Just over one second. Surely, surely he could make her hear that?
Best get it over with. Dan grabbed his guitar from the back seat, got out, locked the car and crossed the road. It was good that he brought music. It gave him confidence, and he knew it was his best chance to get his message across. As long as she let him in, even if only for two minutes. Well, three minutes twenty-six seconds.
Taking a deep breath, Dan rang the doorbell. It was exactly midday.
After a seemingly endless interval, a young woman opened the door. Dan had his mouth open, poised and ready to launch into his first sentence, the crux, the epiphany, the apology—but caught himself before embarrassing himself.
“Hi,” he said instead, holding on to his guitar for reassurance. “Err… I’m looking for Sophie?”
The young woman grew pale and threatened to swoon.
“Oh my God…” she whispered. “Oh my God, oh my God.”
Dan gave her what he intended to be a reassuring smile, but it seemed to make matters worse.
“Won’t you come in?” the girl offered in a voice broken with excitement. “It’s much easier to talk inside, isn’t it?”
Dan shrugged uncertainly. “Um, yes, of course,” he agreed. “Yeah, I’ll come in.”
He squeezed by her and started up the stairs while she closed the door behind him. Immediately he noticed that something was wrong. The flat smelled wrong; it didn’t smell of Sophie, or her perfume, or her things. Also, there were pictures hung on the wall all the way up the stairs. Presumably Sophie could have decided to put those up but they were distinctly un-Sophie-like. They lacked color, focus, and spark.
Meanwhile, the young girl had overtaken him on the stairs and announced excitedly, “George, George, you’ll never guess who’s here
now.
”
George?
Dan stopped in his tracks uncertainly, surveying the flat as it appeared from his vantage point at the top of the stairs. The kitchen was unchanged but full of unfamiliar paraphernalia. Surely Sophie wouldn’t have acquired
that
much stuff in a matter of weeks? He supposed it might be Steve’s stuff. Anyway, the furniture in the lounge was all wrong too. Gone were the new dining table and the dusky-pink sofa, Sophie’s pride and joy.
What the hell…?
The young woman emerged from the bedroom, dragging a young man behind her who had obviously only just woken up. He was hastily dressed in jeans and T-shirt and rubbed his unshaven chin.
“Dan Hunter,” the girl squealed, jumping up and down with glee. “It’s really Dan Hunter. Can I have your autograph?”
Dan stared in bewilderment. For once, he ignored a fan’s plea. “Where is Sophie?” he asked determinedly.
“You
are
Dan
?” George asked by way of response. “We’ve been told that a Dan might come round, but you are him? That Sophie woman knows
Dan Hunter
?”
Dan gave a big sigh. On the whole, he loved being a rock star celebrity. But occasionally—like
right now
—the whole thing could be extremely wearing. And boring. He decided to disregard the inane question.
“Where is Sophie?” he repeated yet more forcefully.
“Oh, right,” George snapped out of his disbelief. “Sophie. Yes. Well, we
assume
that she used to live here—”
“Used
to live here?” Dan pounced. “What are you talking about?”
“We’re renting the flat now,” the young woman explained. “From
YourHome
. Since yesterday.”
Dan considered that information silently.
“You’re the third person looking for her,” the woman continued, eager to fill him in and keen to please. “First, we had Steve coming round yesterday about six o’clock.”
“Steve?” echoed Dan weakly. How did Steve figure in this nightmare?
“Yes, Steve,” George picked up a thread. “He said he’d had a big row with Sophie and wanted to apologize.”
Before Dan could compute this information, the woman chimed up again. “And also a girl by the name of Rachel came by late last night, and
she
said she was sorry she slept with…err…you.” She blushed furiously as she delivered this blow.
Dan gave an involuntary start as though he had been electrified. Years of media training kicked in and saved him from a disastrous reaction.
Deny or feign ignorance; distract; and remove self from situation with dignified expedience.
“You must have misunderstood,” he declared haughtily. “I don’t know any Rachel. And I certainly don’t sleep with random women. I came here today to—” What to offer the curious couple by way of a distraction?
