Searching For Celia Part 3

I place my hand on her shoulder and feel the strong muscles shift beneath my fingertips. "Don't blame yourself," I say, then remember how often I was told the same thing myself, five months ago. "If Celia wanted to die, no one could have saved her."

Edwina blinks rapidly and draws a breath. As she glances around the flat, I imagine what she sees: places where she and Celia laughed and cuddled, made dinner and watched TV, and places even more intimate-Celia's underwear drawer, the bathtub, the bed where they made love.

"Let's get out of here," I whisper. "Fresh air will do us both good."

She nods, swiping her eyes with her thumbs. "Are you hungry?"

The question seems so preposterous, I laugh out loud. How could I eat now? And yet I am hungry-famished, in fact. I haven't had a decent meal since before my flight left Chicago yesterday evening. "Starving," I reply.

"Come on then. There's a nice place just up the road."

We leave Celia's flat and, fighting the bl.u.s.tery wind and scattershot rain, head north up Rosslyn Hill, past trendy boutiques, tall red-brick town houses, and elegant cafes. The affluent, sophisticated feel of the neighborhood stands in stark contrast to the squalor of Celia's flat.

Edwina steps briskly in her heavy boots and I struggle to keep pace with her long, determined strides. We are silent, except for our quickening breath, as we proceed uphill, and in the silence I observe Edwina-tall, confident, powerful-from the corner of my eye. So this is-this was?-Celia's partner. I am surprised; most of Celia's girlfriends, other than me, have been delicate, ethereal waifs with soft, feminine features.

"Tell me about Celia's recent work," I ask, glancing at Edwina as we stop to cross Willoughby Road and are nearly mowed down by a frantic Mini Cooper. "We've been out of touch the past several months."

"Well, for a start, she's made some changes at the center."

"What kind of changes?"

"She no longer works primarily with asylum seekers and refugees, as she did before." Edwina plunges her hands into her jacket pockets as we resume walking. "Now Celia deals almost exclusively with young women and girls-mainly from Asia and Eastern Europe-who have been trafficked into Britain as s.e.x slaves and child prost.i.tutes. She helps get them off the streets and into group homes, foster care, or sheltered accommodation."

"Sounds challenging," I offer, pleased that Edwina's gait has slowed enough that my shorter strides keep pace with hers. The sidewalk seems to narrow as we maneuver past a frumpy, frazzled mum pushing a double stroller.

"More challenging than you might imagine," Edwina muses, blinking against the wind. "Celia doesn't just shuffle papers and answer phones. She's committed to working on the ground as well. Last year she sneaked into Moldova on the back of a lorry with a group of aid workers, hoping to doc.u.ment the circ.u.mstances there."

"Sounds like the kind of work where she might make enemies."

Edwina stubs her boot on a broken paving stone and I clutch her arm so she doesn't tumble.

"You think it's foul play?" she asks, leaning against me as she finds her footing, tapping the toe of one boot with the heel of the other.

"I have no idea," I admit. "I'm just not convinced Celia would kill herself."

Edwina straightens and looks away uneasily.

"What is it?" I ask.

"Celia attempted suicide," she whispers, as if to cushion the blow. "Twice, in fact, in the past year. About two months ago she overdosed on sleeping tablets and ended up in hospital."

I hunch my shoulders to fight off the cold. "I know. Celia's neighbor, Dot, mentioned that to me. But I'm still not convinced."

"There is something else." Edwina frowns, biting her lip.

"What?"

"I don't believe the mugging was a random street crime, as Celia claimed. I think it was a warning to back off, or else."

I knew there was more to the story. "Had she received any specific threats?" I ask.

Edwina shakes her head. "None that I know of, but we spoke less frequently since we split up."

"But the breakup was amicable?"

"Yes..." She looks away.

"But?" I'm hesitant to push too hard.

The rising wind teases tears from Edwina's eyes. "I'm not even certain why we broke up, truth be told. We had been very happy-at least I was and believed she was as well. Then about a month ago, she became distant. Secretive." A shadow darkens her face.

"Was there someone else?" I ask carefully.

