Chapter 44 She’s Gone
She’s Gone
Matt opens his front door to reveal Aoife Doherty, her hair and makeup red-carpet ready, clearly about to attend some sort of event or other. He is momentarily thrown. He’s seen her around, of course, but not for a while now, the woman who he has been trying to avoid.
Every time he ran into her for a good three-month stretch after she moved in, she’d launch into a long stop-and-chat that she seemed to think he was initiating, and appeared to find exhausting and galling.
Perhaps she was so used to people being interested in her as an actor that she assumed everyone was just that, interested.
But, Matt concedes, a lot of people can’t tell the difference between someone just being polite and actively flirting with them.
Finally, thankfully, she seemed to get a boyfriend and left him alone.
But now here she is, and while he’s with someone he does actually like.
“Hi,” she says, staring at him with suspicion in her eyes. “I need Frankie…she’s in there, right?”
Matt suddenly gets it: Frankie has concocted a fake emergency to get her out of his house.
Which explains how odd she was being just now.
Matt infers Frankie did not actually enjoy their date yesterday after all, and may well have actually lost an earring and been forced to return for it.
He cringes internally at the fact he offered her wine.
Matt’s embarrassment curls around inside him and makes him wish he kept to the idea of not getting involved with anyone ever again.
“You want me to go inside and get Frankie?” Matt clarifies, all of it sounding a little childish. “Could you not just call her?” he asks, eyeing the phone in Aoife’s hand.
Aoife sighs and shifts in her mules.
“Look, please just go get her. And for God’s sake, give her back her fecking cat.”
Matt frowns. “Her cat? What are you talking about?” he asks, then relents. “You know what—don’t worry, I don’t need the whole story. Wait here. I’ll go get her.”
Matt disappears back into the house, then reappears just minutes later.
“Okay, so apparently she’s not here anymore,” he says with a tight smile. “She’s obviously snuck out. Which I imagine you know more about than I do. You can come in and check if you want. I don’t know what’s going on but I think maybe call her?”
Aoife stares at Matt, then looks past him into the house, her view blocked by the partition door.
“Seriously, come in and check if you like,” Matt repeats, patience wearing thin, as he opens the door wider for Aoife to enter.
Aoife steps back. “No fecking way—I’m not coming in your house.”
She looks past him again, then lets out a deafeningly shrill “FRANKIE?!”
They both listen back into the house. No response.
“You’re seeing her, Matt, and you didn’t think to tell her about the house?”
A wash of self-doubt surges up inside him at the accusation, but he’s certain in his reasoning.
“Seriously? You would want to know that happened in your house, would you? She’s in there alone. All these are Georgian…and Victorian houses, statistically someone’s died in all of them—think about it. It’s hardly something we all remind each other of, though, is it?”
Aoife straightens, emboldened. “That’s different. Anyway, I told her. She knows now.”
“What? Why? Why would you tell a recently divorced single woman that she’s living in a murder house? Are you crazy? How is she supposed to sleep in that place now?”
“Ah, fuck you, Matt. I’d want to know,” Aoife mutters, a sliver of self-doubt creeping into her words.
“Well, I wouldn’t.”
Aoife shakes her head dismissively and turns away, descending his steps carefully, then striding off, her phone going to her ear.
Matt watches her go, a quiet dread pitching inside him at the idea Frankie might think he cared more about his house price than her peace of mind.
Matt closes the door and heads back inside, slipping his phone from his pocket and dialing Frankie’s number. It goes straight to voicemail.
In the kitchen, he notices his back door is ajar. He considers how strange it is that Frankie left that way rather than walk out of his front door. She must have actually scrambled over the garden wall to get away from him. He rings her number again but it goes straight to voicemail.
“Great. Well, that’s embarrassing,” Matt concedes, and closes the back door.