by Emma Rowley
He turns round. “And why do you want to know?”
I stop too, the collie now sniffing around my feet. “I’d like to talk to him, if that’s OK.” Polite—but it’s not a question. The dog’s coat is dusty, but I pat his wiry back, avoiding Len’s eyes.
“What about? Haven’t you people done enough?”
I straighten up. “My people? Done what?”
“You nearly ruined my boy’s life, got him locked up.” His voice is stony, his arms folded.
“Are you kidding me? It was a police investigation. . . .”
“And who pointed them straight to Danny, made them think he had something to do with it?” His voice is getting louder. “I know what you’re like, the lot of you, think you and your daughter are too good for him—”
“Hang on, hang on.” I put my palms up. “I never said that. I never said she was too good; they asked us who she was hanging around with, that’s all and—”
He takes a step toward me, the dog suddenly jumping around us, giving anxious little barks. “Do you know that people still talk? I told him not to get mixed up with that silly, spoiled . . .” I can see him grasping for it, what to hurl at me next—“bitch—” He spits the word.
My hands are still up, as if I’m warding him off.
“Grandad!” A tall figure lopes round the corner as the collie, seriously worried, butts up against me, whining. “What’s going on?” He slows, clocking me. “Mrs. Harlow.”
“Hello, Danny,” I say, pushing the fretting dog off me. “Can I have a quick word?”
“You’re not welcome here.” Len’s no longer shouting, but his face is red.
“I don’t care,” I say, any veneer of civility gone. “I need to speak to him, it’s important.”
“Grandad, it’s OK,” says Danny. “I’ll deal with this.” Len’s undecided, his mouth half open. “Take Billie off, will you, he’s going nuts.”
Len takes the dog by its collar, patting it absently. The touch seems to calm him. “All right. I’ll be here.” He looks smaller now, the anger shifting into upset.
I’m shaky as I follow Danny into the small office, him pulling out a chair for me. Now emotion’s ripped through me I’m quiet, shocked at myself for raising my voice. And at him.
“I thought we were fine,” I say, finding myself suddenly on the verge of tears.
“I’m sorry about Len,” says Danny in that soft voice. “He’s just protective. He found it very hard. He’s getting older now. The police—anyway.” He sits down, waits for me to do the same.
“How’ve you been?” I say, then kick myself inwardly. We’re not here to make conversation.
“I’m doing well,” he says, a touch of defiance in his tone. “I’m basically running the garage, Grandad’s handed a lot of responsibilities over to me these days, he prefers working on cars to doing the books, anyway. We’ve taken on an apprentice.”
“Congratulations!” I’m slipping into my mum-at-the-school-gates mode. “Sounds like you’re doing really well for yourself.”
“Yes,” he says pointedly. “I am. Better than everyone expected.”
There’s a lull. I could swear he’s got even taller. He’s filled out, lost that puppy-dog lankiness.
“And you’re with Holly now.”
“And?” he says, hostile.
“I didn’t mean . . .” I give up on the pleasantries. “I know we haven’t spoken since Sophie’s gone. But I”—I find myself veering away from the details—“I’m trying to understand a bit better why she ran away. To help me understand when she might come back. What do you think happened, Danny?”
“She’d had enough,” he says. “Sometimes people just need to get away.” But you didn’t. The thought crosses my mind, unexpected. You stayed to help your grandfather. “Why d’you care what I think anyway? You didn’t seem to back then.”
“But I did speak to you, so did the police,” I say falteringly, “to see what you knew. . . .”
“What I knew,” he echoes, opening the binder in front of him. “You know they thought I had something to do with it?”
“I had an inkling.” Following up all leads, was how they’d put it, before her first postcard removed some of the urgency. Of course they’d look at her boyfriend, especially one like him. But I don’t want to say that with him looking so, well, grown-up in front of me.
“They kept me there for hours,” he says. “Asked loads of questions about me, Sophie, what we used to do. And they went round the neighbors. Whether I was the type to—to do something. Hurt her. It made things difficult. For Grandad . . . kids threw stuff at our house.”
