Page 55 of Behind Her Eyes

She insists on staying for a while and talking about it more, obviously. She’s shaken, I can see that, but her mind is whirring. That curious, busy head of hers.Tick tick tick. Always ticking over. When she asks why I never looked for Rob, I give my pathetic shrug and say I didn’t want to know. I loved David and I’d married him. I was young. He was my safe place. I’m impressed she doesn’t slap me hard around the face and tell me to pull myself together and face the music. I’d want to do it if I were her, listening to my spineless drivel. I tell her I’m tired and don’t want to talk about it, and I see her pity then. She quiets.

It doesn’t take much to get her to leave. I mention that David will call and then I’m going to lie down for a while, and she nods and hugs me, squeezing me so tightly in those slimmer, firmer arms, but I can see she’s already thinking about what to do next. How she can help me, or help herself, or whichever. As long as the outcome is the same, who cares?

David doesn’t call at our agreed time; another clue that he meant what he said last night. He’s washing his hands of me. Maybe even challenging me to make good on my threat. Poor thing. He’s at his wits’ end.

I make a peppermint tea and go upstairs and lie on the cool duvet cover and stare at the ceiling. I’m remarkably calm given the situation. There are still some wild cards out there, and I’m entirely reliant on Louise to find and put together the pieces of the puzzle I’m laying out in front of her. At the right moment she needs to grasp the significance of this morning. If she doesn’t, I’ll need to find another way to show her. Still, life is better when it’s interesting. I feel quite content.

Beingtolda thing is never enough. I’vetoldLouise what I think David did all those years ago, but words really don’t carry any weight. Momentary sounds on air have no solidity. Written words, slightly more perhaps, but even then, people don’t ever really trust each other enough not to have doubts. No one ever truly thinks the best of anyone else.

To trust the truth of a thing, you have to suffer the thing. You have to get mud on your hands and dirt under your fingernails. You have to dig for it. A truth like David’s and mine anyway. That can’t be understood by telling. I need to take Louise into the fire before she can come out the other side pure and clean and trusting. If David is to finally be free and unburdened, she needs to carry the burden first. The truth has to behers. She needs to take the truth to him.

And then let it unravel them.

44

LOUISE

… I’ll wait till Ailsa’s asleep or passed out drunk with gimpy Gary and then I’ll go. Fuck them and their shitty little flat and their shitty little lives on this shitty little estate. Pissy Pilton. Like it’s the whole fucking world. Maybe it is for them. It’s not going to be like that for me. No wonder I wanted to get off my face as soon as I was back here. What did they think, that after rehab and everything, wanky Westlands would miraculously work? They’re idiots. They’re scum. They’re all scum and I can feel their dirt trying to stick to me. They won’t even care when I’m gone. They’ll be relieved. And they’ll be relieved of whatever cash is in the flat too, ha ha! I need something to take to Adele’s with me and today was benefits day. Their loss, my benefit.

I can’t believe I’m going to see her so soon. It’s like there’s colour in the grey world again. I almost didn’t text her. I didn’t want to risk her saying no. How that would feel. I’m not used to caring about someone like this and wanting them to like me. I’m not used to caring about anyone. If I hadn’t had the dream door and been able to see a made-up her that way I think I’d have gone mental by now. I laughed and joked when we said goodbye but she could see it was hurting me. It was hurting her too, but even though she tried to hide it from me she was excited to be getting out. She’s got a life, she’s got money, she’s got David. I’ve got my bitchy sister’s box room that needs repainting in a shite Edinburgh schemey flat.

But now I’m free! I’ll hitch or jump the train to Perth and then she said to get a taxi and she’ll pay. She’s missed me, I can tell. That’s what makes me the happiest. I make her laugh. She’s different with me. She says I’ll get to meet David because he visits some weekends from university. She reckons we’re going to get on, but I think the one thing that me and dull David have in common is that neither of us are convinced about that. He’s not going to want me around. I wouldn’t want me around. I’ll try for her sake though. It’s not like he’s going to be there all the time anyway. I can pretend to like him for a couple of days at a time if it keeps Adele happy. I may even try not getting stoned when he’s there. I’m not going to let the thought of David bring me down. Tomorrow I’ll be back with Adele! Fuck off, old life, hello new! Adele, Adele, Adele! The gateway to my happy future.

There’s no more in the notebook; whatever else Rob wrote has been torn out. Did David do that? Did those pages say things that could incriminate him? My mind is on fire, working so hard my scalp is almost burning. Could David really have killed Rob? Maybe it was an accident. Maybe they fought and things got out of hand and he hit his head falling down or something?

Or maybe Rob isn’t dead at all. Maybe Adele is worrying over nothing and hedidjust leave. She says he wouldn’t have been bought off, but he stole his sister’s dole money, so who knows? It’s clear from the notebook that he loved her, but he was from a poor home and maybe the promise of several thousand pounds in hand was too much to say no to? But why won’t David sell the estate if there’s nothing to hide there?

Questions, questions, questions. It seems that ever since David and Adele came into my life I’ve been filled with questions. They’re like weeds in water. Every time I think I can swim away another one tangles around my legs to drag me back down.

