Lost Daughter

by Ali Mercer

  ‘I beg to differ, actually, Mary.’

  ‘Go home, Rachel. Leave my family alone.’

  ‘If you’d left mine alone we might not be in this situation.’

  Mary blushes an ugly brick red. ‘If you’ve come to fling accusations around, I don’t think that’s going to be terrifically helpful.’

  ‘It’s not an accusation, Mary. It’s the truth, and you know it, and actually, somewhere deep down, I know you feel guilty about it.’

  Then Amelia pipes up inside: ‘Mum, I really don’t mind talking to her. Why don’t we just get it over with?’

  Mary hesitates and the fight goes out of her. It’s like watching a parent attempting to remonstrate with a toddler in a supermarket, then sheepishly caving in and buying whatever the child is demanding anyway. She must know that Amelia knows about the affair, and told Becca; quite possibly her husband and most of her acquaintances will also know before very much longer, unless Amelia can be persuaded to keep quiet.

  ‘Let’s all try to keep calm heads, shall we?’ Mary says, rallying. ‘You’d better come in, then, Rachel, but it would be best if you’d keep it short, if you don’t mind.’

  She takes off the chain so Rachel can step inside, and moves back towards the stairwell as Amelia comes forward. She has changed out of her school uniform into a hoodie and jeans – exactly the same kind of thing that Becca would wear. Just seeing that off-duty young-teen uniform gives Rachel a pang, and she wonders what Becca had been wearing when she left the house, and if they would need to find out. Mitch probably wouldn’t have a clue, but if Rachel could look through Becca’s wardrobe she might be able to work out what was missing.

  ‘I’m so sorry about all this, Mrs Moran. I didn’t mean to make trouble. I’ll tell you as much as I can,’ Amelia says, commandingly but gently, as if talking to a startled animal. ‘I’m afraid I don’t think I’ll be much help, though.’

  Rachel is conscious of Mitch’s painting of Rose Cottage hanging on the wall next to her, and of Mary lurking in the background, impotently angry. She focuses on Amelia, who is smiling with innocent sympathy – too innocent? – and regarding Rachel warily, as if she presents some kind of unanticipated challenge.

  Rachel says, ‘When did you last talk to Becca?’

  ‘At the end of the school day,’ Amelia says. ‘That’s when I told her. About, you know. The thing.’ She glances over her shoulder at her mother, who shrinks back against the wall.

  ‘I’m sorry to speak so frankly, Amelia, and I wouldn’t do this unless it was important, but I need to be sure: you mean you told her you thought there was something going on between your mother and Becca’s father?’

  Amelia looks down at her feet. She’s wearing a pair of unexpectedly childish slippers, fluffy rabbit faces with pom-poms for noses. ‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘I felt she ought to know. I never thought she’d just disappear like this.’

  ‘I don’t think that was the only reason why she was upset,’ Rachel says. ‘There have been other things going on, too.’

  Amelia looks up. ‘I called her,’ she says. ‘She hasn’t got back to me.’

  Rachel detects a faint note of finality, a desire to wash her hands of the whole business – as if the whole thing had been an experiment with unexpectedly arduous consequences. She says, ‘Can you think of anyone else she might be with?’

  ‘I really can’t. I’m sorry, Mrs Moran,’ Amelia says. ‘She doesn’t have all that many friends, to be honest. I’m sorry, I know that sounds like I’m being mean, but it really is just what she’s like. My guess is she’s gone somewhere by herself.’

  ‘How has she seemed to you lately?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, has she been happy? Unhappy? Worried?’

  ‘A bit withdrawn, maybe, though no more than usual. She’s always been quiet. You know what she’s like – she tends to be on the edge of things. But we don’t hang out that much, so I couldn’t really say.’

  ‘Rachel,’ Mary says warningly, ‘I can’t see how terrorising my daughter is going to help you find yours.’

  ‘I’m not terrorising her.’

  ‘Well, she’s obviously not very comfortable with being interrogated like this.’

  ‘OK, OK. Just one more question, if I may?’

