The Girls Who Disappeared(27)
My journalistic brain is crying out to know more. ‘Who?’
‘I can’t say yet. But I’ll be in touch when I can, and we can set up an interview. Bye, Jenna.’ He closes the door and I have no choice but to get into my own car.
I turn the ignition on and watch as Dale pulls away.
And then I slowly follow him.
16
Olivia
Olivia is relieved when she sees Dale Crawford leave with Jenna. The whole time they were in the same air space she felt like the oxygen was being sucked from the room. She’d heard he’d become a cop and was now working on her friends’ disappearance and it irritates her that Jenna is already trying, no doubt, to charm information out of him.
The mood has now changed between her and Wes. While Jenna and Dale were here he acted his usual chirpy self, even a little hyperactive. Now he seems subdued, as though they’d taken his spirit with them when they left, leaving behind just a shell.
‘Well, that was weird,’ he says, getting up from the table. He looks troubled as he pulls on his puffy coat. Their food remains half eaten. Olivia had lost her appetite as soon as she walked through the door and saw Dale and Jenna together. ‘What do you think they were talking about?’
‘Me, I expect,’ she says, shouldering on her jacket. She tries to keep her voice even to hide how rattled she feels. ‘Jenna will try to speak to everyone connected with the case.’
‘Hmm, well, as long as she doesn’t bother you again.’ They are both equally shaken by seeing Dale and Jenna conspiring, and their unvoiced concerns float between them, creating a barrier. As if to counter that Wesley takes her hand and leads her out of the pub. ‘My flat tonight, yeah?’
She’d rather go home, sit in the cosy living room with her mum and watch reruns of Only Fools and Horses or Friends. Something comforting. Something to make her forget everything else. All her fears and dark, tortured thoughts. The stables have always been her place to hide from the world.
‘You don’t want to come back to mine?’
‘I’m always at yours, Liv, and we have more privacy at mine.’
‘Your place is small, though.’
‘That’s why we need to find somewhere of our own. I really like your mum and everything but I’d rather it just be the two of us.’
It’s begun to drizzle, beads of rain landing softly on Wesley’s dark head. He holds his arm out and she takes it obediently and they wander towards the high street. He is trying his best to be chipper, chatting away about a comedy he watched the other night, but she can sense an underlying anxiety to his tone. Just as they reach Madame Tovey’s they spot Izzy and her boyfriend, Joe, ambling towards them. Izzy is gazing up at Joe adoringly and he’s laughing at something she’s said. Seeing Izzy will always take Olivia’s breath away and make her think of Sally, even after all these years.
Izzy smiles as she passes. But she doesn’t say anything, her head bent into Joe’s burly shoulder. She was only nine or ten the night of the car crash. So much younger than Sally – a happy accident, Mrs Thorne always said. Izzy has stayed on the polite side of friendly with Olivia since their reminiscing days. She’s never crossed the road to avoid her, like her parents do, or openly glared at her when she’s out and about, like Katie’s mum does. She’s relieved that at least Tamzin’s parents have moved away and she doesn’t have to face their judgement and hostility.
The flat is dark when they get back. Wesley has rented it from Madame Tovey downstairs since his mother turfed him out in his late twenties. Initially they were supposed to live in it together but back then Olivia still had difficulty with stairs. She forgets sometimes how much her health has improved over the years with the advances in procedures to her leg. It will never work like it did before the accident but at one point she couldn’t imagine ever walking again. The crooked staircase wasn’t enough to put Wesley off renting the place, though. And she’d often wondered if it was because, deep down, he wasn’t ready to live with her either.
The flat is tiny – mostly one large room with a beamed ceiling, a small kitchen in the corner and a bathroom off it. Wesley’s double bed is unmade, a pile of clothes strewn over the ugly leather armchair in the corner. Facing it, and the massive TV, there is an equally ugly three-seater black leather sofa. The flat is sparsely furnished and it has a funny smell. It will never feel like home to her.
Wesley switches on the kettle, then settles on the sofa, patting the seat next to him.
‘So?’ he says, when she’s beside him. ‘What do you think about buying a flat together? I’ve been saving for years. I know a bank teller doesn’t earn that much but I’ve been saving for a deposit. We’ll own it jointly. Both our names on the mortgage.’
She surveys his new trainers, his expensive North Face coat, the new 49-inch TV on the wall, with a cupboard full of gaming equipment underneath, and presses her lips together. Not to mention the two-year-old BMW he bought last spring. She can’t think about all this now. It’s too much.
‘I think we could even get one of those nice two-bed apartments that are being built the other side of the stones,’ he continues. ‘We could afford to furnish it nicely. I know you don’t like this sofa.’
‘They won’t be ready any time soon. If they get built at all. You know the locals are opposed to them.’ She wishes he’d stop talking, let her drink a bottle of wine and drown her sorrows in peace.