Troll Read online

  ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ I asked her.

  ‘I’m sure,’ she said. ‘He deserves it.’

  And I had to agree with her there.

  three

  FORTUNE TOOK A TAXI FROM THE STATION AND PAID IT OFF AT the bottom of his drive. The sun was out and he had forgotten how many trees there were, this place where he had lived for so many years before he replaced the leaves and grass with desert sand and high-rises. He wondered for a brief moment where it was he called home nowadays and came up short with an answer. Not Dubai. And not here either, not any more. It had been too long.

  He swung open the rustic five-bar gate, closed it behind him and crunched up the gravelled drive towards the house. Once a dog would have barked in greeting, a springer spaniel that had never been anything other than crazy, called Peter, named by his daughter. Peter. Odd name for a dog, but then the dog had been far from normal. They’d had to put it down and nobody had volunteered, so Fortune had put his hand up. That he remembered.

  He rang the doorbell and waited, listening to birdsong and the soft hiss of far-off traffic. Suburban Essex, the dormitory-town idyll. Commuterville. Stepford self-satisfaction for the white-collar winners, safe, green, the high streets lined with boutiques and expensive wine bars. He’d never much liked it, this place, so superficial, so artificial. As unreal in its way as Dubai was. Sounds came from inside the house, and through the distorted glass he saw a shape approach, turn locks, open the door. And there was Jean.

  She looked beautiful blinking into the light and Fortune felt his heart lurch in his chest, a brief chemical explosion of sadness and regret. She regarded him with no expression.

  ‘Hello,’ she said.

  Fortune had an urge to tell her that she looked wonderful, as beautiful as the day they had met, the kind of statement a man still in love with his wife would make, regardless of how long they had shared their lives. He took a breath, knew as he did so that he lacked the courage.

  ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Sorry. Forgot my keys.’

  Jean nodded but did not look at him, instead looked past him. ‘Come in,’ she said as if she was addressing somebody standing behind him, although there was nobody there.

  ‘You look great,’ Fortune said quietly, but his wife had already turned and was heading back into the house, down the dark hall. She stopped.

  ‘Sorry?’ she asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Fortune.

  ‘I thought you said something.’

  ‘No.’

  He followed her into the kitchen, dropping his suitcase along the way at the bottom of the stairs, as if he was at a guest house rather than in his own home, where, in another lifetime, he had made an attempt to raise a family.

  They sat opposite one another at the kitchen table, two cups of tea and the ticking of the wall clock for company. She looked tired and detached, as if half of her psyche was occupying some other, unknowable place. Fortune watched her.

  ‘I went to see the police,’ he said, though he had already told her on the phone.

  ‘That man, what’s he called? Marsh?’

  ‘He told me they were scaling down the investigation.’

  Jean picked up her cup with both hands and nodded at it vaguely. ‘They think she killed herself.’

  ‘Do you?’

  Jean closed her eyes at this question and there was a long silence. When she opened them, they were wet with tears.

  ‘I wish I could say that I didn’t.’

  Fortune thought of all the times his wife had been there for Sophie. The times she had withstood her anger, forgiven her insults, remained strong when Sophie had given up. She had believed in her daughter. Believed far more than Fortune had.

  ‘We don’t know for sure,’ he said. ‘She could walk through the door any time.’

  Jean sighed, shook her head slowly. She still did not look at Fortune, and when she spoke next, it was more to herself than to him.

  ‘Oh hi, didn’t miss me, did you? Went on holiday, forgot to say. Can’t believe you were so worried.’ Now she did look at Fortune. ‘You don’t think I’ve told myself that a hundred times? But she’s not here, she’s gone, and nothing good has happened to her. Nothing.’

  ‘Jean,’ Fortune said. ‘It’s too early—’

  ‘It’s not too early,’ she said, clearly and slowly. ‘It’s too late. It’s far too late.’

  ‘You can’t give up.’

  She laughed, a sound without warmth. ‘I can’t what?’