Dan’s fingers caught on the strings of his guitar, and the gentle strumming sound gave him an idea. “I came here today to take Sophie through our new single. But evidently”—he gestured loosely with his free hand—“something’s changed in her circumstances. I do vaguely recall her telling me that she was moving, but I neglected to check my diary this morning before I set off. I do apologize to have bothered you.”
Thus he swept down the stairs and let himself out of the flat before the new tenants could say anything else. Knowing that his departure would be keenly observed, he quickly got in his car and drove off.
Befuddled, bemused and utterly confused, he didn’t really know where to go next. The only obvious place was to go to Rachel’s. Maybe she could explain what was going on.
~Dan and Rachel~
Rachel was slightly bleary-eyed when she opened the door.
“Dan,” she exclaimed full of surprise. “What—”
“Sophie knows about us,” Dan cut in brusquely, despair adding a sharp edge to his voice.
Rachel took a step back to let him in. She grew pale, and a hand flew to her mouth. “But she wasn’t there yesterday,” she mumbled through her fingers. “How would she know?”
She leveled her gaze at Dan. “Maybe she rang them and they told her?” she mused. She sat down heavily on a kitchen chair, then jumped up again and paced the floor. “Sorry,” she offered Dan as an afterthought. “You’ve no idea what I’m talking about, I…”
Dan interrupted again. “I’ve just been to her flat. And she’s gone.
You
told those people you’d slept with me.” His voice was flat, almost impassive, but his frustration bubbled beneath the surface. Rachel paled even more.
“It slipped out before I realized I was talking to the wrong person. I thought Sophie would open the door and…” She gave a big sigh. “I couldn’t bear it anymore, Sophie not being at work or returning my calls. She never showed up for dinner on Monday. I was worried sick so I went round…” Something occurred to her, and she turned on Dan.
“Why did
you
go to her flat?”
Dan mussed his hair and exhaled. “I went round to apologize. Because she
knows
about us.”
“But how?”
“She was at the house. On Monday. She must have been. I found her keys.”
Rachel drew in a deep breath and tried to grasp the implications of Dan’s statement. “Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure,” Dan snapped. “The keys weren’t there on Friday. I checked with the housekeeper.”
“But that doesn’t make any sense.” Rachel grasped at straws. “Why would she just leave them? And how do you know she didn’t drop them off on Saturday or Sunday?”
Dan’s eyes lit up with hope for the tiniest moment, but the glimmer died quickly.
“It’s the
only
explanation that makes sense,” he insisted. “Plus she’d rung me too several times on Monday. I think she just popped round and...” He couldn’t’ finish the sentence.
“Oh my God, she knows.” Rachel finally accepted the idea. “And you’ve known that, and you didn’t ring me?” She threw him an accusing look, then let the anger go. “Anyway, that explains a few things.”
“It does?” Dan arched his eyebrows and Rachel filled him in on what she had learned. His brow furrowed with concern when he heard about Sophie’s row with Steve, and more so when he understood that she had not been at work since Tuesday.
“She’s well and truly gone,” he concluded in dazed confusion when Rachel stopped talking. “That’s a bit extreme.”
“Hm,” Rachel mused, tugging at the hem of her T-shirt nervously. “It might be. Then again, it’s not as radical as hurling yourself in the Thames.” She smiled wanly and Dan hugged her impulsively.
“I suppose not, but I’m still surprised. It’s not like her.”
“Maybe she just flipped. Imagine, a row with your brand new boyfriend. Finding your two best friends in bed together.” Dan and Rachel jointly winced at her stark summation of their brief affair. “You’d feel pretty crap about that.”
Dan inclined his head. “But why not confront any of this? Sophie’s a head-on kinda girl. Why run, suddenly?”
Rachel laced the fingers of her hands together and twisted them nervously. “I don’t know. Maybe she was done being rational and practical. It’s not healthy anyway, all that pragmatic attitude she had going on. Everyone has a breaking point.”
