LITMIR.BIZ

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helpful.

      ‘What’s behind your garden?’

      ‘A back alley, then the gardens of the street behind us. Larkspur Terrace.’

      He writes this down. ‘You keep any money in the house? Any valuables, expensive items?’

      ‘We’ve a couple of hundred quid in a box in the kitchen. For emergencies.’

      ‘Is it still there?’

      I nod. ‘So is all of El’s jewellery.’

      ‘Are you sure?’

      The doorbell cuts me short. I stride into the hallway to answer it and find Gerda and Magnus standing there, both angry and worried. I tell them that the police have arrived.

      ‘She’s still not returned?’ Magnus barks. Magnus is Eloïse’s grandfather, bull-ish, well-dressed, and immortal, like Clint Eastwood – the man’s had I don’t know how many triple bypass surgeries and cancer treatments and yet he only seems to grow more robust with age. Not quite as po-faced as Gerda, a little more down-to-earth, but still not the sort of man I’m ever likely to get drunk with.

      ‘Did you come from Herefordshire?’ I ask. They have properties all over the place – Switzerland, Greece – and I had wondered whether El had gone to one of them. But they’re all completely remote and impossible to get to. And besides, El would have no reason to go there.

      Gerda ignores me, having swept into the living room and spotted Maxie asleep on the sofa. ‘The children aren’t in bed? Isn’t it rather late?’

      The police officers make brief introductions in sober tones. Gerda sits down beside Max, pursing her lips as she tucks the blanket around him. Magnus walks around the room as if trying to identify something out of place.

      ‘This is Gerda and Magnus Bachmann,’ I tell the officers, remembering how I would always add fresh from the crypt under my breath when I was referring to them. El would give me a slap on the arm, though she’d always laugh. ‘Gerda and Magnus are Eloïse’s grandparents. Naturally, they’re very concerned.’

      I don’t explain that they’re the world’s most interfering in-laws. Gerda flips open a gold mobile phone and dials a number with a manicured finger. ‘Eloïse, darling, it’s Mamie. This is the twentieth time I’ve called you, and I won’t be stopping until you reply. Please can you call one of us soon to let us know you’re all right?’

      Gerda’s accent is elocution-English with clipped Swiss tones. It reminds me how El occasionally sounded foreign from the years she spent in Geneva as a teenager. She speaks French and German fluently, as well as conversational Italian, and has been teaching Max. I go to tell Gerda that Eloïse’s mobile phone is sitting on the dining table next door, but right then it rings loudly. For a faint moment Gerda’s eyes light up, as though she’s found Eloïse, and then the penny drops.

      The house feels deathly still, hollowed out. In a daze I pour Magnus a whisky and make cups of tea for me and Gerda. Then the five of us sit in the living room, bewildered and lost for words. Despite how late it is my mobile phone continues to bleep with texts and Facebook messages, and although I check every one of them I find nothing that tells me where my wife may have gone.

      ‘Have you spoken to her friends?’ Gerda asks.

      ‘Of course he’ll have done that,’ Magnus snaps.

      I give a weary sigh. ‘I’ve contacted the baby groups she sometimes goes to. I’ve spent all afternoon on the train phoning libraries, cafés, the swimming pool, our GP, the dentist … until my batteries died. Everyone I can think of.’

      Magnus sits down, then stands again. ‘That’s good. Someone’s bound to have come into contact with her.’

      I say, ‘I made a list of people who saw her yesterday, but no one saw her today. Except the kids.’

      ‘What did Max say? He must have seen something,’ Gerda says for the hundredth time.

      ‘He said they made gingerbread men in the morning and then he had a nap. When he woke up he searched the house and garden but couldn’t find her. That was when Mrs Shahjalal came over.’

      I stand and begin to collect everyone’s glasses and cups. ‘Well, I best be getting the children to their beds. I’ll call you both in the morning, shall I?’

      Gerda looks affronted.

      ‘Oh, no. We’ll be staying. I’m sure Eloïse will be back soon but until then the children will be needing us.’

       18 March 2015

       Komméno Island, Greece

      I wake to find myself in bed in an attic room. Dust motes visible in the air, picked out by bright sunshine streaming through a porthole window. The ceiling is criss-crossed with ancient wooden beams and spiderwebs in the corners. Hewn stone walls and a cloying stench of dust and damp make the room feel like a cave.

      I pull myself upright, gasping from the pain in my head and from a series of aches that announce themselves in my right shin and ankle, my upper back, all the muscles in my neck and forearms terribly strained. It feels like I got in the way of an elephant stampede. I reach around and touch the spot where my skull had been cut open. No fresh blood, but I can feel where the bleeding has matted my hair.

      The events of last night turn over in my mind like stones. The people I met, the ones that saved me from a boating accident on the beach. They were writers, weren’t they? Here on a retreat? I try to summon my name to mind. It doesn’t come, so I say it aloud. My name is … My mouth remains open as though the sound of my name will find its way inside of its own accord. I have the strongest sensation of having left something behind somewhere, and although I pace and try to will it to surface, it won’t reveal itself.

      Water. I need water. I move my legs to the edge of the bed and drop my feet to the floor. Cold. I’m wearing a T-shirt with a faded pineapple print on the front and baggy black swimming trunks.

      I hobble like a foal towards the door, but when I turn the door knob I find it is shut tight. I tug at it, one hand on top of the other, wrapping my fingers around the knob and twisting with all my strength. The knob turns and turns but the door won’t budge. For a moment I really think I’m going to lose consciousness. With a hand pressed against the wall I let myself sink slowly down to the floor and rest my forehead against the door, taking long, trembling breaths. A large grey spider taps across the floor by my bare feet. I flinch, and in a second the spider is gone, darting into one of the dusty crags in the walls. I’m left with enough adrenalin to lift a fist against the heavy wood of the door, banging it once, twice, three times. I can hear a low murmur of voices somewhere in the house.

      Eventually, the door pushes open, knocking into me. Someone swears and squeezes through the gap before helping me to my feet.

      ‘The door was locked,’ I say, trying to explain.

      ‘Locked?’ Joe’s voice. He inspects the door quickly and says, ‘Not locked. Always jams, this door. Come on, let’s get you something to eat.’

      After shouting downstairs for one of the others he slips a hand on the back of my head and the other firmly on the small of my back. Soon one of the women is there, too, and I recognise her as the kind one from last night, the woman who looked at me with such concern. Sariah. She helps Joe lift me to my feet and, very slowly, we all head down a winding stone staircase, one, two floors, Joe in front of me, Sariah behind, in case I fall.

      The architecture of the house suggests it was once an old farmhouse, with remnants from its past hung on the wall as vintage ornaments – old breast ploughs, some fairly mean-looking pitchforks, and the wheel of a chaff-cutter, as well as cow or goat bells. A room at the bottom of the stairs features a rocking

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