The morning after her police interview Meredith awoke, confused and sweaty, from a horrible dream about Samantha.
In the nightmare, Samantha had been rising like one of the zombies in the ‘Thriller’ video, only instead of from a grave, it was from the top of one of the silos at Greenham. There were other women around her, and they were all chasing Meredith off the stage she’d been performing on with the band, the entire stadium audience coming for her in the lurching gait of the undead in horror movies, arms stretched straight ahead. Samantha was leading them, her eyes bright red and her mouth twisted in a smile of pure evil. Meredith remembered thinking, Oh shit, they know it’s me, they know who I am, because every zombie audience member was wearing a Minstead House T-shirt. Even as she was fleeing, she thought, I must re-order those, we’ll definitely have run out…
‘Fuck,’ she muttered, sitting up and reaching for her mobile. There were no messages or missed calls, which was weird. Pete usually texted her first thing, just a ‘good morning’ GIF or a cute photo of a cat, or his misty morning view of the river. She went to her favourites folder and pressed his number – he and ‘Work’ were the only numbers in there.
‘Hi, Pete, it’s me, ringing to properly fill you in on my police interview. Just woke up. Hope you’re not too hungover after your beerfest last night…’
Meredith stopped mid-message, her voice cutting out as if someone had unplugged her. She realised she didn’t even have the energy to speak.
‘Just call me?’ she begged instead, hanging up. At least she didn’t have to work today, and she was safe. Gemma was here. They could just stay holed up in the cottage all day, hopefully.
She went for a pee, opened the curtains, drank the glass of slightly stale water on her bedside table, put on her dressing gown and climbed back into bed, where, propped up on her pillows, she gazed for a long time out of her bedroom window at the fresh green morning outside. She wanted the sound of the birds tweeting in the branches and the sight of puffy clouds scudding across the sharp blue sky to wipe the mustardy-putrid nightmare rot from her head, but after ten minutes they still hadn’t. And Pete hadn’t called her back.
A worm of concern began to wriggle in her chest. Why hadn’t Pete picked up, or returned her call? He was never far from his phone and, since Ralph’s disappearance, he’d been extra-vigilant about getting back to her immediately if she called or texted. It wasn’t like him not to respond at all.
She checked the time on her phone. 08.46. He usually left the barge around now to get to the studio, so she supposed he might have been cycling over there when she was recording the voicemail.
She hadn’t had a lot of sleep before the nightmare; she’d lain staring at the dark ceiling with her eyes wide open, clutching the duvet up under her chin like a child, her thoughts racing, wishing she’d asked Gemma to drop her over at Pete’s after the interview rather than back here. She could have stayed and helped him drink the beers.
Meredith called him again, but once more the call went straight to voicemail. She tried the landline number of the studio, but that just rang out. She wished she had Johnny or Trevor’s numbers, but she didn’t. Just Andrea’s, she thought, a lump rising to her throat.
On a whim, she rang Andrea’s number and heard her familiar, accented voice: ‘Hello! I am so sorry I am not able to come to the phone, but please—’
Meredith killed the call, a tear spilling down her face. Why had she done that? It hadn’t made her feel remotely less crap – in fact, the opposite. She sniffed hard and swung her legs out of the bed, slowly, like an old lady.
She dressed and went downstairs, where she found Gemma sitting at the Formica kitchen table in a pink towelling dressing gown and slippers, working at her laptop, a cup of tea by her right hand. Her face, bare of make-up, was shiny and rosy. The woman looked about sixteen.
‘Morning Meredith,’ she said. ‘Kettle’s just boiled. Sorry, I was about to get dressed.’
‘I can’t get hold of Pete,’ Meredith said, not bothering with the small talk. ‘He isn’t picking up, or ringing me back.’
She opened the fridge door out of habit and stood for a long time looking inside. There was a bit of yogurt left, a heel of bread, enough milk for tea … but in the end she merely closed the door again. ‘I’m really worried.’