The two friends contemplated her viewpoint silently for a few minutes, each lost in their thoughts.
“What do you think happened between Sophie and Steve?” Dan eventually asked.
“I don’t know. But I intend to find out.” She jumped up and flicked through a pile of purple sticky notes on her coffee table. “Come on, come on, where are you?” she mumbled impatiently under her breath. “Ah,
there!
” She waved a piece of paper triumphantly. “Sophie gave me his mobile number when they started seeing each other in earnest. Let’s get him to meet with us.”
~Dan, Rachel and Steve~
“You did
what?
” Steve half-shouted over the din of the pub, dropping his knife and fork in dismay. “You can’t be serious.”
“Shush,” Rachel hissed on Dan’s behalf, noticing the curious stares their group was receiving. “Keep your voice down.”
“What did you think you were doing? God, what gives you the right to mess with somebody’s life and happiness like that?” Steve sat back angrily, ignoring Rachel’s plea for quiet talking and letting his voice rise dramatically.
“You stupid idiots.”
“Yes, thank you, that’ll do,” Dan tried to soothe him. “We feel quite bad enough as it is.”
“You feel
bad?
Well, wow!” Steve shouted incredulously, his voice clearly audible over the general chatter of happy Saturday night pub-goers.
Dan shrank a little bit lower in his seat. He had never known his local so busy, and he was a bit nervous. Perhaps they ought to have met at his place, but neutral territory had seemed more appropriate under the circumstances.
Steve was beside himself with livid confusion. All this time, he had thought he had driven Sophie away, and now he found out about this undercurrent of deceit? A betrayal by her so-called best friends,
both
of them, at the same time, in the same bloody bed…? Had these people no common sense? No friggin’ shame?
“You
feel
bad?”
he repeated, utterly aghast. “Who do you think you are?” He had got to his feet and was towering over Dan in a menacing pose.
“I’ll tell you who you are,” Steve continued, but ruined the effect of his bravado while he was searching for appropriate words. “You are…interfering…scheming…selfish…conceited… arrogant…fuckwits. That’s who you are.”
“Now, now,” Dan retorted sardonically, “don’t you go calling us names. Your record isn’t entirely unblemished either, is it, my friend? I believe you had the most almighty row with your girlfriend—” He didn’t get any further.
“Leave me out of this. Now that I know the facts, I realize I have nothing to do with Sophie’s disappearance—”
“Of course you bloody do, mate.”
“Guys, guys, calm it down, you’re making rather a scene,” Rachel cut in, trying to stem the argument.
“SHUT UP!” both men shouted at her in unison. Now Rachel saw red, too. She jumped to her feet and banged the table hard with clenched fists.
“No,
you shut up
, you stupid pricks, both of you!” she shouted back at them. “Bloody men.”
Suddenly, the brawl was indeed in full swing. Dan had also risen to his feet, holding both hands in front of him in a defensive gesture. Steve shouted a few more insults and abruptly lunged straight at Dan, fists outstretched in a clumsy pose of attack. Dan dodged the blow easily by stepping to the right, but caught Steve’s hand and slammed it hard on the table, sending their plates and glasses flying as Steve was forced to follow through and practically lay down on the table. Rachel shrieked with disgust as a half-pint of beer sloshed all over her top and trousers. Steve reached up from his semi-prone position and grabbed Dan by the hair, pulling at it and forcing Dan’s head to come down until their faces were level. Dan let go of Steve’s arm, and Steve immediately launched another swing—this time connecting with the side of Dan’s face. Dan hit back, delivering a searing blow to Steve’s nose, which started bleeding immediately.
All the while, mobile phones were being held up by curious customers trying to capture this event for posterity. No doubt within a few hours, Dan and Steve’s disagreement would be all over the Internet. Worse still, flash bulbs were going off from two professional cameras. Several keen photographers caught Dan and Steve mid-swing. Rachel instantly grasped the story the pictures were going to tell. “Guys, guys,
stop
,” she tried to pacify them. But it was the sight of blood that finally got the men to stop the fisticuffs. Dan straightened up first.