Silent - Part 4: A Long Evening

Gavin, Friday Evening

Quarter to seven. Call someone?  Lucy’s only been gone a few hours, but I can’t shrug off the unease. Anyway, who would I ring? It might seem weird, but Lucy and I have kept our friendship a secret.

7pm.  It’s getting chilly outside.  I shut the window and flick through the TV channels on the remote control.

8.15pm. I think about calling this friend of Lucy’s. Seeing what Maxine thinks.  No, too soon for that.  Plus, she’ll probably demand an explanation for my presence in her flat and tell me to get out.  

I’ve never met Maxine. There’s a few photographs of her around the flat...sleek and chic – or to rephrase, elegant and tall. A model. Long chestnut hair and almond eyes. I find the eyes unsettling for some reason. Can’t figure out why really… something cold, calculating. They remind me of a cat skulking, watching…plotting. Yeah, that’s it: plotting. Maxine plots stuff.  

Perhaps I’m being unfair – whatever. I don’t know much about Maxine, apart from what Lucy’s told me and the general information that came up afterwards.  I know she has a younger brother who drives a sports car and spends his free time kicking a football around, convinced that someone will spot him and sign him up to a football club.  Maxine’s couple of years older than Lucy and me, a sort of big sister figure for Lucy. Currently on a modelling assignment. Really nice, according to Lucy, although Lucy’s family and the police don’t agree.  

8.30 pm.  I open the bottle of cider I managed to purchase yesterday with my Student ID card. Something powerful enough to chase away the memories of what happened that other time when Lucy and I first met. I pour cider into a tall glass, as I can’t find any pint glasses in the kitchen.  Drink.

10pm.  She must have remembered the nightmare in the early hours of the morning.  That’s it. I woke her and she lashed out – and now she’s embarrassed about it.  I try her number again. I'll apologise and plead with her to make contact.

This time, the phone doesn't ring. Instead, an automated voice informs me that Lucy's number is no longer available.

***
LUCY

Time passes, she doesn’t know how much.  She’s been asleep, dreaming the bad dream. But now she’s awake, hiding in the stillness, watching shapes appear and disappear in the dark. Waiting for the man with the baseball cap to return and let her out.  

She hasn’t eaten since he grabbed her in the alleyway and brought her here. She wills him to return so he can release her, but he stays away, and there is only blackness.

***
Things become clearer again. She remembers the Cybercafé. Going there once or twice a week on her free afternoons, especially when she suspected that someone had accessed the information on her laptop and hacked into her emails.    

She remembers arranging to have lunch with Gavin at a café in a nearby park to discuss the secret that only she and her friend Maxine knew about.
         
But she also invited Gavin up for a different reason: they share a history, a certain sizzling chemistry that has lingered ever since they first met at Lyme House nearly two years ago.

She likes Gavin a lot.But she senses a barrier that she can never cross and knows she can’t compete with the other girl.

The dead girl. Gavin’s lover at the House.

Gavin! she thinks forcibly, hoping the strength of her plea will attract his attention somehow. Call the police. Tell them, I’m in trouble.  Tell them to go back to the Cybercafé and trace the customers.  Please.

But there is only silence.