Last Seen Alive Read online

  ‘Ziggy’s going to need feeding too. The poor mite, we haven’t left this room all afternoon.’ When Jamie doesn’t answer I turn around to see his naked silhouette groping the wall. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Looking for the light switch. I can’t see a bloody thing. How did it get dark so quickly?’

  ‘That’s the trouble with being in the middle of the countryside,’ I muse. No street lamps, no car headlights sweeping across the room as they pass outside our window. Not like our busy Bath street where you’re just one of a crowd. Safe. Anonymous.

  I start to snigger.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ But I can hear the amusement in his voice. ‘This is fucking ridiculous, Libs. I can’t find the sodding thing.’

  I blink, trying to encourage my eyes to adjust so that I can help him, but the darkness folds around us like smog. We both paw at the walls in vain, and my arm knocks against something hard, sending what I assume is an ornament to the floor with a thud.

  ‘Shit!’ I jump back, noticing a set of shelves above my head. I peer down at the object that’s fallen. It looks like some kind of bird. I take a sharp intake of breath. Jamie is by my side in an instant.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It looks like a dead animal.’ It’s face down on the floor but I can see that it’s large. And has feathers.

  He crouches down and turns it over. ‘It’s an owl.’ He gently picks it up and moves to the window, holding it up against the scant moonlight. I look at it over his shoulder, surprised to see that it’s stuffed. Jamie gazes at it in amazement but it gives me the creeps with its staring, dead eyes.

  ‘Put it back, Jay,’ I hiss, as though expecting Philip or Tara to walk through the door any second.

  ‘Oh, so it’s all right for you to go through Tara’s wardrobe, touching her shoes and trying on her dresses …’

  ‘I didn’t try on her dress. It was too long. I probably only come up to her armpits.’ I give a snort of laughter, suddenly finding the situation ludicrous. I’m pleased to see that Jamie’s grinning as he reaches up and places the owl back on the shelf, stroking its head tenderly. He’s such a softy where animals are concerned, even dead ones it seems. ‘Shouldn’t you put some clothes on? You’re standing in full view of the window.’ I run my eyes over his lithe, rangy body dulled grey by the lack of light but I can still just about make out the fine blond hairs that travel from his belly button to his groin. I feel the deep stirring of desire. Today was only the second time we’d had sex since the miscarriage. Now, suddenly, I can’t get enough of him.

  He flexes his pectoral muscles as though he’s in a body-building contest and I laugh. ‘We’re in the middle of nowhere. Who’s going to be able to see me?’

  I roll my eyes in mock frustration. ‘There must be another way to turn the lights on.’

  ‘Of course!’ he exclaims. ‘It’s sound-activated. I’ve seen people doing it in films.’ He claps his hands together. Nothing happens. He claps again, twice, in quick succession and suddenly the spotlights overhead beam down on us, almost blinding us with their intensity.

  ‘Is there a more ambient setting?’ I ask, trying to blink away the black spots that are swarming in front of my vision.

  ‘How the hell should I know?’ He claps twice and we are once again plunged into darkness. ‘Oh, fuck this. Why can’t they have light switches like normal people?’ He bends over to pull on the jeans that are slung over the bottom of the bed frame and then we make our way downstairs, fumbling our way in the darkness, Jamie walking purposefully in front of me, guiding me down the stairs.

  When we reach the bottom, Jamie claps and immediately the spotlights blaze on. ‘Surely there must be some sort of remote?’ he grumbles, heading towards the kitchen. ‘I feel like an idiot with all this hand clapping.’ I follow him, Ziggy at my heels. As I round the corner I stop, my heart thudding. The front door is wide open, swinging on its hinges. I can feel the draught blowing around my ankles. I see the frown on Jamie’s face as he goes to close it. He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have to.

  ‘We closed that door,’ I say, trying to keep the panic out of my voice.

  He looks unconcerned but I know it’s an act. Ever since the fire at the school he’s been walking on eggshells around me, trying to convince me to talk to his mum or another therapist about the possibility of post-traumatic stress disorder. I know I haven’t got PTSD though. How can I have when I’ve survived something far worse before?

