Bring Me Back (B.A. Paris)(50)

Late in the evening, my usual email arrives – FOUR – a reminder that I have four days left to get rid of Ellen before – what? Layla takes matters into her own hands? What will she do, turn up at the house and confront us? Or get rid of Ellen herself? I shake my head, knowing it’s just exhaustion speaking. Layla would never harm Ellen. But my mind keeps going back to the doll with the smashed head and the ‘when you’ve done what you have to do’ email. Given that twelve years have passed, I might not know Layla as well as I once did.

Despite everything, I manage to sleep solidly for the first time in weeks, maybe because I’ve sorted things with Ellen. When I wake, I feel stronger, refreshed. I stretch out my arm and realise Ellen isn’t beside me, that she must already be up, and I leap out of bed, hoping she hasn’t got to the post before me. As I’m throwing my clothes on, I realise that it’s Sunday, which means there won’t be any post. The relief I feel is short-lived; I can’t imagine Layla letting me off for the day, especially when I remember that last Sunday, she left me a Russian doll on the wall.

I go down to the kitchen and find Ellen sitting at the table, a cup of coffee in front of her.

‘I’ll go and get some fresh bread for breakfast,’ I say, planting a kiss on the top of her head.

‘I’ll come with you,’ she offers.

‘No need, it’s fine. Stay and finish your coffee.’

‘I have. Anyway, I could do with a walk.’ She reaches under the table. ‘Come on, Peggy.’

There’s nothing I can do except grab the Russian doll – if there is one – off the wall before she sees it. But as we walk down the path there’s no sign of a doll and I don’t know if I should be grateful or worried. Maybe Layla has left it somewhere else this morning, in which case I’m going to have to hunt for it surreptitiously when we get back.

We buy the bread and walk back to the house hand in hand. As we approach the house, Ellen stops suddenly, dragging me to a standstill, and my senses immediately go on alert.

‘Oh my God,’ she says, pointing towards the house, and she sounds so incredulous that for a moment, I think Layla has turned up. ‘Look, Finn, on the wall!’

‘Oh my God,’ I echo, glad it’s only a doll, not Layla, because I’m not ready to see her, not now, not like this. I’m about to say something more but Ellen is already running, past the house, down the road, all the way to the corner. Ignoring the doll, I run after her, wondering what she’s seen, wondering if she saw Layla.

I catch up with her in the next road. ‘Did you see anything?’ I ask.

She shakes her head, out of breath. ‘We must have just missed her.’ She looks up at me, the all-too-familiar fear and excitement on her face. ‘She was here, Finn, Layla was here! She left a doll on the wall!’ Her eyes fill with sudden tears. ‘We might have seen her if we’d walked back a little faster.’

‘She doesn’t want us to see her,’ I say gently, putting my arms around her.

‘Why hasn’t Tony found her?’ she says, her voice wobbling, angry now. ‘How much longer are we going to have to wait?’

‘I don’t know,’ I soothe.

‘Can you phone Tony? Ask him if they’ve found anything. She must be in Cheltenham, she has to be.’

‘If there was any news, he’d have told us. And I don’t want to phone him on a Sunday again. I’ll phone him tomorrow, alright?’

She nods mutely and I curse Layla for leaving the doll on the wall. Where the hell is she anyway? I’m not so sure that she is in Cheltenham. Just because Ellen saw her there and the envelopes have a Cheltenham postmark, it doesn’t mean she’s living there. She could have dropped them into a postbox in any of the outlying villages and they would automatically go to the main post office at Cheltenham to be sorted.

‘Can we go to Cheltenham?’ Ellen asks. ‘We were only gone about half an hour. She can’t be that far ahead.’

‘We don’t know that she’s in Cheltenham,’ I say.

‘She is,’ Ellen says fiercely. ‘I know it.’

‘I really don’t think—’

‘I don’t mind going on my own. I’ll get the car keys.’ She heads towards the house, taking the Russian doll from the wall as she passes.

So we go to Cheltenham on what I know is a wild goose chase because we’re not going to find Layla sitting in a café or walking along the road any more than I would have if I’d stopped on the way back from St Mary’s that time. We traipse the streets anyway, and when Ellen eventually concedes defeat, we stop for lunch. It’s not a huge success. Neither of us is in a talkative mood, so we sit largely in silence, each of us lost in our own thoughts.

We get home and Ellen disappears into her study for the rest of the afternoon. In the evening, we watch a film which neither of us really follows. After Ellen has gone up to bed I sit down at the kitchen table and check my phone for emails. There’s one from Layla. I already know what it will say.





THREE


I don’t usually write back but after the near-miss this morning, I do.

Where are you?

A reply comes straight back and I can’t believe that at last, she’s actually going to tell me. I take a breath and open it.