I need to know what happened to Rob. I need to find him. It’s not even about Adele and David any more, I need to know forme. I can’t have thisnot knowingin my head for ever. I don’t have to pick Adam up until five fifteen, so I make a strong coffee – even though my nerves are jittery enough – and open my laptop. Everyone’s findable these days. If Rob was only a few months older than Adele then he’s still under thirty. Surely, even if he’s a junkie somewhere, there’ll be some trace of him? I flick back to the first page of the notebook to where his whole name is printed so neatly, and type it into Google:Robert Dominic Hoyle.

A list of results comes up; various LinkedIn accounts, a few Facebook ones, and some news reports. With my heart racing, I work my way through them, but none match. They’re too old, American, too young, and the only one whose Facebook profile picture looks about the right age says that he’s from Bradford, and there’s a list of schools he’s attended, none of which are in Scotland. I try searching the name with ‘missing or dead’ added, but I get the same set of results. I try ‘Robert Dominic Hoyle Edinburgh’ and still nothing.

My coffee sits untouched and cold beside me, and I’m not even puffing on my e-cig. Why are there no results at all for him? If Davidhadbought him off, then for a little while at least he would have been on his feet. Surely he’d have got a laptop and the Internet? I thought everyone had Facebook? But then, it didn’t sound in the notebook as though he had a lot of friends or any real desire for them. Only Adele, and probably some junkies. Facebook might not be his thing.

Maybe he’s living in some squat somewhere and all his money is going on drugs? That doesn’t feel right. Junkies are devious – all addicts are, the condition makes them that way. If Rob needed money, he’d have found his way back into Adele’s life and got some – either from her or David. Maybe he has. Maybe David’s still paying him off occasionally and not telling Adele. But why would he bother? And that still leaves the big question – why hasn’t he sold the estate? Or rented it out? Why is it still sitting there empty when it could be earning money?

I stare at the screen, willing an answer to appear there, and then decide to try another tack. Rob’s sister, Ailsa. I type her name in and start to sort the wheat from the chaff. As with Rob, there are several people with her name across the country and globe, and then an electoral register site gives me a list of seven Ailsas, only one of whom lives in Edinburgh.

Bingo.

I can’t get a further address on that site without paying, which I’m prepared to do if it comes to it, unemployment be damned, but on the next search page I find a small news article about a Lothian Arts Festival. It mentions some local shops that were set up by grant initiatives and that have stalls at the festival. One is calledCandlewick, and the owner is mentioned – Ailsa Hoyle. Candlewick has a website and a Facebook page. I’ve found her. At least I hope it’s her. I stare at the phone number that almost throbs its presence through the screen. I have to call it. But what will I say? How do I even go about starting this conversation without looking like a crazy person? I need to lie, I know that, but what lie to tell?

I look at the old notebook and it comes to me. Westlands. That’s how I’ll ask her. I use the landline to block the caller ID, but still I pace the room for a few minutes, sucking on my e-cig, before I brave pressing the dial button.Okay, I think eventually, my whole body tingling hot.Just do it. Call. She’s probably not even there.

She is there. My heart leaps to my mouth as the shop assistant calls her to the phone.

‘This is Ailsa, how can I help?’ Her accent is strong. I can imagine that voice, unleashed from the telephone middle-class politeness, screaming at Rob.

‘Hello,’ I say, deepening my own voice and smoothing it, just as I’d do when taking calls at the clinic. ‘I’m sorry to bother you at work, but I wondered if I could have a few moments of your time. I’m writing a paper on the effectiveness of the Westlands Clinic,’ I suddenly realise I have no idea where the clinic was or any of the doctors’ names, and that I’m woefully underprepared to carry this deception through if she starts to question me, ‘and I believe your brother was there for a time. Robert Dominic Hoyle? I’ve been trying to locate him, but he’s not appearing on any records anywhere. I wondered if perhaps you had a contact number for him, or could pass mine on.’

‘Westlands?’ she barks out a laugh. ‘Aye, I remember it. Complete waste of time. Robbie was back on the gear within days of getting out of there. Then he stole money from my purse and fucked off in the night. Sorry about the language.’ She pauses, perhaps lost in angry memories of her own. ‘But I cannae help you, I’m afraid. I never heard from him again. He’s probably dead or close to it in an alleyway somewhere.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ My heart is in my mouth.

‘Don’t be,’ she says. ‘It was a long time ago. And he was a wee shite, he really was. You can’t cure them all.’

I apologise for disturbing her day, and mutter a polite goodbye, but she’s already hung up. I throw away my cold coffee and make a new one, just for the sake of doing something as it all sinks in. It’s actually possible. What Adele suspects could well be true. I’m only just beginning to see that. For all my questions I was pretty certain, deep down, that Rob must be still alive. These things don’t happen in real life. Murder. Hidden bodies. Only on the news and in films and books. Not in my mundane, dull existence. I ignore the coffee and find a forgotten bottle of gin left over from Christmas at the back of the cupboard. I’ve got no tonic, but I add diet Coke to a generous measure and take a long swallow to calm down before grabbing some of Adam’s drawing paper and getting a pen. I need to think this through. I start with a list.

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