by Emma Rowley
“See you Sunday,” I’d said. “Love you, So.”
“See you Sunday,” she’d said, over my shoulder. “Love you, Mo.”
Our little routine, for so long, since she was a toddler, and I was putting her to bed. So, my little nickname for her; Mo, for Mum, she came up with, just because she thought it was so funny to rhyme.
It just stuck. I still miss that.
We were already on our way back home from the bachelorette, Charlotte driving us, when Mark rang, “just to check in,” sounding far too casual. “So, er, Sophie was at Holly’s last night, she said. Is there another Holly from school? Am I getting them mixed up?” He’d never been able to keep track of her friends.
Of course it all came out in the aftermath: the day before, Friday morning, Mark had taken her to school as usual—Amberton Grammar was on his way to work in the city center. She’d run back into the house as he’d waited with the engine running, he told us, saying she’d forgotten something. “Sophie!” he’d called, tooting the horn. “Will you get a move on.”
He hadn’t noticed anything different, he said later.
But as he’d dropped her off at the school gates, she’d struggled to swing her rucksack onto her shoulder, and the flap had fallen back, just a little.
“Is that bag big enough,” he’d teased. “What you got in there, anyway?”
She always seemed to carry the world around with her, carting the entire contents of her locker at all times. “Oh, just some—some overnight stuff,” she’d said. Then: “You remember I’m staying with Holly tonight?”
“No.” He raised his eyebrows. “Sophie, does Mum know about this?”
“Yes, she said it’s fine.” She shifted her weight. “We’re just going to do some revision, have pizza. That’s OK, right?”
“I don’t know, Sophie,” he said, thinking.
She did look a bit guilty, he said later, but he’d chalked it up to the obvious: both of them knew that I wouldn’t like it. But he was late, in a rush to get to work, and what was the harm? She’d been working hard. Of course, there was another reason he didn’t mind her staying away that night.
The car behind tooted at him. “So can I?”
“All right, but don’t be back too late tomorrow. Home by lunchtime,” he called after her.
“’K, thanks, Dad. See you tomorrow.” It was only when she failed to come home by late Saturday afternoon that Mark had called her phone and then, when it went to voicemail, Holly’s house. I’d pinned the number to the noticeboard—she spent so much time there. Did Sophie want picking up?
No, Sophie wasn’t there. Her mum had put Holly on the phone. No, she’d repeated, Sophie hadn’t stayed at her house. In fact, she hadn’t seen her since Friday morning.
“I’m sure it will be OK,” Charlotte had kept telling me, after Mark rang off, as I grew increasingly angry—and, underneath that, worried. I couldn’t believe he’d let her go, right before exams.
When he phoned again an hour or so later, I put my mobile on speakerphone. I could tell instantly that she hadn’t turned up, looking sheepish.
“Katie . . .” he’d said, sounding almost bewildered. “It’s Sophie. She’s left a note.” He’d cleared his throat. For a strange moment I wondered if he was going to cry. “She’s run away.”
Two officers in uniform—professional, serious—arrived that same evening after I’d called 999. No, we didn’t have to wait 48 hours, they’d reassured us. That was a myth. We’d done the right thing.
They peppered us with questions, as we nursed cups of tea on the living room sofa.
No, we’ve no idea where she might have gone. Yes, we’ve tried her friends, all the ones we can think of. No, she hasn’t gone to my sister’s, her grandpa said he hasn’t heard from her, he’s very worried. No, there are no other relatives she might go to. No, she’s never run away before. Is she happy at home? Yes. At least, we think so. Have there been any arguments, recently? Well, yes, but she’s a teenager....
I couldn’t get over the unreality of the situation, the sense that any moment I’d hear the key turn in the back door and her clatter into the kitchen.
She’d left her bank card and her phone—I’d found them in the drawer of her bedside table. That was a good sign, Charlotte had said. Sophie’d have to come back soon. But while Sophie hadn’t taken much, what she had was important. Her passport was gone. That was one of the first things they asked me, where we kept it, and I’d showed them the drawer in the desk in the study.
