The House on the Cliff (21 page)

I waited for her to reply, willing the phone to emit its idiotic jingle. But nothing happened. So I took a pen out of my bag, asked for a slip of paper, and wrote Nella a note
. Nella, if you get this, please phone me NOW. I’m in London. Will wait until I hear from you. Dad and I are v. worried about you. Mum.

Then I folded it, wrote her name on it, and gave it back to the clerk. He took it, showing no curiosity, and put it beside the computer.

“My daughter is with Mr. Griffiths, I think. If they do come back here, will you make sure she gets it? It’s important.” A pathetic, pleading note had crept into my voice.

He nodded distractedly, still looking at the screen, so I walked toward the door. Before I opened it, I glanced back at the lobby. The girl was bumping her suitcase up the stairs. As I watched her, I wondered how many stories like mine had taken place at this hotel, imagining all the mothers and fathers who might have come here looking for their sons and daughters, and the children themselves, passing through as they took their first tentative steps into adulthood, arriving at this narrow, stuffy hallway with the traffic thundering by outside, climbing up that staircase, and . . .

I went out into the road and let the door swing shut behind me.

For an hour or so I wandered around Paddington, stopping once to have a cup of tea in a nondescript café near the station—or at least, trying to. Once the tea came, I found I couldn’t sit still long enough to drink it, so after a few sips I got up and resumed my aimless walking. I didn’t want to phone Bob, not without any news. And I didn’t want to leave. I was clinging to the idea that Nella was somewhere in the area, that perhaps I might even bump into her. But as twilight turned into evening, and evening to night, I knew full well that wasn’t going to happen.

I began to make my way back toward the car park, not knowing what else to do. I didn’t want to drive home yet, but I thought perhaps that sitting in the car, with the familiar paraphernalia of my life around me, would help me to think straight, come up with a plan of action. On the way there I sent Nella another text, this time adding an ultimatum:
Please phone me, Nella. If I don’t hear from you, I’m going to call the police.
When I didn’t get a message back, I started to feel sick.

As I walked up Praed Street I passed an Internet café, and an idea occurred to me. Perhaps I could track down this Tony Andreou, find an address for him, and get in touch with Nella that way. I went in. The place seemed to be a meeting point for Arab men, who stood around talking to each other in low voices. They shot me suspicious glances as I walked in, but once I’d found myself a spot, sat down, and logged on, they forgot about me and the talking resumed.

There were several Tony Andreous listed, but luckily only one entertainment and events manager of that name, so I went straight to his website. It was a pretty basic affair, just a brightly colored logo, a small photo of a neatly dressed, middle-aged man with balding dark hair, and a couple of pages advertising dodgy tribute bands, comedians, “personalities”—none of whom I’d ever heard of—and something called “Youngster Talent.” Under “Youngster Talent” there was a phone number to ring for auditions. I rang it, but there was an answerphone message, which didn’t surprise me—by now it was coming up to eleven o’clock. I also rang the office number listed on the site, but received the same response. So finally I keyed both numbers into my phone, thinking that I’d try again later, or tomorrow—and was about to get up to leave when I remembered something.

A while back, much to my dismay at the time, a mentally unstable ex-client of mine had got hold of my home address. He’d never come round to the house, only sent me a series of abusive letters, but it had been unnerving, especially as I make sure never to give my home address to any of my clients. I discovered later that he’d tracked me down not by going to my website itself, where only my office address is listed, but by finding out who my website was registered to. As Branwen, the receptionist at work, had explained, this was easy: he’d simply gone onto a search engine, typed in “whois lookup,” and added the name of the site. This had told him that I was the registrant of the domain and given my home address. I’d since had the address removed from the domain information, but had the incident not occurred, I’d never have known that it was listed on the Internet. Maybe Tony Andreou wouldn’t know, either.

I duly typed in “whois lookup” and found Andreou’s name as the owner of the website. Under his name, as I’d hoped, was what looked like his home address. It was somewhere in King’s Cross. I keyed it into my phone and then went to Google Maps to find out the exact location. After much zooming in and out on the map, I pinpointed it as a block of flats near the main railway lines by the station. I flipped back to the street map, plotted my journey from the car park in Paddington to the block of flats in King’s Cross, and printed out the map. Then I got up, paid, and left the café.

