Gull frowned, then shook his head. ‘I need to go. I need to think this whole thing through.’
‘So, you go and think things through, Gull. But all the thinking in the world won’t change who I am. I make crap decisions more frequently than good ones. I hardly ever get things right, even though my whole life is spent pretending I do. So, for this week, I thought I would just take some time out from being “me” and see what happened. And I met you.’ She huffed a laugh. ‘But real life always breaks back in, doesn’t it? And one way or another, I’m always found wanting.’ She shook her head. ‘I’m sorry this didn’t work, I really am.’
Gull pulled on his ski trousers, a troubled expression on his face. ‘I need time to process all this. Surely you can appreciate that?’
‘Phone me tomorrow, if you like.’ Her eyebrows hitched, her internal battalion of soldiers hastily scuffing cigarettes out under boots and standing to attention. She wouldn’t pick up his call, but if he wanted to believe she would, that was fine. Time to form the line.
She headed out along the corridor, flicking on light switches as she went. Gull passed her, the swish of his ski trousers sounded rough and harsh as he took the stairs. Tania paused outside Clara’s room. The door was ajar, which was unusual, and Tania caught sight of a bedside light, illuminating the wooden panelling of the wall behind it with a warm glow. The light also reached over the top half of the bed, which was empty.
Tania frowned. Where was Clara?
Chapter 37
Tania pushed into the room. Clara’s phone sat on the cabinet, bathed in the warm light from the lamp, alongside the baize bag of Scrabble tiles. Some of the tiles were laid on the table, spelling out a couple of words. Tania’s frown deepened as she read them. She knocked on the en suite door. ‘Clara, are you in there?’
She called out again, then twisted the bathroom door handle and pushed it open. The room lay in darkness. Tania held her breath as she pulled the light cord, but the room was empty. The rustle of fabric had her turning, but it wasn’t Clara. Gull stood, framed by the doorway.
‘I forgot I haven’t got any snow boots,’ he said, his face flexing with awkwardness. ‘There’s no way I can ski out of here in this weather.’
‘There will be some in the storeroom, I expect.’
‘What’s wrong?’ Gull said.
‘Clara’s not here.’
‘Maybe she’s upstairs?’
Tania glanced back at the words on her bedside table. Perhaps Gull was right, maybe Clara couldn’t sleep, had headed back into the living space. That was a logical thought.
So, why had she spelled ‘forgive me’ with Scrabble tiles and left them by her phone?
At the end of the corridor Tania peered up the staircase. There was the faint flickering of firelight, logs burning out in the wood burner. She flicked the lights on and headed upstairs.
‘Clara? Are you up here?’ Tania scouted around the room, checking all the sofas and the tub chair in which Clara had sat to listen to Coldplay. She heard the rustling of Gull’s ski trousers as he, too, climbed the stairs and looked around the space.
‘She’s not up here.’
‘You sound worried,’ Gull said. ‘She’s bound to be here somewhere.
‘I suppose.’ Tania wasn’t convinced. The lodge was spacious, but there were only a few places Clara was likely to be– she checked her watch– at eleven at night. And there was absolutely no reason for her to be outside, in the storm which Gull seemed determined to face in order to get away from her. She should wake Rose, and Madeleine, perhaps they knew where Clara was. Maybe she was simply talking to Lysander. Or perhaps she was with Tom. There had been a frisson of an attraction of sorts between the two of them earlier in the week, a burgeoning friendship. Maybe it had become more than that.
Perhaps Tania should concentrate on her own situation, on finding Gull some snow boots and letting him go, rather than anything else.
But those words, spelled out in tiles?
By the time they’d established Clara was nowhere inside the building, all the lights were on and everyone was up. Tania watched as Rose pushed at the Scrabble tiles.
‘Forgive me?’ Rose said, glancing around. ‘Forgive her for what? I don’t understand.’
Tania shook her head. ‘Nor do I.’
She heard the outside door slam closed. Tom headed up the stairs, snow cascading from his boots and the shoulders of his jacket as he entered the bedroom. He shook his head. ‘No sign of her outside. But her jacket and boots are gone.’
Tania picked up Clara’s phone. ‘She would have taken this with her, surely, if she was going outside?’ She depressed the home button, expecting to be faced with a request for a password. Instead, the phone sprang into life, with a photo she instantly recognised set as wallpaper. She’d taken that photo, the previous summer, when she went to visit Clara, Mike and Poppy at their cottage. A warm, sunny day, the three of them grinning wildly for the camera in the garden as Poppy yelled ‘cheeses’ at the top of her tiny lungs.
Tania blinked, her eyes closing around the memory of that idyllic day for a few seconds. Then she took a more careful look at the screen. All the icons usually positioned on the first screen had been moved, leaving a single video file in the centre, as if held in the palm of Clara’s hand. Tania tapped on it.
It took her a few seconds to work out what she was watching. Clara had taken the video in this room, and by the looks of her clothes she’d filmed it this evening. She seemed insistent about an answerphone message she’d saved as a sound file, how she wanted it to be kept safe because it was Mike’s last message.
