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‘Nothing,’ said Nikki, turning to me. Her eyes were almost violet and I wondered whether she wore coloured contact lenses. ‘Nothing,’ she said again, as if that was the most frustrating thing. ‘It was just ordinary. Friday night, we went to The Hyde, played some pool. He stayed at mine. I got up Saturday, went to the Union. That’s the last time I saw him.’
‘You’re a student.’ Jo raised an eyebrow at me.
‘English Lit.,’ she said. ‘Saw the article about you in The Gryphon.’
‘And Matt’s a student too?’
‘MSc.’ The bells tinkled again. ‘Actually, can I have that fag?’ she asked Jo.
‘How was he when you left?’ I asked.
‘Asleep.’
‘And no one’s seen him since?’ asked Jo, as she pushed the pack of Marlboros across the table.
Nikki rested her hand on it but didn’t pick it up. ‘His mates have,’ she said.
‘Go on,’ said Jo, and I didn’t know whether she meant to tell Nikki to take a fag or to carry on speaking.
‘We were supposed to be going to a party on Saturday night – but I didn’t go coz I felt like shit. Ha.’ She forced out what I think was supposed to be a laugh but sounded more like a shriek. I watched her fingers tremble over the cigarettes. ‘I spoke to him on the phone that afternoon, asked if he fancied coming to mine instead, but he wanted to go. So he went. No one’s seen him since.’
‘He disappeared at the party?’
‘Tuff said he left him there.’
‘Tuff?’
‘His best mate.’
‘Where was this party?’
‘Lincolnshire.’
‘Lincolnshire?’ Geography’s never been my strong point but that struck me as a long way to go for a night out.
Nikki’s hand left the cigarette packet and picked at the tassels on the edge of her sleeves. ‘Sunday afternoon, I went round to Matt’s. Tuff was there. I asked where Matty was and Tuff was like really cagey.’
‘Matty went to the party with Tuff?’ Jo asked as she continued to scribble the information down.
‘Whose party was it?’ I asked.
‘A free party,’ she said.
‘You mean, like a rave?’ Jo asked.
‘Wasn’t that the nineties?’ I said.
Jo pulled a face at me. ‘Whereabouts in Lincolnshire?’
‘Don’t know.’ She picked up the cigarettes and extracted one from the packet. ‘A field somewhere.’
I glanced at Jo and she stuck out her bottom lip. I’ve known her long enough to know what that look means. Jo’s one of the most open-minded people I’ve ever met, except when it comes to men. Truth is, since she caught Andy, her ex, in bed with another woman, she’s got about as much faith in men as she has in the Tory government. Not that I can talk. But I know my failure with the opposite sex is down to me, not them.
Jo put her pen down and pulled her fingers through her hair. A drop more compost fell out. ‘How long you been seeing him?’ she asked.
‘A year. Nearly.’
‘Have you thought,’ – Jo paused and passed Nikki a lighter – ‘have you thought maybe he’s dumped you?’
Nikki lit her cigarette, her eyes half-closed against the smoke. She didn’t speak.
Jo tried again. ‘How would you describe your relationship?’
The questions were getting too complex for Nikki. I saw a fresh batch of tears threaten. ‘He hasn’t dumped me,’ she said.
‘Wonder where Edie is with that tea?’ I made a half-hearted attempt to get up from the table, but Jo glared at me.
‘Why hasn’t he rung anyone?’ Nikki screwed up her nose and exhaled the smoke from her lungs. ‘His phone goes straight to voicemail.’
‘Does he have a job?’ asked Jo.
‘No, but he’s missed his final tutorial. He’s so close to finishing, why disappear the week his dissertation is due to be handed in?’
‘Maybe that’s why he’s disappeared.’ Jo glanced at me again and this time the look was serious. ‘Maybe the pressure was getting to him. Does he suffer from depression, low mood, anxiety?’
Nikki’s violet eyes flashed. ‘He hasn’t killed himself, if that’s what you’re thinking.’
