Lena glared and snapped that she was forced to travel and spend days away finding all the people for her companies. The fact she was worried about not being at home for Amy and had to make other arrangements had not been just her decision, they had all discussed it, all three of them. Marcus sighed; it was the same old record being played and he couldn’t stand much more of it. He got up and strode to the door.
‘Where are you going?’
‘Lena, I didn’t come here to argue with you; you are doing my head in going over old ground. Amy is missing, for God’s sake, and making untrue accusations about me isn’t helping. We were together for just over seventeen years and most of that time we were okay.’
‘You think?’
‘What?’
She stood up and placed her soup bowl onto the tray.
‘I said, you think it was okay? Well, for your information it was not okay and it wasn’t for a very long time, but you know what?’
‘I’m sure you’ll enlighten me,’ he said and sighed.
‘I just got too tired to end it before you did. I should have kicked you out ten years ago, but I didn’t because I always hoped that maybe, just maybe, you would get your act together. I put up with you and all your failed attempts at making a living, I always felt as if I had two kids, you and Amy. I truly believed as long as I could keep bailing you out from one disaster after another and keep you happy we’d stay together, not for me, but for her sake, because you could do no wrong in her eyes.’
She picked up the tray and carried it to the door. She paused beside him.
‘You know, maybe what really happened, Amy began to see you for what you are, the rose-tinted glasses broke, because she had to take in the way you were living, and I think all you have been waiting for was that meeting with your nasty toad of a lawyer. If you think I am going to move out of this house that I have paid for, that I have furnished, that I have covered the mortgage on from day one, you are mistaken. You’ve never paid one cent, so if you think you are going to screw money out of me in a settlement, make me pay you bloody alimony for the rest of your miserable life, you have another think coming.’
She passed him with the tray, the soup spilling from his untouched bowl, she was shaking with such anger. She went into the kitchen and hurled the tray onto the draining board. She thought he would follow, but when he didn’t appear she took down another bottle of wine and uncorked it, getting out clean glasses as she slowly calmed herself down.
Marcus was watching a video, an old one of a holiday they had taken together in Tuscany, and he was sitting with his legs tucked under him on the sofa. She placed the wine and glasses onto the coffee table in front of him. He gave a glum smile as she sat beside him.
‘Long forgotten good times,’ he said quietly as she poured them both a fresh glass of wine. Together they continued to watch one video after another, neither speaking, simply taking in the past when they had been happy. Lena changed tapes as he drank and asked if they should watch the most recent ones to see if he also picked up how different Amy appeared.
‘Do you think something happened to her, something neither of us knew about, because the way she’s behaving is so strange, she looks sullen, she was always such fun, but here she seems to be so angry, constantly avoiding the camera.’
Marcus shrugged, turned to Lena and reached for her hand.
‘I’ve been thinking, maybe until we know what is going on I should move back in here.’
‘But what if she tries to contact you at the flat?’
‘She always calls me on my mobile and I have it with me. I just think that it would be better for us to show a united front. What do you think?’
Lena sipped her wine, unsure about his suggestion, and yet to have him with her was a comfort. When the video ended, she didn’t feel like watching any more.
She leaned closer to him. ‘I honestly don’t know, Marcus. I mean, I have to admit I feel in a sort of limbo because I can’t really comprehend that Amy would have just taken off. The longer it is, the worse I fear about what might have happened to her. What do you think?’
‘I feel the same, that’s why I’m suggesting I stay here – I mean in the guest room obviously – but at least we can be here for each other.’
He got up, turned the videotape off, ejecting it and stacking it along with the others, then returned to sit close to her on the sofa. ‘The worst scenario is she was abducted by someone, but you know Amy wouldn’t get into a stranger’s car. I mean, we always made sure she knew never to accept a lift from anyone she didn’t know.’
‘What if it was someone she knew?’ she said quietly.
‘So taking that on board, she accepted a lift with someone or maybe had even arranged with whoever it was to go with them, then wouldn’t she have taken her overnight bag? It was left with the Newmans, their daughter took it back to school with her on the Sunday.’
‘So if that isn’t what happened, is it possible she arranged to meet someone and there was an accident or something else that meant she was unable to contact us?’
Marcus sighed; all the London hospitals had been contacted and there was no one fitting Amy’s description involved in any accident or taken to A &E. He got up and started to pace the room as he threw out another possible scenario: Amy did have a boyfriend, perhaps one she knew neither of them would approve of, and she had like many other teenage runaways simply taken off with him.
Lena was sceptical simply because she was certain that if Amy had met someone she would have known about it. They sat together and went through all the people they both knew, but it was obvious none of them could have been involved. Lena could think of no one, not even one of her employees, who appeared to be in any way connected to Amy. Added to that they were all female apart from the van drivers and delivery boys, but she was certain none had even met Amy. Marcus could think of no one, not even any of his girlfriends, as he was certain they had never had more than a few fleeting words with his daughter.
‘I had dinner at the awful Berkoffs’ last Saturday. Of course, they asked after you, and Sasha said he had seen you in a new restaurant in Chiswick,’ Lena remarked.
‘Well he must have been mistaken because I haven’t been in any new restaurant in Chiswick, seen him or Maria, and considering you always said you loathed the pair of them, why did you go over to their place for dinner?’
‘Because they asked me, but it was the same old putrid food and gossip, and she implied because I looked so good I had to have a toy boy – I mean honestly.’
‘Well you do look good, better than ever. You used to drag around in that awful old tracksuit, and you’d put on weight, hardly ever washed your hair or showered and spent all day in your office or-’
She interrupted him, her lips tight. ‘Don’t start. I know how I looked and all I was doing was earning enough to pay the bills and you never could help out, one business after another went bust and I had to bail you out.’
‘All right, all right, don’t you start playing the old record.’
‘What about Simon Boatly?’ Lena asked, changing the subject.
Marcus sighed. ‘By the time I moved into his flat he was packed and off on his photographic work abroad. He was also out of the country when Amy went missing. Listen, right now we are just attempting to bring up anyone that could be in any way connected. As far as I am concerned there is no one that I know that I could even contemplate as being over-friendly with Amy. I never saw her with anyone I didn’t know, and you say you would have been aware if she had a boyfriend – well then, so would I. This is all just circumstantial because bottom line is we have no clue to her knowing anyone that we were not aware of.’
Lena nodded; she poured more wine for them both. ‘Apart from her school friends.’