Absalom House formed a block in the middle of a terrace and there was no access to the back from the street. I had to walk round the end of the terrace to a narrow lane, just wide enough for a car to pass through, which gave access to gardens and ramshackle garages. I made my way along it, trying to look as if I belonged, past a shed full of pigeons and a fierce dog on a long chain. I knew when I’d reached Absalom House because of the glass lean-to built onto the kitchen. There were double wrought-iron gates leading onto tarmac. No cars. Then a patch of overgrown garden. I let myself in and listened. No sound except for the barking of the dog, still furious because I’d walked past its territory.
The door into the lean-to was unlocked. It was in full sunshine and inside it was steamy, smelling of vegetation and compost. There were Gro-bags of tomatoes on the window-sill, on the floor pots with the sort of tropical plants you get in conservatories, a couple of white wicker chairs and a table. It would be a pleasant place to sit in the winter but now it was unbearably hot. I could see into one end of the L-shaped kitchen. It was much cleaner than when I’d sat there drinking tea with Dan. Suddenly a large woman in a long white apron came into view. She was vigorously wiping down surfaces with a cloth. I felt the shot of adrenaline, as if I’d drunk five espressos in one gulp, and tried to breathe deeply to relax myself out of the panic. What if I were caught? I had an imagination, didn’t I? Surely I could come up with a story for Ellen and Dan. I couldn’t quite think of a plausible one now, but something would come to me. The woman wrung out the dishcloth and hung it over a tap, then untied her apron, rolled it into a ball and stuck it into her bag. I was still shaking, convinced that she’d use the back way out into the lane, even when she disappeared from view again. I gave her five minutes, then went to the door so I could see the whole of the kitchen. She’d gone.
The kitchen floor was still tacky underfoot where it had been mopped. There was a smell of disinfectant. In a corner a washing machine grated and churned. The rest of the house seemed quiet. I looked out into a long corridor. At one end was the front door, at the other the big room where the kids played pool and watched television. The hum of the washing machine seemed a long way off and there was something unsettling about the silence. It wasn’t natural, like a school in the holidays or a pub before opening time.
If the girls were in the house, where would they be? I left the safety of the kitchen and moved down the corridor towards the common room. There were other closed doors on the way and I listened at each one. Nothing, not even the shuffle of papers or the clunk of a keyboard. The common room was empty. It was a gloomy, shabby room with a smell of stale smoke, but the woman I’d seen in the kitchen had been there too. It was tidy. The carpet had been hoovered and the pool cues lay in line on the table, the magazines piled, edges together, on a veneered coffee table.
I remembered the startled faces of the girls as Dan had led me on his conducted tour of the house. They hadn’t been here, with the other kids. They’d been peering out of their room on the first floor. I thought that’s where they’d be now. I imagined them hiding out there, bored and scared, listening to the alien sounds of a world they didn’t understand.
I ran up the stairs and along the first-floor landing. I’m not sure what prompted the hurry, the sudden sense of urgency. The fear of more bodies, more blood? I was still tormented by the thought that if I’d not put off my visit to Thomas’s, if I’d not drunk coffee that morning, I might have reached him while he was still alive. All the time I was trying to get my bearings, to remember the only time I’d seen the girls who looked so similar that they could be twins, the glimpse through the door just before it closed. When I found it I recognized it immediately. A wide door, painted pale yellow, next to a fire extinguisher and a sign pointing to the emergency exit. I knocked. There was no answer. I listened but heard nothing and knocked louder.
‘It’s all right.’ A whisper, but in this silence it seemed to echo. ‘I just want to talk to you. I’m a friend.’
I turned the door handle and pushed. It caught for a moment on a shred of frayed carpet, then opened. No one. No blood-spattered walls, no cowering girls. No sign that they’d ever been there. The beds had been stripped. The duvets were neatly folded on top of the pillows. There were no clothes in the wardrobe and, though I searched the drawers, under the bed and in the bathroom, there was nothing which might give me an identity or a clue to where they’d gone.
I went back onto the landing and shut the door behind me. The anticlimax had left me washed out, so when I heard the front door open and voices in the hall below me, the response wasn’t fear but a petulant irritation. I just wanted to go home.
‘I really think we should tell them.’ It was Dan, the tone wheedling, as if this was an argument which had been going on for a long time. He was in it for the long haul.
‘No.’ It was Nell, sharp and assertive. That confidence again, which made me want to weep with envy. If I’d spoken to Dan like that, would he have cared more about me? ‘Not yet. There’s too much to lose.’
‘But if you’re right…’
‘I don’t know if I’m right. It’s a guess, speculation. When I know I’m right we can come to a decision.’
I could have wandered down the stairs. Hi, you two. I was just looking for you. I could have asked them what the row was about. I could have asked them where the Romanian girls had moved on to. But I was still shaking and drained, and I couldn’t face them yet. I didn’t want to explain what I was doing there. I waited until I heard them go into the kitchen, the water filling the kettle, the click as it was switched on. I hurried down the stairs and slipped out into the street.
Chapter Thirty-one
I’d parked my car at the end of the road, tucked behind a brewery lorry which had been delivering to the hotel on the corner. I got in but I didn’t drive straight home. Although the lorry had moved away I didn’t think the car would be recognized from Absalom House and I sat there and waited, going over the girls’ disappearance, slowly becoming more relaxed. It was lunchtime. A few lads wandered past, sharing a bag of chips, but they were in school uniform and they didn’t go towards the hostel. I didn’t care. Perhaps because I could convince myself that this was a purposeful activity, the restlessness had gone.
I’d started to doze when Nell and Dan came out. Dan pulled the door tight behind him. Neither of them looked towards me. I waited until they’d reached the end of the road before getting out of the car. I was stiff and sleepy. It seemed an effort to go after them.
The town was busy. There were holidaymakers and daytime shoppers – workers on their lunch hour, elderly couples, women with babies. Outside the pubs lads with bare chests sat on the pavement and drank too much lager from plastic glasses. And everywhere kids, shirts out, ties off, queuing outside the bakeries and chip shops. My mind wandered. I was still half asleep. Why didn’t Nell spend more time at school? Perhaps once the exams were finished the sixth-formers weren’t expected back. What were her plans? At the same age, the summer after A-levels, Kay Mariner had become pregnant with Thomas. But Nell was too canny for that. I tried to focus on the couple as they made their way through the crowd. Now I’d started on this, I didn’t want to lose them. They walked slowly, hand in hand, as if they were killing time. I just followed. I had no plan of action. I was killing time too. Perhaps jealousy had something to do with it. They were so obviously happy that I took a perverse pleasure in watching them. It was like scratching a midgy bite or sticking your tongue in a loose filling.