I walked quickly back to the car park, almost having to stop myself from breaking into a run. There was no rush, I knew. Most likely Tony Andreou would be out for the evening—he was an entertainments manager, after all. But at some stage he’d come back for the night, and I’d be able to collar him and ask him where Emyr Griffiths and my daughter were. That was why I was taking the car rather than a cab—just in case there was a long wait until Andreou came home. I felt keyed up, but now that I had a plan of action, my nervousness was mixed with relief. I had a lead. It was a tentative one, but at least it was something.

Once I got into the car, though, none of it seemed so straightforward. I’m reasonably familiar with the city, having lived there at various times in my life, but the one-way systems had changed and seemed more baffling than ever. I knew exactly where I was, and where I wanted to go, but I had to keep circling around the route so much that I kept getting lost. Eventually I found my way onto the Marylebone Road and stayed on it until I hit King’s Cross, only to get lost again once I left the main drag. Finally I found myself in the right street and saw the building, a Victorian mansion block, one of several on a small estate.

I got out of the car, locked it, and crossed the deserted road to the block. I tapped in the number of the flat on the keypad by the entrance, but there was no reply. I tried another number, and then another, and then eventually the buzzer went off and I was able to open the main door. Inside, down a narrow corridor, there was an ancient lift. I pressed the button. The light seemed to be broken, but I could hear the lift coming down toward me. When it got to me the doors opened, emitting a squealing noise and juddering as they did, as if the mechanism was faulty. For a moment I wondered whether it was safe to get in. But the flat, as far as I could work out, was several floors up, so I decided to risk it.

Inside the lift, the light above my head flickered ominously. I pressed the button for the fifth floor and it ground into action. Halfway up it slowed almost to a halt, the light flickering lower and lower until it was almost completely dark. I took out my phone for reassurance, but saw that there was no signal.

The lift juddered to a halt. Then, inch by inch, it rose up the shaft until it was level with the door. I got out, breathing a sigh of relief, and made my way down the corridor to the flat, checking the numbers as I went. By now my heart was thumping in my chest, but I found the courage to ring the bell. Nobody answered. I listened for a moment, and thought I could hear movement inside the flat. There was a spyhole in the door, so I stood to one side of it and pressed the bell again.

This time the door opened, and a young man stood in front of me. He was good-looking, in a bland sort of way, with fair hair cut short and waxed up into a small quiff at the front. He was wearing an oriental-style dressing gown and his feet were bare.

“All right,” he said.

“Hello,” I replied, feeling somewhat foolish because I couldn’t bring myself to say “All right” back. “I’m looking for Tony Andreou.”

“And who are you?”

“I’m . . . well, I’m looking for my daughter, actually, Nella Cadogan. I’m hoping he can help.”

The man looked faintly alarmed, but tried not to show it.

“No worries,” he said. “I’ll just go and get him.” He walked off down the hallway, leaving the door open. I peered into the flat and saw that the walls were white, with a white fluffy wall-to-wall carpet on the floor. At the end of the hallway was a peacock wicker chair, the sort a seventies pimp might lounge about in with several half-naked girls clinging to his legs, and a large urn filled with a potted plant. Just beside the front door was a bentwood hat stand with a straw boater perched on one hook. The whole thing looked like a film set, and a bizarrely anachronistic one at that.

A short, thickset man came up the corridor, followed by two fluffy white dogs that barked when they saw me. I recognized him as Tony Andreou, the man in the website photo. He shouted at the young man, who reappeared in the hallway for a moment and shooed the dogs into a back room.

“How can I help?” The man smiled at me politely, but the look in his eyes was wary.

“Mr. Andreou. I’m sorry to disturb you like this. I’m looking for my daughter, Nella Cadogan. I believe she may have had an audition with you earlier this evening.”

The man didn’t bat an eyelid, but his shoulders stiffened slightly.

“Ah yes. Nella. Lovely girl. And your name is?”

“Jessica Mayhew.”

