I Know My Name: An addictive thriller with a chilling twist. C.J. Cooke

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       18 March 2015

       Potter’s Lane, Twickenham

      Lochlan: I don’t sleep all night. Gerda and Magnus decamp to the spare bedroom and I carry Max up to his bed and settle Cressida in her cot after another bottle. Then I turn one of the armchairs around to face the window, overlooking the street, and pour myself a glass of gin.

      For hours I lurch between incredulity and devastation. Amazing how you can almost convince yourself of conversations that didn’t happen, of realities and explanations that promise to restore balance and bat away anguish. For a good half hour or so I almost manage to persuade myself that Eloïse told me she was going away for a conference and that I had simply forgotten. Desperation grows possibilities where none are usually found. I play out mental scenarios involving El falling down the stairs and banging her head, becoming disoriented and stumbling out into the street, a burglary gone wrong. Or maybe she became suicidal and couldn’t do it in front of the children. Each possibility is as bonkers as the other.

      The thing is, Eloïse is absolutely the last person you would worry about doing something out of the ordinary. She’s the person who keeps us all together. If I lose my keys, a file, a document, Eloïse will intuit its exact location. She’s like a satnav for lost objects. No, more than that: she’s steady. I know, it sounds boring, but it’s true. Countless times I’ve come home to find someone in the house being consoled, counselled or geed up by Eloïse. She’s the sort of person people gravitate towards for reassurance.

      Around five, the fear that accompanies thoughts of an abduction or burglary gone wrong makes me hold my head in my hands and force back tears. Finally, when exhaustion kicks in and my body shouts for sleep, I reach the absolute bottom of the well of self-questioning. She has left me. It’s the only answer to this most complicated of riddles, the only piece that fits the puzzle. As punishment for all the times I’ve put work before her and the kids, for all the times I’ve not listened or exploded over something small, she has left me, and most likely for someone else. It is why her phone and credit cards are all here. She’s been using another phone to talk to him. He has money. They’ll come back for the kids.

      My vigil propels me through the spectrum of emotions. Anger, self-pity, sorrow, paranoia, a surreal kind of acceptance. Around six I hear Cressida begin to wail. I get up and make up a bottle, then take it upstairs to Cressida. Gerda is already stooping over the cot, trying to quiet her. She mutters to her in German.

      ‘It’s OK, Gerda,’ I say wearily. ‘I’ve got what she wants.’

      Gerda turns and, without meeting my eye, takes the bottle from me. Then she lifts Cressida out of the cot and settles in the nursing chair to feed her.

      ‘There, there,’ Gerda says. ‘Mamie’s here. Take your milk, meine Süße.’

      I lean against the cot woozily and watch Gerda as she feeds Cressida. I feel I ought to say something to her but don’t quite know what. After a moment Gerda says, ‘Seems only five minutes since I was feeding Eloïse like this. Cressida is the image of her.’

      She looks up at me with narrowed eyes.

      ‘I need you to be very honest with me, Lochlan. Has Eloïse left you?’

      Even though I’m well used to my grandmother-in-law’s thinly veiled contempt for me, her question – or rather, the sudden hardness of her tone – catches me off guard.

      ‘I don’t know,’ I mumble. ‘I’ve no idea where she is.’

      She purses her lips and beholds me with that arrangement of her features which I’ve come to understand is designed for me and no one else.

      ‘You were one of the last people to see her, Lochlan. Did she seem …’

      ‘What?’

      ‘Well, I don’t know. You’re her husband. Have you been fighting again?’

      ‘No,’ I say, and I feel a spike of anger towards Eloïse for divulging our problems to Gerda. I know Gerda’s family, that she raised my wife, but I have had not unpleasant daydreams about Gerda kicking the bucket. And following swiftly on the heel of rage is the re-realisation that El’s missing. My wife is missing. Like people you see on posters, or on Crimewatch. And I have absolutely no answers, no map, by which to find her.

      Gerda is pacing behind me, her arms folded.

      ‘Surely she must have said something.’

      ‘Like?’

      She СКАЧАТЬ