Thanks to a dose of Zolpidem, I slept until eleven the next morning. Opening my eyes, I saw my phone pulsing blue on my bedside cabinet. When I reached for it, I saw seven messages and three missed calls from Martin, asking me to get in touch.
It was hard to ignore his instructions, but I did. Instead, I sat up cross-legged and pressed the Google icon, typing in the words Donna Joy missing, not knowing what to expect. Daily Mail headline news? A BBC story? A Twitter trending feed? But I was almost let down when there was nothing except the same old links and images I had turned up on my previous searches.
I closed my eyes for a moment and let the sense of dread pass, willing to wager, right then, that Donna Joy had ‘turned up’. I’d been mulling it over since the phone call from David Gilbert, and the only logical conclusion I could come to was that it was a stunt, a ploy to get Martin back. The thought had given me a moment of gleeful satisfaction at the prospect that perhaps their Monday-night sexual encounter had not been as explosive as I’d first imagined.
Putting the phone down, I got out of bed and went to the bathroom. I brushed my teeth, flossed them thoroughly and poked around with an interdental brush. Blood dappled my saliva as it hit the sink. I rinsed my mouth with water as the intercom downstairs buzzed insistently.
‘It’s me. Can I come in?’ said his voice through the speaker.
I glanced around the flat, feeling cornered. I didn’t want to see him like this, wearing only a T-shirt that barely covered my thighs. The kitchen was steps away. I scurried over to it, found some knickers and jeans in the tumble dryer, put them on and pattered barefoot down the stairs.
I hesitated before I opened the door. I could see the face through the glass, sad, distracted, hopeful.
Slowly I turned the latch and stood in the doorway but didn’t let him in.
‘Did you get my messages?’ he said finally.
‘I’ve just got up.’
He looked down at his shoes and up again.
‘Have you heard about Donna?’
I nodded and folded my arms across my chest. ‘I heard something. Her sister was worried that no one had seen her all week and has gone to the police.’
‘She still hasn’t turned up.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, feeling my heartbeat speed up a little.
‘The police called me this morning,’ he said. ‘Asked me some questions.’
‘What about?’
‘Her state of mind.’
‘They’re not treating this as suspicious?’ I asked incredulously.
‘I don’t know. I don’t think so.’
‘So what happens next? About finding her.’
‘The police are going round to her house. Her sister Jemma has a key.’
‘And then what?’
‘Look, I thought we could do something today.’
I frowned at him. ‘Martin, you heard what I said yesterday.’
‘Please. Just come for a drive. I need to clear my head.’
‘Your wife is missing,’ I said, wondering if I had heard him correctly.
‘She’s not missing. She’ll be somewhere,’ he said, and the flash of coldness in his expression surprised me. Did he not see that going for a drive, or enjoying ourselves in any way, would be inappropriate? Then again, Martin knew Donna better than anyone, knew her better than the police, or even her sister. If he wasn’t worried, there must be a good reason. I told myself not to take his flippancy as heartlessness.
‘Come on, Francine. It’ll be a chance to talk.’
‘Talk?’
‘Please,’ he said with passion.
I tried not to think of the ugly, painful image of him disappearing into the Chelsea house with Donna and the lies he’d told me outside Temple Church.
‘Wait here,’ I said, and went upstairs to get my coat, helpless to do anything else.
His Aston Martin was parked on the street. I climbed into the passenger seat and leant against the window, watching the Saturday traffic. He turned on some music which relieved the pressure to talk.
‘Where are we going?’ I asked as we travelled through Hackney.
‘The coast,’ he said, turning and giving me a sideward smile.
A week ago, I would have been ecstatic with that answer. I would have imagined us sitting outside pastel-pink beach huts with cones of chips or eating mussels in some quayside café.
Today it seemed like an awfully long way to go for a drive, an awfully long time to avoid asking the questions that I had been desperate to discuss all week.
We slipped out of London, and ninety minutes later had swung off the main road on to a quieter B road.
The sky had dulled, the sun had gone in, all around were miles of endless grey; clouds, salt-flats and sea that blended into one another like a sheet of creased and faded linen, an empty landscape colour-washed chrome.
I’d seen several road signs over the past few miles, but we were in unfamiliar territory.
‘Where are we?’ I asked, noticing a dead badger, flattened and bloodied on the side of the road.
‘Essex. This causeway leads to the house,’ he said, making a sharp right where the road narrowed further, falling away to railings, then water on both sides.
‘Bloody hell. Is this an island?’
‘Some of the time. At high tide.’
We passed through a quiet village with clapboard houses, a church, a smattering of pubs and on to a coastal boulevard. Another turn and a house appeared at the end of a wide, gravel drive. It was Arts and Crafts in style, with a faded red-tiled roof, high-pitched gables and at least a dozen terracotta chimney pots that stretched into the pewter sky. Scratchy trees, beginning to bud, lined the moss-furred perimeter wall, hardy weeds, knots of tough stems and leaves, curled around the rusty gates. It was obviously neglected – and hauntingly magnificent.
