I lift the lid slowly and stand up.
Seb and I stare at each other. The trunk is empty.
34
Wednesday
‘The police,’ I say. ‘The police have been up there. They must have taken it.’
Seb stops to consider this. ‘No. They were here but they didn’t take the cash. Whatever they took they put into clear bags and made me sign for.’
We make our way down the ladder. I turn over the possibilities.
‘Unless the police came back,’ he says, pushing the loft hatch shut, ‘and took it.’
I unpack this as he clicks the latch into place. ‘Wouldn’t they have to leave something to say they’d been? A notice or something?’
‘Yes, I suppose.’ He makes his way to the kitchen.
‘Who else had access to it?’ I follow him into the kitchen and catch my reflection in the black of the windows.
Seb puts the kettle on to boil but then stalls. ‘Nina. Could be her. Can’t be anyone else in fact. Nobody else has been up there.’
‘You think Nina stole it?’ I say, shocked. I think of the fine dust layer on the top.
‘I know. It doesn’t really sound like her. You know how she was even back then – she always had money. I can’t see her stealing it. But there aren’t any other candidates. Unless – no, I don’t think I’ve even had a plumber up there for longer than ten minutes,’ he says. ‘I don’t know who else it could be.’
‘Seb, I need to get it back, or at least find out what happened to it.’
‘Well, you better let me speak to her first and try to iron this out. She might have a reasonable explanation.’
‘Seb. If I don’t have the money, they’ll charge me with murder.’
‘Okay. I’ll call her in the morning,’ he says.
I think about this but tomorrow is too late. ‘I’ve got to meet the solicitor tomorrow. She wants an answer about the money. I really need to know where it is. You don’t understand. I can’t go through a criminal trial. I can’t.’
He is in the middle of pouring out coffee but stops. ‘Fine.’ He takes his phone out and takes a breath. ‘Okay,’ he says and presses a number on the screen.
I hear the number ring. It rings and rings until I’m sure it’s going to ring out. And then at last it’s answered.
‘Nina. It’s Seb. Hi,’ he says, and pauses. ‘Yes. Sorry. I know it’s late. Look, I need to see you. It’s important.’ Her voice is tinny through the handset. ‘No. I mean now. I can come to you or— No,’ he says, looking across at me. ‘It can’t wait.’ He pauses for Nina to say what she has to. ‘It’s better if we do this in person, trust me, I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.’ He waits as she speaks and then shrugs at me. ‘Well, it kind of is life or death, Nina. Okay,’ he says and puts the phone on the table.
‘She’s coming now.’
My stomach lurches. Now? I haven’t seen her for over thirty years. I remember seeing her briefly a few months before Grace and I split up. Grace went to stay with her to think things through but when I went to pick her up, I got the feeling that she thought that Grace would be better off if we simply ended it there and then.
Nina had always been overprotective of Grace. I didn’t know whether that was because Grace gave off something that signalled a need for protection or whether Nina just didn’t like me.
Once I told Grace that Nina made me feel as if she’d found me under her shoe. She hates me, I said to her.
‘That’s not true! She just prefers women to men.’
‘Or some women to some men,’ I said. ‘She seems to like Seb well enough.’
‘I don’t know about that. Not sure she likes him much at the moment either.’ I think we were in the kitchen. I have a half-memory of her picking up a tea towel and drying some dishes. ‘She’s got a thing about controlling men,’ she said then, almost casually.
‘What?’
A beat passed before she answered. ‘She thinks you try to control me with your jealousy.’ Then, seeing my expression, added, ‘That’s her – not me.’
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. ‘What? She thinks I’m controlling?’
‘I know,’ she said, agreeing, wide-eyed.
‘Well, she got the idea from somewhere,’ I muttered under my breath and then left the room.
Later I’d apologised. ‘It’s okay. I know what Nina’s like.’ I’d seen Nina just a couple of times since then. Once was on the day I’d brought the dollars. She had been out so Seb and I had taken the cash from the bin-bags and bundled them tightly into carrier bags, the better to fit the coffee table-trunk in the loft. I was passing the last bundle of notes to him when I heard the front door open. It was Nina. We froze. We heard her going through the house and then suddenly Seb dropped the bag that was in his hand and there were dollars everywhere. I still remember how we scrabbled about on hands and knees, picking up cash by the fistful before she came up. Then when she did we feigned innocence.
‘What?’ we said on the landing as she came up.
She said nothing but knew something was up. And when she stalked out, we both laughed.
The bell rings and Seb gets up to answer it. He pauses by the kitchen door. ‘Let me do the talking.’
I wait.
The front door opens in a clatter of locks and chains, then the sound of heels on wood and later the scent of rose. It’s a smell I remember. Another madeleine bringing a rush of memory. That rose. Turkish delight.
When Nina comes into the kitchen, she is mid-sentence with Seb and then stalls. She sees me and we lock eyes. Mine see a woman with the same cut-glass cheekbones and bright blue-green eyes that I remember. The effect is as arresting as ever in her pale face. Her fringe is still dark. Only a few fine lines around the eyes give away the time that has passed.
‘Xander,’ she says. There is no warmth in it at all. She turns her back to me and faces Seb, arms crossed. ‘What’s he doing here?’
‘He’s the reason I called you. Have a seat. Coffee?’
She sits but does it by perching at the edge. She makes no move to remove her blood-red coat. It remains draped across her sharp shoulders. I pull my chair back to make room for her but she’s not looking at me at all.
‘Well?’ she says, taking her coffee from Seb.
‘Well,’ he says, drawing breath. ‘It’s to do with Xander really.’ They both look at me. ‘How to begin?’ he says. ‘Some years back, Xander left some cash here for safe-keeping. After he and Grace—’ He coughs when he sees her face. ‘Anyway. It’s missing.’
She absorbs the information but says nothing. She takes a slow sip and puts her cup down softly. Then she raises her eyebrows, waiting.
‘Nina?’ I say irritably.
‘What?’ she says without looking up.
‘Did you take the money?’ I say.
‘What money?’ She moves in her seat.
Whatever coldness or indifference she once felt for me has deepened over the years.
‘There were two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. In the house. It’s gone. All of it.’ Seb is getting irate.
Nina blinks at him and pulls out a packet of thin cigarettes from her bag and lights one. The scent of her hangs in the air.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t even seen him,’ she says, pointing her cigarette at me, ‘for thirty years. And I think I’d remember a quarter of a million pounds in cash.’
‘Dollars,’ I say but she looks away, saying nothing.
‘Nina?’ Seb says, bristling.
‘What?’
‘The money. Where is it? It’s important.’
A sense of dread grows in me. I worry that if she doesn’t have it, then there’ll be no way of finding it again. And that could be the end for me.