  Time to change tack. Rachel decides to offer a confidence in the hope of eliciting one in return.

  ‘I’m really worried about Becca, to be honest,’ she says to Amelia. ‘She’s just found out her dad’s got a new partner and they’re having a baby, and I think it might have come as a shock. I just thought, if there was anything you could remember her saying… even if you weren’t sure… it might give me something to go on.’

  Amelia says, ‘Look, I’ve told you everything I can. I really don’t think I can help you. It’s not my fault if she decided to run away.’

  She covers her face with her hands. Her shoulders tremble; she emits a soft wet sound not a million miles removed from crying. Rachel’s pretty sure she’s faking, but Mary steps forward to put an arm around her; Amelia shrugs her off.

  Mary briefly looks wounded, then glares at Rachel.

  ‘That is enough,’ Mary says. ‘You go off up to your room, Amelia. You’ve done all that could possibly be reasonably expected of you. I’ll handle this.’

  Amelia scuttles off, and Mary squares up to Rachel.

  ‘You need to leave now,’ she says.

  ‘You don’t even care that Becca’s gone missing, do you? You know what? You’ve always looked down on me. Well, I don’t think much of you either. The only thing you’ve got going for you is money.’

  ‘Well, your husband seemed to think differently. And I seem to remember our money was good enough for you when you were trying to flog that painting,’ Mary says, gesturing towards the study of the garden of Rose Cottage.

  ‘You don’t deserve to have that on your wall.’

  ‘Then take it. You’d be doing us a favour. I’m sick of looking at the thing. It doesn’t exactly have pleasant associations. What with you having come around here and thrown it around and made that dreadful scene in front of the children.’

  ‘Ah. That dreadful scene. So dreadful that Mitch decided seeing you was more trouble than it was worth and broke it off. Not that it’s taken him all that long to get serious with someone else.’

  That seems to strike home. She takes low satisfaction in seeing Mary’s face crumple, like a toddler whose treat has been taken away.

  ‘It wasn’t like that,’ Mary says.

  ‘I don’t care. But you’re right, I shouldn’t have taken it out on the painting. It’s not the painting’s fault that the two of you did what you did. Anyway, thank you for the offer. I’d be delighted to relieve you of it.’

  She puts her hands on either side of the frame. It is very slightly dusty. Up close, the painting is reduced to its constituents: lines and dots and splashes, milky white, pale grey and blue. It’s less vigorous than the oil paintings Mitch had made when he was younger, more shadowy and unsure. She decides she likes it for that. It’s the work of someone who has lost his way, but hasn’t quite given up hope of finding something new. It’s honest, even if its maker had not been.

  She lifts, encounters resistance, persists, and the painting comes free.

  ‘I don’t know what Hugh is going to say about this when he finds out,’ Mary says.

  ‘I can guess what he’s going to say about you and Mitch. Unless he already knows.’

  And that’s the first time Mary looks ashamed. She just about manages to maintain her expression of affronted dignity, but it is rigid with effort. She opens her mouth to speak and closes it again.

  ‘Oh. Right. He does already know,’ Rachel says. ‘It’s like that, is it? And he forgave you, just like that. Even though Mitch is meant to be his friend. Presumably he gets the same deal, does he? Freedom to have a bit on the side. Classy, Mary. Very classy.’

  ‘Keep your voice down,’ Mary hisses. ‘There a
re children in the house.’

  ‘It’s a bit late to start worrying about that, isn’t it? I think your daughter has a pretty shrewd idea of what’s been going on.’

  Mary hesitates. Rachel says, ‘OK, I get it. She doesn’t know the half of it.’

  ‘You don’t have to make it sound so sordid,’ Mary hisses. ‘Yes, Hugh and I have had some problems, and he has seen other people and I found that difficult to deal with, and I confided in Mitch about it and he was very sympathetic. But I didn’t mean for anything to happen.’

  ‘Oh, great. So Hugh cheated on you and you decided to use Mitch to get back at him. And then you all let me think that I was crazy when I suspected something. You’re all cowards. And you’re all liars.’