She tucks her chin to her chest and resumes walking, at a pace even brisker than before. "I don't believe so. She said she needed s.p.a.ce and we should separate. I tried changing her mind, but she was adamant. And you know how Celia is, once she sets her mind to something."

Boy, did I know. But I felt a strange stab of remorse that someone knew Celia as well as, or better than, I once had. When we were lovers, I foolishly believed that we knew one another better than any two people ever could-the ultimate fallacy of love.

We reach the cafe, a cheerful French bistro called Au Bon Tartine, with the day's specials scrawled in rain-smudged chalk on a blackboard propped against the open door. Edwina guides me inside the noisy cafe, which is surprisingly busy for just before eleven a.m. on a Wednesday morning. We take a small marble table facing the foggy front window, where we can observe the thick traffic lumbering up Hampstead High Street, belching dense clouds of exhaust that hang heavily, skirting the pavement like old-fashioned crinolines.

We order Diet c.o.kes, salade Nicoise, and share a plate of pommes frites. The food is fresh and delicious and I realize how truly hungry I was.

"So you're the famous author." Edwina reveals a slightly gap-toothed grin as she sips her Diet c.o.ke. "Celia lent me a.s.signment: Colombia. I loved when your heroine broke up the drug cartel."

"Yes. By replacing several hundred kilos of cocaine with talc.u.m powder and flying the real stuff back to Miami in a hijacked Cessna 182 Skylane." I feel myself blush. "My novels are nothing but superficial escapism, devoured by straight suburban soccer moms."

Her eyebrows rise. "And yet you continue writing them."

Her challenge surprises me but I try to shrug it off. "I was a serious writer, until my agent suggested I do a thriller for a new publishing house in the States. Next I knew, they said yes and I was earning more in six months than I had in my lifetime."

Edwina looks surprised and takes a moment to dab her lip with the napkin before responding. "Surely you no longer need the money."

"True. But now I'm in too deep-contracted for three more books." I pause, watching beads of condensation merge and trickle down the ghostly gla.s.s window. "I sometimes think I lost Celia's respect. When we were young and struggling, we swore we'd never sell out. We'd maintain our commitment to literature, or some such thing. But now, not only am I pandering to commercial concerns, I'm writing books that are straighter than straight, full of glamour and hetero romance."

"Cecelia wouldn't have minded such success." Edwina very deliberately saws into a green bean, then pushes an anchovy to the side of her plate.

"Maybe not." I pick up a french fry and swipe it through the salad's vinaigrette. "But she would have used the money to help refugees and the underprivileged. I, on the other hand, bought a BMW and a lakefront condo."

Edwina puts down her fork and looks me straight in the eye. "Celia thinks the world of you," she insists. "She's always going on about Dayle, the best-selling author, and how proud she is of you."

"Oh." I don't know what to say. The truth is that I have barely even thought about Celia over the past six months, my mind so preoccupied with other things.

As Edwina and I continue to eat in silence, occasionally glancing up to watch traffic, I think back to first meeting Celia when we were both thirteen and she and her father arrived in Green Bay on his Fulbright fellowship. Celia, with her black leather, her Mohawk, and her multiple piercings, touched down like a tornado. She listened to The Smiths, Pixies, Fields of the Nephilim; had friends back home airmailing her copies of New Musical Express. Celia introduced me to Anas Nin, Henry Miller, Sylvia Plath, and Lady Chatterley's Lover while our school library was banning Judy Blume's Are You There G.o.d? It's Me, Margaret. The world became infinitely larger and more interesting the moment I first laid eyes upon Cecelia Frost.

"How did you and Celia meet?" I ask Edwina softly, breaking the silent spell.

Edwina's eyes ignite as she glances up from her salad. "It was at a charity reading to raise money for a church in Nigeria," she explains. "I have a vested interest-I was born in Lagos to a Nigerian father and a mother from Devon." The gap-toothed smile briefly reappears. "The reading was at Persephone, and Celia read that scene from West of Blessing-you know, the bee-sting scene." She sighs. "Love at first sight."

