The Night She Disappeared

by Lisa Jewell

  “So, he’s moving out?”

  Tallulah shifts awkwardly from one foot to the other. “No. Well, not yet, anyway. He says he’s going to buy a flat, even if we don’t live there, so he’s got somewhere to have Noah on his own, you know. Because he really doesn’t want to move back in with his mum, and to be fair, I don’t blame him because his mum’s not very nice and his dad’s a total creep, so I said he can stay, just until he’s got a place of his own.”

  “Stay—in your bed?”

  “Well, yeah. But it’s fine. We’ll just put a cushion down the middle. You know, it’s no big deal. I mean, we’ve been together since we were fourteen. Since we were, like, kids. And it won’t be for long. He’s already saved up so much money. It shouldn’t be more than a few weeks.”

  “And what about your Wednesday afternoons? Will you still be, you know…?”

  “No,” says Tallulah defiantly. “No. That’s not going to happen anymore. Purely platonic. Purely co-parents. Just for a few more weeks. And then he’ll go.”

  “And then?”

  Tallulah looks at her questioningly.

  “Then what? When he’s gone? Will you and me, you know? Can we…?”

  Tallulah sighs. “I can’t just jump into something. And you’re still straight, or bi, or whatever it is that you are. Still mucking about with boys. I’ve got a baby to think about and if I was going to get into something with you, it would have to be serious. And I don’t think you’re capable of that. I really don’t.”

  She sees Scarlett flinch at the words, but then rally. “You’re right,” she says. “You are. I’m a fucking moron. I’ve always been a moron. But I can change.” She says this in a hammy, put-on voice, which makes Tallulah smile, but then she grows serious and puts her hand against Tallulah’s arm. “I’m a knob, Lules, but I can try. Seriously. I mean, I’m nearly twenty. I’m not a kid anymore. I’m not a child. Will you give me another chance? Please?”

  Tallulah pulls away from her touch at the sound of voices nearing the top of the path. When the voices pass she turns back to Scarlett. “I don’t know,” she says. “I can’t think straight. I just need to deal with Zach for now. I need to get him out of my house and get my life back. Then I can get my head sorted. But I can’t do this right now. I really can’t. I’m sorry.”

  Scarlett nods. “Sure,” she says. “I get it. It’s fair. But I’m going to wait for you. I swear. I’m going to be like a nun for you. I’m going to be like ten nuns for you. Seriously, Lules, just don’t let him manipulate you. OK? Don’t let him trick you into staying with him. Because I reckon he totally will.”

  “He won’t, I swear. I can tell. He means it.”

  Scarlett narrows her eyes at Tallulah and gazes at her skeptically.

  “I swear.”

  Scarlett nods, just once, brushes Tallulah’s cheek with the fingertips of her right hand, then turns and leaves her standing there, her touch on Tallulah’s skin leaving behind a flush of nameless dread.

  42

  SEPTEMBER 2018

  “Hi, Dom. It’s me,” says Kim. “I wondered if you’d had a chance to look at the link I sent you, to that girl on YouTube?”

  “No,” he says. “Not yet. I’m really sorry. I’ll look at it now and get back to you. But we’ve had some good movement. We’ve finally tracked down Martin Jacques, Scarlett’s father. Or at least, we’ve got hold of his PA, who keeps telling us that he’ll get back to us but he’s a bit tied up in Abu Dhabi. We’re still trying to trace the rest of the family. They were in Guernsey but apparently nobody’s seen them for a couple of weeks. But please believe me, Kim, we’re doing everything we can. Things are happening. Painfully slowly, in some cases, I’ll grant you that. But it just takes so long to get anything done these days, with all the government cuts, and when it’s a cold case, it takes even longer…”

  When the bones are already icy cold, Kim thinks. When the blood is dried hard. When it’s too late to save anyone.

  “I’m pushing against it all as hard as I can for you, Kim. It’s all I’m doing. It’s all I’m thinking about. I swear.”

  She hears a crack of emotion in his voice and feels it reverberate into her own psyche. She swallows it down and says, “Yes. Of course, Dom. I know you are. I know you are. I’m just so…”

  “Yes,” says Dom. “Yes. I know.”

  There’s a heat contained within their exchange, created from the energy of desperation and loss and frustration and misguided hope, but also from the intimacy that’s built up between the two of them as everything else has peeled away from them and the thing that unites them.

