The man called Russ is indeed as he’d described. A plain man with a kind face and no fashion sense at all. She sees him start as she walks into the cute little deli. She made an effort with her appearance this morning. After three days of not showering and not wearing make-up and pulling her lank hair into a ponytail, she’d felt a strange compulsion to look nice for Carl’s friend. Make the same effort she would have made had Carl ever accepted his invitation to go for dinner at their house. She imagines what Carl might have said about her to Russ. He would have told Russ that his new wife was beautiful. That she was tall and elegant. That he was the luckiest guy in the world. She didn’t want to let him down.
‘Lily?’ he says, rising to his feet.
‘Yes.’ They shake hands and she sits down opposite him.
‘Lovely to meet you,’ he says, passing her a menu. He is shaking slightly.
‘Yes,’ she says, ‘thank you.’
‘I’m just having a coffee, but order whatever you want. They do good bacon and eggs here. And the focaccia is freshly made.’
She scans the menu, realising that she is actually hungry. She has not felt hungry for days. ‘Toast,’ she says to the owner who appears at their table. She remembers to smile and adds, ‘please. White. With butter. And a cappuccino. And orange juice. Thank you.’
‘So,’ says Russ, ‘still no word from Carl, I assume?’
‘No. And there will be no word from Carl now. I am quite sure of that.’
‘You mean, you think . . .’
‘I think he is dead.’
Russ blanches.
‘If he was alive, even if he was locked in a casket beneath the sea, if he had lost his limbs, if he was mute and blind, he would find his way back to me. He would.’
‘Well, yes, but it might take him quite a long time . . .’
She sends him a warning glance. This is no time for jokes. ‘It is a feeling, in my gut, in my heart. He is dead. And not only is he dead, Russ, but he was never alive.’
Russ looks a bit scared now. He looks like the man on the train the other day, as though he fears he is about to be scammed in some way.
She tones herself down and says, ‘Listen. Russ. The police took Carl’s passport when I reported him missing. They ran it through their systems. They tell me that he does not exist. That there is no Carl Monrose. That his passport is fake.’ She rests her hands on the table and looks deep into Russ’s pale eyes. ‘And you are the only person who knew him. So tell me, how can this be?’
‘Fake?’
‘Yes. He bought it from bad people on the internet. There is no such person as Carl. He doesn’t exist.’
‘But – you got married? I mean, surely the paperwork must have added up otherwise they wouldn’t have issued you with the licence?’
She resists the temptation to tut. ‘Listen,’ she says, ‘when you have a passport, then everything else follows. You show it, the man looks at it, all done. Plus, this was Kiev. You see what I am saying?’
He nods and stares into the froth on his coffee.
‘So, can you tell me what you know about him? About my husband? Please.’
‘Well . . .’ Russ draws back from the table and raises his gaze to the window at the front of the deli. The owner brings Lily her toast. She butters it while he talks.
‘I met him at work, as you know. Five years ago. Four and a half. Something like that. We were put on the same team, can’t exactly remember what it was. Anyway. I always thought he was a cool guy. You know. Kind of reserved, but he had something about him. So I made it my mission to befriend him. The thing I worked out early on with Carl was that you needed to take two steps forward and then one step back. Make your approach and then give him some space. So if we went out for a drink, I’d always leave it a few weeks before I suggested it again. And when we did go out, I’d keep the conversation kind of general. Just talk football, office gossip. If the conversation got personal I’d be the one to draw it back to the neutral, so he wouldn’t feel like I was prying. So really, crazy as it sounds, I hardly knew anything about him.’
Lily nods. It doesn’t sound crazy at all. ‘What about his family? Did he ever tell you anything about them?’
Russ frowns. ‘Not really. I mean, I knew he had a family. A mum. A sister. His dad had passed away, I think.’
‘Yes,’ says Lily, relieved that this matches with the facts that Carl had given her. ‘Can you remember the names? Of the mother and sister? Or the place where they live?’
‘No, he never told me. Just said my mum. My sister. Have you not met them, then?’
‘No. We only returned from our honeymoon two weeks ago. Carl said there was plenty of time for family but this was time for us. So.’ She shrugs. All the things that had felt so romantic at the time, so special, now reduced to symptoms of his subterfuge. ‘I spoke to her though, the day we married. Carl brought me to the phone and said, “My mum wants to say hello.” It was a short call. A minute, maybe less. She sounded very sweet.’ (And very uncertain, she now recalls, as though keen to end the conversation, as though scared of saying the wrong thing.) ‘I just wish I could remember her name.’