"Sounds wonderful."

"More than wonderful. Life altering." Edwina smiles sadly, then glances at her watch, a large silver Breitling, a man's watch that makes her broad hand and wrist look narrower and more feminine. "Oh, it's twenty past. I must go-I've a lecture at one." She rises from her chair and slips a worn leather wallet from her back pocket, then pulls out a business card and hands it to me. It says Edwina Adebayo-Junior Lecturer, Department of English, University of London, above her address and phone number. "Ring me if you hear anything. Anything," she emphasizes, plunging her arms into her jacket and hefting it over her shoulders. Her generous bottom lip trembles as her large round eyes revert to a troubled shade of pastel gray. "Please find my Celia. Tell me that she's all right."

I slip the card into my backpack. "Believe me-I'll do everything I can."

We leave the cafe and after saying our good-byes, Edwina heads north to the Tube station while I turn and head south, back to Celia's flat. Dot Crawford is still buzzing with excitement as I greet her in the building's decrepit front lobby.

"DC Callaway spoke to me for ages after we left you," she says proudly. Dot has changed into a dark skirt, white blouse, and gray cardigan with white support hose and sensible shoes. I imagine she is waiting for a ride as she busily plays with the clasp on her handbag. "And she may even need to interview me again!"

"I'm sure you've been very helpful," I reply, smiling in spite of myself.

I make my way up the darkened, foul-smelling staircase and enter Celia's unlocked flat, which a.s.saults me with its emptiness, its gaping silence, its utter lack of Celia. Celia was a physical ent.i.ty, alive and present, while Edwina and I spoke. But now Celia has vanished, disappeared, retreated into nothingness. In a moment of terror, she seems truly dead.

I drop to the makeshift bed and take from my backpack the only image I have of my son-an ultrasound from the eighteenth week of pregnancy. In the photo Rory appears in profile, a bright form in dark shadow, with a blurred, busy heart, when the promise of life was still inside him. Grief fills the room up of my absent child, lies in his bed, walks up and down with me, puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words...No. Don't do this.

My eye jumps to the desk, to the faded photograph of the infant Celia on her mother's lap. Lost mothers, lost sons; lives delineated by loss. Maggie + Celia, Oct. '78.

Suddenly my hair stands on end. I know it before I can form the words. I pull open the desk drawer and take out the Personal Doc.u.ments envelope. Heart pounding, I tear it open, riffling through National Health Service forms, diplomas from Cambridge University and the University of East Anglia, insurance paperwork, vehicle registration, and there it is at the bottom-her birth certificate, dated 23 April 1978. Place of birth: Portland Hospital for Women and Children. Name and surname: Cecelia Jeanne Frost. Father: Brian Joseph Frost.

And there, in official black on white, is her mother's name: Marguerite Joanne Frost. Maiden surname: Alderton.

Maggie. Short for Marguerite. Marguerite Alderton. The brand-new credit card I found in the bathroom is in the name of Celia's mother, who died in 1981.

Chapter Five.

Wednesday 11:46 a.m.

Marguerite Alderton. Celia's mother. Celia must have taken the name to create a new ident.i.ty for herself. To use after faking a suicide and running away? Hope tightens my throat: Celia is still alive. But then why is everything she'd need for her new life-cash, clothes, cell phone, credit card-still at her flat?

I step to the desk and turn on Celia's computer. The grief and fatigue of a few moments ago have disappeared-if Celia is alive, I will find her. While the computer boots up, I search the rest of the desk drawers. I find Celia's checkbook with plenty of blank checks, but all the check registers are empty. Typical of Celia not to keep track of her finances.

Once the computer is up and running, I need a pa.s.sword to access anything-hard drive, e-mail, Internet. Celia lives and works alone-why so much security? I try several combinations of words and numbers that could possibly form Celia pa.s.swords, but once I've tried too many, the system locks me out. d.a.m.n.

On to Plan B. I take a deposit slip from Celia's checkbook and slide it into my pocket. Celia's account is at Barclays, and Edwina and I pa.s.sed a Barclays branch about a quarter mile from here, on the way up Hampstead High Street. I grab my jacket and backpack and head out, leaving the door to the flat unlocked behind me. Without a key, I feel I have no choice.