“I didn’t realize.” I didn’t know it had been quite that bad. “But of course they’ve got to follow all avenues,” I add. “You were a, well, an unexpected couple. . . .”
Danny was a year ahead of her at school—until he’d left. And no, I wasn’t keen when Sophie told me, casually, that she was seeing him. Running wild at his grandad’s, his parents who knows where. It was just minor stuff, really: scuffles outside the pub; that time a teacher left his keys in his car outside school and it was taken for a spin. It turned up the next morning in his drive, with dried mud sprayed up the side. But somehow Danny Mason’s name always got mentioned. Even I’d heard of him.
Now he bends his head over the paperwork in front of him. His eyelashes, I remember Sophie telling me, in an unexpectedly confiding mood, are ridiculously long—softening that face, all hard angles. She was right, I see now.
“It wasn’t really like that,” he says finally. “It was kind of . . . innocent.”
“Oh? I thought maybe Sophie had a . . . that you . . .” I take a deep breath. “She did a pregnancy test, before she went. I wondered if you might have had a scare.”
“That would have been a miracle.”
“Oh, really.” I don’t mean to sound as sarcastic as I do.
“Yes, really.” The tips of his ears are going pink. “We weren’t much more than friends.”
“Friends.”
“Friends. We had nowhere to go, anyway.”
I flash back, suddenly, to when I’d come home and found them all in my kitchen once, Sophie, him and Holly, the laughter drying up as I walked in. She didn’t bring him round much once they were together, but teenagers find a way, don’t they? Sophie was always off with him, at the cinema, she said, or someone’s house.
“If you want to know, I think she liked the fact that it wound you up,” he says now. “But she intimidated me, a bit.”
I raise my eyebrows.
“It’s true. It was the whole thing. Her life, her home.” He looks away. “Her family. I mean, her dad was going to buy her a car! And he’s picking her up from school and all that, it’s not exactly easy to . . .” He trails off. “Do you have your car key? We’ve still got your details. You can pick it up tomorrow.”
“Oh. Of course, yes.” I’m being dismissed. “Here you go.”
“I’ve got stuff to do,” he says mildly. He stands. “I’m sorry you had all this upset.”
He’s polite, but I know our conversation’s over. I stand too, automatically brush the seat of my leggings down from the tatty office armchair. I notice him watching me doing it and I stop, abashed.
“All right. Thanks.”
Len’s gone off somewhere with the dog, so my path to the road is clear. But some impulse makes me turn in the doorway, as I set off for home. “Sophie was a daddy’s girl. But he didn’t pick her up,” I add. Petty, but I can’t resist scoring the point. “I did, if she was late finishing. Mark was always at work.”
He shrugs.
“Bye, Danny.”
I should have got a taxi. I’m regretting running, at first, the pavements throwing up the heat of the day at me. My muscles feel stiff. Too much sitting in front of my computer. But soon, as ever, I feel calmer once I’m really moving, heading down the roads that will take me from these brick terraces to the fringes of the countryside. Why did I ever stop? I sup
pose I just got used to being indoors, these last few months. Or year. And once Mark took the dog, there seemed less reason to run.
I’m going to make my way home round the outskirts of the village. It’s nicer this way, anyway, along the edges of fields and under the trees. I veer off the tarmac onto the track I’m looking for. It’s instantly cooler, the leaves cutting out the sunshine.
My mind starts to wander as I pad along, my thoughts unspooling.
Holly says that pregnancy test was Sophie’s. Danny says he and Sophie didn’t sleep together. Someone’s wrong. Or lying. And if so, who?
Maybe even today Danny just didn’t want to admit to me, Sophie’s disapproving mum, that she wasn’t still my little girl in the way I thought. I suppose it’s respectful, in a way.
Still. I could have sworn he was telling the truth to me.
Does it even matter?
I almost trip, and right myself. My lace is loose. I stop, bend down to retie it.
The thought occurs to me: what if it wasn’t negative? Would that have been enough to prompt my sensible, good girl to run away?
