‘I may as well come with you now,’ I say. ‘No point taking two cars. I’ll take my laptop and have a coffee while you’re at the salon.’
It’s not in her nature to ask why I’ve changed my mind, nor to question why the garden that needs water so urgently can wait.
‘I’ll be quite a while,’ she warns.
‘I’ll have two coffees then,’ I grin.
I park in the High Street and walk her to the salon, telling her to call me when she’s finished. The Bookshop Café, my favourite place in Cheltenham, is further along the same street so I head there and set up a makeshift office. I order coffee and become engrossed in my work until Ellen calls.
I go to meet her and watch as she comes out of the salon. She looks good, her angular face striking.
‘Beautiful,’ I tell her. Unbidden, an image of Layla’s long red hair, which reached almost to the small of her back, comes into my mind. ‘Where would you like to go for lunch?’ I ask, chasing it away.
‘Marco’s?’ she suggests, so we cross over the road to the Italian Bistro.
An hour or so later, full of truffle-stuffed pasta, we make our way back to the car, Ellen’s hand on my arm. As we approach I see something lodged under the wiper. It’s not flat enough to be a parking ticket and anyway we haven’t overstayed the four hours I paid for, so I guess someone has scrunched an advert they found on their car into a ball and stuck it on mine. But as we get nearer I find my steps slowing until I’m not walking any more, I’m just standing there staring. My first thought is to protect Ellen but the strangled cry that comes from her throat tells me I’m too late.
‘It’s alright, Ellen,’ I say, reaching for her hand. But she snatches it back and starts running down the street, pushing her way through a family with children. And as I run after her, I take a little Russian doll from under the wiper, shoving it deep into my pocket.
I catch up with her twenty yards or so further along. She’s stopped running and is leaning pale-faced against a shop window. People pass by, looking at her with concern.
‘It’s alright, Ellen,’ I say again, my mind all over the place at finding another Russian doll. She shakes her head, unable to speak, not because running has made her breathless but because she’s near to tears. So I put my arms around her and wait for her to ask me about the doll on our car.
‘I know it’s stupid but I’m sure it was her,’ she says, her voice muffled by my shirt. ‘Maybe it was my imagination, or someone else with red hair, but Finn – I’m certain I just saw Layla!’
Shock jolts through me. ‘Is that why you ran?’ I ask, needing to know whether or not she saw the Russian doll, wondering if she can feel my heart hammering under my shirt.
‘Yes. You saw her too, didn’t you?’ I shake my head, my eyes searching around us for someone who could look like Layla. ‘You stopped so suddenly, it’s how I noticed her,’ she goes on.
‘I only stopped because I remembered that I wanted to buy some wine for tonight and we’d just gone past the wine shop,’ I invent, my eyes still searching the crowd.
‘Oh.’ She gives a self-conscious laugh. ‘You must have thought I’d gone mad, running off down the street like that. I was so sure it was Layla. But it couldn’t have been, of course.’ She looks up at me, seeking reassurance.
‘It was probably someone with the same colour hair,’ I say.
‘It’s just that since I found that little Russian doll outside the house, I can’t stop thinking about her.’
‘It’s normal,’ I soothe, guiding her back down the road to where the car is parked.
‘What about the wine you wanted to get?’
‘It can wait. Come on, let’s go home.’
‘Could we walk around a bit first?’ she asks. ‘I know it probably wasn’t Layla but . . . ’ Her voice trails off.
‘Of course.’
‘You don’t mind?’
‘No,’ I say.
Because I know we’re not going to find her.
EIGHT
Before
The night you came back, I’d been at another party, half-heartedly pretending to enjoy myself. Harry had wanted me to go with him because he was fed up with me moping – as he called it – around the flat over you. I didn’t like being at odds with him so I’d agreed to go. But as I looked around me at the party that night, I felt like shooting myself.
Caroline was there. She kept throwing me glances while flirting with other men and I knew she was waiting for me to admit that I’d made a mistake in breaking things off with her. A sudden rush of loneliness made me wonder if I had, and I searched inside me for something which would tell me I should take her home with me. But although I tried, I couldn’t drum up the slightest bit of jealousy, or desire, so I left.
It was almost three in the morning when I walked back through St Katharine Docks. As I approached the flat, I saw someone huddled in the doorway of the building, sheltering from the cold. I didn’t realise it was you until you raised your head.
You were so cold you could barely stand. As I half-carried you into the entrance hall, I saw that your lips were blue. It took forever for the lift to arrive and while we waited, I thanked God that I hadn’t stayed at the party any longer. You won’t remember this but it took about an hour to get your body temperature back to normal. I wrapped you in a duvet, massaged your feet and hands to get the circulation going and gave you warm sweet tea to drink. It was as you were drinking it that you began to cry. I didn’t ask you any questions and you didn’t offer any explanation but I guessed it must have gone horribly wrong for you at the hostel. It was only later that you explained you hadn’t been able to find a job and that, a few days previously, all your money had been stolen while you slept.