Gemma stood up. ‘Let’s get over there, then. Give me five minutes to get dressed.’
Ralph’s car had gone from the car park – it must have been taken away at some point, probably while she’d been staying at Pete’s, Meredith thought, as they got into Gemma’s Ford Focus. She wondered how Paula was getting on at her sister’s. She should ring her … once she knew that Pete was safe, of course. There was little room in her head for anything else at the moment.
Gemma drove them slowly out onto the access road that ran behind the house and fed into the public car park and to the main exit. Hardly anyone was around this early, and they didn’t even pass another car on the short drive into Minstead Village.
Parking up at the top of the steps leading to the pontoon, Gemma was just pulling the handbrake up when a gentle rap on the passenger window made Meredith jump. It was Trevor, Pete’s neighbour. She wound down the window and managed a smile, which he didn’t reciprocate – in fact his expression was a mixture of puzzlement and worry.
‘Hi Meredith … hopefully you can solve the mystery.’
‘Where your twin’s taken himself off to.’
The breath stopped in her throat, and she had to cough to get it started again. ‘What do you mean?’
Trevor moved to one side and made a gesture with his arm towards the river. ‘He’s moved the boat. Didn’t tell any of us he was going, though, and he must have gone in the middle of the night. Is everything OK?’ He scratched his head contemplatively. ‘I mean, obviously everything is not OK…’
They both stared at Andrea’s barge, still taped off and now, next to it, the empty mooring where Bruton Bee had been.
‘Oh my God,’ Meredith said, opening the car door so fast she caught Trevor’s elbow on the edge of the door. ‘Sorry,’ she said automatically, running over to the edge of the pontoon to look again at the space. ‘Fucking hell. Gemma! I knew something was wrong. I’ve been trying to ring him but it just goes to voicemail. He wouldn’t go anywhere – I mean, not without telling me. Shit, Trevor, something’s happened to him, I know it has. When did you last see his boat?’
Trevor gripped her shoulders gently, kindly, trying to get her to make eye contact. Gemma rushed over too, her brow creased with concern.
‘Shhh,’ Trevor soothed, as if she was a teething toddler. ‘Don’t panic, sweetie. Stay calm. It could be nothing. Someone could’ve undone his moorings. You know kids were doing that last summer, the little bastards…’
‘But why isn’t he answering his phone?’ Meredith wailed, hyperventilating, clutching Trevor. It seemed only minutes since the last time she was losing the plot, Andrea’s body bobbing against the pontoon, her hair in black ribbons swirling around her head … Meredith tried to shake off the horrific mental image of Pete’s bloated corpse in the same place.
‘I’ll call it in,’ Gemma said, pulling out her phone and stepping a short distance away.
Footsteps rang out on the iron stairs, and Johnny’s head appeared. ‘What’s going on? Where’s Pete?’
Meredith was shaking so much that she thought her legs were about to give way. ‘Not Pete. Oh God, not Pete. Help, please, we have to find him…’ she beseeched.
Trevor folded her into a claustrophobic and unwelcome hug, which she fought her way out of.
‘Come on board with us,’ Johnny said, exchanging worried looks with his partner. ‘In fact, stay here today, in case there’s any news. We’ll look after you.’
They walked her slowly down the stairs, flanking her as if they were prison guards taking her to the gallows, Meredith thought, a flash of her zombie nightmare coming back to her. She had to grasp the handrail tightly on both sides, worried that her knees were about to buckle.
They’d just managed to persuade Meredith to sit down in the galley, and Trevor had put the kettle on, when Gemma climbed on board, her face grave. Meredith jumped straight back up.
‘Is he dead? Please don’t tell me he’s dead.’ She was almost howling out the words.
Gemma came over to her and put a hand on her arm. ‘We have no reports of that,’ she said gently. ‘But his boat was reported this morning, found drifting about ten miles downstream. Nobody on board. We’ll launch an investigation immediately.’