Please Forgive Me (11 page)

Alex shrugged, evidently not sharing Leonie’s sense of urgency. ‘Nothing you can do, I guess. Although wait, have you checked the postmark?’ she asked, peering at the front of one of the envelopes.

‘I’ve already tried that and look, it tells us nothing other than the letters originate in California. There’s no specific town or area mentioned but at the same time it looks a bit…official, doesn’t it?’

‘It is kind of weird,’ Alex went on, studying the postmark. ‘Looks like it could be some kind of crest … federal maybe?’

Leonie’s eyes widened with amazement. ‘You mean from the FBI?’

Alex laughed. ‘Oh boy, TV sure has a lot to answer for! No, no, federal simply means it could have something to do with a central government department rather than a state one.’

‘Oh.’ Leonie felt very gauche indeed. But then again what would she know about the different types of US government?

‘Even so, that still doesn’t give us a whole lot to go on in terms of where they’re coming from.’

‘Exactly. Which is why I
had
to try opening up another one, to see if there was anything else that would help identify this.’ Leonie felt a strong need to justify herself. ‘I mean think about it. All these letters and none of them have been opened. The guy is probably going out of his mind wondering why she hasn’t responded.’

‘Yet he doesn’t include a return address...’ Alex seemed to be thinking it over.

‘I know. That seemed strange to me too at first, but perhaps not when you’re writing informally to someone who already knows where you live?’

‘I guess. Beautiful handwriting though, isn’t it? Kind of …artistic, almost?’

‘Like calligraphy, I thought.’ The elegant handwriting also fit the mental picture of Nathan that Leonie had built up. The man had taken a lot of time over these letters, and it looked like he’d written them with an expensive ink pen instead of your standard ballpoint.

‘Hmm,’ Now Alex was scanning the contents of the first letter Leonie had read. ‘Please forgive me,’ she said, repeating his words out loud. ‘Something’s definitely up there. I wonder what he did?’

Leonie shrugged. ‘I wish I knew, and chances are we’ll never find out, but seeing as it’s all so personal, I really thought I should at least try and let him know that Helena Abbott doesn’t live here anymore.’

‘Kinda hard to do when he doesn’t leave any contact details though, isn’t it?’ Alex sat back on her haunches. ‘OK, well if you really want to find these people, have you thought about maybe doing a search for either one on the internet?’

‘God, I
never
thought of that,’ Leonie admitted, feeling like a right eejit.

It was the obvious thing to do, wasn’t it?
 
And definitely more preferable than just opening up people’s post and poking around inside?

‘Well, wait here,’ Alex said, getting up. ‘I’ll just pop downstairs and get my laptop. I bet Google will have these two located in no time.’

‘That’d be brilliant,’ Leonie enthused, feeling much more positive about getting somewhere now that Alex was on the case and they could buzz ideas off one another.

A few minutes later her neighbour returned with her laptop, and the two of them sat side by side on the sofa in front of it.

‘OK, let’s try her first,’ Alex said, keying in Helena’s name and almost instantly, pages upon pages of Helena Abbotts appeared.

Leonie groaned. ‘Oh God, where do we even start?’

‘Not so fast, just give me a second.’ Alex narrowed the scope of the search by adding the words ‘San Francisco’.

‘But there’s still loads,’ Leonie said, crestfallen when another long list appeared.

‘Well, at least it’s a start,’ Alex pointed out, scrolling through the hits. There were a couple of entries they could discount immediately, like those related to high school sports results, or social networking sites, as they knew from the letters that Helena couldn’t be a teenager. But even so, there were still a hell of a lot of Helena Abbott’s listed in the San Francisco area.

‘Let’s try and narrow it down some more. What else do we know about her from the letters, besides the fact that she was in a relationship with this Nathan guy?’

‘Well,’ Leonie thought back. ‘They lived here at this apartment, and she loved sitting over there by the window and looking out at the bridge…’

Alex looked up from the computer screen. ‘I’m talking about
useful
information, Leonie,’ she said wryly. ‘Was there anything mentioned about what she did for a living, maybe somewhere she worked…’

‘Oh, she’s into photography,’ Leonie recalled then. ‘Although I’m not sure if it’s as a job, or a just a hobby, the letters didn’t say. It’s how she and Nathan first met,’ she told her.

