Out of Mind (3 page)

When I returned to the table, I found William also melting down. He had slid off Finney’s lap and was standing there screaming
for me, arms stiff by his side, cheeks red, face awash with tears. Andrew Bentley was trying to jolly him along, but his initial
child-friendliness was clearly being stretched to the limit, as indeed was mine.

I gave William a hug—which outraged Hannah even more—and grabbed a plate from the table.

“I’m going to take them outside. The lawn’s not mined or anything, is it?”

Andrew Bentley looked taken aback, said, “No, no, no,” and made a “very sorry to lose you” face that reached only as far as
his lips.

It was not a dignified retreat, Hannah and William competing for ugliest child and clinging to my urine-soaked skirt. Me balancing
the plate of chips in one hand, clasping their two little hands in the other. The lawn was still wet from the rain, but I
found a bench that was almost dry under the canopy of a large beech tree. Gradually the children’s sobs subsided sufficiently
for chips to be eaten.

I contemplated the parkland that dropped away from me into the valley. I could hear a muffled explosion from the woods below,
and then the rattle of automatic gunfire. I knew that I was not in danger, but that didn’t stop my heart rate increasing.
My senses were more alive to threats than they had been. Ever since Adam was murdered and I was attacked by his killer, I
had not been able to regain my sense of safety. The moment I relaxed, my brain played tricks on me. I would go to sleep, then
awaken well before dawn, my ears straining for the sound of movement, my eyes raking the darkness for intruders. I no longer
trusted security or those who offered it to me.

I knew I’d been giving Finney a hard time. Neither of us have what you would call a traditional family background. My family
is almost completely female—it’s a long story, and not one that inspires confidence in the reliability of men. Finney has
nothing by way of family, male or female. Yet it was Finney who seemed to be thinking about permanence and togetherness, Finney
who seemed to be offering me security, whereas I felt safer on my own. If I stayed separate, emotionally as well as practically,
then I would never have to relearn independence when he left. That, at least, was my logic. But I knew that Finney could sense
me keeping him at arm’s length. Perhaps Finney’s very lack of family also frightened me. It is one thing to be one of many
relationships in someone’s life, but it is quite another to be everything to that person. I looked back at the house and saw
Finney talking with Bentley. He glanced toward me. I raised my hand in greeting, and he smiled briefly before turning back
toward the conversation.

People began to emerge from the woods, the group from the seminar room with their instructors. As they came nearer, I could
see that there were men in full military kit walking slightly apart from the group, talking quietly among themselves. One
had what appeared to be an automatic rifle slung over his shoulder. Another carried a mesh bag that seemed to be full of grenades.
Soldiers and journalists, male to a man, they walked past us, their minds elsewhere. Only one of the group gave me a second
look as he passed, then he turned to walk across the lawn toward me.

“Hi, Max.” I stood and greeted him.

“Robin”—his eyes went to the children—“this is an eccentric choice for a family outing.”

“It’s Saturday, I brought them along for the ride. How’s it going?”

“A laugh a minute.”

“Any tips?”

“Grenade shrapnel travels up to forty yards in an inverted cone. Hit the ground with your feet pointing toward the grenade,
legs crossed, hands on your head.”

“I’ll remember that.”

Max smiled slightly and nodded.

“Melanie Jacobs’ parents wanted me to ask a few questions on their behalf,” I told him. “They still have no idea why she would
have gone missing.”

Max had turned slightly away from me and was gazing out over the valley. “I don’t know if it’s relevant . . . I’ve been away,
so I haven’t followed the news . . . but has it been suggested that Melanie had met one of the instructors before she came
here?”

I shook my head, intrigued. “I don’t think so.”

Behind Max, I could see Finney and Bentley approaching, deep in conversation. I caught Finney’s eye, and he must have got
the message that I didn’t want to be interrupted just then, because he stopped dead in his tracks and Bentley had no choice
but to stop, too. Finney was doing most of the listening, nodding, interjecting the questions that kept Bentley talking.

