‘You have a lovely home,’ I comment, my adjective of choice a poor description of such modern splendour.
‘Thanks. Lex and I designed it. The project was a nightmare. Two years of meetings and builders and mud, but it was worth the late nights and extra cost. Do you want a drink?’
As Otis indicates to the tap, I shake my head. An awkward silence rings out, one I’m not sure how to fill, and not just because these days I seem to have lost all my social skills. Part of me can’t believe that I really am here, inside Alexa Clarke’s house. The opposite of where I should be on a random Tuesday when I have a mountain of work waiting at home, I’m sure.
‘The place is Lex’s dream house,’ Otis says eventually to fill the silence. ‘She lost her parents when she was seven. She’s dreamed of her own family home ever since. When we got married, I promised her we’d build the perfect one.’
Otis’s voice catches when he speaks about his wife. To stop himself from falling victim to his upset, he gestures to the vast expanse on the other side of the glass bifold doors. The garden is well designed but clipped back at this time of year. Dead leaves litter the frost-bitten grass, making me shiver.
‘Lex loves the garden. She’s even more obsessed with the view past the trees. Fields that go on forever, she describes it as. Not my kind of thing, but Lex would sleep under the stars if she could.’
‘Was Alexa getting out much before she disappeared?’
Otis turns from the garden, but he doesn’t meet my gaze. ‘I don’t know. I’m at work for most of the day. Weekends, too. Lex is at home at the moment, but I don’t know what she does with her time.’
Politely ignoring the resounding sadness of Otis’s admission, I take in my surroundings once more. My eyes come to rest on the papers, now neatly piled up.
What was Otis looking at? What doesn’t he want me to see?
When I sense Otis watching me, I force myself to look away from the table.
‘We should start by making a timeline of the day Alexa went missing,’ I say.
‘Sure, but I can’t add much to it. Once I left for the office, I don’t know what she did.’
‘I noticed a CCTV camera on the way in,’ I say, burning as I think of how it will have tracked me snooping around the property. ‘Does it show Alexa going out on Saturday?’
Otis nods. ‘CCTV shows her leaving the house at eleven through the bifold doors in here. She goes into the garden.’
My eyebrows arch. ‘The garden? But it’s the middle of November.’
‘I thought it was weird, too, but that’s what happens on the recording.’
‘Do you see where she goes from there?’
‘No. The cameras only show points of entry to the house. I don’t know if Lex sat outside, if she went for a walk, if someone came to see her. I don’t know where she went.’ Otis’s shoulders slump, the words knocking the life out of him. ‘The next person you see is me arriving home from work at seven. It’s like Lex steps outside, then she vanishes.’
An eerie chill tickles my bones at those words. ‘Could she have dodged the CCTV?’
‘Maybe,’ Otis replies, but he doesn’t sound sure. ‘The cameras are only on the doors to the house and garage. To be honest, when we moved here, we thought installing CCTV was excessive. I know the house is near a public footpath, but it’s on the edge of a village where nothing happens. You’ve as much chance of something exciting kicking off here as you do a UFO landing on your roof.’
I smirk at Otis’s assessment of Bramblethorpe. ‘Did you check CCTV from the days before Alexa left to see if anything unusual happened?’
‘I did, but there’s nothing. Every day is the same. I go to work, I come back. Lex goes out once a day, every day. She’s never gone for more than an hour. Judging by her clothes, she’s out for a walk, but that’s a guess.’
‘Does she meet anyone?’
‘I told you, I don’t know how Lex spends her time. I wish I did, but I don’t.’
While Otis deflates over how little he knows his wife, a dense sorrow clogs the air. I try not to be affected by the sadness, but I can’t avoid breathing it in. Part of me wants to judge Otis for knowing so little about the woman he married, but I can’t. If someone asked Kamal what I did all day, his answer would be just as clueless.
‘It’s not that I don’t care what Lex does,’ Otis says as if he can hear my thoughts. ‘I just thought that leaving her to grieve was for the best. She goes to a miscarriage support group once a week, but other than that it’s like she doesn’t want anyone around her at the moment. Especially me. Everything I do or say is wrong. Eventually I just… stopped speaking, I guess.’
Otis’s shame quadruples under my gaze. I want to comfort him, but I can’t when his words mirror my own life a little too closely for comfort.
‘We both want a baby, but since losing her parents, all Lex has wanted is a family,’ Otis continues, leaning against one of the bifold doors as if it’s the only thing holding him upright. ‘If Lex isn’t crying, she’s researching how to make sure she doesn’t miscarry again. Supplements, exercises, prayers. You name it, she’s doing it. She left her job because she thought stress might be to blame.The doctors said that wasn’t the reason she miscarried, but still, she blamed herself.’
‘Still, she’d try anything if it meant she could be a mother.’