Ghigau 17

Catherine Booth was at home and bored. It was another scorching day. The thermometer read 27 degrees and it wasn’t yet 10am. The air was thick and sweet, almost drinkable, and the sky was an uninterrupted expanse of cerulean blue, devoid of clouds. 

    This, however, did nothing to lift her mood. Jake had gone to his stupid Rugby match and would no doubt arrive home pissed and useless like every other Sunday. He seemed to be carrying on as normal, remarkably unconcerned about Nikki, Catherine thought. It hardly seemed to register on him.

    That can’t be true for Lenny, she considered,  He must be beside himself. She wondered what he might be doing. He would probably be at home, hoping the phone was going to ring with some good news. She momentarily felt angry with Nikki for putting Lenny through this ordeal. She immediately scolded herself, Christ Catherine now you're just being a cow. 

    She picked up her phone and clicked on the Daily Mail icon, her guilty pleasure. A picture of Nikki’s smiling face filled her screen and her heart gave a little skip. It was the leading article.

London Art Dealer Goes Missing. 

Police Appeal For Witnesses.

 

Hampstead art dealer Nikki Talbot went missing on Monday 10th June after a meeting with hot new artist ‘Exa’ whose paintings caused a furore when, earlier this year, animal rights organisation ‘FreedomFromFur’ threw acid on them at an exhibition in a Shoreditch gallery. Police are said to be ‘extremely concerned’ for Mrs Talbot’s safety. Mrs Talbot, 41, is described as 5 feet 6 inches tall with a slim build, long, dark brown hair and brown eyes. She was last seen in the vicinity of Regents Park Rd, Camden, wearing a yellow knee length dress, cream shoes and carrying a beige canvas shoulder bag. The metropolitan police at Camden have appealed for witnesses, who may have been in the Chalk farm or Primrose Hill area, particularly Regent’s Park Road, at around 5pm on the afternoon of Monday 10th June, to contact them urgently. Mrs Talbot’s husband Leonard Talbot, a marketing executive, has also appealed for help from anyone who may have seen Nikki on the day she went missing. 

 

    The article went on to give details of how to get in touch with the police and mentioned other historic cases, some decades old, that were still unsolved. At the end there was a link which took her to a short film of Friday’s press conference. She watched Lenny speak. His face was ashen and drawn. But he spoke firmly and clearly. 

    Catherine put her phone down. She felt momentarily nauseous. Seeing it in ‘print’ made it suddenly seem all too real. Why hadn’t she fully realised that? Nikki really was missing. How could that possibly be true?  It dawned on her that Lenny was probably at home right now, with Lydia but no Nikki.  What kind of friend would she be if she didn’t offer support? 

    She pulled up Lenny’s number on her phone and looked at it for a moment. When she pressed call, she tried to ignore the butterflies in her chest.

 

Lenny didn’t really want to see anyone other than his mother and daughter, but Catherine had been insistent on the phone, and he decided it might do Lydia good to have a distraction, so he suggested she come over in the afternoon, for something to eat.

    Just after 2pm she arrived at the door with a bottle of wine in her hand. Lenny found this somehow inappropriate, insensitive even, but he accepted the gift politely. She was wearing huge white sunglasses, a strapless pale-blue, cotton dress with an elasticated tube top that exposed her bony shoulders and accentuated her small breasts, and white roman sandals that tied up to her shins. Her eyes were lined with kohl. 

    She looks as if she’s heading to a 1960s pool party, thought Lenny, taken aback by Catherine’s choice of attire. He could smell her suntan lotion. She embraced him, holding on for just a little longer than felt comfortable, before joining them all in the garden and hugging Lydia and Julia with murmurings of sympathy and concern. The whole scene made Lenny feel awkward and he wished he hadn’t said yes to her visit. 

        After he had poured her a glass of wine and unfolded an extra chair, she sat down opposite him. The sun was past its zenith now and dipping into the southern sky. Surfaces were still hot to touch and iced drinks melted before they were finished. Now and then, eddies of warm air made the tall grasses whisper and hiss.

    They stayed silent for a minute or two, both conscious of the jarring dissonance between the awful situation and the beautiful weather. 

        Catherine spoke first, “I’m so worried Lenny,” she leaned forward, placing a warm hand on his knee. 

    It’s been six days and this is the first time you’ve come here, he thought. “We all are, Kat. It’s just not something Nikki would do — just go off without saying anything. Honestly, I’m so scared something’s happened to her.”

    Catherine took this in, “Happened? You mean some kind of accident?” She took off her sunglasses and tilted her head to one side, stared at him intently.

    He glanced at Lydia, who was sitting sideways, next to Julia on one of the sun loungers their shoulders touching, worried she might have heard the word ‘accident’. But they were intent on something in the magazine they were sharing, and appeared not to notice.

    “I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head. “All I know is she wouldn’t just disappear like this unless she absolutely couldn’t avoid it for some reason.

    “Have the police come up with anything?” Catherine asked, her hand still on his knee.

    He shifted in his seat a little, feeling his personal space was being invaded and hating the feeling. “No, not really,” He looked at his feet. “Haven’t they contacted you yet?”

    “I have had a call from that Detective, Sam something? I think she is going to come and see me but I’ve already told her what I could, which was nothing really.”

    Lenny nodded, “I see, ok.” He paused. “There is something odd I found out though.”

    Catherine sat back. “Odd?” she said.