‘Although,’ says Russ, ‘even if you could, it’s possible that maybe her surname would not be Monrose? Assuming that Carl’s surname is not Monrose? So even if you could remember her first name, I doubt it would help.’
‘This is true. Yes. But it feels so strange that I don’t remember. That this woman was my mother-in-law, that I had a conversation with her, yet I don’t remember her name. It makes me feel as though . . . as though I’ve been in a dream. In a trance. Ever since I met him.’
‘Well, yes, that’s what they say about being in love. It’s a chemical state, isn’t it? Messes with your mind.’
‘I suppose. And now, without him, alone, it is as though my mind is clearing. And all I am left with is questions, questions, questions. All the questions I should have asked when he was here.’
‘Well, hindsight is a beautiful thing.’
Lily smiles grimly. She doesn’t know what hindsight is. ‘Listen. Russ. Tell me, does this surprise you at all? About Carl?’
‘Well, yes, of course it does. My God. People going missing, having false identities, it’s not exactly everyday is it? But even so, Carl was quite a closed book.’
‘Why did you want to be his friend, Russ? With all his secretiveness? Why did you bother?’
Russ gently rests his coffee cup on to its saucer. ‘Good question,’ he says. ‘Jo always asks me that: “What do you see in him?” She doesn’t like him much.’ He laughs.
Lily feels mortally offended and takes an instant dislike to this ‘Jo’.
‘But I think there’s just this kind of mutual respect between us. Chalk and cheese, but we get each other. What it boils down to’ – he leans towards her and she sees his body language relax as the kernel of the thing dawns upon him – ‘is that I would like to be more like him and he, I think, would like to be more like me.’ He leans back again, satisfied with the distillation.
Lily cannot imagine any way in which her Carl would want to be like this innocuous man, but she manages a smile and says, ‘Yes. I see.’
‘I think he wanted what I had, in terms of a settled relationship, a home, a solid family life. And I would have liked some of his freedom and glamour and good looks.’ He laughs again.
‘Where did he live?’ she asks, moving the conversation along. ‘Before he met me?’
‘I have no idea.’ He smiles and shakes his head as though suddenly bemused. ‘Not south, I know that. At the end of the night I’d sometimes offer to share a cab and he’d always say, “I’m going in the opposite direction.” But I never asked where that was exactly.’ He pauses and scratches his head. ‘Yeah,’ he says, ‘it’s funny now, looking at it, how much time I spent with him and yet how little I knew about him.’
‘Did he have any girlfriends? Before me?’
‘Well, yes, but nothing serious. Just . . .’ He looks at her uncertainly. ‘It’s a harsh thing to say, but I’d say he was a user. Well, at least that’s the impression I got anyway. He’d use women for sex. Never any names, just this girl I met on Friday or this girl I shagged on Saturday. Came and went. He seemed almost . . . disdainful? As though they’d lessened themselves by being with him. He could be quite cruel about them. I often thought maybe he’d been hurt in the past? That hard shell, you know?’ He taps his fingertips against the edge of the table, looking suddenly downcast. ‘But then you came along.’ He brightens. ‘And it was different. Totally different. He adored you. I think he thought that you were going to change everything. And now . . .’
‘He is dead,’ she finishes for him.
‘Well, I don’t suppose he’s dead. But he is in trouble. False identity. He must have done something bad. Or someone must have done something bad to him. Nobody changes their identity unless they really have to. Unless they’re desperate. I’d like to help you – if I can?’
‘Yes please,’ she says. ‘Please. I know no one in this country. No one. The policewoman hates me. And no one wants to help me. No one seems to care.’ She finds that she’s crying and angrily takes the paper napkin that Russ offers her, rubs hard at her tears before anyone else sees them. ‘I am sorry.’
‘No, don’t be sorry. Please. Listen, I’m going to talk to Jo when I get home, see what we can do. We might be able to . . .’ He stops, clearly thinking better of sharing his next thought. ‘Well, I’ll talk to her. We’ll do everything we can. You must be in hell.’
‘Yes,’ says Lily, nodding hard. ‘Yes. In hell. That is where I am. That is exactly where I am.’