  She sighs. “Thank you, Dom. Thank you for everything you’re doing.”

  “It’s my pleasure, Kim. Always.”

  He ends the call and Kim stands for a moment, staring through the kitchen window at the trees at the end of her garden. She thinks of the skinny, sad girl talking to a camera in a room somewhere, a girl who knows something about the things that are currently taking place at Maypole House. And then, clear as though it were actually happening, she remembers that hot June afternoon, walking up to Dark Place, the trickle of sweat down her back, Ryan rocking Noah in his pushchair, the drops of pool water on Scarlett’s shoulder coalescing and collapsing, the handsome son with the beers in his hand, the brittle mother in the white sundress, the way Scarlett had been unable to make eye contact, but then the way she’d said her daughter’s name. Lula. In every other respect she’d been so cold and distant, but when she said Tallulah’s name, her voice had sounded thick and heavy, as though the name meant something to her. She thinks about the night that Tallulah said she’d spent at Chloe’s because Chloe was feeling suicidal and wonders again where she’d been. She thinks of all those Sunday mornings when Zach was playing football and Tallulah took her bike and went for a ride in the countryside. She thinks of how she would return with a glow and a flush, looking engorged with secrets. She even remembers asking Tallulah once, “Where do you actually go when you go for your bike rides? You always look like you’ve just been somewhere magical when you get back.”

  And Tallulah had smiled and said, “Just around the back lanes, you know. Where there’s no traffic. It’s gorgeous.”

  “And do you stop?” she’d asked. “Stop and explore?”

  “Yes,” she’d replied, busying herself with removing Noah’s bib. “I stop and explore.”

  And there’d been a richness in her tone, the same richness that she’d heard in Scarlett’s voice when she said Tallulah’s name. And as she thinks this, another memory jumps to the forefront of her mind, of Scarlett, in her towel, the pool water falling in rivulets from her wet hair and her fingers clasping her narrow feet, and then, just for the briefest of moments, a snatched view of a small tattoo just below her ankle, the letters TM, and Kim noticing it on some subliminal level but also not noticing it because, really, why would this girl she’d never heard of before have her daughter’s initials tattooed onto her foot, and the hand had slipped down once again to cover the marks and Kim had both seen it and not seen it, but it was there all along, like a sunspot.

  She grabs her phone and finds Sophie’s number in her WhatsApp. She types her a message incredibly quickly.

  It’s me, Kim. Are you busy? Can I talk to you about something?

  Immediately comes a reply.

  Not busy at all. I can talk now.

  43

  JUNE 2017

  For a few days after the night that Tallulah and Zach drink wine and talk, everything is fine between them. Zach is chilled and relaxed. He cooks dinner for them, he bathes Noah and keeps him entertained, he sits quietly at his spreadsheets playing around with his finances without constantly asking Tallulah to get involved. He gives Tallulah space to study and just to be. At night they sleep in her bed with the baby between them and he makes no attempt to be physically affectionate with her. He quietly gets ready for work every morning and quietly returns every night and all is well.

  Then, at th
e beginning of June, just after Noah’s first birthday, Scarlett messages Tallulah to ask her to wait for her after college so that they can get the bus home together. They meet on the pavement just outside college. Scarlett is halfway through her end-of-year exams. She’s been doing a still life for two whole days.

  “An artichoke and a bone,” she says as they stride together toward the bus stop. “Seriously. I have spent two days staring at an artichoke and a bone.”

  “What do they symbolize?”

  “Like, nothing. Just stuff I picked up as I left the house. The bone is Toby’s. He’s not impressed. But they look quite cool. I put them on black velvet and they look kind of, you know, Dutch master-y.”

  “When’s your last exam?”

  “Wednesday next week. Then I have to hand in my portfolio on Thursday and then it’ll be Friday and I am going to the pub to get absolutely shit-faced.”

  “Who are you going with?”

  “The usuals. And maybe Liam.” She looks at Tallulah sideways, to gauge her response.

  But Tallulah just shrugs and says, “Whatever. It’s not my business.”

  “No, but seriously. Just as friends. Because we are just good friends. Honestly. What happened that night, it was just stupid. Just a stupid, stupid thing, because I’m a stupid, stupid person.”

  “Scar, it’s fine. You don’t need to explain.”