  ‘I couldn’t have shut it properly. It must have swung open in the wind.’ He avoids looking at me as he heads into the kitchen. I follow silently and sit at the island to watch as he opens and closes drawers in his hunt for a remote, my mind racing. How long has the door been open? We arrived at 4 p.m. Has it been open all that time? Anybody could have walked in off the street. Then I remind myself that there is no street. This isn’t the estate where I grew up in Yorkshire, or our busy road in Bath that’s nearly always full of traffic, people sauntering past, or kids coming home from one of the many schools in the area. Even in the dead of night the blue flashing lights of an ambulance or police car filter through the fabric of the curtains at our bedroom window.

  ‘Yesss,’ says Jamie triumphantly, holding up an electronic device. ‘This is the bad boy I’ve been looking for.’ He prods and presses at the buttons, causing the lights to flash as though we’re at a disco at the working men’s club my dad used to take me to when I was a kid.

  The door has been open for hours. Somebody could be in the house.

  The thought knocks into me, making me feel physically sick. Jamie will get cross if I mention it, I know he will. He’ll say I’m being irrational and he’ll start droning on about therapy again, and the happy, easy way we’ve been with each other since we arrived will be replaced by tension. I try to push the thought away, but it’s in my head now, it’s taken root and will grow if I don’t find a way to stop it in its tracks. I used to be good at pushing such destructive thoughts from my mind. But since the fire I can’t stop myself imagining the worst and I’m finding it harder and harder to remain positive.

  Ziggy whines, staring at me beseechingly with his big brown eyes. ‘Oh God, Ziggy, I’m sorry,’ I say, jumping down from the leather and chrome bar stool. ‘Jay, where did you put Ziggy’s food?’

  ‘Hmmm,’ he says, not looking up.

  ‘Ziggy’s food? Where is it?’

  ‘Oh, in the top cupboard, by the sink.’

  The units are handle-less and I press my palm against the cool gloss doors to open them. I empty a packet of dog food into Ziggy’s bowl, trying to avoid his nose as he immediately starts to guzzle it.

  ‘Right,’ Jamie says, ‘got this thing sussed now. We won’t be in darkness again, my darling.’ He grins at me, then the smile slips from his face. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Libby, you look terrified. What’s the matter?’

  ‘It’s the door …’

  I can tell he’s forcing down a sigh. ‘What about it?’

  ‘It was open for ages, Jay. I don’t know, I just feel unnerved by it.’

  He doesn’t tell me I’m being paranoid. He doesn’t have to – it’s written all over his face. Wordlessly he leaves the room and I stand with Ziggy, wondering if he’s gone off in a huff, although that’s not like Jamie. He’s usually so patient. I try not to play out scenarios in my head of Jamie being struck over the head by a burglar. All I can hear are the snuffling noises of Ziggy wolfing down his food. Eventually Jamie walks back into the kitchen.

  ‘I’ve been around the whole house to put your mind at rest. Nothing. There are no intruders. Statistically we’re safer here than in Bath. Although –’ his face breaks into a grin ‘– I found a few more stuffed animals. The Heywoods like their taxidermy.’

  The stuffed animals seem at odds with the modern furnishings but I shrug, trying not to show how relieved I am that there is no madman lurking in the shadows. ‘I know I’m being silly …�
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  He snakes a hand around my shoulders and pulls me into him, kissing my hair. ‘I understand. It’s that fight-or-flight thing, Libs. After the fire, your senses are on high alert. But you have to switch off, now. You have to stop seeing everything as a potential threat. That’s one of the reasons we came away. I just wish you’d see someone …’

  He sounds like Sylvia. ‘Jamie. We’re not all like you. Or your mum. I didn’t grow up having my own fucking therapist.’

  He moves away, holding his hands up in surrender. ‘I know … I know. It’s not how you were brought up. You keep telling me. Which reminds me, I need to text Mum to let her know we’ve arrived safely.’ He reaches into his back pocket to retrieve his phone and looks at the screen. His face falls. ‘Great, no reception.’ He goes to the fridge and opens it. ‘Anyway, what are we going to cook up for dinner? There’s a plethora of organic delights in here. They’ve spoilt us.’

