Chapter 35 Kier

35

Kier

Devon, July 2018

Woody starts barking as soon I let myself into the van.

The sound cuts like a razor into my skull.

‘Hey, it's only me,' I croon, flicking on the sidelight, holding out the back of my hand for him to sniff. ‘Woods, it's me.'

After a minute or so, I get a tail wag, and though the barking quietens, he's subdued, like a part of me is strange to him. I reach for the treat tin, scoop out a handful, tip them into his bowl. He's reluctant at first and then starts loudly crunching.

Pouring a water, I rummage in the cupboard for our medicine box, pop two ibuprofen from their foil. It's as if everything that's happened is pinballing up inside my brain.

Zeph's words about Romy. My hands pushing against his chest.

A beep from my phone. The thoughts disperse. It's a message from the woman I'd met outside the club. Detective Elin Warner.

Detective. I hadn't known what to do with that knowledge, still don't. I'd seen the police through so many lenses after what happened with Mum and Dad .

Protectors. Cowards. Friends. Foes.

I scan the message. I meant what I said. Call if you need anything, ever want to talk.

Reading it, I feel unexpectedly warmed. A similar feeling to when I paint another point on a map – the power of making a new connection.

I watch Woody finish eating and then undress and get into bed.

Leaning back, I close my eyes, try and drift off, but as twenty minutes pass, then thirty, I know it's going to be impossible. The urge, it's there. I need to paint. Have to paint. It comes on me like this – a sudden, desperate force. An itch I can't scratch.

But this is a particular need to do something I've never felt compelled to do before.

Maybe being back here for so long has stirred up all the memories, brought them to the surface like sediment from the bottom of a river.

The unmapped.

These are the worst of places, places that are indelibly seared on my mind, but ones I've always struggled to commit to paper. They come at me hard and fast.

The house we lived in where we first heard Dad hit Mum. The hospice where my grandmother died. The room where I screwed Halloween boy.

Mixing up the paint, my hands are shaking, my body vibrating with an energy that doesn't come from me but outside of myself. This is always a strange hinterland, the moments before , when the images don't even exist as something coherent in my head.

Just outlines. I have a vague sense of colour, but that only solidifies as I mix the paint and the first form knits together. Moving my finger over the canvas, I establish where the first location will roughly be.

Small marks at first. Lighter colours of the underpainting before I add depth and shade.

I work in a frenzy, my eyes half closed. Places spill from me; places I didn't even know would be there. I mix new colours, more confident this time with my choices, smearing and smudging them into one another .

When I finish, I'm breathing heavily, beads of sweat trickling down my back.

I step away, spent. A few beats pass before I drag my eyes to the canvas. As I stare, eyes roaming across the images, I have to bite my lip to stop myself from crying out.

It's a wreckage: one of those devastating aftermaths of a car crash where pieces are littered all over the road, but this isn't a car, it's pieces of me. My life. All the feelings those places conjured inside me. Destruction and suffocation smothering the canvas.

Slowly inhaling, I take another look. One location jumps from the canvas: the club from tonight. The building is light, but the figure outside is shrouded in a shadow that's animate, giving the impression that it's overwhelming the figure.

I blink. All at once, I'm back there. Zeph pushing me against the wall. The rough rasp of brickwork on my bare skin. His words in my ear. You're just like her. The comparison burns. It proves that she's there on his mind, in his waking hours, as she is at night.

My thoughts spiral, past his words, to the broken necklace, the rusted droplets marking the pristine green of the stone.

Ideas form, my mind working so fast, so frantically, that I'm not even fully aware that I'm doing it – reaching for my laptop, typing their names into the search bar.

Zeph Dosen and Romy Hernandez.

It's only as the results appear that I hesitate. I'd promised myself I wouldn't do this again. I'd been down this road with previous partners. Just one more search. If I find this one last thing, then I'll be sure .

But I have reason this time, don't I?

Looking back at the screen, I scour the results. The first few pages reveal nothing bar what I've already read in previous searches. Low-rent gossip pages, articles about the split.

Trying again, I type something more specific: Romy Hernandez disappearance .

Different sites this time; not only articles, but links to fan pages on social media. Clicking through, I dismiss some instantaneously. Most started at the height of Romy's fame, photos copied from her official page interspersed with pap shots. All apart from one peter out after a handful of posts; Romy discarded, another celebrity obsession found.

It's the last one that intrigues me. This page is consistent; photos posted every few days since the advert was first released. Again, most of these images look as though they were stolen from her own social media, professional shots interspersed with personal.

Every few posts are videos of her performing. I click on one of my favourites; a clip I'd studied again and again. Romy's in flesh-coloured underwear, enabling you to see every muscle, every sinew, her body stripped of fat. A machine.

It's filmed on a backstreet somewhere in the city. The dance is mesmerising – precise but simultaneously fluid and free.

There's something raw in the performance. Romy's dancing as if her life depends on it. To me, it seems like she's not just looking into the abyss, but already has one foot in it. Seen things no person should ever see.

I recognise that trauma, and I think what captivates me most is that she's living it, not pushing it away like I do. It's there, in her face, body, as she dances, as if she's channelling it. Using the emotion to elevate her performance.

The video ends.

I resist the urge to replay it, eyes slipping to the comments below.

This is her at her most captivating. A once in a generation talent.

I read a few more, but it's the final one that stops me in my tracks.

A theory about her disappearance.

One idea I'd like someone to look at is that someone made Romy go missing, and by someone, I mean her ex. Won't name names, but you know who I mean. I lived in her block and the relationship was savage. Fights over his work. Hers. I heard it all: he'd accuse her of cheating. She'd accuse him of messing with her mind. When they split, he started showing up at her apartment. I put it down to one of those toxic, codependent relationships, until the pictures started. He'd stand there, on the corner of our block, photographing her as she left the building. For me, knowing his history, it sets off extremely loud alarm bells. I told the police, and as far as I know, they did nothing. Surely they'd want to follow it up?

Whatever I was expecting, it wasn't this. Numbly, I scroll to the comments below.

Wow … I heard the relationship was volatile, but I assumed it was creatives being creatives.

Were you friends with Romy? What was she like?

I'd be careful. This is the kind of shit that ruins reputations (now, I know his is pretty shot already after the finger debacle, but even so … ) All of what you've said sounds pretty spurious. All couples fight, doesn't mean he'd make her disappear. Do you honestly think the police wouldn't have investigated if they were concerned?

A recent comment, only a week ago.

Are there any updates on this?

The person who posted the comment hasn't replied.

I reread the comment again, looking for something that might hint it was simply someone being malicious, but it has the ring of authenticity. Someone genuinely concerned for their neighbour' s welfare.

Despite the ibuprofen, the ache in my head has become an agonising throb. I navigate back to the video of Romy dancing playing on loop.

This time, I can't help but see her performance in a different light.

Perhaps it wasn't about Romy's trauma driving her performance to even greater heights, but about dancing away from something. Desperately trying to escape.