Chapter One
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After trawling around the city, visiting the hospitals, and after many social media campaigns, Jenny had resigned herself to the fact that Michael had just walked out of her life without even a goodbye. The tenth of December 2014 was a date that had carved itself into her heart as the day she lost her other half.
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Michael had gone to work as usual, but just never came home. This one action was so out of character. He always, without fail told Jenny if he was going to be late or away, and always rang or texted her if it was an unexpected occurrence. It was one of the things that Jenny loved about him, his caring attitude.
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She rang his mobile, and found it was turned off. She sent an email which bounced back to her 550: The email account that you tried to reach does not exist. Thinking that perhaps she’d punched in the wrong address by mistake, she fired up her laptop to check her account. The laptop took its time going through the start-up procedure. It was only a year old, but it may as well have been hand-cranked. ‘Come on, damn you, I’m in a hurry.’ Jenny spoke to the computer as if it would make a difference, it didn’t. She opened her email account and went to the last message she’d sent Michael, it wasn’t there. She checked the deleted folder, nothing. She checked the mail box for the last email Michael had sent her, again nothing. Having checked all the possibilities on her account, Jenny sat dazed, staring at the screen. How could there be no emails whatsoever sent between them? It was as if he had never existed.
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Silent tears ran from her eyes, then a gulp, a pain hit her in the throat, then travelled to the pit of her stomach; she felt sick and her face felt clammy. Staring at the screen wasn’t producing any answers She didn’t know what to do. What did people do in these circumstances? What if he was dead, or lying inured somewhere? It was now 11.30pm. Jenny knew it would sound daft to tell someone that her husband was missing, that he should have been home a few hours ago, but he never took her for granted. He always took great care to let her know where he was or that he would be late and to expect him at a given time. It wasn’t that Michael was controlling, just the opposite, he just didn’t want Jenny to worry unnecessarily about him. Michael had never been out this late without telling her and writing it on the calendar. Jenny rushed from the living room to the kitchen. The calendar hung in its usual place by the kitchen door but there was nothing written against 10 December or the dates either side of it. The last thing written on it was a big heart with ‘I Love You’ written in the middle of it on the first of December. Jenny had smiled when she’d first seen it and written ‘I love you too’ next to it. Jenny turned and leaned against the larder door, dazed, her legs buckled underneath her and she slid to the floor.
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‘Why aren’t you here Michael? Where are you? O God, please be ok, I love you so much and I need you here, right now.’
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Her hair stuck to her face where it had come into contact with her tears. She pushed the strands back behind her ears and fished out a crumpled tissue from the pocket in her jeans to blow her nose and wipe away the drying stream of her tears.
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From where she sat, Jenny could see down the hall to the front door, her eyes never left it, wanting to capture the very second he walked in. She woke up with a start. It was dark, cold and she was stiff from sitting on the floor. Her neck ached from being sat in the same position for a couple of hours. Gently rubbing the back of her neck then moving it slowly from side to side to ease the stiffness, she stood up and felt blindly for the kitchen light and switched it on.
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‘Michael,’ she called out, ‘Michael are you home?’
Jenny ran upstairs calling his name, but there was only silence. It was strange how quiet the house could be with one person in it, yet so alive when they were both there. Opening their bedroom door and turning on the light, Jenny expected to see Michael lying in bed. The duvet was stretched across the bed, the way she’d left it that morning, the bed was empty.
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‘Of course he’s not home, silly, he’d have woken you up as he came in at the very least, and he’d have laughed at your paranoia.’
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Jenny fell on the bed, pulled the duvet over her. She pulled Michael’s pillow into her arms where she could smell what she could only describe as the essence of Michael, and sobbed till she fell asleep.
