Ten minutes later the door swung open and a woman who Erasmus instantly knew was Jenna entered the coffee shop. She had the slightly upturned nose of the Hollywood star and Erasmus instantly saw the resemblance. Red hair framed large blue eyes and a pretty, pale face.
He waved at her and she waved back before going to order. Erasmus tried his best not to stare as she ordered her drink. He failed.
She walked over to his table and took the seat opposite him dragging it closer to him. Erasmus suddenly become extremely self-conscious and for a second wondered if the groan he had heard in his head had actually passed his lips.
‘You must be Erasmus,’ she said.
OK. First-name terms. This is good, thought Erasmus. Currently, the only women on first-name terms with him were: Abby – if you counted Daddy and he did, his PA, Sandy, and Miranda.
‘Are you OK?’ she asked.
Mercifully a small voice in his head sent out a command to his mouth, ‘Talk.’
‘Hi, yes, I'm Erasmus, it's good to meet you, and green tea, I see. It's meant to be good for you, isn't it?’
She looked at him with a hint of pity. ‘Yep, the antioxidants. I'm a debit/credit person. Nicotine debit, green tea credit. You must have walked right past me?’
Erasmus a non-smoker for 6 weeks, 2 days and 14 hours probably had. Part of his withdrawal technique was to ignore all smokers. Service denial he called it.
‘I probably did. I'm trying to give up at the moment.’
‘A noble cause. People make all sorts of moral judgements about you because you smoke, these days. Have you noticed all the villains in Hollywood movies now smoke? They used to be either Russian, English or South African. Now they're all smokers.’
‘Benson & Hedges are the next axis of evil.’
Jenna laughed. ‘I think we're going to get along,’ she said, brushing a lock of hair away from her face.
Erasmus smiled and they both fell silent for a moment. He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Molly's, his sponsor's, number was in his phone, he could always step outside and call her like he had done so many times before. Let her remind him of how far he had come, the damage he was repairing.
He looked down at the table, anywhere but at Jenna, and said nothing.
Jenna broke the silence. ‘So to business. I presume Dan has filled you in on my situation?’
‘He's given me the basics.’
‘And what do you think?’
She looked Erasmus directly in the eye. For a moment he considered soft-soaping the matter, and just as quickly decided to give her the truth as he saw it.
‘OK, you know the reasons behind most adult disappearances are not foul play, it's usually down to mental illness, work problems or, top of the list, relationship breakdown.’
This time it was his turn to look her in the eye. She didn't blink but instead lent back and sipped her tea. She maintained eye contact. He shivered involuntarily but ignored the pleasure filled adrenaline stream lapping at his nerve endings.
‘Stephen has worked for the city council's education department for eleven years and it's been stressful in the last couple of years with the budget cuts but nothing he can't handle. I've been married to Stephen for fourteen years. He's mentally stable, never takes a day off work, never been in trouble with the police, never had an affair or even flirted with another woman, as far as I am aware. Sometimes I wished he had some bloody faults, make him more like me. Two weeks ago, he got showered and dressed for work, picked up his briefcase, got the train to town and never made it into work. He disappeared.’
This was going to be more difficult than Erasmus had first thought.
‘What's your relationship like with your husband?’
She studied Erasmus coolly. She didn't say anything for a second but he noticed her fingers were playing with a packet of sugar on the table.
‘We've been married a long time. I don't want to sound like a cliché but I love my husband, I'm just not necessarily in love with him.’
‘And does he know this?’
‘Are you married?’
‘Separated.’
‘Well then, you'll know that marriages change over time. We are life companions, love sometimes changes into that doesn't it? I feel responsible for him, I always have done, and I am frightened for him.’
For a moment her cool façade slipped. Erasmus saw the beginnings of a tear bead in her eye and she dropped her head momentarily. When she brought her eyes back to his, the mask was back.
‘Do you think he had a lover maybe?’
She twisted the sugar pack into a ball and its contents spilled onto the table. ‘He is not the type to keep secrets.’
‘I'm sorry and I don't mean to upset you. I'm just trying to establish what caused him to disappear and if it isn't a random event, if he had a hand in it, whether by choice or not, then it must have been something that was important to him. And if you don't know what that was then I guess he kept it secret from you. People can keep anything secret from the ones they love the most.’
Jenna's eyes narrowed.
‘Is that cod psychology or spoken from experience?’
‘It's just the way it is sometimes,’
She lent back in her chair and took a deep breath.
‘Look, Erasmus, the only things important in my husband's life are God, me and his job, probably in that order.’
Erasmus detected a note of bitterness.
‘He's a religious man then?’
‘Yes, he always was, though less so in the last few years. He was a choir boy at St Mary's when he was a kid and then when Father Michael left he followed him to the World Evangelical Church, the Third Wave.’
‘He's a born again?’
‘He's there come rain or shine every Sunday, he's a regular Ned Flanders.’
‘And you?’
‘Weddings, funerals and Christmas. We used to argue about it years ago, but not for a long time now. My husband is a good man. He just wanted to make sure my soul would be saved and now it's my turn to save him. He would never disappear like this unless something had happened. The police think he's run off with another woman. I know that's not the truth. I need your help.’
She reached across the table and took hold of Erasmus’ hand.
‘Will you help me Erasmus?’
‘Hang on a second.’
Erasmus stood up and walked across to the next table. A girl in her late twenties was busily writing in her notebook. Erasmus snatched the notebook off the table. There were gasps from the other customers.
‘What do you think you are doing!’ said the girl, looking up at him with large blue eyes hidden behind thick, black plastic spectacles. She looked frightened but Erasmus recognised something else there as well, defiance.
Erasmus looked at the notepad and cursed. It was shorthand.
The girl stood up and stretched out her hand.
‘Give me my book back,’ she said.