The Sleeping and the Dead

The Rainbow’s End was a café, two arches cut out of the bank of the promenade. It was run by middle-aged drop-outs selling organic food and herbal teas and it was one of Melanie’s favourite haunts. She said it was like a cave. She would sit near the counter, as far away as possible from the natural light, her back turned to the sea. She’d drink decaffeinated coffee and smoke roll-up after roll-up although there was a big sign saying NO SMOKING. Maura, who ran the place, turned a blind eye. Another example of one rule for Mel and another for the rest of the world. In the Rainbow’s End, Mel was drawn to the food. Sometimes she’d buy a slab of carrot cake. She’d sit and look at it, a paper napkin folded on her lap, but she’d never eat. In the end she’d push the plate across the table towards Rosie.

‘I don’t feel hungry. You have it.’

Rosie was always hungry but she didn’t know what to do for the best so the cake would sit there, the cream-cheese topping slowly melting, until they left.

Maura was a big woman, an earth mother in an Indian-print caftan and beads woven into her hair. She looked out for Mel. If the café was quiet – which it usually was – she’d sit with her and talk earnestly about the things which would ‘get her head straight’. Things like plant remedies, hypnosis, acupuncture. Mel would listen with a bored expression on her face. So far as Rosie knew she never followed up any of the suggestions.

Today two young women sat near the window. The tide was in, right up to the concrete walkway, and it felt like being in a boat. The women had children with them – a toddler apiece in pushchairs and a baby in a sling. Maura was going gooey-eyed over the baby, talking about the benefits of terry nappies and breast milk. The women agreed about the breast milk at least. They all seemed very smug.

Perhaps that was Mel’s problem, Rosie thought facetiously. She probably wasn’t breastfed.

She interrupted the baby talk and ordered a sandwich – mozzarella, tomatoes and basil on ciabatta.

‘Has Mel been in?’

Maura shook her head. ‘Not today.’

‘Yesterday?’ In the evenings the place had a licence. It sold veggie meals and organic wine in candlelight. So you couldn’t see what you were getting. Often there was live music.

‘Yes. Last night. First time in ages. She stopped for one beer and then she left.’

The Rainbow’s End only had a table licence but that had never bothered Mel.

‘Was anyone with her?’

Maura shook her head again. The beads and the braids swung and clacked. ‘I felt a bit mean actually.’ She had a surprisingly classy voice, very deep and well modulated. ‘She wanted to talk. But we were busy. We’d hired a student band and they’d brought all their friends. You know what it’s like.’

Rosie didn’t really. She didn’t go there in the evening. She thought the people and the music a bit pretentious. She liked something you could dance to.

‘How did she seem?’

‘Not brilliant. A bit jumpy. Sort of desperate actually. I let her have the drink and told her to wait. Adam was on his break. I thought when he came back I’d take her out for a walk, calm her down a bit. But when I looked again she’d gone. She didn’t even bother to say goodbye.’

When Rosie had finished the sandwich there didn’t seem much point in staying and she couldn’t think of anywhere else to look. She went home and snoozed on the sofa in front of a black and white movie. She didn’t want to talk to her mother – she couldn’t face the fuss of explanation – so she wrote her a note and at five o’clock she went round to Joe’s. Joe’s sister Grace let her in. She was a gawky thirteen-year-old with pointed elbows like the legs of a tree frog and a mouth full of metal brace. Grace yelled up the stairs. There was no answer. She shrugged.

‘He’s in. You’d better go up.’

Joe’s room was in the attic. It had a sloping roof with a big velux window and even more crap on the floor than Rosie’s. Divine Comedy was rolling away in the background.

‘I was just going out,’ he said, guilty because he’d been sleeping all day while Mel was missing.

‘I’ve been everywhere I can think of.’ She sat on the bed.

‘Anything?’

‘She went to the Rainbow’s End after the Prom. Maura said she was a bit jumpy, but nothing new there… It was a student gig. Maybe she met someone…’

There was a pause.

‘The police think she might have been kidnapped.’ He couldn’t keep a shiver of excitement from his voice. He was still worried but kidnapping was something out of the movies, glamorous even.

Rosie frowned. ‘The Gillespies went to the police?’

‘Eleanor did. I think she cracked. Richard didn’t sound very happy. I phoned just now and I could hear him in the background. He says everyone’s overreacting.’