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When she awoke in the morning, it was grey, cloudy and cold. Jenny stretched out her arm to Michael’s side of the bed. It was still empty. She wandered out to the toilet and saw Michael’s razor and toothbrush were where he’d left them the previous morning. She opened his bottle of shower gel and smelt the woody aroma of sandalwood with a hint of lemon. Tears slid down her face again. Looking in the mirror, a puffy-eyed, wild-haired urchin looked back at her. She looked like she’d slept in her all week, not just the one night. She peeled off her clothes and ran a shower letting the water heat up before stepping under the steaming torrent. The water drowned her tears, the heat of the water refreshing her body but not her mind or her puffy eyes. She stood for some minutes just letting the water pour over her before switching the shower off and stepping out and wrapping herself in her large fluffy towel. Barely dry, she dressed in fresh clothes, jeans, t-shirt and a jumper, combed her hair and ran downstairs. In the kitchen, she switched on the kettle, flung coffee in a mug and went to the living room to retrieve her laptop. Sat at the kitchen table, she looked up the gym where Michael worked. She’d never rung the gym before as Michael was nearly always on the end of his mobile. Jenny wrote the number down on a pad of paper and rang it.
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‘Good morning, Fitness For You, how can I help you?’ came the sing-song voice on the other end. Jenny pulled a face at the sound of the voice. How could anybody be so flipping happy sounding when her own world was falling down about her. She took a deep breath.
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‘Er, hello, this is Jenny Black, Michael Black’s wife, can you tell me if he’s in this morning please?’
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‘Hello Jenny, I’m sorry but we don’t have anyone called Michael working at this gym.’ The voice replied.
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‘Oh,’ said Jenny, ‘I’m sorry, I must have dialled the wrong number. My apologies…’ She didn’t get to finish the sentence as she was cut off. She checked the number again on the computer, dialled it again and heard the same sing-song voice answering the phone.
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‘Good morning, Fitness For You, how can I help you?’
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‘Is this the gym in the High Street or Gerard Road?’
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‘This is the High Street.’
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‘Ok, thanks. I’ve rung the wrong number’ Jenny replied, and put the phone down.
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It was definitely the gym Michael worked at, so why didn’t they know him there? Jenny sat in a stupor, holding her mug of coffee, which had now gone cold. Perhaps she’d got the name of the gym wrong, but having washed Michael’s work clothes more times than she could remember, she could envisage the logo without very much effort. She tried ringing Michael’s phone again, but there was no response. She tried sending another email and received the same message as before. She dialled her phone again, this time 101 to report a missing person.
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‘I hope you can help me, I need to report a missing person, my husband that is.’
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‘Ok, how long has he been missing for?’
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‘Well I know it sounds daft, but he didn’t come home last night. This is just so not Michael. I know there’s something wrong.’
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The officer who took Jenny’s call was sympathetic, and asked her a few questions for a ‘safe and well’ check, after which he concluded that Michael was not at risk of any harm.
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‘All I can suggest at the moment, Miss, is that if he hasn’t come home in the next few days, contact the Missing People Organizations they should be able to help you.’
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She thanked him for his help and as she ended the call, dropped her pen which rolled under the fridge.
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‘Oh damn, what did you go and do that for?’ she scolded the pen. ‘And you’ve rolled far enough under, I can’t flippin’ reach you.’ Jenny didn’t want to move the fridge, so looked around the kitchen for a suitable implement to flip it out with. Had it not been for the fact that the pen had been a gift from Michael, she would probably have left it where it had rolled. On the work-surface next to the cooker she saw a spatula. ‘Just the job. Come on, you’ve important work to do, getting my pen back from under the fridge.’ As she poked the spatula under the fridge and flicked it back towards her, she successfully not only retrieved her pen, but a dusty piece of paper torn out of a newspaper dated 2nd December 2014, about a Faberge Egg that had been found on a bric-a-brac stall. Jenny would normally skim read articles like these, but this one had Michael’s writing on it, commenting throughout the account. He had circled that fact that only 42 of the probable 50 eggs made by Carl Faberge had ever been recovered and that the remaining eight were believed lost or destroyed. He had also circled the information that related to an egg that had recently been bought at an American flea market for approximately £8,000 and was believed to have been sold for a figure in excess of £20 million. One comment Michael had written was ‘need to find one’. Another comment read, ‘re-check family history, granny CC spoke about Russian treasure.’ Jenny wondered why Michael would have been interested in the article. He’d never mentioned it to her, or remarked on any interest in missing Romanov treasures.