Jo pressed her fingertips down on the edge of the table, making her knuckles crack. ‘Exclusive?’ asked Jo. ‘Or open?’
‘Exclusive,’ said Nikki, without a moment’s hesitation. She pushed the lighter back across the table to Jo. ‘He’s lovely. Ask anyone. He’s—’
‘You can’t think of a single reason why he might have needed to get away?’
‘No. I mean, at least, no, I don’t think so.’
I felt sorry for her, as I watched her trawl her memory banks, because I’ve been there. I know what it’s like to try and find a clue, something you may have missed, a sentence that with hindsight had a different meaning, an action that foreshadowed subsequent events.
‘I don’t think so,’ she said again. ‘I wanted him to stay in with me. He needed a night out.’
‘Have you been to the police?’
‘No.’ She turned to me and I sensed she was glad of the distraction. ‘I didn’t want to get anyone into trouble. That’s why I came to you.’
‘Trouble?’
‘Drugs,’ Jo said, folding her arms across her chest.
Of course. It was only Wednesday. If this guy had gone to a rave on Saturday night it was possible he hadn’t come down yet. We’d probably find him in a field, telling a tree how much he loved everyone.
Nikki rubbed her face with her left hand before speaking. ‘He’s not really a drugs person.’
I leaned closer to her, inhaled some of her second-hand smoke. Its warmth crept down my throat. ‘What does that mean?’
‘Well, he does. Sometimes. But, I don’t know …’ She leant back in the chair. ‘I’m worried about him.’
‘Maybe the party isn’t over,’ said Jo.
‘It’s been four days,’ said Nikki, her voice rising.
‘You tried his family?’
‘I don’t know where they live.’
‘You’ve been together a year and you don’t know where his family live?’
‘I know it’s Somerset.’
‘He never took you to meet them?’ I was surprised at that. Not that I’d ever been to visit a boyfriend’s parents, but I’d never had a year-long relationship either. As I’ve probably already said, I’m not the relationship type. And one of the reasons I’ve never had a year-long relationship is because I don’t ever want to meet someone’s parents. Or, more to the point, have someone want to meet mine.
‘They don’t get on,’ Nikki said but I got the feeling she wasn’t happy with the situation.
Jo stretched out her fingers. ‘Best thing you can do is relax,’ she said. ‘Men are like dogs—’
Nikki wrinkled her nose. ‘I need to find him now.’
‘Dogs,’ said Jo, crossing her arms behind her head. ‘Simple needs. The trick is not to—’
‘You don’t understand,’ said Nikki, grinding out her half-smoked cigarette into the ashtray. ‘I’ve not got time to—’
‘What’s the rush?’
As the question came out of my mouth I realized I already knew the answer. ‘You’re pregnant,’ I said.
She nodded and another wave of tears welled, smudging her eyeliner before spilling down her cheeks.
‘And Matt knows,’ said Jo. I knew from the tone of her voice what she was thinking.
‘No.’ Nikki shook her head and a tear flew from her cheek and landed on Jo’s new client interview form. I watched it absorb into the paper. ‘He doesn’t know. I didn’t even know. I only did the test the day before yesterday. It sounds stupid, but I never thought. I didn’t feel right Friday, thought I’d eaten something bad. Felt sick all weekend. Then Monday, I was watching Jeremy Kyle, and this girl with the most awful mother … well, anyway, it just hit me. I went to the chemist, got a test and two minutes later there’s these two blue fucking lines.’
‘How pregnant?’ Jo asked.
‘Who can remember the first day of their last period? I mean, Jesus.’ She paused and I felt the rage radiating from her.
I was lost, but fascinated. Like when you pass a car wreck on the motorway. I didn’t want to look but I couldn’t help myself.
‘How pregnant?’ said Jo again.
‘His birthday.’ She let the words hang in the air.
‘So,’ said Jo, re-reading the form, as I tried to remember whether Pisces was February or March. ‘What’s that, two months?’
I glanced at Jo. I know very little about pregnancy but I know there’s a cut-off point, when it all becomes a definite rather than a possibility. From the look of Nikki’s wide eyes, that point wasn’t too far away.