  “Yeah, but I do. I do need to explain. I need to explain it to myself, if anything. I’ve always just been such a ‘do it first, think about it later’ kind of person. I never think through the consequences of anything I do. Look.” She draws in her breath and turns hard to face her. “I know you think I’ve had this charmed life and that nothing bad has ever happened to me. But something bad has happened to me. Something really bad. Not long after you and me first met. It’s why I dropped out of college. It’s why I couldn’t face anyone for so long.”

  Tallulah glances at her, quizzically, and waits for her to continue.

  Scarlett sighs and says, “Come to the pub with me? When we get off the bus? I’ll tell you everything.”

  * * *

  They slide into a quiet corner of the Swan & Ducks with a Diet Coke for Tallulah and a hot chocolate with a shot of rum on the side for Scarlett. The pub is virtually empty at this time of the day, the summer sun bright through the windows. A man sits at the bar with a beagle spread out at his feet and Scarlett points at the dog and says, as she does about every dog she ever sees, “That’s a good dog.”

  “OK, then,” says Tallulah, “I’m ready to hear your dark confession.”

  Scarlett wriggles slightly. “I can’t believe I’m going to tell you this. You’re going to hate me more than you already do.”

  “I don’t hate you.”

  “Whatever. Just promise me you will never, ever tell another soul what I’m about to tell you. Not ever.”

  “I swear.”

  “Seriously. Never.”

  “Never.”

  Scarlett blinks slowly and composes herself. “Early last summer,” she begins, “at the beginning of the holidays, I was kind of alone a lot. Liam had gone back to his farm. Mum was back and forth from London. Everyone was away and I was really bored and really lonely. I mean, really, really lonely. And one day I went into school”—she points at the Maypole across the common—“just to go and say hi to Lexie Mulligan. Because I was so desperate for someone to talk to. I took the dog and we went through the woods. It was a really stunning day. I was wearing, like, a slip dress and boots and I was sweating hot, even in the shade of the trees. And then I realized there was a man coming the other way and I felt a bit scared, a bit like I wished I had a fucking Rottweiler instead of Lord Drool-a-lot, and that I was wearing more clothes. But then he got a bit closer and I realized I recognized him. He was familiar. And then I saw his dog and I knew that it was Mr. Croft.”

  “Mr. Croft?”

  “Married to Jacinta Croft. The head teacher. You know, tiny weeny woman, looks like a Polly Pocket on HRT?”

  Tallulah shakes her head. She’s never paid any attention to anything that happens at Maypole House.

  “You’d recognize her if you saw her. Anyway, she’s married to Guy. He’s kind of tall and bald and quiet. He’s a web designer. Works from home. Looks after their kid. Keeps himself to himself. And I swear, I’d never even noticed him properly before that day. I only recognized him by his dog. A black Lab. Nelson. Literally, just the loveliest dog ever.”

  Tallulah glances at the time on her phone from the corner of her eye. It’s nearly four. She’d normally be home about four fifteen. She can feel her window of freedom shrinking as Scarlett tells her about a dog called Nelson.

  “Anyway, so of course Toby dragged me over to say hello to Nelson, and while Toby and Nelson were chatting, me and Mr. Croft started chatting too and he told me he was home alone, that Jacinta was at their London house with their son for a few weeks, he was going to join them later in the summer, that he had a project to finish, yada yada yada. And as he was talking I could see his eyes kept going to my boobs and I don’t know why, because it should have been as creepy as fuck, but for some reason, it just really turned me on.”

  Tallulah bangs her glass of Coke down on the table and coughs as the liquid hits the back of her throat. “Oh my God,” she gasps. “Please stop. I don’t want to hear any more.”

  “I know, I’m sorry. It’s gross. But bear with me. It gets worse.”

  “Oh Christ, Scarlett. I’m not sure I can.”

  “So yes, we were chatting about really boring shit and I was thinking, I want to fuck you, and I was probably ovulating or something, I dunno, but I looked at him and I thought: Now, do it to me now. And…”

  Tallulah puts a hand between them and closes her eyes. “Honestly. I can’t.”

  “Please,” says Scarlett. “I have to purge. This is important.”

  Tallulah sighs. “Go on, then.”

  “I could tell he could feel it too. And seriously, he’s, like, in his forties. And bald. And not even that good-looking. And I told him I was walking up to the school and he said he’d walk with me and we were chatting and the sexual tension was building and then we came out of the back of the woods and we were facing the back door of his cottage in the grounds and he said, ‘Come in for a glass of water.’ And that was that.”

