Untouchable Things (33 page)

Is your sister still in contact with Mr Gardner?

No. To be honest she doesn’t even like me mentioning his name.

All the same we think it might be useful to talk to her.

No! I mean, sorry, I’m not sure what it will achieve. I can tell you everything you need to know.

Scene 3

Miss Jarret, on the day Mr Gardner disappeared you claim that you used your spare key to lock up his flat immediately after the others had left.

That’s right. Well, maybe not immediately but not long afterwards.

Did you use the key again in the days that followed without telling the others?

No. That wouldn’t have felt right at all.

Catherine’s heart provides the drumroll, the sense of occasion, reminds her of the risk. She’s like a tightrope walker about to do a backflip while the crowd gaze up from below. Perhaps seasoned criminals learn to switch the drumroll off or at least ignore it, remind themselves that no one else can hear it.

She freezes at every sound on the stairs like a ham actor, turns the key in the lock as if the cops are after her. She drops her alibi immediately, a scatter of books and papers covered in dense black dots that skate across the wooden floor. The drumroll is louder, distracting her, making her vibrate to its rhythm. Start with the dining room, place the alibi on the music stand, push the stool back, open the lid.
Not today, precious
. Wander across the room with a frown as if undertaking a barracks inspection. Everything in order? What is she supposed to be looking for, anyway?

She’s only here because she doesn’t know what else to do. If he’s been driven away by his feelings for her she needs to be the one to find the clue that can bring him back.

Move slowly into the hall, take the first right turn into the study. Colonel Mustard with a candlestick in the study? She shakes her head to dislodge the running commentary. It’s Seth’s private space, the desk where he sits to do – what? Sift the papers, mark them with smears of sweat. Fingerprints. Bills, bank statements scattergunned with zeros, old newspapers, a couple of CDs. The invitation to the Secrets group, invested with a new significance. A laptop computer lying quietly. Do the ham actor bit again, look right and left before opening the lid and pressing the button. The computer purring happily,
look what I’ve got to show you, just give me a few minutes to open my programmes – you’re not in a hurry, are you?
Sit down because your legs don’t feel safe. Wipe your palms on your skirt. The computer telling you something now:
I just need a password and we can get started. Sorry, I’m sure I can trust you but you can’t be too careful these days. Nope, not even close, I’m afraid. Can we get this bit over with so I can stop winking at you like a retard?

The bang of the door downstairs throws her up from her chair like an explosion. She hits the keys, but can’t find how to finish and shut the whole thing down.
Please stop banging my buttons. It’s not going to get us anywhere.
Slow, heavy feet climb the stairs.
Fee fi fo fum.
Slam down the lid, make a break for the hallway, head for the alibi.
Fee fi fo fum
. Slow, heavy, slow, heavy. Wait for the rattle of a key in the lock. Perch on the stool, flip open a book of Chopin Preludes. Slow, heavy, slow, heavy.

Pause…

Sink onto the floor as the feet continue up to the next floor. Act the kind of relief that looks like despair.

After a minute, which is quite a long time in that position, she gets to her feet. She’s had enough, isn’t cut out for this type of thing. She needs to deal with the computer, shut it down properly so that Seth doesn’t suspect when he comes back. Back into the study, open the lid…

Ah, it’s you again. I’m still waiting for a password. No hammering this time, please. Oh dear, now you’ve frozen me by hitting all my keys at once. Let me think… No, NO, not that, please, we can work something out, NOOOOOOO…

She jams a pencil into the side of the machine and hears it choke into silence.

Back through the rest of the house, wipe away the traces. Then into the silence a foghorn blast, rising up through her feet like an electric shock and filling the house.

Her feet are rooted but she is not still. Even the tip of her nose trembles.

The noise assaults her again and she curls herself into a ball on the floor. Seth’s entryphone. Someone wants to come in.

She stays like this, a stowaway child, until she can slowly unfurl her limbs. Crawl to the front window in Seth’s room. Peer over the windowsill. Slowly straighten up, look down. Just an empty path and in front of it an empty pavement. Whoever wanted to come in has gone.

She bats the duvet automatically as she walks back past the bed. Then she sees it. A long, spiralling ginger hair on Seth’s pillow.

