Page 23 of The House Guest

‘I can’t believe she’d have gone to her rehearsal in the same outfit she’d worn the day before. She would never go near Sally if she wasn’t wearing clean clothes. It had got wet in the rain and she must have reeked of alcohol and Japanese food. There’s no way she would have gone out without showering and getting changed.’

Jack tried to suppress a yawn. ‘Sorry. I’m not bored. Far fucking from it. I’ve just been awake since yesterday morning. And I was expecting to be able to go for a nap when we got back. I wasn’t expecting any of this. Some woman turning up and staying here, pretending to know us.’ Almost as an afterthought, he added, ‘And Ruth going AWOL, of course.’

‘Maybe we should call Dennis,’ Mona said.

‘Who’s Dennis?’ I asked.

‘He’s a detective,’ Mona replied. ‘Brooklyn PD. He lives nearby.’

‘You’re friends with a detective?’

‘We met him through the local residents’ association.’ She turned to Jack. ‘We should definitely call him.’

The room was beginning to spin. It wasn’t just the stress. My body was still recovering from the hangover that had wiped me out yesterday. I had barely eaten all day, my sleep pattern was seriously screwed up and I was dehydrated. It must have shown, because Mona said, ‘Perhaps you should lie down.’

‘I can’t. I need to find out what’s going on. And what if Ruth calls?’

‘One of us will answer the phone.’

I really didn’t want to. But my body had other ideas. Mona moved aside and let me lie down. I closed my eyes and heard her say something about a glass of water.

I didn’t wake up till lunchtime.

As soon as I opened my eyes, seeing Jack sitting at the table in the window with his laptop in front of him, I said, ‘Is she back? Is Ruth back?’

‘Afraid not. Mona’s upstairs, taking a nap. I said I’d keep watch till you woke up.’

I sat up. My headache was back and I took a long drink from the glass Mona had left beside me on the coffee table.

Jack studied me. ‘You need some Advil?’

‘Yes. Please.’

He went into the kitchen and came back with a couple of pills, which he handed to me. He sat back down at the table and watched as I swallowed the tablets.

‘This is a messed-up situation, huh?’ he said.

‘That’s one way of putting it.’

‘I’ve been racking my brains, trying to remember if I ever met anyone called Eden. Apparently it can be a girl or boy’s name, but I’m sure I’ve never met anyone called that. It just seems so crazy. Someone turning up and saying they know us. I’m hoping it’s all a mix-up or misunderstanding. That we do know her but can’t remember her.’

‘Except she deleted the photos I took of her.’

‘Yeah. Although Mona often deletes photos I take of her if she thinks they make her look old or fat or whatever. Hell, I do it too.’

I frowned. ‘You sound like you’re trying to make excuses for her. For Eden, I mean.’

‘I’m trying to come up with a scenario that makes sense. One in which Ruth comes walking through that door with some girl in tow who Mona and I suddenly remember.’ He shrugged. ‘There’s usually a simple explanation for everything. Did you and Ruth have a fight while you were drunk?’

‘No. I don’t think so.’

‘But maybe you forgot. Maybe you said something that upset her. Perhaps you flirted with this Eden chick and Ruth got jealous.’

I remembered the three of us hugging. The warmth that had spread through me. But it hadn’t been sexual; not that I recalled anyway. It was like trying to remember a dream, or something that had happened twenty years ago. Everything beyond that point was blank.

‘I bet you fought, maybe one of you said something when you were drunk, something you can’t remember, and she’s gone off to stay somewhere else. That totally makes sense, doesn’t it?’

I had to admit that it did. But even when we had fought badly in the past, Ruth had never avoided talking to me. She’d certainly never gone missing. And in the three years we’d been a couple, I could count the number of major arguments on one hand.

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