How much money does Sophie have access to, they asked at some point.
“Not much, she only just turned sixteen last month, she’s still at school.” Mark had been flustered. He spoiled her, I’d always said that. Meanwhile I was doing the sums. There was her generous allowance, money she’d collected from her waitressing job the summer before, birthday gifts.
“We let her look after her own account,” Mark had told the police, growing slightly pink under their steady gaze. “She wanted to save for a car.” We sounded so naïve. Comfortable, trusting—and unforgivably naïve. She’d cleared out her account completely, we learned later. With everything added together, she had a considerable sum.
And of course, there was the note, her round bubble handwriting on a sheet torn out of one of her exercise books for school.
I’m sorry everyone. But I need to get away.
Please try not to worry about me, I’m going to be fine. I love you all, Sophie xxx
Three kisses, like we always left for each other in our family birthday cards and, once she was older, the notes I’d leave stuck to the fridge. One for Daddy, one for her, one for me. And a little flower doodle, like a daisy, in small strokes of ballpoint pen, next to her name. She always did that, since she was little. She’d started it for me: she knew flowers made me happy.
They wouldn’t stop running over the details with Mark. “And when did you find this, Mr. Harlow?”
“This afternoon, after I’d phoned Holly’s mum.” He couldn’t meet anyone’s eyes. “It was on Kate’s pillow, so I didn’t see it.”
I think Charlotte had snorted.
“It won’t have made a big difference, will it?” he’d asked almost pleadingly.
They’d reassured him that they had every confidence, et cetera. But I knew, countless news stories and TV reconstructions flashing in my mind: the first few hours are crucial.
That was the beginning of the end for us. Of course he’d had to own up, and quickly, to what was already obvious to me. When Sophie ran in while he waited in the car, she must have placed the note on our bed, knowing he wouldn’t see it until that night. But he’d had a sleepover of his own that night, elsewhere, so hadn’t seen it until he came home the next day and, worried now, finally checked around.
“It might not have made any difference, Kate, if he’d found it sooner,” Charlotte said to me, in the days after. And maybe she was right.
But I couldn’t forgive him for that.
CHAPTER 4
It’s too late to wake up Dad, I tell myself, as I pull up at the house after the police station. I catch myself sighing. Coming home to our pretty old redbrick no longer lifts my spirits as it used to. This place is too big for me now, but I can’t leave. What if she came back and found us all gone?
In the drive, a small shape pads up and I bend down to stroke Tom—a ginger tom, unoriginally. Mark took the dog when we split. It was a surprise how much I missed him, I told my sister: King, not Mark. She didn’t laugh.
At least it meant I could house Tom. Lily, my neighbor, had seen a sign in the supermarket advertising a “free kitten” and rung a number: a woman had rushed over with a cardboard box, the animal inside hissing furiously. He was already half-grown, I saw immediately, and—we soon found out—not yet house-trained. Lily had been so upset about it all.
Perhaps that episode was a sign: she was being too impulsive, not her usual sensible self. At least the cat doesn’t require a lot from me. Suddenly I’m e
xhausted, the adrenaline that’s borne me through this evening disappearing like bubbles from a fizzy drink.
I switch off the downstairs lights, listening to the noises of the house around me: soft creaks and hums as it settles, the warmth of the day evaporating. Climbing the stairs, I make a note to call the blinds company. In a rare burst of activity, I’d taken down the tired curtains at the landing window. I just haven’t got around to doing anything more and I’m reminded of it every time I walk past the pane of glossy black.
In the darkness outside, I can see the bulk of the nearest neighbor, Parklands, its towers confused by scaffolding, alien shapes against the night sky. There are no lights on, of course. A bend in the road means we don’t even have neighbors on the other side, not really.
I feel a sudden pang of longing for our smart London terrace—far too small for us, we thought, with a teenager and a dog.
