‘They’re not commenting either way. Maybe whoever it was … I don’t know, but it seems to me they were looking for something.’
‘What the fuck for, though?’ He picked up a broken ashtray from the floor and gazed down at it. ‘Christ, Clara, what if you’d been in? There’s no way you’re staying here any more.’ His worried eyes met hers. ‘Get some stuff and come to mine.’
She remembered then the photographs she’d found and went to fetch them. ‘Look at these,’ she said, watching him closely as he slid the pictures from the envelope and stared down at the unknown woman’s face.
‘Who’s this?’ he asked.
She eyed him suspiciously. ‘You don’t know? Really?’
‘No. Never seen her before. Why?’
‘At a rough guess I’d say it’s someone else Luke was shagging behind my back,’ she said bitterly. ‘I found them hidden in the office.’
‘No way, Clara,’ Mac said with complete certainty. ‘He would have told me, I know he would. He said Sadie was the only one.’
‘Yeah, well, Luke’s a liar, isn’t he?’ she said quietly. ‘He’s lied to me and he’s probably been lying to you, too.’ She took the photos from him and angrily stuffed them back into the envelope. ‘He probably wanted to sneak a look at them whenever I was out. I mean, for fuck’s sake!’ She gave a short, exasperated laugh. ‘It just keeps getting better, doesn’t it? What else am I going to find? A secret wife tucked away somewhere? A couple of kids?’
They fell silent for a while, until, looking around himself Mac said uneasily, ‘Why don’t we get out of here? This place is giving me the creeps.’
It was while she was in the bedroom shoving clothes into a bag that her mobile rang. ‘This is DC Mansfield,’ the officer said when Clara picked up. ‘Can you come to the station? As you know, the press conference is this afternoon. It would be very helpful if you could say a few words.’
Her heart sank. ‘I really don’t know if—’
‘I would urge you to, Clara,’ she said. ‘This kind of appeal has more impact if it has the involvement of family and loved ones.’
‘But … wouldn’t his mum and dad be more—’
‘Unfortunately they’ve declined. Understandably, they don’t feel up to it right now.’
‘Yes. I see …’ she thought about Rose and Oliver, of the agony they were going through, and then she thought of the abandoned van, the sickeningly bloodstained seat. ‘When do you need me?’ she asked, glancing at Mac.
They were on their way to the police station when Clara asked casually, ‘What do you think of Tom, Mac?’
He looked at her in surprise. ‘Tom? Why?’
She shrugged. ‘No reason. He came over earlier, that’s all. Said he was in town meeting clients and thought he’d see how I was. I mean, you’ve known him a long time, what’s your take on him?’
Mac frowned. ‘That’s odd, I would have thought all his clients were local to him.’ He considered it for a moment. ‘I suppose he can be a bit uptight, and he’s a bit of a loner, but he’s not a bad sort of bloke. I remember Luke telling me they were close when they were kids, but—’
‘Really?’ She felt a fresh flash of surprise. They’d certainly never seemed particularly close. She hadn’t given it much thought before; not having any siblings herself, it wasn’t a relationship of which she had experience. She’d assumed the distance between the two of them was due to the five-year age gap, Tom’s habit of talking down to his younger brother, or their different personalities.
‘Yeah,’ Mac went on. ‘From what Luke said, all three of the kids were pretty tight before Emily left. I don’t know what happened, though. Like I said, Tom checked out of the family after she disappeared, and Luke and his parents became quite wrapped up in each other. Maybe that caused a bit of a rift.’ He glanced at her. ‘I always got the feeling it upset Luke; I think he wanted to be closer to his brother growing up, but Tom didn’t want to know.’
Clara considered this. How hurtful that must have been, to be rejected by his older brother, especially after losing his only other sibling so young. She realized that Luke had never talked about his relationship with Tom and she hadn’t thought to ask. Uncomfortably she wondered now what else she might not know about her boyfriend, what other sorrows Luke might have been hiding, behind his cheerful smile.
When Clara and Mac arrived at the station she was struck by the sense of urgency and purpose in the air. There were a number of new officers to meet, members of the Major Incident Team, including a family liaison officer and press officer, as well as Detective Chief Inspector Judith Carter, a heavy set, rather austere-looking woman who explained to Clara that she was the senior investigating officer on the case, Anderson keeping back respectfully as they talked. Every one of the officers she met was friendly, reassuring and grateful for her assistance, but still she felt entirely overwhelmed. Her natural compulsion to be helpful, to do the right thing, combined with the knowledge that, if she messed it up, Luke’s life was at stake, made her heart pound faster and faster, a thick lump of anxiety building in her chest.
Soon she was ushered into a side office where Anderson and the press officer went over with great patience what she would need to say and before she knew it she was hurried into another, larger room, a mic was fitted to her top and she was directed towards a bank of tables in front of a blue screen, the Met’s insignia at its centre. She sat between DCI Carter and DS Anderson, TV cameras pointed at her, a sea of eyes trained on her face. Mac stood to the side, and she tried to keep the reassuring warmth of him in her mind while she stared ahead, saying her piece to the cameras. But despite her determination to hold it together, to somehow compel a watching stranger to reach out and help, to make this horrible nightmare end and bring Luke safely back to her, her words stumbled and she clenched her fists so hard she thought her knuckles might burst through the skin.
Afterwards, when the ordeal was finally over and she and Mac were standing outside the station doors staring back at each other, she found she was shaking so violently that Mac had to reach out and clamp her arms firmly to her sides. ‘I’m so sorry, Clara,’ he said miserably, ‘I’m so fucking sorry you’re having to deal with this.’
She looked dazedly back at him. ‘Mac, I wouldn’t be able to cope with any of it if it wasn’t for you.’
He hugged her then, wrapping her tightly in his arms and when they drew apart he exhaled a long breath. ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘let’s get the fuck out of here and have a drink.’
It made the national news later that night. Clara was sitting on Mac’s sofa, half-heartedly picking at some pasta he’d made for her when Luke’s face suddenly loomed large on the TV screen. She cried out in shock, causing Mac to rush in from the kitchen and together they watched in silence.
‘Fears grow for missing London man, Luke Lawson,’ the newsreader said. It was the picture she’d taken of him herself earlier that year, at a bar in King’s Cross where they’d all gone to celebrate his twenty-ninth birthday, and for a moment she was back there again, tasting the tequila shots, laughing as the whole bar joined in with an impromptu round of Happy Birthday. Luke smiled back at her from the TV screen with joyful, blameless eyes.