The Girl You Left Behind

time he reaches the bedroom door he
     can barely meet her eye. He shakes his head, like someone trying to dislodge a fly.
     ‘Um … Look. I’ll – I’ll call you.’
    ‘Okay.’ She tries to sound
     light. ‘Whatever.’
    As the door shuts behind him, she leans
     forward, ‘Hope the work thing goes …’
    Liv stares in disbelief at the space where
     he has been, her fake cheery words echoing around the silent house. Emptiness creeps
     into the space that Paul McCafferty has somehow opened inside her.

17
    The office is empty, as he had known it
     would be. He launches himself through the door, the old fluorescent bulbs stuttering
     into life overhead, and makes straight for his office. Once inside, he rummages through
     the piles of files and folders on his desk, not caring as the papers spew out across the
     floor, until he finds what he is looking for. Then he flicks on his desk lamp, and lays
     the photocopied article in front of him, smoothing it with his palms.
    ‘Let me be wrong,’ he mutters.
     ‘Just let me have got this wrong.’
    The wall of the Glass House is only partly
     visible, as the image of the painting has been enlarged to fill the A4 space. But the
     painting is unmistakably
The Girl You Left Behind
. And to the right of her, the
     floor-to-ceiling window that Liv had shown him, the view that extended out towards
     Tilbury.
    He scans the extract of text.
Halston designed this room so that its occupants would be woken by the morning
     sun. ‘I originally set out to put some kind of screening system up for
     summer daylight hours,’ he says. ‘But actually you find that if
     you’re woken naturally, you’re less tired. So I never bothered
     putting them in.’
    Just off the master bedroom is a Japanese style
    It ends, cut short by the photocopy. Paul
     stares at it for a moment, then turns on his computer and types DAVID HALSTON into a
     search engine. His fingers thrum on the desk as he waits for it to load.
Tributes were paid yesterday to the modernist architect David Halston, who has
     died suddenly in Lisbon at the age of 38. Initial reports suggest his death was
     as a result of undiagnosed heart failure. Local police are not said to be
     treating his death as suspicious.
    His wife of four years, Olivia Halston, 26, who was with him at the time, is
     being comforted by family members. A member of the British consulate in Lisbon
     appealed for the family to be allowed to grieve in private.
    Halston’s death cuts short a stellar career, notable for its innovative
     use of glass, and fellow architects yesterday lined up to pay tribute to
     the
    Paul lowers himself slowly into his chair.
     He flicks through the rest of the paperwork, then re-reads the letter from the lawyers
     of the Lefèvre family.
a clear-cut case, which is unlikely to be time-barred given the
     circumstances … stolen from an hotel in St Péronne circa 1917,
     shortly after the artist’s wife was taken prisoner by the occupying German
     forces …
    We hope that TARP can bring this case to a swift and satisfactory conclusion.
     There is some leeway in the budget for compensation to the current owners, but
     it is unlikely to be anything near the estimated auction value.
    He would put money on it that she has no
     idea who thepainting is by. He hears her voice, shy and oddly
     proprietorial: ‘She’s my favourite thing in this house. Actually,
     she’s my favourite thing in the whole world.’
    Paul lets his head drop into his hands. He
     stays there until the office phone starts ringing.
    The sun rises across the flatlands east of
     London, flooding the bedroom a pale gold. The walls glow briefly, the almost
     phosphorescent light bouncing off the white surfaces so that on another occasion Liv
     might have groaned, screwed her eyes shut and buried her head under her duvet. But she
     lies very still in the oversized bed, a large pillow behind her neck, and stares out at
     the morning, her eyes fixed blankly on the sky.
    She’d got it all wrong.
    She keeps seeing his face, hearing his
     scrupulously polite dismissal of her.
Do you mind if I head off
?
    She has lain there for almost two hours, her
     mobile phone in her hand, wondering whether to text him a small message.
    Are we okay? You seemed suddenly …
    Sorry if I talked too much about David. It’s hard for me to remember that not
     everyone …
    Really lovely to see you last night. Hope your work eases up soon. If you’re
     free on Sunday