The sky, which earlier featured a muddy sheen like wet concrete, has softened somewhat, to a more inviting shade of powdery gray. Although I never lived in this part of London, the bustling, affluent streets and narrow, cobbled lanes feel familiar. After finishing graduate school at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, Celia and I moved a hundred miles southwest, to London, and shared a tiny bas.e.m.e.nt flat in Clapham, south of the Thames, where we relished our lives as struggling writers. We had virtually no money and survived on small advances from our publishers, along with placing the occasional freelance magazine article. We ate toast with beans or Marmite almost every night, reused tea bags multiple times until nothing but brown water seeped out, and would flip a pound coin to see who got first dibs on our one tubful of fresh bathwater. Now, five years later, I look back on that as the best time of my life, save for the blissful seven and a half months I spent eagerly awaiting the birth of my son.

When Celia and I lived in Clapham, we traveled up to Hampstead twice a month to meet with Rupert Hawes-Dawson, the well-known poet who had been our professor and tutor at the university. Rupert resembled a character from a Merchant-Ivory film: midforties and foppish, impossibly tall, with loose yellow-blond curls tossed across his high forehead and an amiable slouch, as if chronically apologizing for his surprising height. He tended to mumble the end of every sentence and he rolled his own cigarettes with elegant hands that hinted at other, uniquely British, gifts: jam making, sculpture, seduction.

Rupert had offered to tutor us, informally, after graduation, while Celia and I finished our first books. Although Rupert lived in a large London town house with his wife and three children, he kept a modest but well-equipped one-bedroom flat nearby that he used while writing, and that was where we convened for our twice-monthly sessions. While Rupert and Celia discussed Dostoevsky and didactic dualism, I, not privy to their cla.s.sical education, would sit back and observe their sometimes fiery intellectual discourse.

On the way back to Clapham after our sessions, Celia would be seething, in her contained English way, desperate for a cigarette as she'd smoked all of hers there, and picking apart one of Rupert's off-hand comments about various literary figures. I mean he said, he actually said, that I overestimated the significance of the thematic continuity that exists between the novels E. M. Forster published before and after his death. Overestimated the significance? Is he serious?

Walking these same Hampstead streets now, five years later, it is remarkable how memories linger, attached to a place and existing almost in a fourth dimension, immutable and ever-present. The corner newsagent's that today is draped with papers proclaiming Terror Alert On High is where I bought Celia an ice cream and tried to cheer her up after one particularly contentious visit to Rupert in which he dismissed Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness, Celia's favorite novel, as "amateurish and poorly plotted."

Beyond the newsagent's I catch my reflection in the window of a chic French bakery, and it takes me a moment to realize it is me. I am the five-foot-three-inch, dark-haired, pale-skinned woman in a sweater, jeans, jacket, and sneakers. At 145 pounds I still carry an extra fifteen pounds of baby weight; weight from a baby who, had he lived, would not yet weigh fifteen pounds himself. My selfish body clings tightly to the cells that surrounded him, that nurtured him and helped him to grow.

My gaze rises from my own reflection to the watercolor swirl of shapes and forms behind me, floating as if in a dream, a stream of images moving in and out of focus, first sharp, then hazy, then sharp. In the center of the stream, a man. Very clearly a man, with something about him surprisingly precise and specific against the undulating flow of North London street life. He is large and dark, dressed in a black fedora and trench coat. He must be fifteen feet behind me, but aware of him now, I can feel his steady stare slice through my spine. I spin quickly and he is gone, swallowed by the crowd, leaving me to wonder if he was ever really there at all or if he was simply another image from the past, just one of those displaced and lonely ghosts that are said to walk among us.

Shaking myself back to reality I continue on to Barclays, where I have no trouble accessing Celia's personal account information. I simply fill out the deposit slip from Celia's checkbook and hand it to the teller with fifty pounds cash, saying casually, "I'd like to deposit this, and would you mind giving me a printout of my recent transactions? I'm having trouble logging on to my computer at home." I don't even bother employing a fake British accent, a.s.suming the teller is unlikely to know Celia personally.

