‘You didn’t see her again?’
He sighs, audibly, for her benefit, so she can see how far she is pushing him. ‘No. I didn’t see her again.’
‘So, what’s your theory? What do you think’s happened to her?’
‘I have absolutely no idea. She’s seventeen. Rocky upbringing. Buried trauma. Who knows?’
He sounds as if he finds the whole concept of Saffyre’s disappearance bothersome in some way. He sounds almost glib.
She looks at him and says, ‘You sound like you don’t care.’
He rolls his eyes. ‘Of course I care.’
‘But you don’t sound like you do.’
‘My professional duty of care is one thing and Saffyre no longer comes under that. But of course I care about her and her outcome. Of course I care that she’s disappeared. I just don’t really see what I can do about it.’
Cate pauses. She collects two used mugs from the table and slowly takes them to the sink. She rests her hands on the edge of the counter and stares out of the window. ‘They asked what we were doing at midnight that night,’ she says. ‘You know, Valentine’s.’
He doesn’t respond.
‘I said we were in bed.’
‘Well, we were, weren’t we?’
‘Well,Iwas. You were … I don’t know. I lay there for quite some time waiting for you to come. And when you did, I asked you what you’d been doing and you said you hadn’t been doing anything and then we had sex.’
‘And?’
‘Well, what had you been doing?’
And there it is. A question too far. Immediately they are back in the same place where they’d spent all those hellish weeks last year.
‘Cate,’ he says, in that tone of voice she’d got so used to back then, that patient, do-I-really-have-to-put-up-with-this-nonsense tone of voice, ‘what on earth are you talking about?’
She unpeels her fingers from the kitchen counter and turns again, puts a smile on her face. She doesn’t want to go there.
‘Nothing,’ she says lightly. ‘Absolutely nothing.’
25
SAFFYRE
I watched Roan Fours’s adulterous affair with the girl with the red hair unfurl over the summer months.
Her name was Alicia. I knew that from overhearing him calling to her across the car park at the clinic. They went to the scruffy pub on the corner quite a lot. They’d press themselves into the tightest corners of the beer garden and talk like they were gonna die of each other. They looked quite good together, despite the age gap. A better match than him and his wife, in some ways. His wife looked like life had got to her, whereas Roan had this box-fresh look about him; he never looked tired or worn down, always looked like he’d just had a shower, just had a holiday, was ready to get up and go. He had a glow. I don’t know how old hewas, but around fifty I’d say. Alicia was much younger, but somehow they matched.
I did some googling and found a junior psychotherapist at the Portman called Alicia Mathers. There was a biography for her on the website. She had a degree and a masters in psychology from UCL and a PhD. Clever girl. I followed Alicia home one night after one of their early-doors dates (they rarely said goodbye to each other later than about eight, nine o’clock). She lived in a flat in a small block off Willesden Lane. Kind of nondescript. I saw a light go on on the fourth floor after she got home. So that was where she lived, then. Useful to know. I took some photos and I found my way home.
Of course, Granddad and Aaron were getting a bit worried about the amount of time I was spending away from home. I just said vague things like: I’m seventeen now, I’m nearly an adult, give me some space. I could tell Aaron was particularly worried about me. He even said at one point, ‘You seem anxious, Saff, maybe I should get in touch with Dr Fours?’ (AaronlovedRoan, was virtually reverential towards him. If Aaron had had a cap, he’d have doffed it, that sort of thing.)
I said, ‘Don’t be stupid. What for?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said, ‘maybe you’re stressed about your exams? Maybe there’s something else going on in your life. I mean, is there a … like a boy?’
I laughed. There’d never been a boy and I couldn’t imagine for a moment there ever would be. That part of me had shrivelled and died when Harrison John did what he did to me when I was ten years old. I could look at a boy and see nice eyes, or a goodface, or even a fit body, but that never translated to feelings. I neverwantedthem or their attention. I said, ‘No, there’s no boy. I’m just walking a lot. Clearing my head. You know.’
Sometimes if I had a free period during the day I might come down and look at Roan’s wife. I felt so bad for her. There she was in her Fat Face jeans and her flowery tops, trundling about the place, obliviously buying stuff to cook for her family, fluffing out duvets, filling in forms, clearing out the fridge, wiping down floors, all that stuff I imagine middle-class housewives do. And for what? For her husband to walk through the door one day and say, ‘I’ve met someone. She’s younger than you and prettier and I want to have sex with her whenever I like.’