As if to reiterate my thoughts she said in a quiet voice, ‘I’ve not got long.’
The unspoken words hung between us all. I didn’t envy her. I dodge decisions whenever possible. This one was inescapable. Not deciding was a decision all in itself.
She seemed to sense my sympathy because she grabbed my arm and her eyes bored into mine. ‘I can’t do this, not without him. My mum’s going to flip her wig. And my dad …’ She didn’t finish the sentence, crumpled like a wet cardboard box. I wanted to say something comforting but I couldn’t think of the words.
Aunt Edie chose that moment to crash through the door.
I stood up, bashing my knee against the table leg. I took the tray from Aunt Edie and set it on the table in front of us. Aunt Edie passed a box of tissues to Nikki as I hovered by the door, my back to the wall. The room felt smaller than normal.
I try not to think about the past. Nothing good comes from raking over coals or making plans for an unpredictable future. There is only the here and the now. But I couldn’t stop the images flooding my brain. Another young woman I once knew, who didn’t mean to get pregnant.
Fiona.
My half-sister.
A sister I didn’t know I had until four or so years ago, when I first set out to find my dad, a man who’d disappeared the day I was born, a man I’d never met. A man I now wish I’d never met, pray I’ll never meet again. The man that haunts my nightmares. It’s his face I see when I jolt awake in the pitch-dark, panicked and drenched in cold, wet sweat.
I wasn’t there for my seventeen-year-old sister when she discovered she was pregnant. I wasn’t there when she had to break the news to our father. I wasn’t there to protect her. I’ll pay the price for that as long as I live.
I watched Aunt Edie cluck around, handing out mugs of builder-strength tea, and knew that it didn’t matter whether Nikki Cooper-Clarke could pay for our services. It didn’t matter that Jo was convinced Matt had done a runner because somehow he’d sensed his girlfriend was up the duff. I knew there and then that I’d go and find him and I’d force him to face up to the consequences of his actions. Decision implies rational consideration of the facts. Choice is a leap of faith. In that moment, I chose.
We’d got our second case.
Chapter Two (#ud7c14415-832b-5bc3-b3fb-7c2ec38c1dd8)
I mumbled something about having to make a phone call and left the room. When the three of them came out, a few minutes later, I was behind the desk, pretending to type up case files. As Nikki left, her cheeks mascara-streaked, I asked her to bring in a photograph of Matt – the most recent she could find. She nodded and I promised her we’d give it everything we had. For an awful moment, I thought she was going to hug me, but the desk blocked the space between us. ‘We bill by the hour,’ I said.
‘I’ve paid the deposit.’ She gestured towards Jo, who, I noticed for the first time, held a wad of £20 notes in her left hand.
*
‘Poor lamb,’ Aunt Edie declared from the kitchenette, once Nikki had gone. ‘Still, least it’s not like it was in my day. She’d be shipped off faster than you could say, “Up the duff without a paddle.” Never knew who was going to disappear next. It was like those murder-mystery parties where they pick you off, one at a time.’
‘Let’s start with his mate,’ I said to Jo. ‘Clearly Nikki thinks he knows something.’
I googled the address Nikki had given us for Matt, The Turnways – up near the cricket ground. ‘No time like the present.’ I grabbed my jacket from the peg by the door. ‘Come on.’
Jo drove the company van as I gave directions. We found a nice little residential street in the heart of Headingley. At least, it was probably a nice little residential street once upon a time, before students had overrun the area and landlords disregarded their obligation to keep properties in a good state of repair. The houses were identical, substantial semi-detacheds, arranged in a gently curving semi-circle. Jo parked up and we knocked on the door, waited a few minutes, knocked some more. No answer. I patted my jacket pockets for a pen.
‘A note?’
Jo wrinkled her nose. ‘Let’s keep the element of surprise. Least till we know what we’re dealing with.’
‘What then?’ I glanced up, spotted an open window on the first floor. An open sash window. No window easier to get through, even without my ironing-board physique.