For a long time, the idea of moving here had been just that—a “what if” to ponder after dinner with friends over dregs of wine, plotting our escapes from the smoke. Then Mark got offered the chance to expand the Manchester practice. An RAF brat, he was cheerfully unconcerned about starting over. “Everyone’ll come and stay, it’s just a jaunt up the M6. Have you seen the space we could get up there?” And we’d be closer to my family. Charlotte had stayed local to Macclesfield, near where we grew up. She, Phil and the boys were ten minutes from Dad, while Mark’s parents spent half the year in France anyway.
There were things we didn’t talk about: the distance between us.
I’d met him at a bar in the City, birthday drinks a friend had brought me along to—he was at the center of a big laughing crowd, as always. He was a golden retriever in human form, Charlotte had said to me, when I brought him home, rolling her eyes. She’d been with Phil, even more sensible than my sister, since sixth form and through her tough first years as a teacher. But in the end she was charmed too. When I’d got pregnant, early among our group of friends, there was no doubt about what to do. We’d married that summer, me fooling no one by slowly draining half a glass of champagne.
And if sometimes I wondered privately how much we really had in common, if I was sometimes surprised to find myself with a husband, a house, a baby, even a dog, I can’t really say it worried me much. Even when it became clear there wouldn’t be any more to follow Sophie—after we both realized the other was ready to stop trying, too—we were OK, I think.
So we decided. We’d leave. There were tears from Sophie, an upsetting amount—she didn’t want to leave her friends—but it would be good for her, surely. They grew up so fast in London.
And we’d been excited to find this place so quickly: leafy Cheshire, near enough to the city that Mark could drive in but still, to a couple of London transplants, all so shockingly green and quiet. Out here where the village turns to countryside, the houses sit far apart, most of them stately Victorian mansions built by the cotton merchants behind low stone walls. If you keep driving along Park Road, away from the village, you end up at the entrance to the deer park, once the grand estate that gave Vale Dean its name.
I took voluntary redundancy. I’d loved my job, fund-raising for an arts organization, but it didn’t pay like Mark’s, in the law, and I was sick of the endless cuts. I didn’t need to worry about working for a while, Mark told me, I could focus on doing up the house. I squashed down the thought that he’d prefer me not to work.
Looking out at the shadow of Parklands now, I can almost hear his voice: “It’s an eyesore, letting a good house get like that. Weren’t you going to ring the council?”
I suppress a shiver. Enough of the past. I know where I have to go tonight.
On the threshold, I stop, and touch the pink wooden heart hanging from the doorknob. She’d got into decorating her room a bit, starting to take an interest in having a more grown-up space around her, and I’d let her. Privately I’d smiled to see her taste: flowered cushions in soft blues and violets, the walls “apple white.” My sweet little girl was still there, I’d thought, even as she’d disappear to her room for hours, or rush out of the house—“out,” the only answer flung at me as I watched her retreating back.
“She’s a teenager, Kate,” Mark would tell me, bored of the discussion. “That’s what they’re like.”
I push the door open, slowly. I never keep it closed, just ajar. There’s a tang of furniture polish in the air—Silvia, our cleaner, was good about that, she just carried on as if Sophie hadn’t gone, until I said she could stop coming. There wasn’t any need, anymore.
Walking over to the bed, I curl up against her wrought iron headboard—she’d paid half, promising she wouldn’t complain it was uncomfortable—and let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding in.
My eyes wander around the room, over the school scarf flung carelessly over the cheval mirror; on the wall, the smiling faces of the boy band that’s since split up; a dried rose, a gift from Danny; the stuffed animals sitting on her wardrobe, faded souvenirs of childhood. Everything’s the same as it always is. I can’t bear it—and at the same time I feel closer to her here. I can almost pretend that she’s just stepped out, that she’s taken the dog for a walk, maybe, and that at any moment might be back again.