‘Hmm, doesn’t really give me that much to go on …’ Her brow furrowing, Alex typed something else into the computer. ‘Nope, nothing at all here in relation to any Helena Abbott about photography. And I’ve already tried searching using this address and it’s given me squat too. Chances are they leased the apartment same as you and me, so wouldn’t be listed as owners.’ Her fingers raced over the keyboard once again.

‘Do you know who actually
does
own this place?’

Alex shrugged. ‘I have no idea. I’ve always dealt with an agency, and once the rent stays reasonable and the landlord stays out of the way, I can’t say I’ve ever really thought about who it belongs to. Either way that won’t help us, because if these two were here before you, then I’m guessing they were leasing too.’

‘Isn’t there anything you can remember about them?’ Leonie probed, remembering that unlike her, Alex at least had some knowledge of the couple in reality, albeit from a distance. ‘Anything that might help with the search?’

‘Like I said, they pretty much kept to themselves, and so did I. I bumped into him a couple of times on the way out the door, but I can’t recall seeing her at all.’

‘So what did he look like?’ From the couple of letters she’d read, Leonie had already built up a picture of Nathan as being your typical romantic hero: tall, handsome and brooding, irrespective of the fact that he had never once made reference to his appearance.

‘Pretty ordinary looking, from what I remember,’ Alex said, instantly bursting her bubble. ‘Medium height and build, although a bit on the tubby side too – I’d say he liked his beer,’ she added, wrinkling her nose, and now Leonie was almost sorry she’d asked. What had started out as a vision of George Clooney was very quickly morphing into Homer Simpson!

‘But now that I think about it, there was also something a bit…I don’t know, something kind of
intense
about him.’

‘Intense in what way?’

‘Well,’ Alex screwed up her eyes as she thought back, ‘I remember one day we were both heading out to work at the same time. I presume he was heading to work, because he was wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase,’ she added in an aside. ‘So I said hi, and right before he replied he gave me this… odd look, kind of like he was sizing me up or something.’

‘Sizing you up.’ Leonie repeated flatly.

‘Yes, you know the way guys in clubs sometimes run their eyes over your body as if giving you marks out of ten? Well, it was kind of like that.’

‘Oh no.’ This sounded completely at odds with the Nathan had imagined from the letters. The way Alex was talking, he sounded almost sleazy!
 

‘I’m only telling you what I remember. Like I said, I didn’t really get to know them while they were here. It was only for a year at the most.’

‘But you said you heard them argue sometimes?’ Leonie said, recalling what she’d told her before.

‘Yes. But the floorboards are ancient here, so that really wasn’t too difficult.’ Alex grinned. ‘I guess you should keep that in mind in case you’re thinking of bringing any guys back.’

‘Well, you needn’t worry about
that
,’ Leonie said tightly.

Alex looked back at the computer screen. ‘So yeah, I guess he was a bit sleazy, the way a certain type of married guy can be –’

‘They were
married
?’ Leonie gasped. Suddenly, the circumstances surrounding the couple’s separation had become
a lot
more interesting. ‘How do you know that?’

‘Sorry, I thought you already knew,’ Alex said off-handedly. ‘And I guess I noticed he was wearing a wedding band.’

‘Wow, this is even more serious then, isn’t it?’ Leonie said, her mind racing. ‘I don’t know; for some reason I’d just assumed they were boyfriend and girlfriend. I didn’t think for a second it might be more than that.’

And seeing as it
was
more than that, then she had to do whatever it took to get those letters back to either one of them, didn’t she? Especially when there was so much more at stake. She picked up one of the opened letters and again read the last line.

Please forgive me.

Alex seemed to read Leonie’s thoughts. ‘Well, seeing as he definitely had an eye for the ladies, I think we can probably guess what went wrong, can’t we?’

‘Oh I hope not,’ she said despondently, really hoping this wasn’t the case. From these letters, Nathan certainly didn’t sound like your typical cheat, but then again, what would she know?

‘Anyway,’ Alex continued, turning back to the laptop. ‘I really don’t know what else to tell you about them that could help us find Helena. You don’t know what she did for a living, and I can’t tell you what she looked like. So maybe we should try searching for him instead?’

