December 1986 London
Her name was Marielle Bishop-Smith and she was twenty-eight years old, worked in academia and was the daughter of a wealthy property tycoon. She must have recognized something in him because when their eyes locked at the Christmas party they’d started moving towards each other as though pulled by invisible magnets. When she reached him she whispered in his ear, in a beautiful, husky voice, ‘Do you want to get out of here?’
‘Very much,’ he’d replied. It was suddenly the thing he wanted most in the world.
She’d giggled, hooked her arm through his and all the awkwardness had left him. He knew it was a cliché but there was no other way to put it: he felt as light as air, as though all his bad thoughts and feelings had dissipated. Every sense was on high alert as he helped her into her cream faux-fur coat, his fingers brushing against her soft, porcelain skin. He couldn’t take his eyes off the silk of her dress shimmering over her curves.
‘I don’t normally do this kind of thing,’ he’d murmured, as they hailed a cab outside the V&A.But I recognized something in you. A kindred spirit.
‘Neither do I.’ She’d smiled up at him in mock wide-eyed innocence and he couldn’t tell if she was joking. It was the first time he’d felt his heart twist with an emotion he didn’t understand. They chatted non-stop in the cab on the way to her place. Words that had failed him in the past now spilt from him as if a dam had been breached. By the end of that fifteen-minute journey she knew more about him than anyone he’d ever met. She told him about growing up in a huge but echoing manor house in the countryside, with a conveyor-belt of nannies, a disinterested stepmother and a father who was always away. He told her about a mother who had left him and a father who hated him and how he’d been desperate to leave home.
‘Now,’ she’d said sternly, as the cab pulled up in front of a red-brick mansion block of apartments near Regent’s Park, ‘I’m trusting you aren’t a serial killer before I let you into my home.’ Her green eyes flashed and she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. He felt it in every fibre of his being.
If he’d known then about the darkness that lived beneath her glossy facade, would he have made the same decision? He knew, without a doubt, that he would.
14
LENA
I’m cross-legged on the grass, watching Henry and Drew as they sit at one of the round tables by the pop-up café. Henry has bought Drew a cup of tea, and he dunks the teabag in the way he does when he visits me at Citizens Advice. Drew’s body is angled towards Henry so that I can’t see his expression, but they look to be in deep discussion. Are they friends? It seems a very unlikely friendship, especially as Henry and Marielle haven’t long lived in Bristol, but that’s judgemental of me. They might go way back for all I know.
The grass is prickly on my legs but at least it’s cool here, under the tree. Phoenix is curled up beside me, snoozing. I’m still pretending to be absorbed by my phone, with my sunglasses on, but my gaze doesn’t leave the two men. After about fifteen minutes they get up and shake hands. Then Henry walks away, continuing past the playground, and exits the park through the entrance on the other side. Drew stays at the table. I contemplate following Henry as he’s not heading in the direction that would take him home, but I’d also like to ask Drew what they were talking about.
I get up quickly, Phoenix suddenly alert, and make my way to the van to order a Sprite. Phoenix is busy lapping water from the bowl the van owner has left out for dogs. I amble past Drew’s table, on the pretence of looking for one of my own, then fake a double-take.
‘Drew! What a surprise. How are you?’ I take a seat on the chair next to him, feeling like the hammiest actor in the world.
He looks up at me in surprise. ‘Lena. Hello. Oh, and you’ve brought your dog. Hello, boy.’ He bends down to pat Phoenix, who flops at his feet. ‘I’m assuming he’s a boy?’
‘He is. We’re just out for a walk. What are you doing here?’
‘I was meeting someone who used to work with SJ, Henry Morgan.’
‘Henry used to work with your sister?’ I ask incredulously.
He frowns. ‘Yes. A few years ago now. Remember I told you she used to work as a receptionist at that clinic in Reading? Well, Henry worked there too, around the same time. How do you know him?’
I cast my mind back to our conversation earlier. He did say he was meeting an ex-colleague of his sister’s, but I never thought in a million years they would turn out to be Henry Morgan.
‘He’s my neighbour,’ I say. ‘Not long moved in. Does he know something about your sister?’
Drew looks downcast as he rubs at the tattoo on his bicep. ‘Not really. He was one of the surgeons at the clinic and he said …’ he gives a little cough ‘… it’s a bit embarrassing really, but they had to let her go.’
‘As in sack her?’
‘Unfortunately, yes. Lateness, apparently, and some unorthodox behaviour. He didn’t say what and I was too mortified to ask. Our family have always had such a great work ethic – farmers, you know, you must understand that, Lena,’ he says earnestly, his eyes not leaving mine. ‘But Sarah-Jane was never like the rest of us and, as I said before, I have started to worry she might be involved with some unsavoury people.’
‘And Henry hasn’t seen her since she left?’
‘That’s what he said. Three years ago, apparently.’
‘But you don’t believe him?’
His expression sharpens. ‘I didn’t say that. Why? Do you know something?’
Shit, I’ve said too much. ‘No, not at all. Sorry. It just sounded like you were unconvinced, that’s all.’
‘What do you know about Henry?’