“I don’t know whether it’s important,” Max said carefully. “In the entrance hall there are pictures of all the staff, with
their names written underneath. When I arrived here yesterday there was no one at reception, so I spent some time kicking
my heels there. One of the staff members is called Mike Darling. This took me by surprise, because I have seen a photograph
of Darling with Melanie.”

I understood why Max seemed unhappy. He was not a journalist given to speculation. He would hate to be the one to give birth
to a rumor.

Bentley started walking toward us again. Max watched him approach.

“Ask him,” he said, and set off after his colleagues, nodding to Bentley as he passed. I stared after him. Max Amsel didn’t
make mistakes.

“Mike Darling was one of Melanie’s instructors that day, wasn’t he?” I asked Bentley as he reached me. Both men looked at
me in surprise.

Bentley frowned. “I would have to check.”

“I’d have thought,” I said pleasantly, “you’d know every detail of that day off by heart by now.”

“Why are you interested in Darling?” The words came like bullets.

“Darling and Melanie had met before,” I said. “Darling did tell you, didn’t he?”

Bentley stared. I could see the headlines unfurling behind his eyes.

“My wife is waiting for me. I’ll take you to your car now.” The mask of charm was dislodged, the depth of his disquiet revealed,
but he forced the words out nevertheless: “It’s been a pleasure.” He turned to walk away.

“I’d like to talk to Mike Darling,” I said.

Bentley swung back round, his face tense. “No.”

“No?” I was startled by the abruptness of the reply.

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible,” he said. “Mike’s no longer with us.”

I
N the Corporation space is a priority, but privacy is the holy grail. After Adam’s death and my notoriety as a suspect in
that investigation, I’d returned to the Corporation to find myself marooned somewhere in between the empires of documentaries
and news. Not only did I not have a role, I didn’t even have a desk. I’d reconnoitered and discovered what looked at first
like a vacant room on the same floor as the newsroom. It was full of stuff, but no human being. So I piled the stuff in a
corner and took up residence. Occasionally someone would stick his or her head around the door and there would be a sharp
intake of breath at the sight of me. But nobody ever turfed me out. My new and unauthorized accommodation had the added advantage
that I rarely had to talk to a manager, because for a long and delightful time, the managers hadn’t a clue where I was.

Then, a full month after I’d moved in, another face appeared around the door. True to form, there was the sharp intake of
breath, but this time the face, chin jutting aggressively, was followed by a substantial body, shoulders thrust forward.

“What are you doing here?”

“Can I help you?”

“You’re sitting at my desk!”

I eyed him. A mass of black hair peppered with white falling over his eyes, stomach running to a paunch, but a familiar and
not unpleasing face with a dimpled chin. He was solid and vast, his skin the color of honey, his lips almost feminine. Sal
Ghosh, back from the Middle East to reclaim his territory. Not a man to take on head-to-head. He was giving me the same once-over,
and there was recognition in his eyes.

“Hi, I’m Goldilocks.” I extended my hand.

“Sal Ghosh. Get your butt out of my chair, Goldilocks Ballantyne.”

My butt left his chair but not the room, since there was plenty of space for both our butts—although Sal’s was frankly a squeeze—if
not for both our egos. What followed was a couple of weeks of very dirty warfare, which ended with a truce when we realized,
although we’d rather have died horribly than admit it to each other, that actually we were both quite pleased to have the
company.

Under the terms of the peace treaty, I moved to another desk and Sal and I constructed a wall of newspapers between us that
threatened to collapse one day and bury one or the other of us. Occasionally I nudged it in his direction. He moved his producer,
Penny, into another corner of the room, and then there were three of us. On top of this there was a rotating population of
camera operators who filled shelves with cameras and cords and mikes and then plastered the shelves with hands-off posters,
warning death by disembowelment for anyone nicking camera batteries. There was an editing suite next door, where raw footage
could be processed into a logical sequence and a voice recorded over the top in a matter of minutes when necessary. Sal was
chronically untidy, and Penny and I rounded off each working day by gathering together the detritus that had found its way
onto our desks from his and piling it precariously onto his chair. He complained that it was like living with a roomful of
cleaning ladies. I think he had not noticed that the person who was actually charged with swabbing down our empire was male
and called Joe.

