London, 2017
“You can just call me Alex,” she says with a childish grin.
“Thanks, but I’d rather stick with Detective Croft, if that’s okay,” I reply.
She’s waiting for me outside my front door when I get back from my morning run. They both are. Her middle-aged sidekick says very little as usual, making the kind of mental notes that are so loud they can almost be heard. It isn’t even seven o’clock.
“I have a lot to do today,” I say, fumbling for my keys and opening the front door, trying to hide us all inside as soon as possible. I don’t know my neighbors, I couldn’t tell you any of their names, but I’m of the belief that while the opinions of strangers shouldn’t matter, they often do.
“We just wanted to update you, but we can come back another time—”
“No, sorry, now is fine. I have to be at Pinewood in an hour, that’s all. It’s the last day of filming, I can’t let them down.”
“I understand.” Her tone makes it clear that she doesn’t. “Did you run far this morning?”
“Not really, 5K.”
“Impressive.”
“It’s not very far—”
“No, I meant it’s impressive the way you’re just carrying on like normal: running, working, acting.” She smiles.
What the fuck does that mean?
I hold her stare for as long as I’m able, then my eyes retreat to the face of her silent partner. He towers over her, must be twice her age if not more, but never says a damn thing. I wonder if all her bravado is just her way of trying to impress this man, her superior.
“Are you just going to stand there and let her speak to me like this?” I ask him.
“Afraid so, she’s my boss,” he replies with an apologetic shrug.
I look back at Detective Croft in disbelief and notice that her smile has disappeared.
“Have you ever hit your husband, Mrs. Sinclair?” she asks.
The hallway feels smaller, seems to turn a little, catches me off-balance.
“Of course not! I’ve never hit anyone. I’m very close to making a formal complaint—”
“I’ll get you a form from the car before I go. We went to the Indian restaurant you said you visited with your husband the last time you saw him…” She reaches inside her bag and takes out what looks like an iPad. “The place has security cameras.” She taps on the screen a couple of times, before holding it up. “Is this you?”
I look at the frozen black-and-white image of us, surprisingly clear and crisp. “Yes.”
“Thought so. Did you have a nice time?” She taps the screen again.
“How is this relevant—”
“I was just wondering why you hit him?” She turns the iPad around again, her childlike finger swiping and scrolling through a series of images. They show me slapping Ben across the face before leaving the restaurant.
Because he accused me of something I didn’t do and I was drunk.
I feel my cheeks burn. “We had a silly row, we’d been drinking. It was just a slap.” I’m mortified by the sound of my own words as they leave my mouth.
“Do you slap him often?”
“No, I’ve never done that before, I was upset.”
“Did he say something to offend you?”
“Successful actresses are either beautiful or good at acting. Seeing as you are neither of those things, I keep wondering who you fucked this time to get the part.”
Ben’s words that night have haunted me, I doubt I’ll ever forget them.
“I don’t remember,” I lie, too ashamed to tell the truth. For the last few months Ben and I lived permanently in the shadows of suspicion, a mountain of mistrust caused by a molehill of misunderstanding. He thought I was having an affair.
Alex Croft looks at her sidekick, then back at me. “Did you know that a third of the phone calls we receive about domestic violence in this city are made by male victims?”
How dare she?
“I’m late.”
She ignores me and takes a pair of blue plastic gloves from her pocket. “There was a receipt in your husband’s wallet for the petrol station on the night you last saw him. We’d like to take a look at his car, if that’s okay?”
“If you think it will help.”
She appears to be waiting. I’m not sure what for. “Do you have his keys?”
They follow me into the living room. “Have you looked into the stalker yet?” I take Ben’s car key from a drawer and form a protective fist around it. I’m not sure why.
She stares at me hard, skips more than just a beat before answering.
“You still think a stalker might have had something to do with your husband’s disappearance?”
“I don’t see how you can rule it out—”
“Is that your laptop?” She points at the small desk in the corner of the room. I nod. “Mind if we take a look?” My turn to hesitate now. “You said it started with emails? We might be able to trace who sent them. Bag it up, Wakely,” she says to the other detective. He obediently puts on his own set of gloves, removes a clear plastic bag from his inside pocket, and takes my laptop.
“Mrs. Sinclair?”
I stare at her small outstretched hand. “Yes?”
“Your husband’s car key. Please.”
My fingers reluctantly uncurl themselves, and Detective Croft takes the key. It leaves an imprint on the palm of my hand, where I’d been holding on too tightly. Before I get a chance to say anything, she’s walking back out to the street, and it’s all I can do to keep up with her.
She unlocks Ben’s red sports car and opens the driver’s door, looking inside. I remember the day I bought it for him: a peace offering when home-front hostilities were last at their worst. We took a spontaneous trip to the Cotswolds, driving with the roof down and my skirt up, his hand maneuvering between my legs and the gearstick, before pulling over at the first B&B with a vacancy sign. I remember laughing and making love in front of an open fire, eating bad pizza, and drinking a bottle of good port. I loved how desperate he was to touch me, hold me, fuck me, back then. But all my talk of having children changed that. He did love me. He just didn’t want to share.
I miss that version of us.
Then I remember finding another woman’s lipstick beneath our bed.
“I appreciate what a distressing time this is…” says Detective Croft, bringing me back to the present. She leans in a little farther and slots the key into the ignition. The dashboard lights up and the radio softly serenades us with a popular song about love and lies. Then Croft walks around to the passenger side of the car and opens the glove compartment. I only realize I’ve been holding my breath when I can see for myself that it is empty. She feels under the seats but doesn’t appear to find anything. “A loved one going missing is always hardest on the spouse,” she says, looking at me. Then she closes the door and moves to the rear of the car, staring down at the boot. I find myself staring at it too. We all are. “You must be worried now,” she says, then opens it. All three of us peer inside.
It’s empty.
I remember how to breathe again. I’m not exactly sure what I thought she might find in there, but I’m glad that it’s nothing. My shoulders loosen and I start to relax a little.
“I think I must be missing something,” she says, closing the boot. Her words intrude on my relief. She returns to the front of the car and retrieves the key. The music from the radio stops, and the silence feels as if it might swallow me. I watch as she removes the gloves from her tiny hands, then I try to speak, but my mouth can’t seem to form the right words. I feel like I’m stuck inside my own bespoke nightmare.
“What do you think you are missing?” I ask eventually.
“Well, it’s just that if the last place your husband went before he disappeared was the petrol station, then doesn’t it seem a little strange to you that the tank is almost empty?”