Scene 4

No, I didn’t have keys to his flat at this point. I did try his buzzer a couple of times, I think.

The telephone box was the biggest stroke of luck. Best placed phone box in London. And, given its location, probably the best maintained. No graffiti or sharp smell of piss here.

Jake holds a silent receiver to his ear and watches through smeared glass as Catherine looks around her, locks the front door and lady-runs down the street, catching the heel of her shoe once on the kerb.

Scene 5

Sorry, where was I? Oh yes, I started working again.

Irony of ironies, the gamble pays off and Rebecca gets the part – Estelle in Sartre’s
No Exit
. She has moved mountains, risked her career to stay in London and he has gone. Now she will be spending hours a day in a claustrophobic group situation from which there is no escape. Something out there is fucking with her.

But it’s a new dawn, a post-election haze of smugness, a smog of twenty-somethings gathered in street corner cafes chattering about Tony Blair and Britpop.
Things can only get better
. They’re right there.

We met back at the flat. Seth’s flat, that is.

One week PD, post-disappearance, as Anna had started referring to it. Even though he isn’t there it’s better than being somewhere else. They tell themselves he wouldn’t mind.

Anna in charge again. “I think we should report him missing to the police.”

No one raises any objections, not even Jake.

“Okay, I’ll do that in the morning.” She makes a note in her book and looks down at the next point.
Point 2: Seth’s missing, Point 3: Seth’s missing, Point 4
… Rebecca knows that she must speak up.

“The last time I saw Seth – he didn’t seem himself.”

Everyone turns to stare. Anna points her pen like a dart. “Go on.”

“He looked shaken up. Almost like he’d been crying. His face was swollen.”

The others exchange a look, or is that her imagination?

Anna frowns. “Crying? Seth? Are you sure? Could there be another reason for his face being swollen?”

Rebecca frowns in turn. “Like what?”

“I don’t know… if he’d been hurt in some way.”

Catherine crosses her legs across the room and looks down.

Rebecca shakes her head. “No, it wasn’t like that. I think something had happened but he wouldn’t tell me about it.” She is nearly crying herself. “And I didn’t really ask.”

Anna looks her over like a detective.

José examines the cigarette box on his knee. They are taking it in turns to fondle it, rubbing their hands over the raised silver ridges as if Seth will appear in a flash of smoke. “I had a similar experience.” All eyes are on him now. “He was thrashing around in his sleep. Then he screamed. I think it was a nightmare about losing his parents.”

This sinks in. “So you were…” Rebecca’s throat contracts and her voice squeaks silent.

“No – I mean, I was in here and he was taking a nap in the bedroom. I heard some noise and then found him like that.”

They look at José, twisting and reddening, and they look at each other.

“It seems some people have got quite close to him recently.” Catherine’s voice trembles as she shifts her gaze to Rebecca and bites her lip.

“Or his flat.” Jake is smoking, leaning back like Seth might have done, looking at Catherine, who jumps as if he’s prodded her. Anna’s eyes flick from one to another.

“Hey, chaps, this is all a bit intense.” Charles laughs nervously, reaches for the bottle of wine. “Anyone need a top-up?”

Rebecca goes to the bathroom, taking her time to get there so she can peer at surfaces, windowsills, the floor, hoping to see an old gold brooch twinkling at her. Nothing. Her search for it has become superstitious, invested with extra meaning. If she can find it she’ll find him. She sits on the loo with her head in her hands. Finally she sighs and flushes, keeps her hands under the tap until the water runs warm and heats them. As she passes the kitchen she spots the others in a huddle by the sink. They stop talking when she sees them. She’s surprised by how tight they look, Jake and Michael and Anna and Charles and Catherine and José. It reminds her that they were a group before she arrived. Jake reaches out an arm to bring her in and she smiles but still feels excluded.

Catherine starts rinsing glasses and Charles goes to collect more empties. Rebecca knows she should help, dry them up, but, let’s face it, she’s always happy to let someone else do this sort of thing. She feels vaguely guilty watching Catherine’s busy shoulders. So it wasn’t just to please Seth.

