . . .'
Bob was trying without success to ignore the photos of Elise.
Nathan clapped him fraternally on the shoulder, meaning Fuck off.
'Well,' said Bob. 'Nice to meet you.'
'And you.'
Nathan squeezed past Holly to open the front door. The rain gusted in.
'Anyway, mate. I'll give you a call.'
The hallway was narrow. Holly had to go up three stairs to let Bob squeeze pass. He stopped in the doorway and turned to her, saying: 'Girl trouble.'
'Right,' said Holly.
'Anyway,' said Bob, and to Nathan he mimed the action of picking up a telephone and dialling. Nathan nodded once, angrily - showing Bob his dog's teeth. Then he shut the door on him.
Holly sat on the stairs. She was still wearing her coat. A wet strand of hair was tickling her nose and her make-up had run a little. She said, 'Well. Who was that?'
'That was Bob.'
She was fiddling with something in her lap; a wet hair band. She squeezed it and stretched it and passed it through her fingers.
'Well, obviously it was Bob. Bob told me that. But who the hell is Bob?'
'Just a bloke.'
'He smells.'
Nathan hadn't noticed.
'Like vegetables. I don't know. Like rotten tomatoes or something.'
She made a revolted face, then slipped the hair band over her wrist.
'How about a cup of tea?'
Finally, she stood and slipped off her coat, hanging it over the knob of the banister. She massaged the back of her neck.
'I think I'll have a proper drink.'
He followed her to the kitchen, where she opened a bottle of wine.
Nathan badly wanted a drink. But he thought it would be dangerous to start drinking now.
Instead, he opened the middle drawer in the kitchen and removed a cellophane-wrapped pack of emergency cigarettes he kept there, breaking the seal. Holly said nothing about it. She just opened the kitchen window to let the smell out. He stood in front of the open window and lit his cigarette, blowing a plume of smoke out of the window.
'So. Who is he?'
'Just a bloke.'
'Yeah, but what bloke?'
'I don't know. He's more of a friend of a friend really. He was a mate of Pete's.'
'Pete the pop star?'
'Well, I wouldn't say pop star, exactly. But yeah.'
