was, I could see that, his doggy senses always keenly attuned to mine, and I crouched down beside him, stroking his soft head, looking into his dark brown, intelligent eyes, muttering soothing nonsense as my mind continued to race.
If Danny had left me, what possible reason could he have? And he hadn’t taken anything with him, had he? I realized with a shiver that I didn’t know. I hadn’t looked, hadn’t even thought to check. Suddenly light-headed with fear, I rushed upstairs to the bedroom, pulling open drawers, clawing at the clothes in his wardrobe, searching frantically through his bedside cabinet, not even sure what I was looking for. But everything seemed untouched, neat, there. His passport, still in the drawer where he always kept it. All his clothes, his underwear, his watch collection. No gaps, nothing missing, as far as I could tell anyway. Everything looked the way it always looked. So what was gone? Just his coat, his laptop, his tablet, the black backpack he carried them in, his bike and helmet. The usual things he’d go to work with. Everything else was still there, waiting for him, like I was. Like Albert was.
I slumped onto the unmade bed, breathing heavily, and Albert hesitated for a moment – he wasn’t usually allowed on the bed – and then clambered up to join me, seemingly correctly assuming that I was currently too distracted to tell him off.
Is Danny’s stuff all still being here a good thing or a bad thing? I didn’t know, couldn’t think straight, panic taking hold, and suddenly I felt very alone. If we’d still been in London at least I’d have had old friends nearby, people who could just pop round, people who could support me, but here, in this new city …
I took a few deep breaths, my heart racing again, and wondered if I should reconsider my decision not to burden the couple of new friends I’d made so far in Bristol with all of this. I’d met Clare on Clifton Down just days after we moved in. I’d actually arrived in the city a week before Danny, who’d had work to finish up in London before he joined me, and I’d abandoned the mountain of unpacked boxes for an hour to clear my head and give Albert a decent walk. Clare had a Standard Poodle, a white curly bundle of energy who had bounded up to Albert, nuzzled him enthusiastically and then run off again, looking coyly over her shoulder. Albert had hesitated for a moment and then raced gleefully after her, leaving me and Clare standing helplessly, leads dangling from our fingers, awaiting their return.
‘She’s called Winnie. Winnie the Poodle. Get it?’ She’d grinned, and I’d liked her immediately. Clare was tall, five eleven in her bare feet and slender as a hazel twig, with a mass of blonde curls.
‘And yes, I did choose a dog who looks just like me,’ she added.
We’d sat on a bench and chatted for a full half an hour on that first day and, when I told her I was new to Bristol and was planning to look for a yoga class somewhere nearby, she insisted I come to hers the following evening.
‘I go twice a week with my friend Tai. It’s Ashtanga and it’s quite full-on, but you feel great afterwards. And we sometimes go for a drink in the wine bar across the street when we’re done, if you fancy it?’
I did fancy it, and I’d loved the class, although I’d only returned to it twice in the few weeks since, too busy with trying to get the new house sorted out in the evenings when Danny was back from work. I’d met up with Clare and Tai – a beautiful, petite Chinese woman with an infectious laugh, who’d moved to the UK to attend university and never gone home – several times for drinks or coffee though, and I could already sense a solid friendship beginning to form. They were my kind of women, feisty and strong, kind and funny, and I could tell they liked me too. But it was still early days, and to call them and land something like this on them, to tell them my husband had suddenly gone missing and ask for their support? No, I just couldn’t.
I groaned. Where was he? And how soon could you officially report somebody, an adult, missing? Wasn’t there some rule? I dragged myself off the bed and back down to