The Disappearance. Annabel Kantaria

seems charmed by that. She bites her lip: thinking back, she can’t believe she’d actually given him a real phone number in the café instead of transposing a couple of digits like she usually did when men pushed for her number; she can’t believe she’d agreed to go out to dinner that night he’d turned up at her office. How life turns in an instant, she thinks.

      After their first date, Ralph had bundled her onto the back seat of his Daimler and nuzzled her face until his lips found hers, then he’d kissed her all the way back to her tiny studio flat. Despite his protests, she’d refused to let him in. It’d been the right strategy, Audrey reflects now, because he hasn’t been able to get enough of her since, pursuing her with a fervour that almost verges on the indecent.

      In the car now, Ralph’s hand moves from Audrey’s hair to her cheek. Applying a little pressure, he turns her face to his, stares into her eyes as if he’s searching her soul, then places his lips gently on hers, the softest of kisses that melts her. When he finally pulls away, she’s breathless.

      ‘Come home with me tonight, Red,’ he says.

      Audrey notices, all of a sudden, that the car’s not on the usual route to her flat and a ripple of fear runs through her. She’s in the back of a car with a man she’s known less than four weeks, in a part of Bombay with which she’s unfamiliar. No one in the world bar Ralph Templeton and his chauffeur knows where she is.

      ‘Where are we?’ she asks, sitting up straight in her seat and trying to get her bearings.

      Ralph takes her hand. ‘On the way to Juhu. I asked the driver to … please, Red. Come home with me.’

      Audrey buys time by fiddling in her handbag. Does she have reason to be afraid?

      ‘Look at me,’ Ralph commands. He takes her chin into his hand, turns her face to his and stares into her eyes. Audrey holds his gaze, mesmerised by the apparent depth of her suitor’s feeling. ‘Nothing will happen, not if you don’t want it to,’ Ralph says. ‘This is not about sex. But please come home with me. I just want to have you there with me. To hold you.’ His voice breaks. ‘Red, I need you.’

      He lets go of her face and turns away, his hand brushing at his eye and the very core of Audrey melts. There’s something about this man that makes her feel she’d run to the end of the earth if he asked her to. She leans across and places her lips on Ralph’s ear.

      ‘Okay,’ she whispers.

       November, 2012

       St Ives, Cornwall

      To say that John and I were surprised when Mum left London for Cornwall would be one thing; what was even more of a surprise was the house that she’d bought on the outskirts of St Ives. The large, stucco-fronted villa we’d grown up in in Barnes had been built in 1845. After selling it four years ago when our father died – far too quickly because she’d under-priced it, if you listened to my brother – Mum had eschewed the type of picturesque stone cottage we’d all envisioned she’d go for and bought a completely unremarkable box of a home that dated back to the seventies.

      Moving with a speed and certainty that had taken us by surprise, Mum had allowed us each to choose any furniture we wanted from the Barnes house, then made the move to St Ives. ‘It’s got a subtropical microclimate,’ she’d told anyone who asked her why she was moving there. ‘Why wouldn’t you?’ There was also, I suppose, the fact that John lived in nearby Penzance, though I’d long suspected that was more coincidence than intent.

      I took in Mum’s house now as I parked behind her car in the driveway, gathered my things, and made my way down the steep slope to the front door. It was a low building, painted white, with double glazed windows and a neat front garden that Mum had lined with geraniums in pots. They added a certain something in summer, but not quite enough.

      The rain had cleared but I still heard the irregular plop of drops falling off the trees and bushes. The garden was saturated. I knocked on the front door: two smart raps of a silver-toned knocker that made a hollow sound on the thin door. While I waited, ears straining for the sound of footsteps, I bent down and examined the front step. I’d noticed a while back that a brick had come loose and was wobbly to stand on. I’d asked John to cement it back down. He hadn’t: the step still wobbled. I straightened up again, put my finger on the doorbell and pressed. Big Ben rang out electronically and I cringed inside, remembering both the substantial door and the majestic ring of the bell on the house in Barnes. After waiting another moment, I realised that Mum might not even be able to make it to the door. Kicking myself for being so stupid, I walked around the side of the house for the spare key, my shoes squelching on the wet gravel path.

      I paused for a moment on the threshold of the garden. It was around the back that Mum’s house came into its own: by itself, the small garden was unremarkable – it was only once I’d seen the view that I understood why Mum had fallen in love with the house. I drank in the view now: the sandy reach of Carbis Bay lay below and, curving into the distance, I could see Lelant and subsequent coves: the scalloped edge of England. Even on a dismal November day it was something really special. Today the sea looked grey-green but, in summer, it was an endless sweep of azure blue that was more Mediterranean than Atlantic. The previous owner of the house had installed decking that wrapped around the sea-facing aspects. Mum had bought some nice outdoor furniture and she claimed to spend part of every day out there, no matter what the weather. My city-dwelling mum, it turned out, loved the sea.

      I scrabbled under another plant pot for the spare key, then let myself in the front door, dropping my bags and slipping off my wet shoes in the hall before padding quietly into the living room. Mum was on the sofa, propped up on a pile of cushions, her laptop open on her lap. She looked fragile, her face as pale as the brace that circled her neck, but, aside from that, I could see no physical evidence of an injury; no bruising, no extra bandages. I walked across the room to her and looked down at her. I couldn’t tell if she was asleep or awake.

      ‘Mum?’ I asked softly.

      She slowly lifted her eyes to meet mine. ‘Alexandra. Hello! How lovely to see you. You really didn’t need to come.’ She tapped the mousepad a couple of times, then closed the lid of the laptop.

      I perched on the edge of the sofa and looked at her. ‘Of course I was going to come. John said someone had to stay with you and it was my turn. How are you feeling?’

      Mum touched the neck brace. ‘I’m fine.’ I raised my eyebrows at her. ‘Really, I am. This is just a precaution. In fact, I’ve got to go back tomorrow and have it taken off. They’re just playing it safe.’ She gave me a bright smile. ‘It looks worse than it is. I promise you I’m absolutely fine or they wouldn’t have let me out.’

      ‘I’ll take you in tomorrow.’

      Mum nodded. ‘Thank you.’

      ‘You’re welcome. You look a bit pale, but I suppose that’s the shock. Are you in pain?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘Mum. Don’t lie.’

      She sighed. ‘Okay, well, maybe just a little. It aches a bit, that’s all. I feel as if I’ve been knocked about a bit in a road accident.’ She laughed.

      ‘Mother! This is a serious thing. At your age! You’re so lucky nothing was broken. What happened?’ I tutted. ‘I should never have let you drive back last night. Were you tired? You didn’t seem tired.’

      Mum didn’t reply. She was staring at the wall, then she turned to look at me.

      ‘Was I a good mother?’ she asked. ‘To you and John?’

      I leaned back on the sofa. ‘Whoah! Where did that come from?’

      ‘I just wondered,’ Mum’s hands