by Emma Rowley
It’s all so much, I want to push the idea away.
How would I not know if Sophie was tangled up with someone else? She was sixteen, it’s not possible.
But then there’s the timing. After two years, for the diary to come now, and only now, when I’d found out about the pregnancy test, when I’d started asking questions . . . And what did Nicholls say? He said something about my raising concerns, that I’d done the right thing. “Because it meant that Sophie was on our radar again, when the diary got handed in.” How lucky, I thought then. They might have missed it.
Now I think: it’s too neat, the timing, for it to be anything but odd.
Jesus. If I’ve got Danny all wrong . . . what did he say, when I went to see him? I wish I’d taken notes; I’ve gone about this all the wrong way, so slapdash. He said that nothing ever happened between him and Sophie, he was adamant. And there was something else, surely. I’m missing something . . . no, it’s gone.
But if there’s a scapegoat, then there’s someone else who’s being protected: the emailer. The person who knows where Sophie is?
The person who really got her pregnant?
I get up, needing to move. Because why do all this, Sophie? Why lead me to the email messages? Why even bother with the diary if you’re letting me know it’s not telling the full truth? Why cover up for someone, and undercut it all at the same time? And why phone the helpline to say you’re OK, then fill me with fear?
It doesn’t make sense.
Until, with a sick lurch of my stomach, it does.
There’s one logical answer, really, when you come down it.
Because it was all she could do. It was all he let her do.
CHAPTER 25
Sophie
At first, it was like playing house. Our own little world, just me and him—like I’d wanted. And it was exhilarating, after all the secrecy, to spend so much time together.
It was odd, though, at the same time. Sometimes we just didn’t have that much to say to each other. I never had that much to tell him about how I’d spent my day, for obvious reasons. It was different to how I’d imagined it, if I’d thought about it all.
This is what it’s like, I’d tell myself. Being grown up. So grow up.
A lot of the time, when he was there, we’d sit and watch TV, then later I’d clear up and take the dishes to the sink. It was a struggle really, to cook, but there was a microwave, toaster and, soon, a hot ring.
“And of course,” he’d say, “you’ve got all day. You’ll be a good cook yet.”
“You must be joking,” I remember saying.
My meals were more like camping: beans on toast, scrambled eggs. Once he brought fish, which I tried to cook in the pan. The whole place stank within minutes—no ventilation.
So he didn’t do that again. Pretty soon, he stopped eating the food I tried to make, he said he’d eat at home. It meant he didn’t have to bring so much each time he came, too. Instead he brought cold stuff: bread, cereal, lots of fruit. “To keep healthy.”
“I’ll be fine.” It was for my own good, I was putting on too much weight in here, he said.
But mostly, I was OK.
Then I started to notice some little things. Like his leaving trick.
The first few times I really did think he just missed me. That’s what he said, after all, that he couldn’t bear to leave me: I was flattered. He’d be gone only two hours, half an hour, even just fifteen minutes, once, before he’d burst through the door again, so eager to see me. It was different every time.
But I began to wonder. You see, normally when he visited, I’d hear his footsteps on the stairs. Yet whenever he came back sooner than I expected, the door would swing open and I’d jump. I wouldn’t have heard him coming at all.
And though his words would be nice, just what I wanted to hear—“I’ve missed you, I couldn’t wait to see you”—he’d always do the same thing as he came in: he’d take this quick, searching glance around the room. It was just with his eyes, he wouldn’t move his head—like I wasn’t supposed to notice.
Of course, he was checking what I’d been doing—trying to see if I’d already started to test the windows, or the floorboards, looking for ways out. And eventually I did.
Back then, I wasn’t sure what it meant, not until that day he left the door unlocked. Whenever I’m in here on my own now, after he’s gone I’ll wait a bit and then I try the door—just to see. It’s always locked now.
Only once, in the early days, it wasn’t.
When the handle turned in my hand, I was so thrilled, I went straight down the stairs, two steps at a time, and pulled open the second door at the bottom of the stairs. That was unlocked too.
And he was there waiting. My heart leapt into my throat, even as I drank in the details: the hall in the light behind him, the same old wood paneling. Then he pushed me back in, silent, and shut the door behind him.
“You surprised me!” I said. “I forgot to tell you”—as he herded me up the stairs—“I wanted to ask . . . can you get me some more fruit? I think I need the vitamins.”
I didn’t really think I fooled him, not at all, but it’s always been easier this way. To keep pretending.
So I chattered away, as he pushed me back in, his hand in the small of my back. He didn’t say a word about it, not even when he returned the next day with the fruit I’d asked for. He knew.
I’ve failed him, I thought. I shouldn’t have done it. That’s why he’s angry.
I know now, obviously. He didn’t leave it open by mistake. He was testing me.
Still, it was weeks before I realized what the window meant. I’d spent ages trying to get the skylight open, standing on the chair under the blue patch of sky. Pushing upward weakly, just reaching it, I had no leverage.
“It must be painted shut,” I told him, when he next turned up. “I can’t see how it opens.” I was already feeling claustrophobic. If I’d known what was ahead of me . . . “It’s just too hot in here,” I repeated grumpily.