  I smile but I’m not really taking in what he’s saying because another thought has entered my head. I’ve never shared it with him because if I did he would frogmarch me to a therapist himself. But I can’t stop replaying it in my mind anyhow.

  What if the fire at the school wasn’t an accident?

  4

  I wake up early on Sunday, a white light flooding the bedroom. I’m never going to get used to the lack of curtains. My paranoia of yesterday evening is forgotten in the security of the bright morning with the tweeting of birds and the gentle roar of the sea. I’d tossed and turned for ages last night, unused to the complete darkness and crushing silence. By the time we’d gone to bed there was no longer any moonlight filtering in – it was as dark as if I was closing my eyes. Even as a kid I had to have a night-light. I could sense, rather than see, Ziggy at the end of the bed and I’d strained my ears for any sound, but there was nothing apart from the wind and the distant roar of the sea. No road noise, no planes in the sky, no voices from neighbours, no indistinct music. The silence stretched on and on. Coupled with the darkness it felt oppressive, as though we were the only people left in the universe. I was relieved when dawn arrived.

  Jamie is snoring gently beside me now, Ziggy slumbering on top of the duvet, his heavy body deadening my legs. I gently push him away with my feet. ‘Ziggy,’ I hiss, ‘you shouldn’t be on the bed.’ We allow him at home, but it feels wrong here on Tara’s pristine white duvet cover. He ignores me, only shifting his body enough to allow me to swing my legs out of bed.

  Above the bed is a huge wedding photo of Tara and Philip. They look so in love, so handsome, her in a sweeping full-length gown, him in a dapper well-cut suit and ivory-silk tie. She’s looking up at him with such love on her face, and he’s smiling softly down at her. Did Jamie and I look like that when we got married? So devoted? They appear a lot younger here than they do in the newspaper; there is no evidence of grey in Philip’s dark brown hair and Tara’s complexion is flawless, her brown eyes larger in her slimmer face. I imagine them to be at least fifteen years older than us, which would make them around forty-four but they can’t be more than our age in their wedding photo. I want to know more about Tara, this beautiful privileged woman in whose house I’m living.

  I kiss the top of Ziggy’s head fondly, then wrap my dressing gown around me and head into the bathroom without waking Jamie.

  I go to the loo, glancing enviously at the roll-top bath, the shiny chrome taps and the shelves of extravagant scented candles on the wall above. I’ve always wanted one of those candles, but they are way out of my price range. I imagine Tara luxuriating in the bath filled with bubbles reading a book on mindfulness while the room is pervaded with its exquisite scent. I wash my hands, then reach out and lift one from the shelf and inhale deeply. I can smell the mandarin and lime. Excitement makes my heart pound. Would anyone notice if I took one? There are at least six of them. More than she needs. Surely she won’t remember how many she bought and she can’t be that bothered if she’s keeping them in her holiday home? I glance towards the door nervously, as though expecting Tara to be standing there. I can just about see the four-poster bed. Jamie is still asleep, one arm flung over his eyes. I look down at the candle in my hand. It’s stealing, whichever way I look at it. I put it back reluctantly.

  I rootle around in the cupboard under the sink, not sure exactly what I’m looking for. Just being nosy, I guess. I find a bottle of Tom Ford perfume in a turquoise blue bottle. I remove the lid and spray the lemony fragrance onto my neck and wrists. This must be what Tara smells like. Expensive. I replace it, noticing a large wash bag pushed to the back of the cupboard. I’m just about to reach for it when I hear Jamie calling.

  ‘Libs, are you all right?’

  I close the cupboard hastily and return to the bedroom. Jamie is leaning on one elbow, Ziggy still asleep at the foot of the bed.

  ‘Why do you look so guilty?’ He’s smiling. ‘You’ve not been trying on Tara’s clothes again, have you?’

  I feel myself blushing. ‘Blimey, Jay, I’ve just been for a wee.’

  He stretches. ‘I ache this morning. This bed is too soft.’

  ‘You sound like Goldilocks. I’m going downstairs to make a cup of tea,’ I say, walking towards the door, slightly miffed that he’d been closer to the truth than he realised with his jibe about Tara’s clothes.