  Fortune knew what was coming. He also knew there was nothing he could do about it. ‘You can’t give up.’

  His wife set her cup down on the table carefully. ‘And just what kind of moral right do you have to tell me something like that? Giving up’s what you do, isn’t it?’

  ‘Jean,’ he said again.

  ‘You don’t like it, that the police have given up on Sophie? Take a look in the bloody mirror.’

  Fortune didn’t reply, and they sat in silence for some time. He could feel his heart beating and he wished he knew what he should say, how he could bridge the gap between them. But at the same time he knew that they were separated by too many years, too many years and an ocean of disappointment.

  ‘When did you last speak to her?’ Jean asked.

  ‘Sophie? A month ago, something like that?’

  It had been longer, much longer, but he did not want his wife to know that. Three, four months, without talking to your own daughter. Was that normal? No. No, it couldn’t be.

  ‘How had she been?’ he asked.

  Jean drank tea, closed her eyes to its steam. ‘Not good. Chaotic. Paranoid. I …’ She stopped, pressed the cup to her lips, hard. ‘I told her I couldn’t cope, told her she had to work it out for herself.’ She kept the cup to her lips, as if for comfort. This is when I put my hand out, place it on hers, Fortune thought. Offer some comfort. He didn’t do it, didn’t even get close.

  ‘She was just starting out. It was bound to be difficult, in a new city.’

  ‘I wasn’t there for her.’

  ‘She’s not a child.’

  ‘She needed help.’

  Fortune didn’t answer. He wondered how many times he had told his wife to leave it, to let Sophie make her own mistakes, not get involved. Was that just another way of saying that they should give up on her?

  ‘You mustn’t blame yourself,’ he said, the words so worn and tired that they did not even register, didn’t last the journey across the kitchen table.

  A cat mewed at their feet and Fortune looked down and tried to remember its name but could not. Jean got up and walked to the fridge, took out milk. She stood with the bottle in her hand and seemed to forget what she was doing, rendered immobile by an unexpected wave of grief and guilt. Despite everything, Fortune felt his throat harden, at the sight of his wife and at the thought of his daughter who was probably dead, who must be dead; weren’t they acting as if she was dead?

  He got up from the kitchen table and walked over to his wife, but just as he got to her, she turned and said to him, ‘Please don’t touch me.’

  There were many photos of Jean and Sophie in the house, although few of them included Fortune. They were always smiling, their eyes even more alike from the similarity of their expressions. She had been their only child and into her his wife had poured all her love and devotion, an amount that Fortune had imagined endless. He picked up a photo, the two of them on holiday, a Roman ruin behind them, perhaps Greece. He’d missed that holiday, probably been at work. So many missed holidays, missed dinners, missed opportunities to get closer, bridge gaps, give support, show affection. He wondered why he had found it so hard, so impossible. It had always been easier to stay at the office rather than face the hard work of raising a family. And now it was too late.

  Jean was upstairs resting and he went to the garage to see if he could find any evidence that he had ever lived in this house, ever called it home. He had never officially left; had only been in Dubai for a year. He f
elt a hit of resentment as he looked for the garage key. His home. He had paid for it. Worked for it. Where were those keys?

  In the garage, his golf clubs were still in the corner, the black and white leather Titleist bag, the full set of irons and woods and wedges and putters. He’d lied about the price to Jean; no way he was going to tell her how much it’d all cost. He wheeled them out, looked at them. Pulled out a seven iron, felt its weight, the balance of it. Imagined teeing off, creaming a drive down the fairway, the snick of the ball leaving the club, faint touch of fade, ball landing in front of the green, his fellow player grunting, ‘Good shot,’ reluctantly. Drinks in the clubhouse afterwards. Congratulations. Carded a round of sixty-eight.

  ‘You’re not,’ his wife said from behind him.

  He turned, club still in his hands. ‘Not what?’

  ‘Going to play golf.’

  ‘No. No, just wanted to see if they were still here.’ Jean, the golf widow. They’d laughed about it once. Not for very long.