Jake has fetched his coat. He looks at them all for a second and cocks his head with a small smile. “Lighten up m’lovelies. We know Seth has disappeared before so he’ll probably pop back up pretty soon. We can let the police know – even though I can tell you they won’t be interested. Other than that, I don’t mean to sound hard, but we should all probably get on with our lives.”

Anna shakes her head. “No. There’s something not right here. I can’t just forget about Seth when he might be in trouble.” She bangs down her drink. “I think we should search the flat.” She eyeballs them. “It might give us an idea what the hell’s going on. We don’t even know if any clothes have gone. We don’t know if he planned to go away, or did it on impulse, or – if something has happened to him.”

Rebecca frowns. “Shouldn’t we let the police do that? Won’t they be annoyed?”

Michael half laughs. “Jake’s right, they won’t take it seriously. I’d be amazed if they came anywhere near this place yet.”

Silence. Charles strokes his beard. “I don’t know. I don’t like the idea of going through his things.” Murmurs of agreement but Anna bats them away. “I don’t like the idea either but there’s no choice.”

Jake lights a cigarette. “What do other people think?” He swivels to his left, blowing smoke towards the sink. “Do you think we should search the flat, Catherine?”

Her shoulders tense in a haze of smoke and she puts down the cloth for a second. “I – well, I probably agree with Anna. Although it would feel awful.” She doesn’t turn round and her words are hard to catch.

Anna slaps her thighs. “Right – it’s settled then.” No one contradicts her. “When? It’s a bit late now, how about tomorrow?”

The next meeting is fixed and no one stays for another drink.

Scene 6

It was years ago. I told you, we got past it.

Things looked as bright as the June sky as Charles whistled his way through town, stopping at the off-licence to pick up a bottle of bubbly. Finals were over (and they hadn’t been terrible – a 2:1, with any luck), the May Ball was tomorrow and for once he had a girlfriend to take. Bridget had started out as a friend and they’d got closer throughout the year as she opened up to him about school bullying and low self-esteem. She was shy in company and he liked that, liked being the one she could talk to. His sister had remarked – rather acidly, he thought – that Bridget was a clone of Amelia, who had dumped him for some Trinity lawyer last year. He had spent a lot of time listening to Amelia’s problems and trying to be a caring boyfriend, only to be told that he was a ‘lovely guy but’. In hindsight he should have seen that Amelia was bored; even at the time he suspected part of the reason she came round was to chat to Seth. Bridget didn’t seem to like Seth; she shrank in his presence and looked uncomfortable. He could understand why. Seth was an acquired taste. Anyway, none of that mattered now – Cambridge was finishing and a whole new life awaited him. One where he would be solvent and independent and no longer a ‘lovely guy but’.

On impulse he stopped off at the dry cleaner’s to collect his DJ; might as well save himself the queues tomorrow. There was still time to loop back to John’s and drop it off. He was spending the afternoon at a rugby club garden party at Magdalene – not entirely his scene but Bridget had something to go to and you couldn’t miss out on a garden party on a day like this.

Being laden down didn’t stop him bounding up the stairs two at a time, energy sizzling from the soles of his feet. He imagined how Bridget would look tomorrow. She’d told him the dress was red so he could match his cummerbund. He pictured something floor length, maybe low at the back, with her fox-brown hair swept into a bun.

She was wearing red when he pushed back the door. A red camisole he’d never seen before that pushed her breasts into large, unrecognisable mounds. Below that a black suspender belt holding up fishnet stockings that tapered into crimson high heels. Her hair tumbled over her face as she looked down at the floor. Where Seth was lying, blazer-clad, between her legs.

He couldn’t react because he couldn’t comprehend it. So he stood clutching his dinner suit and his bottle of wine while Bridget whimpered and covered herself and Seth got to his feet. The two friends looked at each other, Seth moistening his mouth, trying out words.

“Not a great garden party then?”

He went for him then. He’d never attacked anyone before but his body knew what to do as he slammed Seth against the wall. Bridget may have been screaming as she tried to drag him off. He shook free of both of them and upended the coffee table, sending mugs and glasses pealing to the floor. The click of doors opening across the stairwell.