9

Thursday. I spend an aimless day on my own. Am unable to concentrate on books or newspapers or television. Go for a walk on Hampstead Heath and do a small amount of marketing, even a bit of vacuuming. Can’t stop worrying about my future. Or my past.

I now look back almost with fondness on our hours of trekking round hotels.

Cooking the evening meal is the only thing that affords me any true escape. All that cutting meat and bacon into cubes, peeling shallots, slicing mushrooms and onions, foraging for garlic and bay leaves and thyme, searing and browning and sprinkling and stirring. Pouring in cider. The sauce is rich, the chuck steak tender. By halving the quantities, I’ve cooked enough—allegedly—for three. Tom and I dispose of it with ease. He even wipes some bread around his plate, then round the cooking pot. “Perhaps,” he says, “we shouldn’t have gone to reception to ask about missing guests. We should have marched right into the kitchens to ask about missing chefs.”

“It would certainly have gotten us as far.”

He tells me he’s employed a firm to phone the bed-and-breakfasts.

“I’ve also been faxing off copies of that snapshot to various contacts round the country.”

“Why?”

“To try to identify the church. With a magnifying glass one can make out a fair amount of detail. I spent an hour at the Royal Institute of British Architecture. Hoped that Pevsner or some other authority might come up with the answer.”

“I don’t see that it’s important. She was only a day-tripper.”

“Any pudding?” he asks.

“Cheesecake.” I start to clear the dishes and Tom gets up to help. “No,” I say, “I’ll do it!” My tone sounds testy.

“Why just you?”

“Earn my keep.”

“Balls.” He continues to help. He says after a minute, “No, I agree with you. About the photo. It does have an air of holiday. But at the moment it’s the only thing we’ve got.”

He hesitates.

“And if we locate that church it will at least give us an area to home in on. Maybe we could even publish the picture in the local press.”

“In the hope that our doing so will produce my father’s name?”

“It could do.”

“I’d have thought he’d have produced it himself—if he was missing me.”

Tom bites his lip. Doesn’t answer.

“Oh, sure. Not that anyone does appear to be missing me.” There hasn’t been any word from Herb Kramer. Nor from Sergeant Payne.

“No… Well, I’d say it now looks increasingly as though you came to London on your own.”

“No loving wife? No family?”

“Not here at all events.”

“Or anywhere, I guess. A married man doesn’t vacation without his wife. And I was hardly dressed for business.”

“Perhaps you were taking the day off.”

“On a Monday?”

“Why not?”

“I can’t continue to impose on you like this.”

“That’s a dazzlingly logical progression!” He grins that grin of his—the one that had stopped me leaving his office within the first fifteen minutes.

This time it doesn’t work so well.

“Having everything bought for me: T-shirts, socks, shorts. Even having to take pocket money, for God’s sake! Couldn’t I find a job someplace; someplace I wouldn’t need a permit? Get myself a room?”

“If that’s what you want. It’s not what I want.”

“I don’t know.” I’m spooning coffee into the filter.

“What don’t you know?”

“Your friend said amnesia could sometimes last for years.”

“He thought it more likely to last a week.”

“But you don’t, do you? Otherwise you wouldn’t be working so hard to try to trace this woman? And supposing you’re right and he’s wrong? If I had a job I could at least be starting to pay you back.”

“Ranjit said you needed rest. Not that I think your shopping—cleaning—cooking—are really what he had in mind. Frankly, I’m not all that worried about your paying me back. The thing that does worry me…”

“What?”

“You sound so negative.”

“Negative? Because I feel you’re wasting your time looking for some woman who…well, even if she turns out still to be alive…?”

“Yes?”

“I don’t see the point, that’s all. Because, in this instance, I’m inclined to side with the experts. If medical opinion truly leans towards a week…”

He looks at the two pieces of cheesecake he’s now transferring from their box. I expect some comment on my change of tune. I reckon I should have known better.

“When you put it that way I’m not honestly sure I see the point myself.”

Possibly I now wear a slightly sheepish look. I shrug. “I guess you want to make me feel we’re making progress.”

“No. I think you’ll have to put it down to more than that. Let’s call it instinct.”

“Instinct?”

“Gut feeling. Something that’s hounding me on. I just believe we’ve got to find this woman.”