Bring Me Back (B.A. Paris)(30)

Ruby pours a coffee and puts it on the bar in front of her. ‘Exactly. He’s been asking my advice on possible destinations so maybe you’d like to drop me a discreet hint or two.’

‘The Seychelles. Mexico.’ Ellen leans over and kisses me. ‘I never thought you were the type of man to prepare a surprise honeymoon.’

‘I have hidden depths,’ I tell her.

We stay a while longer, Ruby and Ellen chatting about possible places to go on honeymoon, while I nurse my coffee, unable to let Ruby’s comments about Layla go.

‘I wasn’t checking up on you,’ Ellen says as we walk back home.

‘I know,’ I say, kissing the top of her head.

‘I was worried that you’d been away so long, that’s all. Rob said you’d been in to see him so I thought I’d see if you were in The Jackdaw.’

‘Sorry,’ I say, giving her another kiss. ‘Ruby called me in for a coffee.’

She nods at my bag. ‘So what did you buy?’

‘Steak for tonight and paté for lunch.’

‘Perfect,’ she smiles.





TWENTY-FIVE

Layla

It was right that Ellen should find the first Russian doll. After all, it was hers, the one that had gone missing from her set when we were children. I hadn’t stolen it, as she’d thought, but when it eventually turned up a few years later, at the bottom of our old toy chest, I kept it. I’m not sure why I didn’t just give it back to her. Maybe I was worried she would say I must have stolen it after all, maybe I thought it no longer held any importance for her. But now that it was back in Ellen’s possession, I felt bereft. I hadn’t realised how much I relied on it, how often my right hand strayed to it in times of stress. Without it, I felt vulnerable, unprotected. I no longer had mine – I’d lost it in the picnic area in Fonches. So I searched the Internet for Russian dolls, in order to replace it.

I hadn’t realised there were so many different sets, comprising any number of dolls, and I flew through the images, panic-stricken that I wouldn’t find the one Ellen and I had had, because it had to be exactly the same, painted in the exact shades of yellow and red, with exactly the same face. And like a mother who recognises her child in a photo of hundreds, I found it, its little eyes staring back at me from the screen. I had to buy the full set to have it, but it didn’t matter.

I kept trying to work out how Finn must have felt when Ellen showed him the doll she’d found. Maybe he hadn’t felt anything, maybe he’d forgotten the story I’d told him. If he had, the Russian doll wouldn’t have held any significance for him. Even if he hadn’t forgotten, he might have dismissed its appearance as a coincidence. Unless he knew that Thomas had seen me. But did he? I had no way of knowing. Maybe Thomas hadn’t bothered to tell the police, maybe he had but they hadn’t bothered to tell Finn.

The thought that despite leaving my precious Russian doll outside the house, Finn still might not know I was back, itched away at me. Instead of ignoring it, I scratched at it until it became a wound. And instead of leaving it to scab over, I picked at it until it began to fester. I couldn’t let it go. If Finn didn’t know I’d been at the cottage, if nobody had told him, the Russian doll wouldn’t mean anything.

In a panic, I went back to the Internet and ordered ten more sets of Russian dolls. When they arrived, I went a bit mad, unscrewing the wooden corpses as fast as I could to get to the smallest ones, leaving dissected bodies littering the floor around me. As I cradled the ten little Russian dolls in my hands, I felt all-powerful.

Once I started leaving them for Finn to find, he wouldn’t doubt that I was back.





TWENTY-SIX

Finn

I know I should do as Ruby suggested and send Layla an email making things clear, telling her that I’ve moved on, that I’m going to marry Ellen in September. But it’s not what I want.

I take the Russian doll out of my pocket, the one from the tree stump on Pharos Hill, and stand it on my desk. Knowing I was so near to Layla is hard. If only I’d understood sooner. Now, if she doesn’t get back in contact, I’ll never find her. She must be living under a new identity because how could she have a bank account, a job, without one? And she must have a job, because how would she manage for money otherwise? Unless she isn’t alone.

Unsettled, I take out my mobile and open my emails. I scan them quickly and see that one has come in from Rudolph Hill. Taking a breath, I open it.

Do you believe that it’s me now?

Yes, I reply quickly.





I went to the cottage


I found your letter, Finn

You told me to come and find you

I have no idea what to respond. I should ask her where she is, if she’s alright, if she needs help. But now that she’s mentioned the letter, I’m wary of continuing the conversation, worried where it might lead. So I wait, hoping she’ll send another email. But she doesn’t.

Feeling restless I take the three Russian dolls that I found from my drawer and stand them alongside the one from the tree stump. Quadruplets. Ruby’s right, I think, scooping them up and putting them away again. This isn’t the work of someone who is sound of mind. I should phone Tony, ask his advice. But not yet, not until I know what Layla wants.