Sal was asleep at his desk when I walked in on Monday morning, his leonine head on his plump arms.

“Hi,” I said into his ear, just loudly enough to rouse him. It was cruel, but he’d have done the same to me. He groaned and
shuddered. His head reared up, and he regarded me balefully through long-lashed eyes.

“I just got in from the airport,” he complained, stretching, so that I saw patches of sweat under his arms. “Foul flight,
storms all the way from Jerusalem. Struck by lightning three times, aborted landing, lucky to be alive.”

Sal’s ability to create a story out of nothing is legendary in the Corporation. But he does hate to fly. To do him justice,
there may even have been turbulence.

I sat down and logged in. I checked my e-mail and saw that a couple of dozen messages had stacked up over the weekend. I cast
an eye down the list and grimaced. A dozen were from family members of people who, like Melanie, had disappeared without a
trace. Their desperation steamed from the cold face of the monitor.

Sal was watching my face.

“I seem to remember that I warned you,” he said. “You brought it on yourself. You will be followed by wailing and gnashing
of teeth and rending of garments for at least the next decade.”

I ignored him, but I feared he was right. I had even brought the deluge on myself by setting up a Web site for my series,
called
Missing People.
The site featured photographs of the missing people I was following and some facts about their situations and invited sightings
or other news.

When Melanie disappeared, and days and then weeks passed without a body and with no evidence of murder, I was amazed that
DCI Coburn considered the possibility that Melanie had vanished of her own free will. Running away seemed so out of character.
Of course, it’s not unheard of for people to fake suicide in order to start life afresh. In many cases, the people who disappear
are mentally ill or emotionally fragile. But once in a while someone vanishes who has no apparent reason to leave his or her
life behind. As I read about these cases, I began to realize that the stories of these people who had disappeared would make
compelling television. I submitted a proposal to my boss for a series of four programs following the stories of two men and
two women. I wanted to talk to their families and to their friends and colleagues, to try to reconstruct what had happened
in their lives to make them leave.

My boss is Maeve, who is in turn Head of Current Affairs, parens Documentaries comma Television, close parens, or HCA(D, TV).
She’s never made documentaries herself, but she knows a good idea when she hears one. She oversees the commissioning process
and is an efficient bureaucrat. Maeve and I have a history. It was Maeve who had failed to stand up for me after Adam’s death,
and I hadn’t really forgiven her for that. But she’d done her best to make it up to me, and we worked well together. Anyway,
Maeve liked the idea, and I’d been working on it for the past two months, with the result that families of several of those
who had disappeared now saw me as their one best hope of finding their missing loved one.

I looked up. Sal hated it when I didn’t talk to him. He was watching me balefully, puppy-dog eyes waiting for a pat and a
kind word.

“I want you to come with me,” I told him.

“All right,” he said, and hauled himself obediently to his feet.

We made our way through miles of corridor. We did not discuss Melanie on the way, or indeed why we were making this trip.
Sal, I suspect, rather liked the idea of a mystery tour, but he never liked to stay silent for long, so we analyzed the various
colors of carpet that we encountered on our journey.

“It’s all political,” he said. “Look how faded the reds are, the way the blues seep out of the management offices and leak
down toward the editors. Look, it’s purple there, where the blue is murdering the red.”

“Or the other way round.”

I spotted a yellow, and that had him floored.

“Perhaps it was on special offer,” I suggested.

Sal looked disgruntled.

“So where are we going?” he asked at last.

I took him to the east wing, following the instructions Max Amsel had given me when I spoke to him on the telephone the night
before. We came to a halt next to a publicity board. A section of wall about a meter square had been given over to publicity
photographs, a montage of correspondents all over the world, and a little blurb about how selfless and noble was the Corporation’s
pursuit of news.