holds.
The room is dark, the thick blackout curtain blocking all but a tiny slice of daylight. His scent lingers on the pillows and when I breathe him in it’s as if I can still feel his touch on my skin, the way he held me afterwards, one arm curled around my back, a finger tracing up and down the line of my spine. As if we’d known each other for years. As if we’d done this a thousand times before. I’ve not been held like that in so long, a feeling of being totally safe and secure, protected from the world.
I sit up and reality creeps back in, bringing the guilt with it, the feeling of transgression, of crossing a line that shouldn’t have been crossed. Of doing something that can’t now be undone. I unmute my phone and check the time. It’s almost 10 a.m. On the desk, between the empty wine bottle and my handbag, is a note written on the top sheet of a hotel stationery pad. Looping handwriting that is at once strange and yet familiar.
Didn’t want to wake you. Can I see you tonight? Take care and stay safe – remember what I said.
- S x
Despite the guilt gnawing at me, I can’t help but smile as I re-read the note, a little pulse of happiness in my chest. Can I see you tonight?
I send him a text.
Thanks for your note, the answer is yes. Call me when you can x
I search through my handbag for a couple of paracetamol. It takes an age to find the packet but I eventually track it down in a side pocket and swallow two down with a handful of tap water. I’ve been taking a lot of these the past few days and make a mental note to buy more. I could do with some cash too. I scan the room. Something’s different about the desk this morning, but I’m still too fuzzy-headed from lack of sleep to remember what. I smile. Maybe it’s just the empty bottle of wine and the handwritten note, Stuart’s tie still hanging over the back of the chair. I fold it up and put it in my handbag to return to him later.
I shower and dress, going downstairs for breakfast, taking time to check the corridors and stairs in case Leon has returned. But it feels better in daylight, safer, the normality of people in the restaurant queuing for their coffee and fruit juice and full English breakfasts. By the time I get back up to my room it’s gone 11 a.m., the day stretching out in front of me.
Part of me wants to tell Tara about last night but it doesn’t feel right, not yet, I want to keep it for myself a little while longer. Instead I send her a WhatsApp asking how everything’s going and she responds with a picture of Dizzy, my cat, sitting on Noah’s lap. Noah is grinning as if he’s just won the lottery.
Dizzy settled in OK then??? x
Says he’s moving in with us now x
We trade some more messages back and forth and she makes me promise to call her later. But the glimmer of well-being I woke up with is gradually melting away, every message from Tara a fresh reminder of the tragedy that’s descended on the Clifton family. I wish I had a phone number for Angela, so I could at least check she’s OK today.
Talking things over with Stuart last night, I’d convinced myself that Holt was involved with Zoe’s case somehow, that he was hiding something. But a new day has brought new doubts, a nagging sense that there is more going on just beyond my eyeline. Dominic Church has dropped out of sight since I met him on Friday. Stuart’s team is looking for him, so how does he connect to all this and what’s he planning? Does he know another DNA sample is being taken from Mia tomorrow? Leon’s chilling warning returns to me, his voice soft and precise on the hotel landline. That child is going to pay the price. All of my certainty has melted away in the cold light of a new day.
I call Matt Simms to ask if he has a number for Dominic, a workplace or a last known address, but the call goes to voicemail so I leave a brief message.
I think about Kathryn, her flat in Little Missenden, my confrontation with her boyfriend Max on Friday night. Something was off about