“Don’t worry about that,” he said. “It must be jammed. I’ll sort it.”
The next time he came he brought me a fan, a proper standing one.
“But I want fresh air,” I said. I remember feeling ungrateful.
“I want never gets,” he said and laughed.
I hated it when he did that—when he acted like I was a child. Now, I don’t. I welcome it. I just have a feeling that might be useful, if he thinks I don’t quite get what’s going on.
Because eventually I worked it out. I was examining the window closely, one bright summer morning, the fan whirring away in the corner. I’d piled a stack of magazines on top of the chair, got as close as I could to it. I felt like I was going to slip off, testing my weight before I went flying. But then I balanced, breathing carefully.
I ran my fingertips round the edges of the window, twice, above my head. It wasn’t old, like so much of the rest of the place. He must have updated it for me. It definitely looked modern, the frame, painted white, made from something that wasn’t wood. It was cooler, harder. Near to it, the glass looked thicker, my faint reflection slightly blurred. Double glazing?
A thought occurred to me.
I checked once more—I wasn’t imagining it. It wasn’t painted shut. It wasn’t jammed. There wasn’t a hidden way to swing it open. It didn’t open at all.
After that, I started paying attention. I started looking at the place seriously: working out ways to get out. In case of an emergency, I told myself.
The low walls were solid, cool against my hands, as were the eaves, sloping up. They built these old houses sturdy. The skylight, set in the middle of the room, where the ceiling was at its highest—well, I’d tried that.
On another long afternoon, the high sun sliding into evening, I prized up the carpet in a few corners. Just to see. The wood beneath was thick and solid-looking.
“Oak,” he announced, a few days later. “That’s what this floor’s made of.” I froze,
looking up from my magazine. There was some boring TV program on about renovating houses, that Mum would have liked. That had to be why he was saying it. “Tap it.” Silently I reached a hand down and knocked on the floor through the carpet. “It’s still pretty solid. It would be a shame to damage it.”
I didn’t say anything. I could feel my face heating up. Was he angry? Did he know? I couldn’t tell.
It’s my fault, I told myself. I’m doubting him and I just need to trust him. That’s what he always said.
I don’t know how far I would have gone, really. It’s embarrassing to say, but it never really occurred to me then. That I’d what—start digging, scraping the walls with a spoon? Wait by the door, a bit of broken plate in my hand? I couldn’t quite admit it, I suppose: my situation. And he was testing me, all the time, to see how far I’d go along with this. The point at which I’d start to resist—start to say no.
In the end, it didn’t really matter, because soon everything would change.
And yet, we’re still pretending, not admitting the full truth to each other, even now. Him? That this is OK, and that I could possibly be OK with this. And me—that I don’t realize what this is: that I can’t leave.
The thing is, I prefer this version of him, even if it’s fake. I don’t want to see the reality.
Because then I feel very afraid.
CHAPTER 26
Kate
I haven’t moved, trying to decide what to do. I should tell the police.
But then I picture Nicholls at my kitchen table, explaining that calls had been made from the phone box near my house . . . I can’t risk being dismissed again, facing the polite suggestion that I’m not quite reliable in this area; that it’s all got a bit much. That even this, too, will have an explanation.
I can almost hear it: “So what you’re saying, Mrs. Harlow, is that someone else knew Sophie planned to run away—but you can’t think of anyone else who’s missing. Well, now, that’s to be welcomed, surely? And if Sophie didn’t mention that in her diary . . . didn’t you say that you’d found it, and read it before? Perhaps it’s understandable. But, of course, we’re happy to take a look.... If that will make you feel better.”
No, surely they won’t. Surely this they’ll take seriously. They have to.
But I’m not confident, not totally certain.
I need someone to back me up.
Charlotte picks up on the third ring.
“I know it’s been a while. But could you come and see me? Dad too? I’ve some things I need to talk about with you.” I take a deep breath. “I need your help. It’d be better if I could explain face to face.”
“OK. I just need to sort the kids out, check if Phil’s around and—don’t worry, it’s fine, we’ll be there. When?”
“How soon can you come?”
I feel relieved, just a little, when I hang up the phone. She’s good in a crisis. Maybe it’s time for me to share this with my family a little and let them help—I hope. She says she’ll speak to Dad and drive them both over first thing in the morning, then I’m going to explain everything that’s been happening, properly. I’ll make them understand, then we can all go to the police together.
Those emails are more than two years old. How will one more night make a difference? But even so, I’m uneasy. I don’t want to wait around.
Restless, I get up and go into the living room. Her postcards and note are still laid out on the glass table, untouched of course. That’s a perk of living alone, I suppose.
Then I feel a jolt of excitement.
If Sophie’s diary hid that email address, what could these messages be telling me?
I quickly go to fetch my jotter, feeling energized. I cracked the email; I got in there. There’s got to be something here: a message hidden. I can do this.
After half an hour, I’ve reached the familiar conclusion. These words are random. No secret emails or words or puzzles. There’s just nothing much to them.
