The Disappearance of Emily Marr Read Online Free PDF Page A

some young blood at last!’ he cried, speaking over the rush of party sounds in the tones of a pantomime actor. His wife, materialising on the crowded stairs behind him, was younger by five years or so and not quite tall enough to carry off the flowing, full-length dress she wore – I feared a tripping as she approached. But she arrived smoothly enough, a cold smile cast in my direction. She greeted only Matt, seizing him from my side as if agreed in advance, and the two of them vanished into the throng without a backward glance. I was left feeling as if my bag had just been snatched from my hands.

‘Right, alcohol,’ Marcus shouted into my ear, ‘give me one second,’ and he promptly disappeared into one of the ground-floor rooms. I worried he’d never come back, was just contemplating turning on my heel and fleeing home when he was by my side once more, pressing a glass of champagne on me and proposing to lead me upstairs for introductions. Already I could think of nothing to say; for the first time in weeks, I craved a cigarette.

In the sitting room, the furniture had been moved to the edges of the room to make way for the central mob of Walnut Grovers, the space above their heads dominated by an enormous chandelier that hung white and motionless, like a fountain frozen at the point of eruption. I could not see Matt. Surveying the crush, Marcus turned to me with a mock-helpless expression, before spotting a group of middle-aged men near the window at the back and launching me towards them.

‘A treat for the menfolk!’ he announced, to my embarrassment. ‘Meet our new neighbour Emma!’

‘Emily,’ I corrected him, blushing under my make-up.

‘Emily, forgive me. Sarah must have misheard.’

He stayed to supervise the introductions, standing very close to me and making me excruciatingly conscious of my cleavage (what had I been thinking, choosing this dress? It was so burlesque ). There were three other men in the little cluster, each of whom emitted the body heat of one who’d been drinking for some time.

‘What do you all do?’ I asked, shyness making my voice too bright.

Marcus was a City solicitor, Arthur a consultant at the nearby hospital, Ed a journalist, and the last, whose name proved one too many to remember, a voiceover actor whose voice I did not recognise. I’d been told by the rental agent about the vibrant mix on the street, which was close enough to the hospital to attract senior staff, costly enough to interest City lawyers and bankers, and romantic enough to draw the artistic type. (As a web developer for a bike retailer and a glorified shop assistant, Matt and I scarcely qualified for the final category.)

All the men were in their forties or fifties, which validated Marcus’s opening claims of my relative youth. Though I’d seen a handful of teenagers on the stairs and noticed one or two small children in the doorway now and then, presumably visiting from a more diverting zone elsewhere, I could find no one else here in their twenties or thirties. The music was from the decade of my birth.

‘Are you a Friend?’ the voiceover actor asked me, a little doubtfully.

I swallowed. ‘Well, we haven’t joined the association or anything, no, but we live next door. We just moved in a few weeks ago. Flat B.’ There were still times when I clung to the plural of Matt and me, and this was one of those times.

‘Flat B,’ the guy repeated, as if sharing a joke with the group, ‘we’ll have to remember that.’

His neighbour, Ed, sniggered. ‘What, next time you lose your keys and need a bed for the night, try Flat B?’

‘I can’t think what you mean,’ I said, smiling. ‘Besides, it would be a tight squeeze: there’s my boyfriend as well.’

‘There are some on this street who’d say that made it even better,’ Ed said, chortling. The instantly risqué turn to the conversation could only be explained by the speed with which they were all guzzling the Laings’ champagne.