  Once again, Mary can’t find anything to say. Her pride appears to have deserted her, and she’s visibly deflated.

  ‘I have to go,’ Rachel says. ‘If you hear anything from Becca, or if Amelia thinks of anything, just get in touch, OK?’

  She turns away and goes to put the painting in the boot of the car. The front door shuts softly, almost apologetically, behind her.

  No one has called her, and once again Becca doesn’t answer her phone. She leaves another message.

  ‘Please, just get in touch. Nobody’s angry with you. We just need to know you’re safe. If you don’t want to talk to me, call your dad… or anybody… just call.’

  Where next?

  She could go to Rose Cottage and sit there with Mitch and Leona waiting for someone in uniform to turn up.

  Or she could keep looking.

  She starts the car and is about to drive away when the front door opens and Henry comes out. He heads straight for Rachel and taps on the car window, and she presses the button to wind it down.

  ‘Mrs Moran?’

  ‘Yes, Henry, what is it?’

  ‘About Becca, did you hear from her yet?’

  ‘No. Nothing.’

  ‘I don’t know how helpful this is going to be, but Amelia just told me she and Becca had been talking about going to London.’

  ‘London?’

  ‘It wasn’t like a plan or anything. Amelia was just going on about how good it was and how Becca should go.’

  ‘Oh, great. When did this come up?’

  ‘Er, today. When they were talking after school. I saw them together. I came to pick Amelia up. Anyway, I thought you should know.’

  ‘OK. Thank you. That’s useful. I mean, it might turn out to be. Though it would have been nice if Amelia had thought to tell me herself. Does your mother know you’re out here talking to me?’

  ‘No. I think she’s running a bath.’ Rachel could imagine what Mary had in mind: soaking away the guilt with a large glass of white wine to one side and candles round the rim, crying a little into the bubble bath.

  Henry says, ‘What are you going to do now?’

  ‘I’m going to head into town and have a look round. Just in case she hasn’t gone far.’ She might just walk into Costa Coffee or Starbucks and see Becca sitting there, or spot her in the shopping arcade, or the park. There aren’t that many places for angry teens to hang out in Kettlebridge.

  ‘Maybe I could come, too?’ Henry says. ‘I could help. We could split up, cover more places faster.’

  She hesitates. He looks down at her earnestly. There’s something endearingly geeky about him – she can picture him as a doctor or a lawyer one day, bowed by responsibilities, trying to do the right thing.

  ‘OK,’ she says. ‘You’d better go and tell your mother. I don’t expect she’ll like it. But you’ll need to be quick.’

  Henry beams at her. ‘OK. I will be.’ And he hurries back into the house.

  Rachel hadn’t really expected anything to come of her trip to the Chadstones’ house – she had just been going through the motions, not knowing what to do. And yet here, against the odds, is an offer of help.

  You see, Becca? People do care about you. They really do.

  If only she could hear her. If only she knew.

  Forty-Eight

  Leona

  After Rachel ends the call Leona goes downstairs and into the living room, where Mitch is sitting as if it is beyond him to move. The phone is still in his hand. He looks like a statue of despair after bad news. He fixes his gaze on her as she comes closer, and there is no hint of affection in it.

  ‘Why did you do that?’ he asks. ‘You had no right. Were you trying to punish me? Or did you want to hurt Rachel?’

  ‘That’s an outrageous thing to say. You’re the one who hurt Rachel.’

  ‘Yes, and that was before I even met you. What has it got to do with you?’

  Leona puts her hands on her belly. ‘Because it says something about the man who’s the father of my child.’

  ‘So now you think I’m a complete bastard.’

  ‘I don’t think that. But you could have told me. I told you everything. Why didn’t you tell me?’

  He glowers at her. ‘Because I knew it would cause trouble. And it has. Now you’ve gone and lobbed a hand grenade into a situation that’s already a crisis. What got into you, Leona? If Rachel goes over there and creates a disturbance she’ll probably end up being arrested. Or is that what you want?’

  Leona stares at him. ‘That is a terrible thing to say.’