I actually shake my head, almost stumbling as I start off again. I can’t really believe that. I would have helped Sophie, wouldn’t I? Mark and I, of course we wouldn’t have been pleased, but it wouldn’t have been the end of the world. We just wanted what was best for her. Surely that couldn’t have been enough to prompt her running away?
But then I know that’s what so many families say. I’ve read the research, the plaintive comments from case studies. “We couldn’t think of a reason as to why he’d disappear.” “She didn’t give us any sign; it came as a total surprise.”
Suddenly I picture Len again, red-faced with anger. It shocked me. Danny’s always seemed so quiet, so still. But what if he’s got his grandfather’s temper too? The track’s opened up into fields now, great torn-up stretches of dark soil under the huge sky.
A black shape bursts out of the hedge in front of me, leaving the branches moving. I pull up, my heart pounding, even as I register that it’s just a bird—a big one, a crow or maybe a raven. I must have startled it. As I watch it wing its way across the field, low and fast, I’m reminded once again how quiet it is here. There’s not a soul around.
I set off again, picking up my pace.
CHAPTER 13
I feel like I spend the next few days on the phone. I’ve left several messages at the charity, and emailed; not Alma, but the higher-ups. I dug out my induction leaflets, looking for contacts in head office. It’s more corporate than I expected: it’s been hard to get through to anyone via the switchboard.
What I want is a long shot: for them to give me all the details of the call I took—and the number that rang it. I don’t know if they do keep a record, or how it works. And it goes against all the rules, but I’ve got to ask. What else can I do?
I’ve tried everyone I can think of, even the CEO. Eventually her assistant, a young man called Jason, told me, in the politest of ways, to stop calling.
“Someone will be in touch with you, Mrs. Harlow, to respond to your inquiry. When they’re in a position to do so.” From that I judged they’re working out what to do.
And I told Mark about the call. Well, not directly. I didn’t want to speak to him, so I sent an email to his work address, setting it out in the briefest of details: that when I was working at the helpline on Saturday night, I heard from Sophie, who was trying to get in touch with us. But that when she realized who she was speaking to, the call ended.
Put like that, it’s not the most encouraging development, I know. He hasn’t replied yet, but I know he’ll have read it. He’s always on top of his work email.
I haven’t heard anything else from the police yet.
Every time I check my answering machine, it’s my family: Dad was once the only person I knew who still left messages on a landline, rather than just hanging up and trying my mobile. But Charlotte’s started now too. Probably because she knows I won’t pick up.
There was another one this morning.
“Kate, I really need to speak to you. Is your mobile switched off again? I want to know numbers for Alfie’s birthday party next month. He’ll want you there.” He’s turning two, I think, he really won’t notice as long as he’s got his favorite wooden spoon to bang on the floor. “And I’d like you there, a lot.” I sigh. “Can you get back to me, please? Also, I’ve been speaking to Dad. We should chat. About this call—what it means . . .” Her tone changes. “Kate, are you there? Are you listening? Pick up, Kate—” How does she do that? I shut the kitchen door behind me, muffling her voice.
I went out for another run, to the garage, to pick up my car. Danny wasn’t there. I spotted Len in the garage itself, but he didn’t make eye contact. It was a younger boy, the fluff on his cheeks not making him look any older, who returned my car to me.
But the run seems to have unlocked something in me. I feel more full of energy than I have for ages, despite my phone calls getting nowhere and my worry about Sophie. Despite all that, there’s something driving me forward. For the first time in ages, I’ve got a reason to hope.
And I haven’t forgotten about Lily. I finally got put through to an “away on annual leave” voicemail at the council and left a message. Well, it is August. I want to find out what’s happening: I’ve yet to see any sign of anyone else checking on her.
In the meantime, I’m taking a new tack, starting when I visit her this afternoon: I’m going to stop contradicting her, however politely, when she gets mixed up, and try to draw her out a bit more. I’ve been reading about it: the idea is that it’s less confusing. We can all do with a bit of time indulging in our dreams.
