The Half Life Of Stars Part 18

'You spiked our drinks?'

Why don't I sound angry when I say this. Why do I sound so blase?

'Sure, but it's only a little bit. You get a mild hit every time you take a sip. Won't effect you all that much, not unless you suck up every grain.'

We take a moment. Everyone turns to look at Michael. His own gla.s.s is licked clean, and he's already making short work of mine and Huey's; his tongue is coated in granules.

'Great drinks, Tessa. Superb. Without doubt the finest, meanest, most delicious tequila based c.o.c.ktail I've ever, ever tasted in my entire life life.'

Columbia Is Lost, There Are No Survivors

I make Michael a cup of strong coffee in an attempt to sober him up, but it's clear he's not going to be much good to anyone. The rest of us are severely relaxed, but Michael is mildly catatonic. We deposit him on the red-lip sofa and Tess fetches the rest of us pens and paper. She writes 'Claire's Search' at the top of each page and brings out a ruler and some Post-its so we can make the whole thing look much more professional.

'So,' she says, glancing round the dining table. 'What exactly do we know? We know your brother walked out of his office one evening, last month, and that somehow he never made it home. No trace of him was foundno phone calls, no paper trail, no car crash, no nothing. But your gut instinct is that he wasn't kidnapped or involved in something criminal, am I right?'

I tell her that she is.

'He didn't take his pa.s.sport or pack any clothes. He didn't clear out his bank accounts either. But he's a lawyer, right? He's wealthy. He could have had some money stashed away, funds the rest of his family didn't know about.'

It's highly possible.

'Michael said your brother had been having an affair. Do you know who she is, this other woman?'

'All we have is her first name, Annie.'

'Right. Annie.'

She copies it down.

'I have the love letter she wrote to him,' I say. 'Would you like to take a look at her letter?'

'Could I? You sure you don't mind?' You sure you don't mind?'

I have it in my suitcase, I go and fetch it. Tess is close to tears by the time she's finished.

'Don't you love how she wishes him luck at the end? Even though he's broken it off with her, don't you love love how she still wants him to be happy?' how she still wants him to be happy?'

'It's touching,' Huey says. 'It's really touching.'

Tess exhales and straightens up in her chair, signalling she's ready for us to get back down to business.

'OK,' she says. 'So, it seems like he finished it with this Annie woman. And it couldn't have been easy, a love as deep as that, it had to have been devastating for him. But he's a good guy, your brother, he decides to do right by his family. He decides he ought to stick by his wife and his kid.'

'A son. He and Kay have a baby son, Julian.'

'Julian,' she exclaims. 'What a precious name for a baby.'

She writes down Julian and Kay.

It's very important to Tess that she learns the names of all the princ.i.p.al players. She's creating a family tree in her head, tying down all the loose ends. She tells me she buys a lot of thrillers and mystery novels, and that she likes to make detailed notes while she reads them.

'I keep Post-its in my pocket at all times,' she says. 'Just in case I come up with a clue. I underline the best pa.s.sages with a highlighter pen, then I copy them out into my clue book. I like to try and work out who did it before I get to the reveal at the end. Nine times out of ten I can usually guess.'

'Tess is meticulous,' says Huey, proudly, 'She's very good at working out this kind of stuff.'

I nod. I tell them I don't doubt it.

'OK, then,' she says, linking her fingers together and cracking her knuckles. 'So don't shout me down straight away...but I feel like I ought to go out on a limb here.'

We don't shout her down, we wait to hear what she'll say.

'Because a rich man like your brother, I mean, it doesn't make much sense...for a person like that to walk out on his life. If it was me or Huey you could understand it...but a man like that, a success like that...sorry, Claire, but someone's got to say this. The truth might be way darker then you think.'

She beckons for me and Huey to lean forward.

'Now, I'm not saying she did did definitely do it, but I don't think we should totally rule it out. The thing is, the question we have to ask is...could your brother's wife have found out about the affair and gone psycho-nuts and killed him? In definitely do it, but I don't think we should totally rule it out. The thing is, the question we have to ask is...could your brother's wife have found out about the affair and gone psycho-nuts and killed him? In Revenge of the Five Foot Cuckold Revenge of the Five Foot Cuckold the wife kills her husband with a frozen leg of pork and buries him underneath the garden patio. Could your brother be under the patio, you think?' the wife kills her husband with a frozen leg of pork and buries him underneath the garden patio. Could your brother be under the patio, you think?'

'Daniel doesn't have a patio,' says Michael, from the sofa.

'What do they have then? A lawn?'

'Decking.'

'Well, then,' says Tess, turning back to me and narrowing her eyes. 'Could your brother be under the decking?'

'No. There's no way Kay could have done that.'

'She's not the violent type?'

'No...no. Quite the opposite.'

'Might she have hired someone?'

'A hit hit man?' man?'

'Don't rule it out. It's not out of the question. I once knew a woman that did it. The cousin of my neighbour's manicurist back in Tampa. She hired some Colombian guy to kill her dentist.'

'Why?'

'Dunno. He messed up her veneers, or something.'

'Christ.'

'I know. My cousin said her smile was totally ruined.'

Tess shudders. Huey pulls his hat tighter over his head.

'So, where does that leave us?' Tess says, a little disheartened. 'If you don't think his wife had him smoked, then where does that leave us, exactly?'