I was going to put you in your old bed in the study, where you’d slept before, but I decided to leave you on the sofa because you were warm and comfortable there. I slipped a pair of my socks over your feet and tucked the duvet tightly around you. It felt so right looking after you; for the first time in weeks I felt I had a purpose. I told you to call me if you needed anything but as I left the room you called me back, and the sound of my name on your lips made my heart start beating faster because there was something in your voice that I’d never heard before; a sort of yearning, a longing, almost. I told myself that all you wanted was a glass of water but, your voice breaking, you asked me not to leave you. So I sat down on the sofa and wrapped my arms around you while you slept.
NINE
Now
Although we haven’t mentioned Layla’s name again, I know she hasn’t been out of our thoughts since our shopping trip on Saturday. We’d walked around the town for over an hour, peering into shops and cafés, and I’d pretended to look for her with as much desperation as Ellen. Ever since, Ellen has that faraway look in her eyes and when I ask her if she’s alright, there’s a slight hesitation before she tells me that she is.
At any other time I’d insist on knowing the reason for the hesitation because it would mean that something is troubling her, and I never want Ellen to be troubled by anything. She gave me the life I live now and the love I feel for her will always be magnified by gratitude. But because I know the reason for her hesitation, I don’t probe any further. Ellen wants to ask me if I think Layla could still be alive. What I need to work out is why someone is trying to provoke me, because with the appearance of a third doll, the two we found outside the house can no longer be classed as coincidence. Someone put them there deliberately and I need to find out who.
Maybe I should ask the neighbours if they saw anyone outside our house, without mentioning specifics. But our house is on one side of the road, by itself, and Mrs Jeffries, the elderly lady who lives directly opposite us, isn’t the sort of neighbour who sits in her front room looking out of the window. She’s more likely to be in her conservatory out the back, or keeping an eye on the lady in the house next door to her, who’s seriously ill.
She and her husband moved in some months ago but we
rarely see them. I’ve never seen her, and apart from a quick hello if we’re both out front at the same time, I’ve only had a conversation with Mick once, when he came round to introduce himself. He told us something of their story – probably in a pre-emptive attempt to stop us from inviting them around for drinks. It seems that four years ago they were involved in a car crash, and lost their two young sons. His wife was badly injured and has to deal with a lot of pain and consequently suffers from depression. He didn’t give any more details, about who was driving or whose fault it was, only to say that their move to Simonsbridge was an attempt to make a fresh start. He works mostly from home – he’s an accountant – so that he can be on hand for his wife, and if he’s out visiting clients, Mrs Jeffries takes over.
Over two weeks have passed since I found the second Russian doll on the wall so it’s a bit late to ask Mick or Mrs Jeffries if they saw anything. I should still ask them to keep an eye out – whoever left the doll on my car has upped their game, wanting me to know that they followed me to Cheltenham. The fact that Ellen thought she saw Layla doesn’t trouble me; it was unfortunate that there was someone with red hair walking along the street at the time. Or fortunate, because if Ellen hadn’t run off after her, she’d have seen the doll on the car. And I need to protect her from whatever is going on.
I look at the clock; it’s coming up to twelve and I haven’t done any work since I came out to my office at nine. To take my mind off the Russian dolls, I play around with some shares for a bit. Ellen doesn’t know about this guilty pleasure of mine. I’ve never told her of the wealth I’ve accumulated over the years by playing the markets, probably because deep down I’m slightly ashamed of it. I’ve tried to stop but it’s become an addiction, just as Layla was all those years ago.
I push back from my desk, annoyed that I’m thinking of Layla again. I’m hungry, so I make my way across the garden to the house. I expect Ellen to be in her office but through the open kitchen door I see her standing at the worktop and as I watch, she picks the smallest of the Russian dolls up by its head and holds it in front of her eyes, turning it this way and that, a strange look on her face.
‘Everything OK?’ I ask, wanting to put a stop to whatever she’s doing, because it’s making me uncomfortable.
I expect her to jump guiltily as she usually does whenever I catch her with the Russian dolls. But she just nods vaguely and carries on examining it.
‘Ellen,’ I say.
‘It’s the one I lost, I’m sure of it.’ Her voice is so quiet it’s as if she’s talking to herself. I go over to her, needing to break the spell the doll seems to have cast on her.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I think Layla might be alive,’ she says, without turning round.
‘What do you mean, she might be alive?’
‘Look.’ She holds out the doll. ‘See that smudge of paint there? Mine had one exactly like it.’
‘That doesn’t prove anything,’ I say, peering at the black smudge near its base. ‘I’m sure lots of dolls have those. It’s bound to happen – paint gets smudged.’
She shakes her head stubbornly, something she’s never done before. ‘I dismissed it at first, like you. But the more I look at it, the more I think it’s the one that I lost. And I know Layla took it, even though she said she didn’t. It’s mine, I’m sure of it.’
‘Because you want it to be,’ I say gently. ‘Just like you want it to be Layla you saw in Cheltenham on Saturday. But it wasn’t. Layla isn’t alive, Ellen, not after all this time.’
She nods slowly. ‘It’s probably just as well.’
I look at her curiously. ‘Why do you say that?’
‘I’d give anything for her to be alive, of course I would.’ She pauses, searching for the words. ‘But I’m not sure she’d be happy to see us together, not when you used to be with her. It would be difficult.’ Her voice trails away.