‘This is yours, isn’t it? This is Dorsea House,’ I said, remembering the details of his property holdings.
Martin nodded as the car growled to a stop on the gravel.
‘I bought it last summer. It was supposed to be a project. A Babington House that was less than two hours from the city. I had an architect, a design company, ready to start, but I’ve put it on hold.’
‘On hold?’
‘The divorce. I don’t want to increase its value. Not yet.’
I got out of the car and slammed the door shut. Gulls pinwheeled above us, the wind rustled through the hedges. I took a deep breath of salty sea-air and tried not to be captivated by it all.
‘It’s big.’
‘It used to be a retirement home. It needs a lot of work, but I like its tiredness, its undoneness. Come on. Let me show you around.’
He lingered a moment as if he wanted to take my hand but I pressed on ahead to avoid any embarrassment.
The floorboards creaked as we crossed the threshold. High above us, in the vaulted ceilings, there was a puff of dust and a noise that made me jump – the flapping wings of a dislodged pigeon.
The air was musty; the scent of neglect. Buttoning up my jacket, I stifled a sneeze and moved slowly, almost tiptoeing, towards the back of the house. The rooms, I noted, were furnished, tired leftovers from its previous life. But if Dorsea House was cold and unloved, the views at the rear, over the wide monochromatic expanse of estuary, were of bleak and breathtaking beauty.
The property, and Martin’s plans for it, gave us something to talk about. How an old barn would be turned into an oyster bar, serving the Colchester Natives and Mersea Island Rocks the area was famous for. A string of beach huts would become deluxe cottages for stressed-out executives. An outdoor pool would be built leading off from the plantation-style porch at the rear.
A door at the side of the sunroom led on to a deck.
‘Let’s go outside,’ said Martin, looking for a key. When he couldn’t find one, I pushed the door hard and it shook on its rotting frame before it opened.
‘Clever girl,’ he said, not taking his eyes off me.
‘You should get that fixed. Before you get squatters,’ I said, enjoying my brief moment of triumph.
We took a footpath that hugged the banks of the water. The tide lapped and rasped against the shingle.
I drew a long breath, closing my eyes, and let the smell of iodine and seaweed calm me, like menthol.
‘You wanted to talk,’ I said finally, opening my eyes and keeping them directed in front of me.
‘I lied to you yesterday,’ he replied, his voice uncharacteristically unsure.
I kept quiet and steeled myself.
‘You asked me about the last time I’d heard from Donna and I said Sunday or Monday. It was Monday,’ he said finally. ‘I saw her on Monday.’
I didn’t look at him. I kept my eyes focused on the pale, watery horizon.
‘So why did you lie?’
‘She texted me, wanting to meet again. Said we should talk privately before the FDR. We had dinner, went back to the house.’
‘And then what?’ I goaded.
‘We talked, we had a drink …’
‘And then you had sex,’ I said, finishing off his sentence.
‘Yes, we did.’
I didn’t say anything else for at least a minute.
‘Why are you telling me this? I assume there’s a reason.’
My voice had morphed into the one I adopted in court when I wanted to make a faintly patronizing point.
‘Fran, don’t be like this.’ He stopped walking. ‘It was a mistake and I regret it.’
‘It didn’t look like that to me.’
Didn’t. Doesn’t. I hoped he hadn’t noticed my slip.
Martin slowed his pace. ‘I’d had a drink, she came on strong … I didn’t tell you yesterday because I know how wrong and weak this looks.’
‘Did you enjoy it?’ I said, pressing my lips together after I’d spoken.
‘Fran, don’t make this harder than it has to be.’
The bluish light made Martin look pale, as if all the blood had been leeched from his veins.
‘Did she come?’ I asked, suddenly wanting to know every intimate detail. He didn’t respond.
‘I don’t think you’re over her.’ My voice was a whisper, caught on the breeze, but he still heard me.
He stopped and touched my fingers, but I flinched away from him.
‘I want to be with you.’
I sank on to a bench and looked out to sea. My stomach was in a tight knot as I forced myself to think straight.
‘The other time she wanted to talk. Did you fuck her then?’
‘No.’
‘Tell me the truth, Martin.’
‘That is the truth.’
‘Then why didn’t you answer my calls that night?’
My head was spinning. I wanted answers but wasn’t sure if I could bear them.
‘My phone died, I swear to you. Look, there’s no point me lying about it now. I just want to be totally honest with you because I want to make this work between us.’
‘You should have thought about that on Monday.’
‘I was an idiot.’
‘Yes, you were.’
I picked up a piece of driftwood and threw it into the sea. I watched a wave pick it up and toss it back and forth before I started heading off in the direction of the house.
‘Fran, please. Give me another chance. Being with her made me realize how much better it is being with you.’
I turned to face him.