‘Good idea.’

She watched while Alex typed in another Google search, this time for Nathan Abbott, and again within the relevant parameters. And almost immediately her friend’s eyes widened. ‘Aha! Now
this
looks promising,’ she declared, as Leonie leaned forward for a better look.

‘What?’ she asked, staring at the screen. ‘What am I supposed to be looking at?’

‘See this here?’ Alex pointed at one of the listings. ‘It’s a website for a stockbroker firm that lists a Nathan Abbott as one of its senior employees.’ She turned to look at Leonie, her eyes shining with anticipation. ‘It certainly fits with the suit and the briefcase, doesn’t it?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘And maybe I was wrong about the federal-type postmark, but if he’s sending the letters from the office, they would almost
certainly
be franked,’ Alex continued enthusiastically. ‘Granted there’s no photo here, but he’s the only Nathan Abbott listed in the search that fits. All the others are too young or way too old. But the biggest thing,’ she said, her excitement growing, ‘ is that the firm is based downtown, right across from the TransAmerica building.’

Barely a mile away, Leonie realised, her heart beginning to race with excitement.

‘You should give him a call tomorrow and ask a few questions.’ Alex said, opening up the firm’s contact page onscreen.

Leonie felt a strange mixture of nervousness and excitement. Could this really be the Nathan whose letters she’d been reading? The one who’d been declaring undying love to his wife and asking for forgiveness? And if it was, what would she say to him or more importantly how on earth would she explain how she’d come about finding him, let alone the letters?

‘So yes, I think we might just have found our man,’ Alex grinned triumphantly at Leonie, before saving the relevant page to her PC.
 
‘See – how hard was that?’

‘Hello stranger,’ Grace said in greeting, and although her tone was warm, Leonie still sensed that her friend was a little bit put out by the fact that she hadn’t been keeping in touch as often as she had initially. ‘Sorry for phoning so early, but with the time difference it’s hard to know when to catch you.’

‘No problem and it’s great to hear from you!’ she replied smiling. It was just after eight in the morning, so by Leonie’s reckoning, it had to be lunchtime back home. ‘I’m sorry I haven’t phoned myself – it’s just been really busy, and work has been crazy …’ Even as she said the words she knew they sounded weak. She wasn’t phoning as much now because she supposed she was trying to leave most of her old life behind, for the short term at least.

‘The job’s going well, then?’ Grace asked.

‘Yes, I’m really enjoying it. Marcy’s lovely – you’d like her actually – and she’s really helped me settle in here. I’ve started making a few friends too.’

There was a short pause. ‘Oh. Well that’s good, I suppose.’

‘So listen, how are you, how are the twins?’

‘Oh, don’t talk to me about those two,’ Grace groaned, sounding much more like herself. ‘
Wait
till I tell you what they did last week. …’

Leonie listened while her poor friend described the terrible twosome’s latest exploits. She and Ray were mortified after recently discovering that Rocky and Rosie had been pocketing chocolate behind her back on shopping trips to Tesco. They were only made aware of it when Grace was one day gently taken aside by a security guard and informed as to what was going on. ‘I nearly died!’ she said still horrified. ‘Imagine, they’re barely three years old and already they’re carrying on like little hooligans! What in God’s name will they be like when they’re teenagers?’

Despite herself Leonie had to laugh at the idea of Rocky and Rosie as mini versions of Bonnie & Clyde. ‘What did Ray say when you found out?’

‘He said what he always says Lee – absolutely bugger all! No, as usual it’s up to mummy to dole out punishment and be the bad guy.’ Leonie knew that Ray wasn’t exactly a hands-on dad, and was such a soft touch he probably wouldn’t be able to carry out any punishment anyway.

‘Ah you poor thing. But listen, how are the holiday plans going? The last time we spoke you were in the process of booking something.’

Grace harrumphed. ‘I think that’s definitely on the long finger now. Sure, you couldn’t bring those two out of the country; they’d probably get arrested for terrorism or something!’

‘That’s a pity – it sounded like you were really looking forward to it.’

‘I was more looking forward to the break to be honest, but I don’t think
that’s
likely anytime soon.’