“It’s our job to find out everything we can.”
Fiona sighs. It isn’t clear if the sigh is one of frustration, anger, grief.
“Is there anything at all you can think of that may be relevant? Anything to help us understand her state of mind?”
“She was depressed.”
“Are you sure?”
“No, not certain. Maybe you should check with her doctor. I think she was on tablets at some point.” Fiona admits this reluctantly, aware she is betraying a confidence, not wanting to paint her friend in a bad light. Clements doesn’t judge, half the people she knows are on antidepressants, popped them like vitamins, but if Kylie was depressed and taking antidepressants, she would be classed as vulnerable and maybe the missing persons case could be escalated.
“That’s helpful, I will.”
“I remember her talking once about how she couldn’t see any joy anymore. That she was blind to it.”
Clements doesn’t know how to ask the question but doesn’t know how she can avoid asking it either. Time is running out. They might be locked down by Monday. Other cases might come along and take precedent. It is a sickening thought, but lockdown is bound to lead to an increase in domestic violence. She wouldn’t be able to solely focus on this once lockdown was announced. Not without a body. But she doesn’t want a body. A body is so final. “Do you think she could have taken her own life?” Clements probes. She tries to keep her tone neutral. Any hint of sympathy, empathy, shock or judgment can be leading. She wants to know what the best friend thinks.
“I don’t want to think that but it’s possible and maybe—”
“Maybe what?”
“Well, maybe that’s better than the alternative, you know. Someone taking her. Someone hurting her.”
25
Kylie
Thursday 19th March
I wake up because I sense movement. The lack of food has made me sluggish now, and I only manage to shake myself fully into consciousness as I hear the door bang behind him. The opportunity to identify which husband is doing this to me is lost. One moment I am sure it is Mark, who might accuse me of not caring for the boys. The next I wonder, is it Daan, who might declare I care only about myself? I don’t know. I can’t hold on to my concentration long enough to chase a theory thoroughly. I am so hungry. So scared. I see there is another food tray and more water. I pull at the edge of my jumper. Trying to cover up. I’m not being modest, that wouldn’t make sense; both men have enjoyed those parts of my body many times, and besides, I’m alone in the room now, but my nakedness and the foul bucket leave me exposed, vulnerable, like a badly treated animal, caged by the circus ringmaster.
I crawl to the food tray and examine it. Two bananas, a protein bar, an M&S superfood salad and a bottle of iced tea. It’s Honest Tea, organic, fair trade, honey green gluten-free. Everything is in unopened packaging or its skin. It can’t have been tampered with. It’s safe to eat. I almost laugh. One of my husbands has drugged me, imprisoned and chained me, starved, then poisoned me but has now taken the time to shop for my favorite iced tea. If anything demonstrates how messed up this situation is, then my food tray does.
The shopping could have been bought by either of them. Although I run two separate lives, there is an element of crossover. Sometimes this is uncomfortable. Sometimes it feels very natural. These particular products span both my worlds so the tray doesn’t offer the answer to who my abductor is.
Leigh Fletcher does not eat protein bars, but her eldest son, Oli, does.
Kai eats them after an intense workout.
In the Fletcher home, this iced tea is a treat.
Daan buys it as a matter of routine.
Both Leigh and Kai like an M&S salad.
I don’t usually talk about myself in the third person—in two third people. I know I am both women. I know both women are me. I am not insane. I’m not even self-deluded.
There is another note on the food tray.
Choices have consequences. Weren’t you ever taught that?
I know I should be nothing but penitent, but the sanctimonious nature of the message irritates me. I suppose it’s not that surprising that I can be repentant and irritated at once; I’m the master of complex schisms. Of course, I am aware choices have consequences. It’s one of my mantras that I find myself repeating to the boys. I have never been blasé about what I’ve done, the choices I’ve made. I didn’t really think I would avoid the consequences. Not really, not forever. But this? This is madness, it is disproportionate and cruel. Frightening. My fingers shake as I unwrap the protein bar. I take a small nibble but then hunger cravings overwhelm me. I shove it in my mouth, barely chewing, almost gagging. I swallow it down. What day is it now? I think it is Thursday, but it feels as though I have been here forever. My God, how long might this go on for? I turn my jeans inside out and then pull them on. They are stiff with my waste, so crawling into them is disgusting. I retch at the smell but feel less exposed wearing them.
Before Daan, I had never been tempted to be unfaithful. There were occasionally men that I’d meet at work or even other school dads who threw out suggestive looks, flirty comments and invitations that could have led places. I had no interest whatsoever.
Then Daan.
I tried to keep away from him at the beginning. I broke it off time and time again, every day.
In my head.
Over and over again, I planned the things I would say to let him down gently but when I was with him, it was lightning, a bolt through my body, my being. Penetrating, blazing, exhilarating. Like lightning, once in a lifetime, and like a scar left by lightning, irrevocable and permanent.
I just couldn’t let go.
I thought it was simply a case of a lawless body. He sparked inside me a level of lust that I could not control. Possibly, I didn’t want to. I was arrogant enough to think that wasn’t really a problem, that it would eventually fade away. An infatuation. Inconvenient, but not necessarily devastating. But I was not in control of anything. I started to care. I couldn’t put the brakes on that. Couldn’t? Wouldn’t? I thought I’d get used to him. Maybe then become bored of him. But familiarity did not blunt him.
The confusion is unbearable. I suppose it always has been.
I married both men for clarity. I divided myself for clarity. That sounds paradoxical but it’s not, it’s simple, clear-cut. They each got me half the time but at 100 percent capacity, and how many marriages do much more? I have seen other women at the school gates who spend half their time at the gym, or with their friends gossiping, drinking chardonnay over a long lettuce lunch. Didn’t I give as much to my marriages as they did to theirs? Many of the school mums work and their situation is even harder. I’ve been a wife with a demanding office job, and I know how that pans out. When those women are at home, in their husband’s company, often their minds are still at work: Did they reply to that email? Have they proofread that document? Are any marriages more than 50 percent commitment? At least I was not guilty of letting my mind wander. No matter who I was with, they got my attention. I couldn’t afford to dwell on the other.
When I was with Daan, it was painful to think of Mark and the boys. Awful. I did not want to drag them into a world where I was on all fours, begging another man to take me. And when I was with Mark, and thought of Daan, he seemed incongruous. He was delicious and glamorous. Sometimes, in the early days, he did drift into my mind as I shoved dirty clothes into the washing machine, when I scrubbed ovens or loos, but imagining him seeing me do these grubby household chores was uncomfortable. I didn’t want even the ghost of him near the domesticity, in case he was at all supercilious about the drudgery. I couldn’t allow an imbalance. One thing could not be better than the other. They were equally brilliant. Just different.