  Mitch rubs his forehead with his hand. ‘You shouldn’t have meddled with my family.’

  ‘I thought I was part of your family now. Obviously I was wrong.’

  He shakes his head. ‘I can’t do this now, Leona. I have to call the police.’

  ‘Rachel deserved to know the truth,’ Leona says. ‘For some reason best known to yourself, you seem to have preferred to leave her thinking she was crazy than for her to be disappointed in you. Who knows, maybe that’s your twisted way of still having feelings for her.’

  ‘If that’s what you think of me, then why are you still here?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Leona says. ‘Do what you need to do, Mitch. I’m going.’

  ‘I guess it makes sense that you’d want to abandon ship before the police get here and start asking awkward questions.’

  ‘You’d say anything to hurt me right now, wouldn’t you? I’m beginning to wonder how your marriage lasted as long as it did,’ Leona says, and goes out and closes the door.

  She sits on the stairs in the hallway and calls a cab. Yes, they could be with her straight away. No problem. She gives her home address and asks them to be as quick as they can.

  Mitch is on the phone; she can’t make out the words, but it sounds as if he is giving answers to a checklist of questions. He must be talking to the police. The tension in his voice is obvious, but also, he sounds relieved. It must be reassuring to feel that he is doing the right thing, and that someone’s going to be able to tell him what to do next. It wouldn’t be like that for her if she was the one making the call, but then Mitch has never been on the wrong side of the law.

  She makes a conscious effort not to think about the things he’d said. He’ll regret them later, but struggle to apologise – that stiff-necked pride. Such a weakness. But it’s the flipside of his talent: the stubbornness and willpower that drive him to paint can also make him infuriating to be with. Or so she tells herself.

  ‘Your father can really be a disappointment sometimes. We’ll just have to hope we can get him into shape,’ she murmurs under her breath, and rests one hand consolingly on her tummy, where her baby – her new baby! – is quietly growing, too small as yet for her to be able to feel it move.

  When she’d come back from France, from seeing Bluebell, she had felt completely at a loss. Yes, she had seen her daughter: yes, it had gone well – as well as she could have hoped – and it had been agreed that they would meet again. It had been a resolution, of sorts. Bluebell was well; she was happy; there was a place for Leona in her life. But it would not be, and could not be, the place that Leona hungered for.

  As soon as Mitch had turned up on her doorstep that day back in Ma
y, looking hot and hesitant and disgruntled, she’d known she wanted him. More than that. Had to have him. And she had.

  And he’d given her what she needed. A little miracle.

  It hadn’t been about wrong or right, about good or bad. It certainly hadn’t been about logic or caution. It had been about need, and hunger. And here they are, and this time she is going to make it work.

  She has stumbled into this family, and now she may be the only one who can help them.

  When her taxi arrives she tells the driver she has changed her mind, and gives him an alternative destination. He doesn’t object; it isn’t all that far away from where she lives. She settles back and watches the lane slip by as she’s driven away.

  On the morning that she had given Bluebell up she had known who it was at the doorbell. She had known, and yet as she went to answer it she had allowed herself to hope that it might not be.

  It could have been the lady from across the road, popping over because she’d forgotten something when she babysat Bluebell the night before. It might have been someone who had the wrong address, or was lost. It could have been something perfectly ordinary and everyday, the kind of thing that might have happened yesterday or the day before.

  But then she opened the door and saw the policeman standing there, and the car parked in front of the house.

  She said, ‘Is it about Emily? Is she OK?’

  Maybe she shouldn’t have asked. Maybe it was incriminating. But she had to know. It was too important not to know.

  Because if Emily was OK, the police wouldn’t be here.

  The policeman was short, not much taller than Leona, with freckles that made him look younger than he probably was. He cleared his throat. ‘Emily Davis passed away in the early hours of the morning.’

  Leona put her hand to her mouth and bit it. A strange sound came out of her. The policeman carried on talking, as matter-of-fact as if he was someone who’d just come round to read the meter.

  They needed her to come with them to the station, he said. To help with their enquiries.