She disappears into the kitchen and I sit down on the sofa to wait. Peggy pushes herself between my legs and I take her head between my hands, noting with a heavy heart how grey she’s getting. I pull her ears gently, as she loves me to do, and tell her how beautiful she is. It’s something I often tell her, too often maybe. But the truth is, Peggy has always represented more than just Peggy to me. And now, because of the Russian doll, it seems wrong.
I feel restless, too full of kinetic energy to sit. I want to go to my office – a bespoke outhouse in the garden – and make sure that my Russian doll, the one Ellen doesn’t know about, is there, in its hiding place. But I force myself to be patient, reminding myself that everything is good in my world. Still, it’s difficult, and I’m about to go and find Ellen when she comes back, a bottle of champagne in one hand, two glasses in the other.
‘Perfect,’ I say, smiling at her.
‘I hid it at the back of the fridge a couple of weeks ago,’ she says, putting the glasses down on the table and holding the bottle out to me.
‘No,’ I say, grasping the bottle and using it to pull her towards me. ‘I mean you.’ I hold her tight for a moment, the champagne trapped between our bodies. ‘Do you know how beautiful you are?’ Uncomfortable with compliments, she drops her head and plants a kiss on my shoulder. ‘How did you know that Grant would come through?’ I go on.
‘I didn’t. But if he hadn’t, the champagne would have been to commiserate.’
‘See what I mean about you being perfect?’ Releasing her with a kiss, I untwist the wire and ease the cork from the bottle. Champagne bubbles out and Ellen quickly grabs the glasses from the table. ‘Guess where I’m taking you tonight?’ I say as I fill them.
‘McDonald’s?’ she teases.
‘The Hideout.’
She looks at me in delight. ‘Really?’
‘Yes. Harry booked it as a thank you.’
Later, while she’s upstairs getting ready, I go out to my office in the garden, sit down at my desk and slide open the top right-hand drawer. It’s a large antique walnut desk and the drawer is so deep I have to reach a long way in to find the wooden pencil box, hidden at the back. I take out the little painted doll nestling there. It looks identical to the one that Ellen found outside the house and as my fingers close around its smooth, varnished body I feel the same uncomfortable tug I always do, a mixture of longing and regret, of desolation and infinite sadness. And gratitude, because without this little wooden doll, I might have been tried for Layla’s murder.
It had belonged to her. It was the smallest one from her set of Russian dolls, the one she’d had as a child, and when Ellen’s had gone missing, Layla had carried this one around with her for fear that Ellen would take it and claim it as hers. She called it her talisman, and in times of stress she would hold it between her thumb and index finger and gently rub the smooth surface. She had been doing exactly that on our journey from Megève, huddled against the car door, and the next morning, when the police returned to the picnic area, they’d found it lying on the ground next to where I’d parked the car, by the rubbish bin. They also found scuff marks, which – as my lawyer pointed out – suggested she’d been dragged from the car and had dropped the doll on purpose, as some kind of clue. As there was insufficient evidence to prove this either way, I was finally allowed to leave France, and to keep the Russian doll.
I put it back in its hiding place and go and find Ellen. But later, when we’re lying in bed, our hunger sated by the exquisite dinner we had at The Hideout, our bodies knotted together, I silently curse the little Russian doll she found earlier. It’s another reminder that no matter how many years go by, we will never be completely free of Layla.
Barely a month goes by when we don’t hear her name – someone called out to in the street, a character in a film or book, a newly opened restaurant, a cocktail, a hotel. At least we don’t have to contend with supposed sightings of Layla any more – Thomas’ yesterday was the first in years. There’d been hundreds after she first disappeared; it seemed that anyone who had red hair was put forward as a possible candidate.
I look down at Ellen, snuggled in the crook of my arm, and wonder if she’s thinking of Layla too. But the steady rise and fall of her chest against me tells me she’s already asleep and I’m glad I didn’t tell her about Tony’s phone call. Everything – all this – would be much easier if Ellen and I had fallen in love with other people instead of each other. It shouldn’t matter that Ellen is Layla’s sister, not when twelve years have passed since Layla disappeared.
But, of course, it does.
TWO
Before
It feels a lifetime ago that I first saw you, Layla. I’m not sure if you even know this but at the time I had a girlfriend, someone so unlike you, someone who was as high-flying in the world of advertising as I was in my city job. Time is an oddity when it comes to memories; I always think of you when I remember Harry and the flat in St Katharine Docks, yet you spent much less time in that world than my ex did. You instigated the end of the life I had. Everything became ‘Before Layla’ and ‘After Layla’.
It must have been just after 7 p.m. on New Year’s Eve 2004. You probably don’t remember that but I know, because Harry had insisted we leave too much time to get to the theatre. I’d felt indifferent to it being a big night but I was indifferent to so many things back then. Until I met you.
As Harry and I went down into the underground station at Liverpool Street, I never thought I was about to fall in love. He needed to top up his Oyster card so while he queued at the machine, I watched everybody rushing to get wherever they were going to celebrate the New Year.
After a few minutes my attention was caught by a flash of colour amongst the greys and blacks of the Londoners, the most beautiful red I’d ever seen. And of course it was you – or rather, your hair. Do you remember how you stood with your back against the opposite wall, your eyes watching in alarm at everyone surging around you? You looked scared, but back then the simplest things seemed to scare you; crowds, dogs, the dark. You were so terrified of dogs that if you saw one coming towards you, you would cross over to the other side of the street to avoid it, even if you were with me, even if it was on a lead. And that day in the underground station, as you pushed yourself further into the wall to avoid the crowds, your hair caught under the artificial lighting and it seemed to be on fire. With your tiny purple skirt, lace-up ankle boots and curvy figure, you looked so different to the stick-thin women in their smart suits and dark winter coats. Then you raised your head, and our eyes met. I felt embarrassed to be caught staring at you so intensely and tried to look away. But your eyes pulled me towards you and before I knew it, I was striding across the concourse.
‘Do you need help?’ I asked, looking down into your green-brown eyes. Hazel, I learned later. ‘You seem a little lost.’
‘It’s just that I didn’t expect London to be quite so busy,’ you replied, your voice lilting with a Scottish accent. ‘All these people!’
‘It’s New Year’s Eve,’ I explained. ‘They’re on their way out to celebrate.’
‘So it’s not always like this?’
‘Early morning and late afternoon, usually. Did you want to buy a ticket?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where are you going?’
Do you remember your reply?
‘To a youth hostel,’ you said.
‘Where is it?’ I asked.
‘I’m not sure. Near Piccadilly Circus, I think.’
‘Do you have an address?’ You shook your head. ‘On your reservation?’ I persevered.
And then you admitted that you hadn’t reserved a room.
Your naivety both appalled and charmed me. ‘It might be difficult to find a bed on New Year’s Eve,’ I explained.
Your skin paled, heightening the freckles, and that’s when I fell in love with you.
‘Have you got a mobile?’ I asked.
You shook your head again. ‘No.’