  The morning sun streams through the French windows, giving the living room a clean, fresh look. I don’t want to go home, I think as I wander over to the fireplace to touch a tall, fluted glass vase on the mantelpiece, recoiling when my hand brushes against a puffin next to another scented candle. The stuffed animals give me the creeps; they’re so real-looking yet so obviously devoid of life with their staring, dead eyes. I can’t imagine Tara would like them much. They must be Philip’s idea. The soft chalk paint on the walls, and the rugs, throws and cushions would be Tara’s influence, I’m certain of it. A woman’s touch. Maybe Philip feels he has to have the stuffed animals as a token of his country lifestyle. He probably hates them really. They don’t fit in with this house at all.

  I flop onto the white linen sofa; it’s L-shaped and I stretch myself out along the chaise part, resting my head against the feather pillows. I examine the patterned scatter cushions and finger the dove-grey cashmere blanket thrown over the back, wondering where she got them from and whether I could emulate the look in my own flat. If only we had more money to update our home. It could do with repainting and our sofa is one of Sylvia’s cast-offs, too big and old fashioned for our flat.

  I must have dozed off because I’m woken by loud rock music. I sit up with a start, my heart racing. The TV on the opposite wall is blaring and I glance around for Jamie, thinking he must have come down and turned it on. Then I see him rushing down the stairs in his boxer shorts and a T-shirt, his hair standing up on end, Ziggy at his heels.

  ‘For fuck’s sake, Libs, you don’t need to put it on so loud!’ He has to shout to be heard over the music.

  ‘I … I didn’t turn it on …’ I stare at the screen, confused. A heavy-metal band is rocking on a live stage, sweat pouring down the lead singer’s face. ‘It came on by itself.’

  He’s frowning as he wanders over to the TV. ‘Where’s the remote?’ he shouts.

  ‘I don’t know. I didn’t turn it on, like I’ve already said,’ I snap. He knows how much I hate loud music.

  It’s so deafening that I have to leave the room. I go into the kitchen, my body trembling, and wrap my dressing gown further around my body as though it’s soundproof. How did the TV come on by itself?

  I feed Ziggy and make a cup of tea. It’s easy with no kettle to boil – they have one of those instant boiling taps next to the sink. I can still hear the music from the next room so I wrestle open the bifold door and wander into the garden, the stone slabs cold beneath my bare feet. From outside I can see Jamie opening and closing drawers in the television cabinet, trying to find a way to turn the TV down. At least we don’t have neighbours to complain about the noise. Ziggy seems unperturbed by t
he disturbance and joins me in the garden. ‘It’s all right,’ I say, bending down to throw my good arm around his neck. He looks longingly at the lawn. ‘Go on, it’s OK,’ I say, standing up again and watching as he trots across the dewy grass. I wander to the edge of the paving slabs and then stop. There are footprints on the lawn. Large. Man-sized. I swivel around to see if the side gate is closed. I remember noting that it was closed when we arrived yesterday as I wanted the garden to be secure for Ziggy. Now it’s wide open, swinging in the breeze. I think again of the open front door yesterday and goose bumps pop up along my arms.

  ‘Libs,’ says Jamie for the umpteenth time as we stroll along the beach later that day, ‘please stop being paranoid. I’ve told you …’

  Blackened seaweed crunches underfoot. The beach is almost deserted, just the occasional dog-walker ambling past. Ziggy runs ahead of us, his tongue hanging out as he prances along the shoreline, getting his paws wet. It’s windy and I’ve got a hat pressed onto my head. It feels heavy under the weight of its enormous bobble.

  ‘Told me what? That those footprints could have been there for ages? I doubt that. It has rained in the last few days, you know. And what about the gate? And the TV?’

  He sighs. ‘The TV was on a timer. I’ve managed to work it out now. I don’t know why the volume was turned up so high. Maybe Philip and Tara like loud rock music.’

  ‘They don’t seem the type.’

  Jamie stops walking and releases my hand. ‘How do you know if they’re the type? You don’t know them. You have no idea who they are.’

  I feel close to tears. ‘What do you mean I have no idea? I know a lot about them already. I know they like nice things, they do a lot of work for charity, Philip is a consultant. A surgeon. Tara is … well, she’s a home-maker. And a mother. She’s beautiful and caring. They have a child who is seriously ill …’