I’m not quite sure how to get onto the subject, as she chats about her programs—Coronation Street’s her favorite. Mark never liked me watching it, and the moaning got so annoying I’d switch over. Since he’s gone I’ve made a point of getting back into it. And I chat to her about the charity, about Alma and her dog, the other volunteers who sometimes work alongside us. I’ve not much else to tell her, otherwise.
In the end she brings him up, as we sit on her flowered sofa with cups of tea. It’s so soft you sink right in, knees almost higher than your head. “The little boy,” she asks. “Where’s he gone?”
“I don’t know, Lily. When did you last see him?”
“A while ago,” she says. She looks sad, unusual for her. “Why won’t he come back?”
I don’t know how to answer. “Tell me about him, Lily. What’s he like?”
Her eyes brighten. “Oh, he’s such a lovely little boy. Such a tinker. And those blond curls!”
“Blond curls?”
“Oh yes,” she says confidently, “just like me, when I was a girl.”
“Lily,” I say carefully, “I didn’t know you and Bob had any children.”
I know they didn’t. Bob, Lily’s husband, is long departed but honored with a photo in pride of place on the hall table, in a fancy gilded frame. When I first met her, she made discreet references to their “disappointment in the family way.” She’d run a shoe shop in Leeds before she met Bob, and they’d made a good life for themselves, she told me.
She doesn’t reply. “So what’s his name, Lily?”
“I don’t know.... I’ve forgotten, haven’t I. Do you know?”
“I don’t. But I’d love to meet him,” I add.
“Well . . .” Lily glances sideways at me. “I don’t know when he’ll next be here,” she settles on.
I’m reassured by that. If Lily is imagining a little boy to keep her company—the child she never had?—then her reluctance shows that, deep down, she still knows I couldn’t meet him.
“What about you, dear?” she says now. “Have you heard from your Nancy?”
I didn’t know she remembered. It had upset her, when I’d explained that my daughter had gone away, and I didn’t know where she was. I’d ended up telling her she was traveling.
I clear my throat. “I
had a phone call, yes. Recently. But it’s Sophie, not Nancy.”
She nods. “Nancy was the other one, then. Oh, she was trouble.” She looks downcast. “I get a bit confused these days, don’t I?”
It’s hard when she realizes what’s happening to her. “Just a bit, Lily, but that’s OK. Now. I think Corrie’s about to start.”
I’m suddenly awake. I lie there, the bedclothes clammy around me, the dark room hot.
The run worked just as I hoped. I fell asleep quickly, no thoughts crowding in. Don’t think, don’t think, don’t think. My mantra, until sleep descends.
But now I’m awake, in the dead hours. Yet again.
And then I feel it. It’s not so much a prickling of the skin as something else, some older sense, the quiet, electric awareness. The presence in the room. Slowly, inevitably, I turn my head.
The figure in the doorway is quite motionless.
I close my eyes, reopen them. And still he’s there.
He slowly takes a step toward me. . . .
And then I wake up again, for real this time, and grasp for the light.
Of course, there’s no one there. But my heart is still thundering, my whole body flushed with adrenaline. Another dream I’ve had before. Quite common after trauma, my counselor Lara once told me. A physical manifestation of the perceived threat to my world—my brain making sense of things.
It still scares me though.
I reach for the pills in my drawer. This time, I take two. Just to be safe. They’ll work, as always, and I settle down with a book, keeping my thoughts occupied, till I start to feel drowsy.
As I fall asleep, fragments of my day appear before me. Len’s face, red and angry. That collie dog, whining and afraid. The black shape bursting from the bush. And Lily: “Nancy was the other one.”
Just as I slip under, a question bubbles to the surface and stays, for a second. Who’s Nancy?
CHAPTER 14
I’m so sick of staring at my computer screen. I’ve spent the morning falling deep into an internet hole, bogged down in the rules around teenagers and privacy. Dr. Heath’s right, of course. If a teenager gets pregnant, medical workers don’t have to keep her parents informed if . . . I don’t want to think about it. But Sophie could have done anything, and I wouldn’t know. They respect her privacy. And she can just go into any of the centers in town for help, there’s no need for her to involve the family doctor at all.