  ‘They’re still here. But you’re going to need to take them.’

  Fortune frowned. ‘Take them where?’

  Jean shook her head. ‘I don’t know.’ She paused, took a step back as if worried he might come at her with the seven iron. ‘I want you to leave. For good.’

  ‘What?’ said Fortune.

  ‘Go,’ said Jean. ‘Just … go.’

  Fortune watched Jean and thought of the times they had shared at the beginning, when it had seemed as if their meeting had been preordained, a perfect case of aligned stars. She was standing almost side-on to him, as if to face him directly disgusted her, sickened her. Like the sight of him was an affront. He took a firmer grip on the golf club, as if to defend himself from her loathing. How had it come to this?

  And then he realized with a sudden and unexpected sadness that their daughter’s disappearance was not something that would bring them together. It was something that would finally drive them apart. There was nothing left, no glue, no reason to keep up the pretence of marriage. No shared interests. No appearances to maintain. The end.

  ‘Where will I go?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ his wife said. ‘I don’t know what you do. I don’t know anything about you. Go anywhere you want. But I don’t want you here.’

  ‘Who’ll take care of you?’

  Again, that laugh, devoid of humour or warmth. ‘I’ll manage.’

  ‘I want to help.’

  ‘You can’t.’

  ‘I can try.’

  ‘Please don’t.’

  Fortune turned to look at the house that he had worked to pay for. ‘I’d like to see her bedroom.’

  Jean sighed and turned her back on him, and Fortune walked towards his house to say goodbye.

  *

  He had spent far too little time in this room, although it had been his daughter’s for nearly all of her life. Too late home to read bedtime stories. Banned from when she was, what, ten? Not allowed in. Keep out. Private. The bedspread, the few remaining clothes hanging in her wardrobe, the photos of friends stuck on the wall above her desk, it was all unfamiliar, unknown.

  But could he blame himself? She had been so difficult, so angry, so unreasonable. Unknowable. He sat on the bed and felt the silence of the room press down on his shoulders, not letting go of its secrets, its intimate details, the life of his daughter.

  After several minutes he went downstairs, picked up his suitcase and walked, wheeling his golf cart, back to the road at the bottom of his drive, where he would call a taxi for the station.

  four

  High Times and Miss Fortune: Five Things I’ve Learnt in a Taxi

  So I was in a taxi last night (yes it was late, no I wasn’t drunk) and I was talking to the driver, as you do. Well, I say you do, but some people don’t like to talk to the driver. A friend of mine told me that he always asks them not to speak to him, which I said sounded rude. He said maybe, but who cares? They’re only taxi drivers.

  He’s not my friend any more.

  Anyway, so I was in a taxi, chatting away, and I told the driver (whose name was Ted, FYI) that I was just back from Brazil. He told me he’d always wanted to go but hadn’t, on account of how he has a morbid fear of flying and last time he went on a plane, back from Alicante, he ended up being strapped to his seat by five air stewards, screaming all the while.

  But that’s not what I learnt. What I learnt was that Brazil the country is named after Brazil the nut, and not the other way round. So basically the nut came first, and then they named the country. Weird, right?

  Anyway, it got me thinking of all the things that I’ve learnt in a taxi. And it turned out that I’ve learnt quite a lot. So here is my top Five Things I’ve Learnt in a Taxi:

  5. I learnt that one of my ex-boyfriends had slept with not one, but two of my colleagues. Not only that, but one of those colleagues was a man. Not only that, but he’d slept with them while he was seeing me. I found this out because he was in the taxi with me, and he confessed all in a drunken attack of conscience (and in tears, too). Needless to say, I asked the taxi to stop, kicked him out, ignored his pleas that he had no money and no way to get home, and ignored the gazillion text messages he bombarded me with. And good riddance.

  4. I learnt that the world is run by Jews, and that they’re in league with the Muslims to destabilize the West. Okay, so when I say learnt, it’s not that I actually believed it, but I’d been waiting for a taxi for hours and didn’t fancy walking home in the rain, so I just nodded and uh-huh-ed as I listened to the man’s drivel. Sheesh.