  Tallulah throws her an appalled look. She has no idea how to respond.

  Scarlett continues: “We spent the whole of that month fucking. Literally, that was all I did for a month. Walk the dog through the woods, knock on the back door of Mrs. Croft’s house, he’d let me in, we’d fuck. I’d leave. And it was amazing. Kind of seedy, but amazing. It’s like, you know, sex is such a weird stupid thing when you think about it, about the mechanics of it. About what a man does and what a woman does and what it’s for. If you think about it for too long you’d never want to do it again because it’s gross. But that was the thing. Neither of us was thinking. We were just bored and lonely and horny. I can’t explain it any other way. When I look back on it, I don’t even get it. I don’t know what I was thinking. It was like this warped, twisted holiday romance. And anyway, after a few weeks he went up to London and I went off sailing with Rex and my mum and then it was September and Liam came back to college and I started at Manton and me and Guy both agreed to quit it and get on with our lives. And for a while it was fine. I didn’t see him around and he didn’t get in contact. But then, kind of around the time I first met you, that day on the bus, he was in the co-op and I was in the co-op and our eyes met and we made some kind of inane small talk and I scuttled off feeling really confused. Next thing he’s sent me a fucking dick pic.”

  Tallulah gasps again and covers her mouth with her hands. “No,” she whispers through her fingers.

  “Yes. And I just immediately deleted it and typed back NO. In caps lock. And then it went quiet again for a while and then one night, I guess he must have been drunk, he started bombarding me with text messages and
dick pics and declarations of love and hate and everything in between. He said Mrs. Croft was never at home and his son had gone to boarding school and he missed me and he couldn’t live without me. And I just deleted everything and stopped replying and then the night of the Manton Christmas party, I just really, really couldn’t think straight anymore. You’d just blown my mind and my inbox was full of all this crazy shit from Mr. Croft and I just didn’t want to go anywhere near Maypole House or the village, I just wanted to stay away from everyone and everything, so I finished with Liam a couple of days later and then it was Christmas and I just hunkered down with my family, kept my head down. I was going to come back to college in January. Fresh start. Clear head.

  “But then one day, in that weird bit between Christmas and New Year, I took Toby out in the woods and I had my AirPods in, it was kind of early afternoon, starting to get dark, darker still in the woods, and I was close to my house so I thought I was safe and then suddenly…” She pauses and her gaze drops to the table. “Someone came up behind me and put their hand over my mouth, like this, and pulled me back and I nearly died of a fucking heart attack. And it was him, of course, it was Mr. Croft, Guy. And he was smiling at me, like it was all a cute joke; he pointed at my AirPods, to take them out, tried to make out it was normal to put your hand over a teenage girl’s mouth in the woods in the dark. So I took them out and said, ‘What the fuck?’ And he said, ‘I’m leaving her.’ I said, ‘What?’ He said, ‘I’m leaving Jacinta. There’s nothing left between us. It’s over. I’ve got a flat. Come with me.’ And I kind of laughed and said, ‘I’m eighteen years old. I’m a student. I live with my mum. I can’t go anywhere with anyone.’ I might have sounded a bit flippant, I don’t know. But seriously, it was just nuts. And then he started crying and Toby started whining because he always whines when people cry and that sort of made me laugh because, fuck’s sake, a grown man crying and a Saint Bernard dog whining is funny. And then he threw me this look, this look that said ‘Shut up,’ and he started kissing me, and it was kind of rough and desperate. And I just went into this sort of trance. I can’t explain it. I went into a trance and just did the movements. Just did the movements, like a preprogrammed doll. I just thought: Let it happen. Just let it happen. I think, in a way, that I was just stopping it from being rape because I couldn’t fucking deal with it being rape. So I just turned it into sex in my head. And afterward—” She stops and pulls in her breath. Tallulah can hear tears catching at the back of her throat. “Afterward, he just sort of stared at me, breathlessly. He said, ‘I’m going now.’ And I just nodded and he went and I could tell he was really freaked-out because we’d just done this weird thing that was so gray, you know, so ambiguous, impossible to know where the consent was in it or even if there had been any consent. And he knew and I knew it but neither of us acknowledged it. And then he just went. And I never saw him again.”