The House Guest by Mark Edwards(24)

She opened her mouth. Shut it again. Finally, she said, ‘Of course I am. But nothing is missing. She doesn’t seem to have accessed our computers.’

‘In other words, you don’t care about what she might have done to Ruth.’

‘What? Why do you think this Eden person has done something to her?’

‘I’m going to look for somewhere else to stay,’ I said.

‘You don’t have to do that.’

‘No, I think I should. I don’t want to be under your feet.’ I didn’t want to get drawn into a debate about it so I said, ‘I really need to go out.’

‘Okay. Well, maybe we can chat later.’

‘Maybe.’

I slipped through the door and ran down the steps, not pausing or looking back. Perhaps it had been a rash thing to do, but I didn’t want to be under the same roof as these people who didn’t trust me.

The police wouldn’t do anything. Jack and Mona wouldn’t believe the truth.

I was on my own.



I walked up Bedford Avenue, the same route I’d taken just a few days ago with Eden when we’d gone to the swimming pool. That had been Friday afternoon, when I thought all I had to worry about was Ruth outgrowing our relationship. Now I knew she had been concerned about it too, and it made me feel sick to think she might have felt sorry for me. Mona was wrong, though, about this being a male-ego thing, wasn’t she? Perhaps not. Perhaps it was something that was hardwired into me.

Still, right now it didn’t matter very much. All that mattered was finding Ruth and making sure she was okay. When I found her we could have that talk. Figure out how to go forward. And I was more concerned about her career right now than mine. Hoping Sally didn’t have much sway in Hollywood; that casting directors weren’t putting a big black mark next to Ruth’s name.

As soon as I reached the park I took out my phone and called Jayne, Ruth’s agent. It was lunchtime in New York, making it just after 5 p.m. in London. Jayne’s phone went to voicemail so I left a message and went and sat on a bench.

I checked Ruth’s Facebook page, just in case she had updated it, and did the same with Instagram. I tried to call her again, then sent her another text asking her to call me. Then I spent an hour going down the Google rabbit hole, searching for women named Eden across all the social media sites. I put ‘Eden Bakersfield’ into the search engine but the only result was a bar that had once existed in that city, also called Eden. I searched my memory, trying to recall something, anything, that Eden might have said, anything that could tell me where she might be. She had said she didn’t know anyone else in New York. She certainly didn’t have her own place . . . although even as I thought it, I remembered that I couldn’t trust anything she had told me. She might have her own house or apartment somewhere in the five boroughs.

Which reminded me: after walking out of the Cunninghams’ place, I had nowhere to stay tonight, and very little money in the bank. I only had enough to stay in a hotel for maybe a week, even a cheap one. I didn’t know anyone who could put me up. What were the other options? A hostel? The YMCA? Maybe I had been too hasty walking out of Jack and Mona’s.

I was pondering this when my phone rang. It was Jayne.

‘Hi, Adam?’ She had a cut-glass accent, like a minor royal. I had met her a few times and had always found her pleasant, if a little brusque. She wasn’t a particularly successful agent and I got the impression she lived in fear of losing Ruth to a hungrier, more powerful Hollywood player. She would have been horrified if she’d overheard what Ruth had said about her on Friday night when she’d talked about the action movie she’d been offered. ‘Is Ruth there with you?’

‘No. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I was wondering if you’ve heard from her.’

‘What, since she sabotaged her stage career? I’ve been beside myself, trying to get hold of her.’

‘She hasn’t called you?’

I could hear traffic in the background and pictured her standing on the street near her office in Soho. Black cabs and red buses. I was hit by a wave of homesickness.

‘No, she hasn’t,’ Jayne said, half yelling against a chorus of car horns. ‘The first I heard of it was a furious phone call from someone at Sally Klay’s production company. They’re threatening legal action for breach of contract. The whole thing is a total nightmare. What on earth has got into the silly girl? What’s been going on over there?’

I didn’t know what to say. This was bad news. Ruth hadn’t even phoned her agent? At least I now knew this couldn’t be happening because she was angry with me.

‘Maybe it’s the pressure,’ Jayne was saying. ‘I’ve seen in happen before. These young actors think they want to be famous and successful and as soon as something starts to happen they freak out and can’t handle it. I always thought Ruth was reliable and level-headed, though . . .’

I ended the call with both of us promising to call the other if we heard from her.

As I put my phone back into my pocket I looked up – and saw the man with the grey beard.

He was standing beneath the trees opposite me, towards the centre of the park. I was certain it was the same person I’d spotted standing outside the house. He had hair that matched his beard, cropped short, and looked to be about sixty. He was wearing sunglasses and a T-shirt that showed off a stocky figure. As soon as I lifted my face and he realised I’d seen him, he hurried off in the opposite direction.