  3. I learnt that one taxi driver’s daughter was in hospital, and that he worked during the night so he could be at her side during the day, and that he was tired but he needed the money, even though he’d recently found out that the brain tumour she had was terminal and it was only a matter of time. His voice cracked as he told me this, and I also learnt that some people’s lives are so hard it is a miracle they continue.

  2. I learnt that T—— W—— had been in the back of the same cab only a couple of nights before me, and at the traffic lights on Piccadilly he had leant forward and offered the driver a toot on his cocaine.

  1. I learnt that there is no sight more beautiful than two people kissing on Albert Bridge on a summer’s night, with the lights of London reflecting in the Thames and the two figures intertwined, as natural as ivy and as gentle as music.

  COMMENTS:

  SharnaJ: LOL on the boyfriend, I remember the same thing coming back from a party! He told me he’d kissed my best friend! I didn’t throw him out, though … I married him!

  LozLoz: Funny!

  CatLover: That poor driver and his daughter! Heartbreaking.

  Starry Ubado: Next time you get in a cab I hope the driver rapes you, you stupid bitch.

  It’s just a blog. I mean, seriously, it’s just me, writing about my life. Hardly anybody even reads it, although I still harbour this crazy dream of gathering a million followers, turning it into a YouTube channel, serving up adverts and making enough money to buy a chateau in France where I’ll grow grapes and fall in love with a local ne’er-do-well.

  But really, it’s just a blog. So why do people feel the need to leave comments like that? I try to tell myself that it’s only a lonely teenager in his bedroom letting off steam because he hasn’t got a girlfriend yet, but what if it isn’t? What if it’s some steroid-addled man-mountain with a wall covered in photos of me, with my face violently scratched out in every one of them?

  I read an article the other day that said that trolls have the same personality traits as psychopaths. Apparently they share a lack of remorse and empathy. It suggests that perhaps I should spend less time reading things online, but it didn’t do much to reassure me.

  Still, the troll’s not going to win. I’ll keep writing, and keep dreaming of the day I can swap my keyboard for a whirlwind Provençal romance with a roguish Frenchman. Right. Dream on.

  I think I made some progress with the you
ng lady I met in the bar, who I’ll refer to as Child Z. She’s still willing to cooperate. I met with her mother (her father’s long gone, barely a memory) and she’s keen to move things along too. The truth is, she wants the sleazeball TV celebrity locked up. Well, she wants a lot more doing to him than that, and I have to give her credit for her imagination, but I did point out that this was no longer the Dark Ages and that we didn’t really do that kind of thing to people nowadays, for any number of good and enlightened reasons.

  So now the whole matter is sitting with the lawyers, who are discussing whether or not, if we do run with the story, we’ll be sued back into those selfsame Dark Ages. They want everything so watertight that I worry it will never see the light of day, but I’m doing all I can to make it happen. I kind of feel like Erin Brockovich, only not nearly as glamorous, and without the impeccable moral compass. But a bit like her, even so. Somebody a mother (or father!) could be proud of. It’s all rather exciting.

  five

  ‘WHAT DO YOU MEAN, GONE?’

  ‘Not gone. Well, we hope not. Just … missing.’

  ‘Missing, gone, what’s the difference?’ Fortune sat up on his hotel bed, put his feet on the floor. He was gripping his mobile phone, could feel the edges dig into his fingers. His colleague on the other end, Alex, paused and tried to collect himself.

  ‘It’s missing.’

  ‘How much?’

  Silence again on the other end. A worrying silence.

  ‘Christ’s sake, Alex. How much?’

  ‘Just short of ninety million.’

  ‘Dollars?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Fortune put his free hand in his hair and closed his eyes, squeezing them tightly as if to blink away this new reality. This was a catastrophe. ‘How …’ He stood up and walked to the window. ‘How did it happen?’

  ‘Don’t know. Maybe when we switched servers. We’re on it, Fortune.’