I tell them everything else I know. All about the sushi waitress and the j.a.panese secret agency. All about the docks and the Russian sailor. I run through the coincidence of the shipping schedules and the freighters and Tess listens closely, totally rapt. She pumps me for information on the Russian. She wants to know if he was good-looking, if he looked anything like Omar Sharif. She's disappointed when I tell her that he didn't.

'So, you figure he came out here on a cruise ship?'

'Well, not a cruise ship exactly, more like a...yeah...exactly, he took a cruise.'

Tess is happy with this; she writes down Russian, Miami, cruise.

'So the big question has to be, why'd he decide to come back here? If we can work out why he came, we can probably work out where he is, am I right?'

I hope she is.

'We need to think of it like an acting cla.s.s,' says Huey. 'We need to get deep inside your brother's head. Was he happy when you lived out here, when you were kids?'

I shift in my seat.

'I don't...it's hard to say. The whole thing...well, it ended pretty badly. My father died out here, he had a heart attack.'

'I'm sorry,' says, Huey, taking his hat off. 'Really, I'm sorry to hear that. How did it happen, exactly?'

This isn't a story that I care to tell often, but the details seem to spill from my mouth; the Valium has made me talkative, confessional.

'It was the day the s.p.a.ce shuttle exploded, the Challenger,' I say. 'Daniel and my dad had driven up to Cape Canaveral to watch the launch...they saw it go down right in front of them. He collapsed on the drive home. They got stuck in the traffic, these terrible jams...they couldn't get an ambulance to him in time. Daniel was all on his own.'

I close my eyes for a moment.

'He ended up running through the traffic to get help. He ran until his feet bled, till he'd damaged both of his legs. And I can't...I can't imagine how he felt.'

Tess and Huey look at one another.

'Jesus,' says Huey, 'poor kid.'

'So, where were you when all this happened? Were you waiting for your dad, back at home?'

'No...I was out. On the beach.'

'And your mom?'

'At the apartment, with my little sister. Mum says Sylvie woke up and started to cry seconds before the police knocked at our door. She thinks my sister must have sensed that something was wrong.'

'Wow,' says Huey.

'Amazing,' says Tess.

Tess writes down, Sylvie, sixth sense.

'I remember that day really well,' she says, 'the day that the Challenger blew. All of us watching it on the TV set. All the neighbours in and out of each other's houses. The look on that poor woman's face, that teacher's mother. Christ,' she shakes her head, 'I'll never forget that woman's face.'

'Where were you when the last one went down?' says Huey.

'Columbia?' says Tess. 'I'm not sure. You remember that one Claire, the Columbia?'

I do, it's at the back of my mind. I know that it happened, that it exploded on re-entry but I can't for the life of me remember when it was. This is something I should know. I wonder why I never spoke to Daniel about it? It must have been hard for him to see the pictures on the news, to read about it in the papers: it must have brought that first time right back to him.

'It was early last year,' says Huey.

'When exactly? Do either of you know which month?'

'January, I think.'

'No,' says Tess. 'It wasn't. I remember it now, it was February. Right before my first consultation with the plastic surgeon.'

'Isn't February when he started on the antidepressants?' says Michael, sleepily, shuffling over to join us.

And, of course. That's exactly when it was.

We spend the next half-hour on the Internet looking up details of the Columbia explosion. A few clicks of the mouse and suddenly the pages are full of it. Shuttle bursts into flames over Texas. Seven astronauts never had a chance. Observers report seeing two white streaks in the sky. Witnesses claim their front doors rumbled and hummed. The explosion was caused by giant lightning, some say. Nonsense, it was nothing of the sort. A small fault. Of course, just a tiny random blip, like that failed rubber washer on the Challenger. In the midst of all this clarity, this scientific excellence, a small but significant factor failed. A slice of foam broke off and tore away from the fuel tank, causing damage to an insulation tile. The shuttle was left unprotected, vulnerable to the searing heat of re-entry. There was no way out. Not for anyone. There was no possible escape.

I turn off the computer, it fizzes and dies, and Tess lays her hand on my shoulder.

'It's the worst,' she says. 'I know what that's like, when they start taking the antidepressants in secret. What was it, do you think? Was he ashamed or something?'

'I don't know,' I say, quietly. 'Daniel's hard to get close to, he's very...'

'Keeps it all locked inside, am I right? Doesn't share his problems with anyone?'

'No, I...not really.'

'You feel lousy, I bet? Wish you'd tried to get more out of him while you could?'

I don't answer. All of a sudden, I can't. It's criminal that I didn't pick up on this or notice this. I wonder if Kay did, or Mum. Why did no one speak about it? Why did no one say anything at the time? What a talented family we've become, to bury all this stuff away so neatly.

'Hey,' says Tess, noticing the look on my face. 'Don't be so hard on yourself. I mean, you're here now, aren't you? Doing the best you can to look out for him. You got on that plane right away, the second you thought he might be out here. And I'll tell you one thing for absolute certain. We're not going to let you leave until you find him. Isn't that right, Huey?'

'Yeah, man,' says Huey. 'That's totally right.'

'The best thing you can do now is relax for the night. It's been a tough month for you, tough couple of days. We should get ourselves pumped up, let off a little steam, we can start up fresh again in the morning.'

'I don't know, Tess. I'm not sure.'

'Come on now, trust me, it's exactly what you need. And we've done well tonight,' she says holding up her note-pad. 'We already found out something important. If you ask me your brother's suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome. Chances are, he's got amnesia or something like that.'