But tonight I don’t feel the usual sense of comfort. I’m antsy, even my skin itching, so I get up again. Maybe it’s because I can’t pretend now that she’s just gone for a moment—I know she’s out there, somewhere. I take one long look at the room, my hand on the door handle, and then go to bed.
I wake up suddenly, my heart thudding in my chest, my nightie sticking to my body with cold sweat. My mouth’s dry.
I turn my head to the alarm clock: the green figures tell me it’s still the early hours. Damn. I should have taken a pill. I’ve been trying to do without them, just as an experiment: to see if I could.
My dream . . . something niggles at my brain. Sophie . . . It comes to me in a sudden rush. I was walking around my house, looking for her. Another one of those. Nightmares sounds so childish. Night terrors, they used to call them.
I had so many in the months just after. They’re always much the same. I come home and push open the door, unlocked. “Sophie,” I call. “I’m home.” Inside, it’s like she has just passed through: a discarded school bag, books spilling out; her coat slung over the banister; hockey stick and tennis racket strewn on the floor, all the detritus of her school life. In the kitchen, I find a half-drunk cup of tea, the cupboard doors open, drawers pulled out haphazardly, like she’d been looking for something. I head upstairs, knowing, as you do in dreams, that I am only a step behind—that I’ll find her if I’m quick enough.
And so it unfolds, like clockwork: I go into the blue bedroom, find the wardrobe doors open, our winter clothes pulled onto the bed and shoes scattered everywhere, like a whirlwind’s passed through. It’s the same in the next bedroom, the sheets and the pillows heaped on the floor. In the bathroom, the towels are hanging off the rails, all the taps running.
Still I know that if only I can catch up, it’ll be OK. And so I keep going, passing through our bedroom now, where feathers are floating in the air; the mattress upturned, pillows ripped open, the long mirror smashed. I keep looking. And then, I climb the last flight of stairs, heading up to her bedroom, the door still ajar. I push it slowly, fear at last seizing me. . . .
And then I wake up, like I always do and remember: she’s gone. Really gone, I didn’t find her, I tell myself, as I pull open the bedside table drawer and rummage for the little packet that can soothe me. It used to drive me crazy, her mess. I’d follow her about, tidying and chatting. But now, I never catch up.
CHAPTER 5
Sunday’s a waiting game. Despite the bad night, I’m full of nervous energy. I tidy the kitchen, half-heartedly, then check the fridge. It’s embarrassingly empty. You get used to throwing family-sized packs of juice and pasta into the trolley, those big supermarket sweeps, but it’s alarming how quickly you can end up living off scrambled e
ggs and wilting lettuce. Suddenly annoyed with myself—what if she did come back, what would she think of all this?—I pick up my car keys.
On my way into the village, I ring Dad on the hands-free. “I’ve some news, about Sophie—”
“They’ve found her?”
I wince to hear the lightness in his voice. “No, not that. But I picked up a call at the charity last night. It was her, I’m sure of it.” I quickly fill him in on what’s unfolded, giving him the facts.
He’s typical, careful Dad, asking me questions about how long the call was, what time it came, what the police said. “And what about the connection—was there any delay on the line?”
“I’m not sure,” I say. “It was a terrible line. Crackly.”
He pauses. “But it’s a good sign, isn’t it? You said if people ring the helpline . . . that’s what it’s for. That they’re trying to reach out. It’s a step closer.”
“Yes,” I say. “I just—I do worry. She just sounded . . . not herself.” I don’t want to mention what I think she said about ending contact, how the call’s raised my hopes and scared me at the same time. I forget how old he is. But I’m not prepared for what comes next.
“Katie, this call—I can see you’re excited—”
“Excited’s not the word I’d use, Dad.”
He’s not going to be put off course. “But what if—what if it’s not what you think.”
“You think I got it wrong? That I didn’t really get a call?”
He stays calm. “No, no, I’d never think that. But what if—maybe you misheard her, you said it was a bad line. Can you really be sure, hand on heart, that it was Sophie? That it wasn’t another young girl, ringing about her parents. And you so wanting to hear from her . . .”