The right-hand side of the bed was empty. Undisturbed.
Hauling himself up against the headboard, he reached over to the table, grabbed his phone and peered at it. No texts. There were a couple of emails, which he opened. One was from a newsfeed he subscribed to, the other was spam his filter hadn’t picked up. No word from Eden.
He slipped out of bed, padded out onto the landing and checked the spare room, where she sometimes slept on the few occasions when they’d had a really bad row. But the bed was clearly unused. ‘Eden!’ he called out in the forlorn hope she was somewhere else in the house. But the only reply was a plaintive miaow from Reggie downstairs. No doubt hungry, as ever.
‘I’ll be down soon, Reggie!’ he called out.
The cat responded with a noise that sounded like he was being tortured to death.
Niall went back into their bedroom, sat on the edge of the bed and ran his fingers through his hair. Thinking hard. He rang Eden’s mobile, but nothing. Was its battery completely dead? He had to keep trying. Who to call next? Her four best friends, Georgie, Dem, Helen and Sharon? Her sister? Her mother? The local hospitals, Worthing and the Royal Sussex, in case she’d been in an accident or taken ill?
He went downstairs, threw a handful of dry pellets into Reggie’s bowl to shut him up, made himself a strong coffee, then began phoning each of Eden’s girlfriends in turn, telling them what had happened. What he got back from each of them was concern for Eden, but not much sympathy, nor surprise. No, they hadn’t seen her. Would he please let them know when she turned up?
Of course.
He rang the hospitals. No patient by the name of Eden Paternoster had been admitted during the past twenty-four hours.
Next, he rang her elder sister, Evelyn. She and Eden were close, too. Evelyn hadn’t seen her either. Nor had her brother, Adam — her parents sure had referenced the Bible for their children’s names. He rang her mum, who had never liked him, and was interrogated by her for a full ten minutes.
Ending the call, Niall continued thumbing through the book. Who the hell else might she have contacted?
He made more calls. Finally, all out of ideas, he looked at the ridiculously modern and stupid clock on the wall. The one she had chosen, which had no numbers on it, so you had to look at your watch anyway to be sure of the time.
8.55 a.m.
The house phone rang. Hardly anyone rang that these days. He dived over to the dresser, where it sat, and snatched the receiver off the cradle. Eden?
It was her mother, wondering if she had turned up.
‘No, Margaret,’ he said. ‘Not yet.’
‘Will you tell me when she does? I’m really worried about her.’
‘Of course I will, Mags,’ he assured her in his warmest, most wonderful and caring son-in-law voice. ‘You’ll be the first.’
‘Have you called the police?’
‘No, but I’m thinking about it if she doesn’t turn up soon, as I just told you.’
Ending the call, promising again to let her know the moment he heard anything, he stared at the address book. There was no one else he could think of. He’d exhausted all the possibilities. Hadn’t he?
Who hadn’t he thought of? What hadn’t he thought of?
Through the window on to their small rear garden, he could see a bird drinking from the ornamental birdbath that Eden topped up with water every day. Then Reggie began whinging. ‘Way past breakfast time, eh?’ Niall said. Reluctantly slipping off his stool, he walked over to the cupboard where Eden kept the pouches of cat food, took one out and opened it. Reggie leaped onto the draining board and carried on whining and trying to eat while he emptied the contents into the red bowl.
He put the bowl on the floor, went back to his bar stool and sipped his coffee. Then he noticed that the finger he’d cut last night was bleeding again — he must have done it opening the cat food. Sucking it, he decided maybe it was time to call the police. On the other hand, perhaps he should give her a little longer. See if she turned up to work today, first?
He decided to get some exercise, go for a bike ride down to the seafront, and give her time to make contact. If not, when he came back he’d call her work number. If she hadn’t gone into work — she’d told him she had a really busy day with a new computer system being installed — then he would really start to worry.
10
An hour later, shortly after 10.15 a.m., with still no sign of Eden, he ate a few mouthfuls of cereal, called her mobile once more — no dice — and then her direct work line. It went to voicemail. Next, he called the main switchboard of the Mutual Occidental Insurance Company and, when it was answered, asked if the operator could locate his wife, telling her he’d already tried her direct line.
After putting him on hold while she tried several different departments where Eden might be, the woman told him that no one had seen her yet, although, she added helpfully, she had been expected in for an 8.30 a.m. meeting.
Niall thanked her and ended the call. Shit. He tried to think back clearly to yesterday afternoon. But his mind was in turmoil. Cat litter. Was he going crazy? They’d been squabbling in the car, hadn’t they, just petty stuff? He’d dropped her off at Tesco to buy cat litter. Hadn’t he?
His nerves were in tatters. He took an energy drink from the fridge and downed it. Just as he finished, a text pinged in on his phone. Eden? He looked at it and saw to his dismay it was from her mother.
Any news?
Time to call the police, he decided. But on what number? Two weeks ago, a drunk shitbag he’d picked up in his cab in the centre of Brighton, who he’d driven to north of Gatwick Airport, had done a runner on him in a Redhill housing estate, leaving him with forty quid on the meter. He’d called the police 101 non-emergency number the following morning to report it. It had been seventeen minutes before it was answered. He’d been assured by the operator to whom he gave the details that someone would be in touch. But no one had.
To hell with that.
He dialled 999.
It was answered on the third ring. ‘Emergency, which service, caller?’
‘Police, please.’
There was a brief wait, then he heard a polite, assured voice.
‘Sussex Police, how may I help you?’
‘Hi,’ he said. ‘I’m worried that something’s happened to my wife. She’s disappeared.’
‘May I have your name and address, please, sir?’
He gave the details to her.
The call handler asked him for his wife’s name, age, date of birth and address, which he gave her, struggling for a moment to remember whether Eden had been born on 2 or 3 March 1988. He settled on 3 March.
‘Can you please give me a full description of your wife and the clothes she was wearing when you last saw her?’
He repeated the description he’d given to the security guy at the store the day before, adding in a few extra details. ‘She’s thirty-one, five seven, shoulder-length, straight brown hair, wearing a pink T-shirt and white shorts.’ Then, remembering, he suddenly realized he’d given the security man a wrong description. She’d been wearing her hair up yesterday, pulled back and clipped into a kind of bun, the way she wore it when she couldn’t be bothered to wash it. He corrected the description to the call handler.
Continuing, sounding as if she might be reading from a script, she asked Niall what he thought might have happened, and if he could describe in as much detail as possible the circumstances of her disappearance.
He told her all he knew.
Next, sounding even more like she was working off a script, she asked him for information about her family, friends and work colleagues.