The Vow - Debbie Howells Page 0,19
need Matt. Staring at the table, I feel desperate.
‘Who is she? You have to tell me who she is.’
But PC Page shakes her head. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t give out personal information.’
‘Why not?’ My voice brittle, my eyes fill with tears. ‘It’s my life that’s been devastated. I deserve to be told everything you know.’
‘Amy, it’s the law.’ Her voice is understanding, but firm.
‘There is another explanation.’ Still unable to take it in, I search wildly for anything to disprove what she’s telling me. ‘Whoever this woman is, she’s lying. Maybe she has a thing for Matt – an obsession – and she’s jealous of me. It could have been her who left the flowers here, to freak me out. We have a joint bank account.’ Getting out my phone, I open the app, checking it for withdrawals. ‘Matt hasn’t touched our money. And his passport is upstairs. I’m going to get it.’ Racing upstairs, I pull open the drawers in the desk in our tiny study, where I find his passport with mine. Hurrying back downstairs, I place it on the table in front of PC Page. ‘He’d hardly have left this if he was leaving me.’ Thoughts race into my head, thoughts that at last make more sense than anything else I’ve heard so far as I confront a terrifying possibility. ‘Don’t you see? She’s behind all this. Have you searched where she lives? Maybe she’s hurt him or locked him up somewhere. If he was about to call off our wedding, he would have been honest with me. Matt loves me.’ Panic in my voice, I stare at PC Page, desperate for her to understand.
‘But that’s the point.’ Her eyes are unflinching. ‘The fact is he hasn’t been honest with you, surely you can see that. He told you he was meeting an American client the evening he disappeared. A client his boss told us didn’t exist.’ She pauses. ‘I suppose he hadn’t taken his passport because he was planning to come back here.’
To tell me he was leaving. In the silence, I feel reality shift further as her words sink in. I think back to Matt’s last call and what he said to me, to what David said, shaking my head again, confused. The woman’s story conflicts with mine, yet for reasons beyond my grasp, it is somehow more credible to the police.
‘Amy …’ PC Page hesitates. ‘The night he went missing, we’ve every reason to think he was meeting this woman. We’ve been going over CCTV footage – one section in particular, in which two men are seen entering a bar in the middle of Brighton. We’re fairly sure one of them is Matt.’
As she speaks, my stomach churns. ‘Do you know who the other one is?’ I hesitate, going on before she can answer. ‘I might know him. You should show me the image.’
‘We’re not a hundred per cent sure it is Matt, but for now, we’re working on the assumption that it is. The other man …’
‘He must be the American client Matt told me about,’ I interrupt. David must have been wrong. ‘This is proof, isn’t it?’
But when she pauses, I know there’s more. ‘I have another theory. According to the woman who contacted us, Matt had gone for a quick drink with one of his work colleagues, before coming out half an hour later and getting in a cab. We managed to get the vehicle registration and we’ve tracked down the driver, who dimly remembers taking a man to another part of Brighton – apparently he hadn’t any cash on him. I guess that would register with a taxi driver.’ She frowns at me. ‘A woman came out to meet him – it was she who paid the fare. The same woman who later told us he’d gone missing.’ She pauses. ‘I’m going to level with you. We both know that Matt’s been keeping things from you. From the evidence we have, I don’t think there’s any doubt he’s having a relationship with her.’
I stare at her, not wanting to believe her, as she goes on, more kindly. ‘Is there someone who could come and be with you? Family, or maybe a friend?’
‘There’s Jess, but I don’t want her to worry about me.’ Shaking my head, again I think of calling Sonia, devastated, hating how I have no privacy, that everyone knows the details of Matt’s betrayal – if that’s what this is, because even with the CCTV footage, the other