Our address. A dutiful, bland message home, just enough to reassure us all that she’s still alive. Her writing unchanged, three kisses—xxx—always, that delicate little flower doodle by her looping signature.
I wonder when she’ll grow out of that; I smile a little, flick a finger at the cards to scatter them. Maybe she has already. It was daisy-like, a child’s idea of a flower, on the first card home, as usual, but then she mixed it up a little. That cheered me, when I noticed: was it a little sign that she was thawing toward me? Because they get more detailed, a little ruff of petals inside each one. It is supposed to be a rose, maybe?
Well, biology wasn’t really her subject. I wonder if she is still drawing as much as she used to.
My smile fades. Perhaps if I’d focused less on academics she’d be here to give me proper flowers, not this sad little bouquet. Unexpectedly, tears spring to my eyes, the writing on the cards blurring. I’m tired, I tell myself, it’s all been so much to take in. It’s OK. It will be OK, it has to be. I can’t get distracted.
So I’ll just have to try something else. What else do I know?
They still remember me at the grammar school. Maureen, the secretary, comes out to have a chat with me on their nubby orange sofas, bright against the beige walls. She’s the same, her pale blonde coif towering upward like a Mr. Whippy ice cream. The pupils haven’t started back yet, so the place is quiet. She tells me they’ve been hosting summer schools over the holidays. “More trouble than they’re worth sometimes, but needs must. And then we’re back into term time! And . . . how have you been?” she inquires delicately.
I sense a bit of embarrassment about my unexpected appearance today. Sophie, however you look at it, has not been another one of the school’s sterling academic success stories.
As I hoped, it was Maureen who called the police about the diary and she doesn’t mind chatting. But it wasn’t her who was handed the diary, but one of the cleaners, before the building had opened.
“We had the young artists in that week. Or was it the gymnastic summer school? Anyway, of course when I saw that it wasn’t just one of our, um, current pupils’ names written at the front, but Sophie Harlow’s, I thought I must let the police know, just in case it was relevant, you see. Well, you never know.”
“You were quite right,” I say. “So, this cleaner, would they be about so I could have a quick chat, perhaps?”
“Oh. Well.”
“Just to settle a few questions in my mind,” I say hurriedly. “Nothing official.” Whatever that means.
“I’m not sure . . . they come before school hours. They always seem to send different people”—she lowers her voice a little—“and I’m not sure how good their English is either. You could give the agency a ring. . . .” She looks doubtful: you could stick a pen in your eye, but why would you?
“If you wouldn’t mind giving me the number . . .”
“I’d be happy to,” she says, decisive now. “Just a moment,” and she clicks away in her heels. That done, it will be my cue to leave, I sense: the grieving mother ticked off the list; now to sort the stationery order.
Perhaps that’s unfair, she’s trying to be helpful. But I’m gloomy now, imagining what lies ahead as I try to get past the company switchboard, the bemusement, then guardedness at the suggestion of something unsavory.
But what did I expect? “Yes, the man who handed it in seemed very suspicious, perhaps he knows something; I took down all his details”?
For something to do, I flick through the visitors’ book in front of me. For all the hoo-hah after Sophie left, I can’t see that they’ve updated their systems all that much; this is the book for guests to the school, more a relic of the school’s traditions than any real security log.
I recognize the odd surname as I leaf through the pages, going back in time; that’ll be the parent of a child Sophie must have mentioned. But schools renew themselves so quickly; Sophie’s year will have left this summer, A levels done. I wonder if many of the pupils still here even remember h
er now....
One name, neat caps in bright blue ink, catches my eye:
Nicholls, B.
I read across:
Greater Manchester Police
This is pages back; ages ago. I check the date:
2 October, 2017 IN: 2:30 p.m. OUT: 4:15 p.m.,
his tight scribble of a signature.
“Maureen,” I say, as she emerges from the office, a piece of paper in hand, “I couldn’t help but notice, this DI Nicholls, I didn’t know that he . . .” what? “. . . had a relationship with the school.”
“Oh, do you know him?” she says.
“Yes, he’s been very helpful”—that’s a push—“over Sophie’s diary; it was him who let me know that they’d found it.”
“He’s very good,” she agrees. “He gives talks to the students; safety and personal whatsit, part of the pastoral stuff. He’s done it for a while, now. He’s very popular with the teenage girls in particular. Tells them how to look after themselves.” She laughs girlishly. “Of course it doesn’t hurt that they’ve all got crushes on him, they’ll all turn up to his talks.” She’s a little pink herself.
“Nicholls?” This doesn’t really match the version of him I know; brusque at best, dour, if you’re not so inclined to be nice. “But why does he bother?” I say bluntly.
She draws herself up a little. “Here at Amberton we take pride in maintaining alumni relationships, and we do think both sides get something quite important from—”
“So he went to the school? Here?”
“Of course he did,” she says, mirroring my surprise. “Not while I’ve worked here, I’m not quite that old, gracious me. He’s quite the success story, he’ll be a chief constable yet, you know, he . . .” I tune out, digesting this information. So Nicholls was new to Sophie’s case. But not new to the area; not at all.