after all this time. Sorry for springing myself on you like that. I had tried to contact you before, you know.’
‘Oh, the Facebook group invites? Hmmm … No, Oliver, that really isn’t trying, is it? You only invited me recently, so what about the other twenty-odd years? Where were your efforts during that time?’
‘You’re angry with me. I can see that. But you know why I had to leave, Lou. I did it for you.’ He reached across the table, laying his hands on hers. She snatched them away, hot rods shooting through her. The man was deluded if he thought that leaving the girl who he told he would love forever was for her own benefit. Louisa balled her fists.
‘No, Oliver. I don’t think so.’
Oliver’s eyebrows raised, then knitted together, his brow creasing. ‘Is that what you tell yourself?’ He shrugged. ‘If that’s how you made it through, then I guess that’s up to you.’
Louisa was enraged at his attempt to wriggle out of being to blame for leaving her, but she wanted to move this on and, specifically, uncover precisely what had happened the night of her party.
‘Whatever. So anyway, what exactly is it that you want?’
She didn’t expect his answer.
‘Melissa is missing.’ His eyes glistened with tears.
For a second, Louisa struggled to make sense of his statement. Then, perhaps sensing her confusion, he added, ‘My wife, Melissa. I haven’t seen her since the party.’
‘Oh, my God, Oliver. Missing, like, need to call the police missing?’
‘I’ve held off calling them – didn’t want to create a fuss, not yet. We’d had, well … a bit of an argument. Melissa often gets emotional; angry too. She goes off on her own sometimes to sort her head out – doesn’t contact me for days, then comes waltzing back as though nothing ever happened. I assumed this was one of those times. It might still be, I guess. It’s only been just over forty-eight hours.’
‘Assumed. You said assumed. What has changed now, to make you think it might not be one of those times?’
‘You. You happened.’
‘Ah, no … no.’ Louisa put both hands up to her temples, her elbows resting on the table. ‘Don’t bring me into this. What have I got to do with it?’ Louisa got up then, moving away from Oliver. She strode across the kitchen and opened the door leading to the hallway. ‘On second thoughts, don’t answer that. I’m not interested. You can’t show up after twenty-two years and land this on me. I think you should leave now.’ She swung her arm towards the door. ‘Please,’ she added.
‘Louisa. I need you. Your help. I’m about to go to the police and report her as missing. They’re going to ask me all sorts of questions – they’ll blame me, I know they will.’ He was beside her now, the warmth of his body perceptible. He laid a hand on her shoulder. ‘It’s always the husband, Lou. That’s what they believe – the police, the general public. Always.’ His eyes pleaded with Louisa’s. ‘You can help me. Like I once helped you.’
Louisa reeled back from him. ‘I don’t know what you think you did for me but I can assure you, I can’t help you, Oliver. Go to the police, do what you have to do. I really hope Melissa is just having some time out and returns home quickly. Good luck.’ She ushered him through the hall and out of the house.
Leaning against the closed front door, Louisa’s breaths came in short bursts.
You can help me, like I once helped you.
She repeated the sentence in her head. Did his voice have an edge of desperation? It’d sounded almost menacing.
She screamed as a force banged against the door, propelling her back away from it.
‘Please, Lou. At least come with me to the police? I can’t do this on my own.’ His voice sounded distorted through the glass.
‘Why? Why should I? I’m sorry about Melissa, Oliver, I really am. But I’m not coming with you,’ she shouted.
‘But I think it might have been to do with your party. Something happened there, I’m sure of it. Please, Lou-Lou, they’ll want to ask you about the party anyway, may as well come with me – it’ll save you time later.’
His words created a wall of fear around her.
Something had happened that night.
She opened the door again.
‘But I didn’t see Melissa at the party,’ she said coolly. Her voice belied her feelings.
‘You must’ve.’ His voice was almost a whisper. Worry, or concern – or maybe disbelief – etched itself on Oliver’s face.
‘I – I don’t remember. I’d had so much to drink. The evening is pretty much one big blur.’ Louisa regretted her words instantly. If she couldn’t remember anything, she couldn’t tell the police anything. But at the same time, it meant she couldn’t confidently deny seeing Melissa, or knowing anything about her disappearance either.
Louisa’s stomach twisted as she suddenly questioned whether Oliver could be lying. He did say Melissa had gone off for days at a time before – it was possible he knew this was just one of those times but was making it out to be more purely to make Louisa feel sorry for him.
She should call his bluff.
‘Wait there, then. I’ll get Noah’s car seat.’
If it was a bluff, it was a convincing one, and Oliver had now taken it to the next level.
Louisa waited on a plastic chair in the reception of Newton police station, Noah in his car seat next to her. Oliver had been in there for over an hour, and Louisa’s bum was now numb, her patience wearing thin. It crossed her mind that if Melissa really had gone missing, then some woman with a baby accompanying the missing person’s husband to the police station might look a bit off. Particularly if they discovered she was Oliver’s ex-girlfriend whose party he’d just so happened to be at when his wife was last seen.
Finally, a door opened along the left-hand corridor and Oliver sloped out, his head hung low. The impossibly tall man, who’d introduced himself as Detective Sergeant Mack, then called her name. She picked up Noah’s seat and made her way to the room Oliver had just vacated. As she passed him, Oliver placed a hand on her arm, giving it a squeeze. He looked terrible – his usually tanned skin now looking pale and waxy.
Louisa was only in the small interview room for about twenty minutes. DS Mack asked her a list of questions relating to her party: the time it started and ended, how many guests, if she remembered when people left, if she remembered seeing Melissa. There was a lot about what she remembered. Louisa’s head spun. She told him she didn’t remember some of the details, like when it ended, because she’d gone to bed before the guests had all left. She stated she had not seen Melissa. Her memory couldn’t exactly be classed as reliable, so it was best not to give information that might turn out to be misleading. After all, Louisa may well have been mistaken – her shock at the surprise party had meant she wasn’t taking in everything right. The woman at Oliver’s side when she’d first encountered him at the top of the stairs could’ve been another guest arriving at the same time as him.