    He looked up, and thought he saw a flicker of worry pass across Catherine’s face.  He wondered what she thought he was referring to. 

    “Yes, apparently Nikki had reported someone harassing her — E mails, WhatsApp messages, social media messages that kind of thing; all online. She informed the Police about it over three weeks ago.” 

    Was he imagining it, or did Catherine’s face tense up when she heard what he had to say? 

    He went on…  “Did you know anything about that? Did Nikki tell you anything?” He tried not to sound accusing.

    Catherine hesitated, as if she wasn’t sure how to answer, then said, “She might have mentioned something, but I didn’t really take much notice if I’m honest, it didn’t sound like a big deal or anything, I mean she didn’t really seem concerned. Just said that someone was trolling her and it was… ‘A bit pathetic’ I think she said.”

    “Pathetic” Lenny repeated, allowing himself a faint smile.  “That does sound like Nikki. You didn’t get the impression she was scared?”

    “No, not scared, definitely not. We’d had a couple of glasses of wine to be honest. I think it was more like…” She hesitated, screwing up her eyes as she searched for the right word,  “Like she was repulsed? And a bit irritated?”  Her sentences rose at the end, making her sound unsure of herself.

    “And she didn’t say she had any idea who was behind it? Not an inkling?” Lenny said.

    “She didn’t seem to, no. Or if she did, she didn’t say anything to me.” Catherine looked at him and pouted with concern. “You know I’m here, right Lenny? If you need anything I mean. If you need someone to babysit, or anything at all.” She looked across at Lydia and called, “Not that you’re a baby sweetie.” She turned back to Lenny. “But you know what I mean.”

    Jesus, is she trying to be coy? Lenny thought, incredulously.

Lydia came over and stood next to her father. She rested a hip on the arm of his chair and folded her arms. “Is Auntie Kat staying for dinner?” She asked him, in what had become her permanent tone of voice — flat, unemotional, resigned, sad. 

    He looked up at her. It broke his heart to see her like this. Her eyes were reddened and swollen from crying. He knew she wasn’t sleeping. She hadn’t been to school all week.

    “If she’d like to, that’s fine with me darling.” He patted his daughter’s hand, thinking the last thing he wanted was Catherine Booth hanging around in what seemed to be a very odd mood. “I guess she’ll have to check with Uncle Jake.” 

    Catherine snorted and took a large sip of her wine. “Uncle Jake can take care of himself.” Then, perhaps regretting her offhand tone, added, “I’ll let him know where I am Lyds, don’t worry”.

    At that moment Lenny’s mobile rang. The word POLICE came up on his screen, he’d stored Samantha Tate’s number that way. He stood up immediately, excusing himself, and stepped away from the others to take the call.

    “Hello?” His heart thumped in his chest.

 

    What Sam had to tell him both thrilled and frightened him. He didn’t know anyone with a Black Mercedes, he told the detective. He begged her to give him a name but she refused. He wanted to go with them to see this person but she wouldn’t allow it. He would have to sit and wait for them to report back to him. They were going to the address right away.

    When he returned to the garden his hands were shaking and his stomach flipped over every time he breathed. He knew he would have to say something but wasn’t sure how much to reveal. In the end he opted for vagueness.

    “That was the Police,” he said, addressing the three of them, trying to keep the tremor out of his voice, and managing a confident smile. “They say they have a very good lead which they are following up. They’re going to call me back later with more information.”

    Lydia was first to speak, “What does that mean daddy? Do they know where mummy is?” She looked frightened. It was heart rending.

    Lenny pulled his daughter onto his knee. “I’m not sure my love.” He stroked her hair.  “But it shows that they are trying their very best to find out what’s happened.” He didn’t want to alarm her any more than necessary, but he could hear Nikki saying, ‘Tell her the truth unless you really, really can’t. Always the truth, even when it hurts.’

    The first chance he got, when Catherine and Lydia had gone to Lydia’s room to look at the homework her school had agreed she could do while she was away,  he told his mother what was going on. “It seems she got into a car, of her own accord. I can’t imagine why, but it might mean she’s ok, at least she wasn’t dragged from the street.” He looked stunned, the colour drained from his face.

    Julia hugged him tightly, her head fitting under his chin. “That’s wonderful news Lenny, everything’s going to be ok.”

    “Let’s hope so Mum, let’s hope so.” He said.

        While Julia cleared plates and glasses to the kitchen. Lenny sat, arms folded, deep in thought. The garden was flooded with golden afternoon sunlight. Above the small pond, clouds of mosquitos dive-bombed each other. The city was quiet, its distant symphony deflected by the heat. 

    Now the shock of Sam Tate’s phone call had abated a little, he considered the facts. There must be a registered keeper of the car, as presumably that was how the Police had got their details, but that didn’t mean it was the person Nikki had gone off with. There might have been someone else in the car and anyway London was the car-theft capital of Europe, anybody could have been driving it. And what could possibly have persuaded Nikki to go in a strange car with someone she presumably didn’t know? Or did Nikki know them? Was this the person who had been pestering Nikki with those messages? Nothing made sense. It was so frustrating, just sitting, waiting for someone else to tell him what was happening.

    He was overcome with a feeling he wasn’t accustomed to. He felt ashamed, guilty, he realised. His face reddened, and he shook his head, angry at himself. It was his job to protect his wife. Yes, it was the 2020s and yes, he was a modern man; they were a modern couple he supposed. But still, he would never forgive himself if something bad had happened to Nikki.