Woman Last Seen(45)
Clements doesn’t know the answer. She doesn’t even think it’s the relevant question. “I’m more interested in where she is now.”
“Well, isn’t it obvious?” His mouth twitches in irritation. Clements gets the feeling this man thinks everyone is a little slow for him. His pride must be deeply wounded to know he has been the slow one; he will want to reassert himself. “She’s found the whole thing too stressful, so she’s thrown in the towel on us both. Most likely moved on to someone new altogether.”
Clements nods. “It’s a possibility.”
“A probability,” Daan Janssen asserts. He passes the DC her second coffee, which she sips hurriedly even though it is too hot and scalds her mouth. “I suppose, as the second husband I’m not a husband at all so this matter no longer concerns me.”
“Well, it’s not as simple as all that.” Clements remembers how Janssen presented himself on their first meeting. He was distraught. She doesn’t feel comfortable with his ability—real or feigned—to file this away so neatly and quickly.
“I’ll consult a lawyer, but I imagine it is. I was with a woman, she has gone. A grown adult walking away from a duplicitous relationship can’t be a police matter.”
“A crime has been committed.”
“I have no interest in pressing charges. Anyway, how can we? She has vanished.”
“Yes, she has.”
Daan Janssen picks up DC Clements’s cup, it is still half-full. He throws the coffee in the sink, rinses the cup, places it carefully upside down on the drainer. “I’ll walk you to the door.”
The police officer is not used to being ejected from buildings; it is usually her job to move people on. She tries to reassert herself as they wait at the lift. “You will contact us if you hear from her?”
“Of course.” The lift arrives, the doors swish open. Then Daan says, “And be sure to let me know if a body turns up.”
19
Kylie
Wednesday 18th March
I doze off and when I wake up—bleary-eyed, still woozy, scared—there is food and more water. The relief is prodigious even though this time the water is still, and the tray is laden with all the food I like least. Liver paté, cucumber batons (I note they actually came in a pack with carrots, which I do like, but the carrots have been removed), cheese and onion crisps (which are the only crisps I don’t like to eat) and three cold, tinned hot dogs. I stare at the tray for a nanosecond, surprised by the petty cruelty. This meal has been selected to bring me the least possible comfort or pleasure. These are foods both men know I actively dislike. Which of my husbands would go to the effort of shopping for food that I hate? Then I wonder at myself for being surprised. Whichever it is, he has locked me up; clearly, we’re not friends.
I am starving. My best guess is that it’s Wednesday lunchtime but it’s hard to be sure. The room is really dark—some light comes from around the boarded window and from under the door. There are two small, recessed ceiling lights, but I can’t reach the switch. I last ate on Monday morning; I didn’t even finish the entire slice of cake then. I hungrily bite the hot dogs. There is no cutlery. I’m not sure if I’m being denied cutlery because I might make a weapon of a fork, or to dehumanize me. I feel filthy using my fingers to eat as I’ve been forced to pee in the bucket and there is obviously no place to wash my hands. I use the cucumber to spoon the paté into my mouth and although the taste makes me want to gag, the hunger is stronger than either preference or fastidiousness.
“Thank you for lunch,” I yell at the door. I try to sound pleasant, at best I achieve neutral. I can’t let anger or fear leak into my voice. “Who am I talking to?” My question sounds reedy, needy, pathetic, but it does at least get a response. I hear the keys of the typewriter being struck.
It doesn’t matter which one of us, does it?
It has never mattered to you before.
This is not true. This is so far from the truth. If it didn’t matter to me which one I was with, I could have picked either one. That’s the whole point. I couldn’t choose. But how do I explain that?
I cram a second hot dog into my mouth. I swallow it without tasting, then I force myself to slow down, chew carefully. I might make myself sick—besides, I don’t know when I’ll be fed next. Something about my hunger after the enforced fast reminds me of the first time I dealt with Oli being sick. It was about four months after Mark and I married. He picked up a tummy bug at school, the way kids do. I remember him vomiting all over the lasagna I had carefully prepared for their tea. It was like The Exorcist. I was grossed out—the smell, the mess—but then I saw the small boy’s big watery eyes, shocked, scared, and I stopped thinking about what I was feeling. I stopped being horrified. I just wanted to fix him. I leaped up from the table, caught a lot of the vomit in the salad bowl, in my hands, down my jeans—I didn’t care. I stroked his back, murmured, “I’ve got you, it’s okay. You’re okay, better out than in.” He vomited for twenty-four hours. Who knew such a small boy could have so much stuff in him? Certainly not me at that point. New to parenting and dealing with sick kids, I was terrified. I thought the doctor’s advice not to let him eat anything other than dry toast, maybe a spoonful of rice, was barbaric. Naive, I thought he should be rushed straight to the hospital and wondered why everyone else wasn’t as panicked as I was. I guess Mark had been through it so often by then that he took it more in his stride. I changed sheets, mopped Oli’s hot body with cool flannels and refused his requests for Coco Pops. “But they are like rice, Mummy,” he pleaded. It was the first time he called me Mummy.