Free The Trouble with Henry and Zoe by Andy Jones Page B

Angry now, she calls his phone a
third time, but when he fails to answer she resists the impulse to leave a message – the thought that something has happened to him has occurred to her and her anger is mixed with anxiety.
She calls Darren, his best friend, but Darren hasn’t heard from Alex since Wednesday. When Zoe says she hasn’t seen him since around ten, Darren laughs and says, ‘Typical.
Probably bumped into someone and lost track of time, you know what he’s like.’ And while it rings true, it feels wrong. Darren wants to chat, he starts off on a ‘Remember that
time—’ but Zoe is too distracted – too worried – to listen to an Alex anecdote, and she cuts Darren short, saying she has to go, then hanging up before he has finished a
protracted goodbye.
    Her heart is beating quickly, and Zoe realizes she is holding her breath. She forces herself to stand still, stop pacing, and breathe. If she stays in the house she’ll drive herself
mental, so Zoe makes the decision to walk up the road and see if, as Darren suggested, he’s fallen into a coffee shop or the pub. Maybe there’s a game on. Zoe has no clue when the
football season starts or ends, but it seems there’s always a match to catch. She has lost count of the times when, walking past a pub, Alex has stopped to look through the window at the big
screen, ‘Just checking the score, babes.’ And more than once – the boyish smile, the funny head wobble – he has convinced her to go inside for a drink and watch the rest of
the game.
    Feeling a little exposed in her tight t-shirt, she pulls on a jumper, picks up her keys and phone and heads outside. When she hits the high street, Zoe has two options: up the hill towards the
tube station is the new organic deli and the refurbished real-ale pub; downhill (she has never before made the connection) is the Aldi and the slightly scary locals’ pub. If Alex were
fetching breakfast provisions, would he have gone to Aldi or the deli? And if he were watching the game, would they show it in the downmarket drinker, the hipster ale-house, or both? Zoe turns
right, heading up the shallow incline. The traffic on her side of the road is flowing freely, while the vehicles on the opposite side of the street are backed up halfway down the hill.
    Maybe fifty yards from the deli, she sees the parked police car. A uniformed officer is leaning casually against a white van, talking to another man, this one wearing a fluorescent orange boiler
suit. Her heart rate increases, and she quickens her step – trying not to think, but simply to cover the distance between here and there without running. The men appear relaxed, there are no
flashing lights and no sirens, but a section of road is cordoned off with striped blue and white tape. She looks for an ambulance, but doesn’t see one. A female police officer wearing a
high-vis jacket is standing in the road, waving traffic past, and a second man wearing a boiler suit is sighting down a tripod-mounted device. Zoe wonders if a pipe has burst, or something similar
– but then why the police?
    As she draws closer to the area, she becomes aware of people standing on the pavement, talking solemnly and looking in the direction of the zoned-off area. There are fragments of broken glass,
orange and white, scattered across the road; chalk marks have been drawn around a short quartet of skid marks. A splash of liquid, not blood, but it seems ominous and conspicuous on the dry
tarmac.
    As if coming out of a dream –
or a nightmare
– Zoe realizes she has stopped walking. She turns to the police officer leaning against the van and starts towards him; he sees
her approaching and stands up straight, as if suddenly found out. He watches Zoe approach, and the man in the orange boiler suit goes to join his colleague at the tripod.
    ‘Can I help you, Miss?’
    ‘What happened?’
    ‘There was an accident.’
    ‘What accident? Was someone hurt?’
    ‘You’re shaking,