She knew who it was, though. Oddly, she was neither surprised nor frightened. She had been half expecting this. Maybe not quite so soon, but she knew it would happen at some point.
Tina opened the door.
‘Hello, Pavel,’ she said, her voice measured. She couldn’t claim to be pleased to see him. This was no happy family reunion .
‘Hello, Tina.’ He gave a small nod. ‘Get your coat. We do not have much time.’
Tina did as she was told, picking up her handbag at the same time.
Sitting in the car as it sped along the A27, Tina took out her phone and arranged for her mum to collect Dimitri from school.
‘I’m meeting an old friend. It’s all a bit spur of the moment,’ she said. A lie. ‘Thanks ever so much, Mum. I really appreciate it.’ A truth.
Chapter 25
John was out of the car, almost before it had stopped. He sprinted up the path and, using the spare key Tina had given him, he pulled himself up and walked calmly into the house.
He called out her name, but he could tell she wasn’t there. The house had that empty feel; one when you knew you were alone. The kitchen door was closed. He took it as a good sign. She must have left of her own accord, allowing time to shut Rascal in the kitchen. Maybe she had gone for a walk or to the shop.
When he looked in the living room, however, his relief turned sour. He took in the open briefcase, the confidential file and the photographs scattered across the coffee table and sofa.
‘Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.’ He pulled his hand through his hair and thumped the door with his palm.
‘John?’ Martin came up behind him and looked into the room, taking in the debris of papers. ‘Yep, it’s definitely a fuck moment.’
John began gathering the photos up and replacing them in the briefcase. He stopped at the postcard on the floor. Picking it up, he looked at the front and then at the back. He stood up.
‘I think I know where she’s gone.’ He handed the card over to Martin.
‘Brighton?’ said Martin. ‘But it’s for “Chris” – whoever that is.’
‘Chris. Short for Christina.’ John picked up the file from the floor and threw it into his case. ‘Tina. Also short for Christina. It’s what he called her. A pet name for his wife.’
Tina stepped onto the boardwalk of the pier and for a moment she wasn’t sure if her legs would take her forwards.
The off-shore breeze licked at her arms. Step by step, Tina walked further along the pier. The fourth bench on the right, facing east, her destination.
And then he was there. He must have seen her at the same time. The world around her stopped spinning. Life was put on pause as he looked back at her. For that moment, there was no one else on the planet.
He’d aged a lot in five years. More than she was expecting. He had deeper frown lines on his forehead that she remembered and his dark hair had a few flecks of grey above his ears. His eyes were the same dark pools of ebony, but now there was an intensity, a haunting that hadn’t been there before.
His skin looked more weathered and he had lost some weight. He had the look of a troubled man. But, despite all this, he was still Sasha Bolotnikov. He was still the man she had married and had loved so completely.
Then he was walking towards her, his pace increased with every stride. Tina realised her legs were already carrying her forward. The metres between them rapidly diminished. The last few steps found her running and in seconds she collapsed into his arms. She held onto his neck as if clinging to the last strand of grass on the edge of a cliff. As if her life depended on it. In actual fact, she was clinging onto her past.
‘Tina, Christina, my Chris,’ he muttered over and over again into her hair. ‘I knew you would come.’
She pulled back from the embrace. This was where she wanted to slap him as hard as she could.
‘You sent me to hell and back,’ she said, her voice wavered slightly. His eyes dropped away and when he looked back at her she could see tears fighting to escape as he struggled to compose himself. ‘How are you?’ she asked him like she had just met up with an old friend but she needed to hold onto a bit of normality.
‘I’m okay,’ he said. His accent was stronger than before. A sign he had not been living in the UK. ‘You?’
Tina nodded. ‘I was,’ she managed to say. She wondered when she was really last okay. Before Sasha died she was okay. She was very okay. But since then, she wasn’t sure. Maybe since John had been about she had become okay again.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Sasha, his hands held the tops of her arms and he looked directly into her eyes.
‘Since I got your postcard, I have been going through all the possible things you would say to me,’ she said. ‘Sorry was top of the list, but it doesn’t even begin to cover what I’ve been through.’