One Small Mistake(34)

This is what people do to animals.

This is what people do to other people.

Is this what is being done to you while we sit and drink tea?

I left pretty quickly after that and came home. I’ve just had a new chest of drawers delivered for the second reception room. You’d say you didn’t like them just to save face but really, they’re something you’d have in your home if you had the money. I’ve noticed how you try to disguise envy with indifference whenever you come here.

Anyway, I thought I had the perfect place for these drawers – in the little alcove by the door, but when I moved them there, they didn’t look right. So I dragged them over by the fireplace, which just looked odd. Then I hauled them to that spot where the armchair used to be. Better. But not quite right. No matter how much I fiddled with them, they didn’t look the way I pictured. Too far forward, too far back, too far left then too far fucking right. I was sweating and frustrated and then, as though my arms were independent from my body, I gripped the drawers tight and pitched them forward. They slammed into the hardwood floor with a bang that would leave an ugly dent.

Even before you vanished, I sometimes get the urge to smash up my whole house because this life doesn’t feel like it belongs to me and

Ethan came hammering down the stairs and into the lounge, panicked. ‘What was that?’ He spotted the toppled drawers. ‘What the hell?’ I watched as he righted them. He glared at me. ‘What happened?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said lamely.

‘I thought someone was breaking in.’

‘Sorry.’

‘You’re shaking.’

I shoved my hands into the pockets of my yoga pants. ‘I’m fine.’

Silence.

‘Did you go back to her house again this morning?’

I didn’t answer. It’s none of his business.

He shook his head. ‘Maybe you should start those letters like the therapist suggested, yes? Get it all out so you don’t smash the whole house up.’

After your disappearance, we were assigned a family liaison officer who introduced us to a counsellor – Harriett. I’m not sure if I like her yet – she has good taste though; her dress was forest green and I recognised it instantly: Karen Millen. It’s the kind of shop you’d walk into, take one look at the price tag and walk right out again.

It was Harriett’s idea to write to you. It’s possible you’ll never see these letters since I have no idea where to post them. A squalid house like the one the lurcher was found in? A shallow grave in the woods? A river? You could be anywhere. With anyone. Doing anything or having anything done to you.

I don’t know what’s worse: knowing or not knowing.

Maybe I’ll never find out.





Chapter Fifteen


7 Days Missing


Adaline Archer

I was called in for questioning again today. You’ve been gone seven days and the police have no idea where you are. No clue. They keep hauling your family and friends into the station and giving us watery cups of coffee or milky tea and asking us the same questions over and over. So I waited in that dingy little room with beige walls and a tiled nylon carpet floor, at a square table that was bolted down.

Detective Inspector Ritter returned with a lukewarm glass of tap water in one of those ugly plastic cups. I don’t like him. He wears cheap suits and a smug smile and, much to your distaste, I’m sure, he calls the woman on reception ‘love’. He doesn’t like me either. I knew the second he laid eyes on me outside your house. He thinks I’m just a vapid housewife. Is that what you think of me too, sis?

‘So, what can I do for you, Detective?’ I asked as he took his seat opposite.

He frowned. He didn’t like that I was the one asking questions, so he countered mine with one of his own. ‘Sorry to drag you in here again. Hope we didn’t disrupt your day too much. You’re not missing a yoga class or something?’

There it was, the little dig, the housewife box he’d put me into. I didn’t respond. I kept my expression neutral. Unlike you, I’m good at keeping my emotions under lock and key. You feel everything so deeply, Elodie. Even as a little girl. Do you remember when you were seven, or eight perhaps, and Nibbles, our hamster, died? You cried for days and wore only black for two weeks. You insisted Dad made her a little wooden coffin because you couldn’t bear the thought of beloved Nibbles being dumped unceremoniously in a hole. Even as you got older, you loved as deeply as you grieved. I realised this when I met Noah for the first time. Ethan and I visited you in London, and the four of us had dinner in a little French restaurant. It was December, there were Christmas lights outside and a bitter breeze. You and Noah couldn’t stop touching each other, and when he spoke, you watched his mouth move with a look of pure adoration. You feel things deeper than anyone else I know. And so, if you feel love with a more intense bite, the same must go for fear.

I wonder if you are gripped by terror now, wherever you are.

Anyway, DI Ritter looked uncomfortable when I didn’t rush to fill the quiet. I stared at him, embracing the awkward silence. ‘So …’ He cleared his throat. ‘I just wanted to go over a couple of things with you, Mrs Archer.’

Archer.

I’ve been married four years and Archer still doesn’t sit right. You asked me once, a few weeks before the wedding, if I was going to take Ethan’s name and when I said yes, I could tell from your face you thought I was a traitor to womankind.