‘I can’t trust you any more,’ I croaked, tears leaking down my cheek. I realized how much I hated feeling like this, like some helpless facsimile of myself that I barely recognized.
He came up close to me and held my face.
‘I am in love with you,’ he said as I closed my eyes, feeling the caress of his words, and gaining strength from it.
I squeezed my eyes tighter to stop myself from crying. He took another step towards me and rested his chin on my head. I felt powerless to move away as his arms wrapped around me.
‘I love you,’ he whispered into my hair, and I rested my cheek against the soft wool of his coat, my anger and frustration making way for deep contentment.
We stood there for what seemed like an eternity. His arms dropped to my sides and when he took my hands, it seemed the right thing to do, to clasp my fingers around his.
‘Let’s get back,’ he said, looking out across the reed-studded marshes. Overhead, the clouds grew dark and foreboding. The wind began to whip across the water, forming white, meringue-like peaks and as it came to shore the sea rasped against the beach grass like a rattlesnake.
‘There’s a storm coming,’ he said as we picked up our pace.
We passed through a gate and back into the grounds of Dorsea House. There was a black-painted clapboard shack by the water, festooned with faded orange buoys and blue rope.
‘What’s this?’ I asked as he picked up a brick and retrieved a key.
‘An old oyster shed. I like sleeping here where I come to Dorsea.’
‘Feel lonely at the main house?’ I smiled. ‘That’s what happens when rich people buy homes that are too big for them.’
‘I like listening to the sea and making beach bonfires.’
‘A good enough reason.’ I smiled as Martin opened the door and beckoned me in.
It was sparse inside. A desk and chair, a wood-burning stove and an iron bed made up like a sofa.
Martin took some kindling and scrunched up copies of the Financial Times from a metal bucket and lit the fire. I liked watching him. His feral crouch, his concentration, his masculine hands, smooth and tanned, a cut on his knuckles giving them more ruggedness.
‘This place is great,’ I whispered, watching the flames take hold. The hut grew warmer, brighter with every crackle of wood.
‘Let’s stay here tonight,’ he said, looking at me.
‘I’ve brought nothing with me,’ I laughed, remembering I wasn’t even wearing a bra.
Rain started to hammer on the tin roof.
‘We might have no choice,’ he smiled.
‘Is the island going to get cut off?’ I asked, thrilled by the idea.
‘Perhaps.’
We took off our coats and there was a few moments’ silence.
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Don’t lie to me again,’ I whispered, trying not to think of my own deception. That I knew he had met Donna in Chelsea on Monday night, because I had seen them together.
The shed was still icy cold and I could feel my nipples stand to attention under my T-shirt. I watched Martin pull the mattress off the bed and thump it on the floor in front of the fire. He stepped towards me, and then we were kissing. As he pulled my T-shirt over my head, I groaned with longing.
I closed my eyes and listened to the howl of the wind, and the harsh cry of the cormorants overhead. His fingers traced the undulations of my spine. I unzipped my jeans and shook them off, kneeling on the mattress to watch him undress.
He stepped towards me and I took him in my mouth. He held my head, his coarse hair scratching my face, and I breathed him in deeply, the scent of sweat and musk and sex, the taste of him, moist, sour and warm.
‘Lie back,’ said Martin, as he pulled out of me.
I smiled and lowered myself back as he straddled me.
‘Do you want the island to get cut off?’
His voice was low and husky with the anticipation of what was to come.
I nodded my approval, spreading my legs to receive him.
A length of rope lay coiled by the stove. He picked it up, stretched my arms over my head and gripped my wrists tightly. After tying them together, he fastened them to the frame of the bed, and lowered his face closer to mine until I could feel his breath on my lips. I felt bound and captured, as if he possessed me. At that moment, it was the only thing I wanted.
‘There’s a new moon tonight, so you might be in luck. You might not be able to escape,’ he said into my ear as I shivered through cold or sense of danger; I neither knew nor cared.
I was out at sea, out of my depth, the only thing I could think about or cared about was him.
I gave a soft, submissive sigh of pleasure as he traced his mouth over my breasts and abdomen, down and down, until his tongue was inside me, stroking that slick nub until I started to come, my back arching, my trussed fists trying to lift off the floor. I was oblivious to the sharp burning sensation of the rope chafing my skin, oblivious as he kissed me and teased me to a climax of sweet, abandoned desire.
I cried out and the sound merged with the rain and the wind. As he came up from between my thighs, he smiled and began to untie me.
I took small, controlled breaths to calm myself and he lay down in the space beside me.
‘I would rather sell the loft than this place,’ he said, so quietly that I could barely hear him.
‘It won’t come to that,’ I whispered, feeling cold air seep into the shed through the cracks in the clapboard.
An image of his wife pushed into my thoughts, and as I looked up, watching the shadows of the flames dance on the cracked paintwork of the ceiling, I tried to forget that the last person to see the missing Donna Joy was the man lying next to me.