I said nothing.
‘I have to ask, do you have any problems in your relationship, would you say?’
‘No.’
‘Because that would seem like a rather big omission, if you know what I mean.’
‘We’re fine.’ It came out hard and loud, and he blinked at me. I felt Siggy spark at the base of my skull, goading, satisfied.
Were we fine?
Mae nodded solemnly, appraising me for a moment, then went to the table.
‘So there’s this.’ He handed it to me.
I took it. A list, printed out. Things you’d take if you were going away. I held it with both hands, the burn of tears starting up in the corners of my eyes.
A bloom of hope spread across me. Did this mean he’d just taken a trip? But if it did—
Toothbrush, toothpaste, razor
then he’d left. He’d left me.
There was a blue-biro tick next to every item. I scanned it again, a storm started spinning in my head.
‘Anyone could have written this,’ I said eventually. ‘Where’s the pen? Huh? Are we looking for the pen, for fingerprints?’
Mae spread his hands. ‘Ellie—’
‘No. He wouldn’t have just disappeared.’ Not without telling me. He loved me. He loved me. I brushed the hair out of my face and handed the list back to him, defiant. ‘This doesn’t mean anything.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Because we’re happy, that’s why.’
We were. There was no way Matt had been planning to go away. A few weeks ago we’d been talking about a trip, a long weekend. Mum was so worried, wouldn’t say why in front of Matt even though she knew he and I had talked about it all, but she went on and on about the locks on the hotel doors. Matt hadn’t flinched. When she got emotional, demanding to know how he planned on dealing with Siggy, asking did he really understand what he was getting himself into, he put his arm around me. I love your daughter, Christine. Nothing is going to change that.
‘What if he didn’t write it?’ I went into the kitchen and turned on the tap to fill the kettle. ‘I mean, it doesn’t prove anything, does it?’
Neither of us spoke for a moment, and I realized the water pump was rumbling, but nothing was coming out. The tap spat droplets and air. His water tank was empty.
I turned and checked the fridge: a Coke would do just as well. I opened the door, and looked inside. Dark.
Mae was standing next to me. ‘It’s been switched off.’
Meticulously cleaned and emptied, too. Mae paused for a while, then gently shut the door, leaving my hand to drop down to my side.
‘Sometimes I go away in the winter,’ he said, in a slow, quiet voice. ‘Take my little girl snowboarding. I turn the water off in my flat and run all the taps until there’s no water left in them. In case it freezes in the pipes, and the pipes burst.’
I opened the breadbin. ‘He wasn’t going away.’ The breadbin was empty.
‘And I use up everything in my fridge,’ he said, as if I hadn’t spoken, ‘and give it a good clean.’
I pushed past him, cursing the lack of space, the fact that there is nowhere to go on a stupid tiny boat, nowhere to escape to. ‘I’ve said he wasn’t going away.’ I dropped onto the sofa and drew my hands over my face. I wanted my mum.
‘Ellie.’
When I opened my eyes, he was looking at my neck. I pulled my chin down fast, but it was too late.
Slowly, he asked, ‘What happened there, then?’
He wouldn’t have asked about the scar. He meant the bruises. ‘It’s nothing.’
‘No. It’s not.’
‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘No?’ Mae came round and sat next to me, the other end of the sofa. ‘Doesn’t look like nothing.’
I let all my breath out at once. ‘Well, it is.’
Leaning forward, he said, ‘Was it Matt? Did he hurt you, Ellie?’
‘No! God, no! He would never. He’s not like that. No.’
Mae looked away, placed his hands on his knees. ‘Someone reports someone missing, we need to look at everything that might be suspicious. And to be honest,’ he said, indicating my neck with a nod, ‘mystery bruising might look a bit suspicious.’
I stared down at my feet. ‘It’s not mystery bruising.’
‘OK.’ He waited.
‘I was … sleepwalking. Mum tried to steer me back to bed. I was agitated. She had to be … forceful.’
‘And this was, when? Last night?’
I nodded, my heart hammering. Mae inclined his head to get another look.
‘Looks like she fought pretty hard.’
‘I was just confused,’ I mumbled.
‘Confused. OK.’ There was a pause. ‘See. Ellie, I get confused all the time. Sometimes I can’t remember if I’ve left the oven on. Or I lose my car, or, you know, I annoy someone and I get confused about what I might have said to upset them. But I can’t remember a time when confusion has ever ended up in me being held by the throat.’
‘I’m telling you it wasn’t him.’
Mae stayed where he was for a moment. Then he got to his feet, steadied himself against the motion of the boat under his feet, and turned to me.
‘So for now, we’re classing this as a low-risk case—’
‘Low risk. What does that mean?’
‘It means that we wait and see what happens. This is still very early days. To be honest it’s only because I saw your name on the information that it’s me dealing with this and not just a bobby making a couple of calls. But look, you have to realize that everything we have here is pointing to Matt having just gone away somewhere.’ He tucked everything into his bag. ‘It’s a dynamic thing, though. If anything changes—’
‘But what does it mean you will do?’ I interrupted. ‘You have to do something.’
He pressed his lips between his teeth for a moment, measuring his words. ‘Look. Men are weak. Sometimes they are really shitty. I’m sure he’s been great to you, and break-ups can be awful but—’
‘No. It’s not a break-up. He is the most honest, the most grounded person you’ll ever meet. He is a good man, and I can rely on him. I can. You’re making a mistake.’
He watched me for a second, like he was trying to find something in my face. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve got a hundred other jobs stacking up and this is just,’ he gestured around the boat, to me. The whole thing. ‘It’s just not a police matter,’ he finished at last. ‘I’ve already done more than I am supposed to.’
‘Fine. Then go.’ I turned away. He would not see me cry.
On the deck, he crouched and turned back to me. ‘This isn’t about you, you know. Men are shits. He didn’t deserve you.’
I watched him swing himself down onto the pontoon, and I thought about how much Matt had given me. How bottomless his patience was, how hard he’d tried to help me believe in myself.
Mae was right. Matt didn’t deserve me. He really, truly did not.