"Of course, Miss Frost. It will just be a moment." The teller never looks up as she hits a few keys and turns away as a printer whirs busily behind her. The teller returns and hands me a folded piece of paper with Barclays's distinctive logo, a turquoise silhouette of an eagle, at the top. "Here you go," she says with a smile.

I thank her and step away from the window. According to the printout, two days ago, on March 21, Celia withdrew 5,100 from her checking account, leaving a balance of 26, or less than fifty dollars. I have to a.s.sume the 5,100 is the money I found stashed behind Celia's mattress. But why? Why take the money in cash? And why, if she faked a suicide and disappeared, is the money still there?

When I get back to Celia's building, the mail has arrived, dumped in a large pile on a ledge just inside the front doorway. Curious, I leaf through the stack of mail and find two envelopes addressed to Celia, hidden among numerous final notices and bills stamped past due. Feeling guilty, I take the mail upstairs and let myself into Celia's flat. For a moment I imagine I will find her inside, waiting for me with a wry grin, narrow hands wrapped around a mug of tea and shoulders hunched as she asks blackly, "You liked my little joke then, did you?"

I drop my backpack on Celia's bed and study the small white envelope that has BB TravelLondon/Cardiff as the return address. Inside the envelope is a one-way ferry ticket for Marguerite Alderton, from Holyhead in Wales to Dublin, Ireland, leaving on April 2. I had planned to return home to Chicago a day earlier-April 1. What the h.e.l.l?

I tear open the second, larger envelope, which has no return address. At first I think it's empty, but suddenly something glides out and drifts to the floor. I pick it up and gasp. It's a fuzzy eight-by-ten-inch photograph of Celia standing outside her building, fumbling in her purse as if looking for keys. The photograph appears to have been taken from several yards away with a zoom lens. Across the bottom of the photo someone has scrawled in black marker: We can make you disappear.

Chapter Six.

Wednesday 12:31 p.m.

Stumbling across the room still clutching the photo and envelope, I sink to the bed as my knees give out beneath me. The woman in the photo is definitely Celia, but it's Celia as I've never seen her: rail thin and haggard, looking ten years too old, with ragged hair bleached brittle-blond and dark shadows beneath her eyes. Celia. What kind of friend allows this to happen? I have been so consumed with my own grief that the rest of the world fell away.

The envelope has no return address, but it was postmarked in London on March 11. Twelve days ago, so it should have arrived last week. Did Celia not know she was in danger? Or had she received other threats, prior to this one?

Instead of calling the police, I phone Celia's therapist, Dr. Fiona Whitaker, whom Celia saw weekly when we lived in Clapham. I never met Dr. Whitaker myself, but I know Celia found her treatment invaluable. Maybe the doctor can tell me if Celia had been receiving threats.

Once I explain what's happened, Dr. Whitaker agrees to see me right away. Before leaving Celia's flat, I stash the ferry ticket, credit card, cell phone, and cash in my backpack and sling it over my shoulder. Better with me than in an unlocked apartment, I decide, especially in light of the threatening photo.

When the Tube to Holland Park stops at Marble Arch, the stuffy, overcrowded carriage empties enough that I think I see, spilling out of an aisle seat at the opposite end of the car, the man I saw earlier, behind me in the bakery window. Even in multicultural central London, his looks are striking. He appears to be a Pacific Islander-Samoan, or perhaps Polynesian. About six foot six and 340 pounds, he has olive skin, a round face, deep-set eyes, and jet-black hair. Dressed in a black trench coat, he balances on his lap a black umbrella, slick with rain.

He looks out the carriage window at a poster for my conference plastered to the rounded station wall, upon which a photograph of my face appears above the words: Keynote Address by Best-Selling Novelist Candee Cronin, Author of a.s.signment: Sao Paulo.

The man glances rapidly from me to the poster and back again. Maybe he's a fan, just trying to figure out if I am Candee Cronin. Maybe.