Page 2 of Dead to Me

The problem, really, had been the way it made him feel.The shame of it all, particularly when his ex-wife looked at him like she hated him.And perhaps worse still was the next man Mona had chosen to marry.Frank was a straightforward, slightly macho restaurant owner with conservative morals who insisted on taking the family to church every Sunday.He commented when women were ‘wearing too much make-up’,and policed the lengths of their skirts.There was a distinct note of ridicule in Frank’s tone, too, whenever he spoke to Seaton.He sometimes looked at Seaton’s well-tailored clothes as if they were actually offensive to him.

Cowardly as it was, Seaton had found himself avoiding the whole experience.He’d flown out there very little, and Mona had never once been persuaded to bring Anna to him.Which meant his daughter had grown up almost entirely free of his influence, in a small, down-at-heel house.She’d had as little of an upper-class-heiress upbringing as could be imagined.

But now that Seaton had spent some time getting close to his daughter (shamefully late, at their respective ages of twenty-six and fifty-seven) he’d realised that she was a consummate actress.Not only that, but her sudden obsessive interests, her natural talkativeness, her sensitivity to everyone’s moods and her swift ability to adapt were all real blessings when it came to working undercover.Anna was made for this work, and he’d felt enormous pride witnessing even a small part of what she did.

He also found himself watching her Cambridge life with an odd nostalgia.She was getting to do so many of the formative student things that he’d experienced here: the dressed-up formal dinners in ornate halls.The college parties.The rowing.The wine society.Even attending the ultra-privileged Pitt Club, which he’d briefly joined, to his later sense of shame.And last night, she’d been to Trinity May Ball, one of the best (and most expensive) nights out Seaton could remember.

Elements of student life had changed since his time, of course.But some of it remained a carbon copy of his own experience, and it was both fascinating and a little sad to see Anna go through it all for herself.

He glanced at his watch.She was now twenty-five minutes late.Pretty much as expected.She would presumably havebeen up until dawn, technically working but also– obviously– eating, drinking and dancing.And probably also clambering onto fairground rides in a dress that was far too expensive for that kind of behaviour.

He gave in to the urge to look towards the doorway, but it remained empty.They clearly should have booked for two o’clock instead of twelve thirty.

The Belgian waiter came by again to ask whether he wanted another glass of Krug, and Seaton decided he might as well, despite it being his third on an empty stomach.

‘Some more still water, please, too,’ he said.‘Hopefully my daughter will make it shortly.’

The waiter gave a perfectly non-committal smile.It was one that could be read as condemnation of Anna’s lateness, or indulgence, depending on what Seaton wanted.And not a jot ofOh, we’ve been stood up, have we, sir?It was the kind of pitch-perfect attitude you paid for here.

Once the waiter had gone, Seaton was left with just two couples, the only others in the restaurant.The empty seat opposite him felt ever more obvious.

He sighed and retrieved his phone from his jacket pocket.No messages, but that wasn’t unusual.At some point in her distractable mode of operation, Anna usually realised that she’d lost track of time and went into a panicked frenzy of motion.In neither distracted mode nor frenzied mode did she generally manage a message.

He put the phone down on the thick white tablecloth, then picked it up again quickly to send her anEverything all right?

He felt impatient for her to arrive.He wanted to know how last night had gone, and to tell her about his own activities, which had been stressful but also, he had to admit, rather good fun.It was strange how much all this had started to feel likehisinvestigation, too.How invested he was in the answers.

He remembered mocking her gently in the past about her obsessive focus on each story.He’d seen it when she’d first dragged Reid into helping her.The two of them had been determined to break open a sex-trafficking ring she’d stumbled on, and Anna had barely slept during that time.When she hadn’t been undercover (getting alarmingly close to one of the women who was meeting and grooming young girls) she’d been trying to help Reid work out where the young women were being brought in, and where they were being moved to.

Seaton had eventually realised that her feelings towards Reid ran beyond the work they were doing.It had been clear from the way she’d talked about him that she idolised him to a degree.It had been somewhat inexplicable to Seaton, her interest in this man who was so much less brilliant than she was.

But Reid was firmly out of the picture now.Everything had ended very badly between them and she hadn’t seen him in– what, a year and a half?Longer?And despite writing an increasingly lengthy email to him over the last few weeks, she didn’t seem to have ever actually sent it.

The waiter came with Seaton’s third glass of Krug and Seaton took a small mouthful.It didn’t, he thought, taste quite as good as the last one.It was now thirty-five minutes since Anna should have been here, and there was no reply to his message.

I’ll give her another five,he thought.

But eight minutes later, the rest of the champagne was gone without him tasting it at all, and Anna had not arrived.

At 1.13, forty-three minutes after their agreed meet time, Seaton finally gave in and called his daughter.Instead of ringing out, the phone went straight to her voicemail, though the message said, ‘This is Aria.Leave me a message, and if you’re good I might reply.’

It was only then that Seaton felt real unease creeping up on him, souring the champagne and chilling his skin.

With a feeling of a line crossed, he scrolled until he found his daughter’s own number: the one for the phone she kept hidden away in her student house and which was registered under her own name.This time it rang, but after ten rings the call ended with an automated, anonymous voicemail message.

Seaton rose, then, and with an instinct born more out of the hope that he was wrong than anything else, he walked past the waiter and out through the front door of the restaurant.The tiled path opened on to the great expanse of Midsummer Common, where a few families were picnicking in the sun and a handful of others were out walking dogs.

He shielded his eyes from the glare, trying to make out everyone who was walking the various paths.Anna would probably come on her bike, but it was clear that none of the cyclists was her.

Seaton walked back inside with a slightly dizzy feeling and found himself drinking a glass of water standing by his table, staring at nothing.

‘Is everything all right?’the waiter murmured after an unspecified time, startling him out of a circular round of thoughts.

‘Oh,’ Seaton said.‘Yes, I… I’m sure it is.’

But as he sat down once again, Seaton had to admit to himself that everything was far from all right.Because it was clear that Anna wasn’t coming.

3.Anna

---