Lenny feels his wrist begin to shake a little, which in turn makes his entire hand, even his fingers, shake. He takes the first step down, more wary of what’s going on behind him as opposed to what may lie in front of him. He takes another step down, then another – walking towards the darkness. The light from the hallway behind him is all that guides his next step. He inches an ear towards the dark, the deathly silence making his heart sink a little.
As he reaches the bottom of the steps, he flinches upon hearing Guus’s arm shoot up behind him. He turns around, elbows up, ready to defend himself.
Click.
Guus has pulled at a hanging light switch. Lenny doesn’t take the time to sigh a relieved breath; he just swings his head back around, takes in the basement. Boxes. More boxes. An old washing machine. More boxes. Shelves with boxes on them. He swallows hard, then holds his hands up, palms out, as if to signify some sort of an apology. Or maybe it’s just disappointment. He’s beginning to think Guus isn’t involved at all. Yet why does he always produce that snidey laugh that screams ‘guilty’? Lenny looks back and sees Guus shrug a shoulder, a sly grin on his face.
‘Wanna check she’s not inside any of the boxes?’ he says, then delivers that horrible laugh out of the side of his mouth again.
Lenny holds two fingers to the centre of his forehead and bows his head a little. Heat rises within him, as if his blood is coming to boiling point.
‘Betsy! Betsy!’ he shouts from the top of his voice.
He brushes Guus aside, runs past him and back up the steps.
‘Betsy Blake. I’m here to save you. To bring you home!’
He sprints in to the living room opposite the kitchen. Then darts back into the hallway and into a large dining room. Back out into the hallway. Up the stairs.
‘Betsy! Betsy!’
Into one bedroom. Then another. A bathroom. Another bedroom.
‘Betsy!’ he ends up in the middle of the square landing; his voice echoing off the walls and back into his own ears. As he hears himself calling Betsy’s name, his face cringes. He takes two steps backwards until his back leans against the wall. Then he slides down it slowly into a seated position, and sinks his eyeballs into the caps of his knees.
‘What the fuck am I doing?’ he whispers into his crotch.
Then footsteps sound out. Slowly coming up the stairs towards him. He doesn’t look up. He feels too ashamed, too embarrassed.
Guus shuffles towards him, then slips down into a seated position, their shoulders almost touching. Nobody says anything; Lenny’s frustrated breathing the only sound between them.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he finally mumbles.
Guus lets out a soft sigh.
‘I think old Gordon has made you jusht as deluded as he is,’ he says.
Lenny almost edges to peel his eyes up from his knee caps, but stops himself. He can’t bring himself to look at Guus. He’s never been more mortified at any point in his whole life.
‘You didn’t really think I took her, did you?’
Lenny doesn’t answer. He can’t find the words to justify his madness. He just closes his eyes firmer, forces them deeper into his knee caps. He begins to question whether or not he genuinely believed Betsy was here. He actually can’t remember. The past ten minutes have been a bit of a blur. A cringe runs down his spine, making him shudder.
Guus nudges his shoulder against Lenny’s.
‘Look, maybe you got carried away, but it’s not all your fault. You were just doing a job.’
There’s a hint of sympathy in Guus’s voice. Lenny can’t understand why he’d be sympathetic, certainly doesn’t think he himself would be that sympathetic if somebody ran around his house calling out for a missing girl.
Lenny lets out a grunt; a real frustrated ugly yelp. Then he shakes his head as he wonders why the hell he thought he could solve a seventeen-year-old mystery in just five hours.
‘Cops questioned me seventeen years ago and let me go within a few hours,’ Guus says, interrupting Lenny’s swirling mind. ‘I was in Birmingham alright when Sarah McClaire was taken, but I was in a meeting with twenty-five other people. I wasn’t anywhere near the area that poor girl went misshing from. And when Betsy went misshing, I was on a phone call here to a client of mine. The cops know all this, I had alibis that were proven to be correct within minutes of me being questioned. I don’t know what elshe to say to you… it wasn’t me who took Betsy. In fact, nobody took her, well nobody abducted her. She was killed when a car hit her, her body taken and disposed of somewhere. I thought everybody in the country knew that. Well, everybody except Gordon. It’sh kinda why we had to buy him out of the company. Gordon went… well, Gordon went a bit mad. The guy’s nuts, Lenny.’
Lenny shakes his head one more time, then finally peels each of his eyes from his knee caps. He raises his left hand a little, rests it on Guus’s knee.
‘I’m sorry.’
Then he rises up, manages to get himself safely to his feet without stumbling despite his head still spinning. He rests his palm against the wall for balance, takes a deep breath, then he reaches down to Guus, pats him on top of the head and apologises again. He staggers towards the stairs, trudges down each step as if he’s got major back problems and then finds himself out in the hallway.
‘Listen, when you talk to Gordon, pass on my best wishes, and tell him I mean that genuinely,’ Guus shouts down the stairs.
Lenny doesn’t answer. He wrestles with the zip of his jacket pocket, then whips out his mobile phone and checks the time on the top of his screen. 14:58. He told Gordon he’d ring him back before three; told his wife he’d be at the school for a meeting at three. He thumbs the buttons on his phone.
‘Priorities. Priorities,’ he mumbles to himself as he opens Guus’s front door and steps out, finding himself in the messy garden once again. He looks up as the tone rings. And rings. The sun is starting to dominate the sky, a light blue winning out against the grey.
‘Bollocks,’ he says when the tone rings out. ‘Please answer, sweetie.’
He rings again; breathes in some fresh air through his nostrils as he waits. It rings out. He thumbs his way into his text messages.
Sweetie. I’m getting a taxi home right now. I’ll be with you soon. I’m so sorry about today. I’ll tell you all about it when I get home. Love you. X
Then he scrolls into his contacts list, presses at another number as he walks up Avery Street towards the main Clontarf Road.
‘Hello, Lynck Cabs.’
‘Hi, I need another taxi please. I’m on the Clontarf Road, I’ll be waiting just outside The Yacht pub.’
‘No problem, Sir, we’ll have one with you in less than ten minutes.’
After Lenny hangs up, he edges the phone closer to his mouth, begins to nibble on the rubber cover as he tries to straighten his thought process. He can’t put this phone call off much longer. He tilts the screen towards his eyes. Checks the time. 15:00. Then he looks up to the sky, squints at the brightness.
‘Fuck it,’ he says, then thumbs at his phone again, holds it to his ear. It rings. And rings. Until finally a click confirms the call has been answered.
‘Thank fuck, Lenny,’ Gordon says, almost panting down the line. ‘They’re bringing me down to theatre now, what have you got for me?’