Page 12 of The Family Remains

8

June 2019

Lucy turns the key in the lock of Henry’s front door, her breath held hard inside her as it always is when she returns. Not because she thinks anything bad will have happened, but because she knows that Henry would rather never hear the sound of her key in his lock ever again and that the very fact of her walking into his apartment, of resting her bag upon his table, of calling his name, of opening his fridge, of drawing and exhaling her breath within the area formed between the four walls that delineate his own, very private space, will cause him pain of the sort that will translate into a sharp comment, or a pedantic complaint, or just a brooding presence behind the door of his bedroom, a door that stays shut more and more frequently these days.

Stella is on a playdate at Freya G’s (they call her Freya Gbecause her other best friend is also called Freya) and Marco is playing some kind of video game on the big plasma screen in the living room with his nice friend Alf. Lucy casts a nervous eye at the passageway that leads to the bedrooms, hoping that the sound is not carrying to Henry’s room.

‘Turn it down a tiny bit,’ she asks gently. Marco doesn’t glance up, but reaches for the remote and turns it down.

Alf turns round and smiles at Lucy. ‘Hi, Lucy,’ he says, ‘how are you?’

‘I’m fine,’ she says. ‘How are you?’

‘I’m good. I’m … Oh, shit—’ He’s gone, his attention back on the game on the screen, and Lucy goes to the kitchen and pours herself a glass of wine.

She wants to tell Henry about the amazing house in St Albans, but she knows he’ll take one look at the particulars and tell her that she is mad, that she is wrong, that she is about to make a huge mistake. He will tell her that it is a money pit, that she doesn’t understand property, that she will regret it. She doesn’t want to hear those things.

Before Henry has a chance to make her question her judgement or change her mind, Lucy emails the estate agent and makes an offer.

The following morning Lucy notices that Henry’s bedroom door is still closed at eight fifty when she gets home from dropping Stella at school. Normally he is just leaving for work at this time, sometimes she even crosses paths with him on the pavement outside the apartment block. She tiptoes down the hallway and very quietly pulls down the handle of his bedroom door, then pushes itfully ajar when she realises that there is no one in his room, that his bed is made, his blinds are open.

She calls out to him, in case he is in his en suite, but there is no response.

Henry must, she assumes, have had an early meeting. But she’s only been out of the house for twenty minutes. His shower is dry. There is no condensation on the mirror. He was definitely not up when she left; he can’t possibly have awoken, got ready and left in the time she’s been out of the house. Henry would never leave the house without showering.

She is about to type a message into her phone when she notices something: Henry’s toothbrush is not in his bathroom. He has a fancy electric one that charges on a base via a USB cable. It has multiple settings and a blue light and usually sits on the marble surface of his vanity unit, flashing on and off. It’s not there.

Something grips Lucy’s gut then. She remembers something: a shard of a moment, awaking from a deep sleep when it was still dark outside, Fitz, at the foot of her bed, ears pricked, a low growl rumbling at the base of his throat. They’d both lain for a while, absolutely still, heard the dull hum of the lift going down the shaft in the corridor beyond the apartment, and then fallen back to sleep.

She’d assumed that someone outside the apartment had woken them up, but maybe it was someone inside.

She switches on her phone and words a message to Henry:

Where ru?

She stares at the tick. It stays single and grey. According to the app, Henry was last seen online at 7.45 a.m.

She pulls open his wardrobes and his drawers. She doesn’tknow what she’s looking for, but she knows what she thinks. She thinks that Henry left the apartment in the middle of the night to catch a flight to Botswana, to look for Phin. And for some deep-seated and sickening reason, the thought of Henry finding him fills her with fear.