“Pleased to meet you.” He put out his hand and I shook it. He had a slight accent, and the courteous manner of a foreigner.

“Do come in,” he went on, ushering me into the hallway and closing the door behind me. “Would you mind taking off your shoes, please.” He paused. “The carpet.”

“Of course.” I didn’t want to take off my shoes, but I couldn’t think of an excuse not to, so I bent down and put them beside the door, thinking I could pick them up and run for it, if I needed to make a quick getaway.

“This way, please.” He led me to a door leading off the hall, opened it for me, and followed as I walked in. Inside was a white room, with a white grand piano, and more fluffy carpet. The young man was there, and the two dogs leapt up to greet me as I came in.

“Can I get you a drink?” The young man fussed around me. He kept sniffing, I noticed. He couldn’t keep still. He was probably coked up, I thought. And Andreou had a weird kind of calm about him, like someone who believes they’re on top of their game, but is tranquilized to the nines. “Tea, perhaps?”

“I’m sorry to rush you, Mr. Andreou,” I said. “But can you tell me where my daughter is? It’s rather urgent. She’s only sixteen, you see, and—”

“Please.” He held up a hand. “Don’t worry. She’s safe and sound. As a matter of fact, she’s having a lie-down next door.” He indicated the room opposite the sitting room. “The audition was a little tiring for her.”

“I’ll go and get her up then.” Without asking permission, I turned, walked out into the hallway and knocked on the door.

“Hang on a minute.” A man’s voice came from inside. He was half laughing. “We’re busy in here.”

I don’t know why I did what I did next. It was hearing that laugh, I think. But without knocking again, I opened the door and walked in.

Nella was on the bed. Her shirt was open, her bra twisted up above her breasts. I was relieved to see that she still had her jeans on. Emyr, for his part, was more or less fully clothed, although I noticed that the top button and the zip of his trousers were undone.

“Fuck,” he said when he saw me, and sprang away from her as if he’d been electrocuted.

I looked at Nella and saw a look of profound relief cross her face, before she turned away from me, covering her eyes with her hands.

“Come on,” I said. I tried to sound as matter of fact as possible. “Get your clothes on, Nella. We’re going home.”

Emyr was zipping up his trousers. “Look, Dr. Mayhew. It’s not what you think. I was just . . .”

“I’ll wait outside the door,” I said to Nella, ignoring him.

I shut the door and stood there. Behind me, Tony Andreou and the young man stood watching from the doorway of the sitting room, not daring to speak. After a few minutes Nella emerged, her shirt buttoned, her jacket over her shoulder, and her shoes in her hand. She’d bent her head forward so that her hair covered her face. I couldn’t see her expression.

“We’ll see ourselves out.” I nodded at Tony Andreou and golden boy. Tony gave an embarrassed shrug. As we walked up the corridor the dogs started barking again, so the young man went into the sitting room to see to them. When we got to the front door, I picked up my shoes and put them on. Nella put hers on, too.

Andreou stood at the end of the hallway by the potted plant, watching us. When we were ready to go, he raised his hand.

“About
Jazz Quest
, my dear,” he said to Nella. There was a nasty undertone in his voice. “You’ve got a nice voice, very sweet. But you’re not quite what we’re looking for. We need artists who are”—he glanced at me—“a little more mature.”

Nella looked wounded, as he’d intended. I resisted the temptation to reply, and we walked out of the flat, slamming the front door behind us.

15

I marched Nella down the stairs, out of the building, and over the road in silence. But immediately after we got into the car and shut the doors, I lost my temper. I reached over, grabbed her by the lapels of her jacket and shook her, my face pressed up close to hers. I don’t remember exactly what I said, but I shouted and swore at her. And afterward I didn’t feel the slightest bit ashamed at my lack of self-control; I’d wanted to make her understand exactly what it had been like to wander around London fearing that I’d never find her, so that she’d never do it again. She’d put me through hell, and I needed to pay her back for it.

When I’d finished, I started the car, gripped the steering wheel, and headed up the road in the direction of the motorway. I drove slowly and carefully, concentrating on the route, aware that I was in a heightened state of emotion. And after a while, once we were on our way out of the city, I began to calm down.