I pull her into my arms. ‘I tried so hard not to fall in love with you,’ I say, my lips in her hair.
‘I know,’ she says softly. ‘I remember. I kept hoping that you would make the first move. But you didn’t and I realised it had to come from me.’
Her words echo down the years and I let go of her abruptly.
‘You do still want to get married, don’t you?’ she asks anxiously.
‘Of course,’ I tell her, doing my best to make my smile reach my eyes.
But first I need to find the person who’s decided to mess with my head.
TEN
Before
‘Promise you’ll never leave me again,’ I murmured, about a month after you came back. I should have made you promise out loud.
You turned your face to mine and I reached out and tucked your hair behind your ear.
‘I love you,’ I said, glad that I could finally speak the words I’d wanted to say aloud since I first saw you. ‘I truly love you, Layla Gray.’
‘I hope so,’ you teased. ‘You’ve just taken my virginity.’
I’m sure you’ll remember that day – it was the first time we’d slept together and we were lying, our bodies entwined, listening to the pattering of the rain against the window. Even after all these years, I still remember you slipping into my bed in the middle of the night, sliding your arms around me, telling me that you loved me, that you wanted me.
‘I couldn’t wait any longer,’ you murmured. ‘I kept waiting for you to come to me and then I realised that you weren’t going to, that you were waiting for me to make the first move.’
Once you were back, you became the most important thing in my life, to the exclusion of everything and everyone else. I no longer spent any meaningful time with Harry and that made things tough. He hadn’t taken to you in the way that I’d hoped he would, as he had to all the other girls that had peppered my life during the years we’d shared a flat together. Not that I think you ever noticed, because how could you believe anyone wouldn’t like you? But Harry was convinced I shouldn’t be with you, and when I began to draw away from him it put a further wedge between you both.
At weekends, when his disapproval chased us from the flat, I’d take you to museums and art exhibitions. I knew you found them boring, although you pretended otherwise. But you were never very good at lying. The problem was, London amplified the difference in our ages. Because of the nature of my job, I rarely got home before eleven. You’d found a job in that wine bar a minute’s walk from the flat, and often worked until midnight. And when you weren’t working, you wanted to go out, just as I had when I’d first arrived in London seven years before. I knew then that I needed to get us out of London. I can admit it now; I was desperate to move away before you found me boring too. I’d never felt dull, until you came along and challenged me.
It was the argument with Harry that brought things to a head. One evening, he asked if we could have a drink together, on our own, and I was immediately on edge. When he told me that he felt you were having a negative impact on me, that both my work and my relationships were suffering and that you were probably only with me for monetary reasons, I sprang from my chair, my hands clenched into fists. Harry, who knew my shameful past and had witnessed my temper first-hand, didn’t flinch; it was as if he was proving himself right – that you’d sparked the side of me I’d promised to keep under control. He let me come at him, fixing me with his eyes, never letting his gaze drop, trying to shut down the red mist that was already blinding me. But I was too far gone. Not only did I knock him to the floor, I carried on hitting him while he was down, raining punches onto his face, his body, wanting to pulp him into nothing, to obliterate him. If others hadn’t intervened, dragging me off him, I don’t know what would have happened.
They wanted to call the police, I remember, but Harry, spitting blood from his mouth, told them not to. Guilt replaced the rage I’d felt. I couldn’t bear to look at his bruised and swollen face so I left him bleeding in the bar. I knew I couldn’t go back to the flat so I found a hotel for the night and asked you to
meet me there. When I told you what had happened, you were horrified, and then angry, because you’d never seen that side of me before.
How I wish it could have stayed that way.
ELEVEN
Now
I read the email again, then sit back in my chair, thinking about St Mary’s. I haven’t been back to Devon since the ceremony we had for Layla, five years ago now. It was Tony who’d suggested it. It seemed to come out of the blue but the timing wasn’t lost on me. It was seven years since Layla had gone missing, so around the time that she would have been declared dead had she gone missing in the UK, and I suspected that Tony, who over the years had kept Ellen and me informed of any developments, hoped a ceremony would give us some kind of closure. Except that being declared dead isn’t the same as being dead.
I wasn’t keen, I remember, but Tony said Ellen was, and as she was Layla’s sister, I felt she had more right to decide than me. Their father had died six months previously and I guessed she wanted to put the past behind her and move on. I thought she would choose to do something on Lewis and I was looking forward to finally visiting the island where Layla had grown up. But I never got to Lewis because Ellen told Tony that Layla’s happiest times had been with me, and suggested putting up a bench in a place that had some special meaning for the two of us.
I immediately thought of Pharos Hill. Layla had loved it there – the half-hour’s walk from St Mary’s, the legend of the lighthouse that had once stood on top of the hill, although nothing remained of it, just a few ruins. We often climbed it for the beautiful view that stretched out over the sea for miles, sitting with our backs against the tree-stump which was shaped, Layla said, like a Russian doll. So I bought a simple wooden bench in kit form and drove to Devon with Peggy, while Tony collected Ellen from Exeter Station.