by Emma Rowley
There was nothing I could do, not at first. I couldn’t see any way out: I just had to get through it, I told myself, wait it out. I didn’t let myself think about what I was waiting for. I couldn’t break down. If I lost control . . . something told me that would be a bad idea. I just had to wait, for an opportunity. Be patient.
And then one day, that first winter, the opportunity came: he said it was time for another postcard.
The first one had been my idea, something we’d discussed before I went. We’d been planning how we could be together, without people coming after us. We never used the word police.
“I just need to get a message home, don’t I?” It seemed so simple to me. “So they don’t worry.”
“How?” We’d been in his car as usual, he’d picked me up to snatch some minutes together. It was easier than you’d think, when no one’s looking to catch you.
“Well, I could phone.”
“They’d trace it. You couldn’t phone home, not straight after anyway. There’ll be too much attention.”
I felt silly. “A letter then,” I said. “In my handwriting, so they know it’s real.”
He was silent, so I knew he was thinking about it.
But I didn’t like it when he showed me the postcards. It must have been a fortnight into me being here. Still the early days. Even then, they didn’t sit right. I don’t know where he’d got them, he must have ordered them off some collectors’ website or something. They were so anonymous. Spain! read the one on the top.
So this is where they might think I was, sunning myself on sandy beaches? It seemed like such a slap in the face, for everyone I’d left behind.
“There’re a lot of them,” I remember saying, uncertainly. He was wearing plastic gloves, so he didn’t get his fingerprints on them. The hair on his wrists showed through the rubber. I didn’t want to look at it for some reason. It made it all too real, silly as that sounds—given how far things had already gone.
But I did it, as we’d agreed. I wrote the message he told me to say, word by word—“We can’t take any risks, or let any detail slip, you need to say exactly what I want”—then signed my name, with my little daisy flower as normal. It was such a short, cold little message, I couldn’t imagine what Mum would think.
I hoped she wouldn’t worry too much.
I didn’t know he’d ask me to do it again. The days were so short by then, we must have been well into winter. I couldn’t quite believe I was still in there, if I actually let myself consider how much time was passing. I didn’t know what was happening outside, and he didn’t tell me—or wouldn’t tell me.
Like before, he dictated it to me.
“You know,” I said, “I’m not sure that’s a word I’d use.” Because I’d thought about this, in case he said I had to do it again. I’d had a lot of time to think.
I was going to send a little message of my own somehow. With the first letter of each line, I’d spell out a word down the side of the card: Help. Or maybe SOS. Whatever I could get past him, I wasn’t sure. So I kept making mistakes—not all of them deliberate—trying to get in the odd word that I’d chosen. But he would just make me start again, and he was getting frustrated. “I’m sorry,” I said, tears in my eyes. “I keep getting it wrong.” I wasn’t just acting. These postcards, these messages home—they scared me, hiding our tracks even more. How would they ever find me?
But he was getting angry, which was worse. Which is why, in the end, I did what he said. I wrote down just what he wanted, his bland, careful message.
“Is that all of it?” I said, about to sign it. I was cross-legged on the mattress, writing propped on a book. And it was then that I saw it, one of the little flowers on the wall paneling behind his head, where he was sitting on the sofa. I’d always liked them. I just drew it, the rose, with its little inner frill of petals, instead of my usual daisy. It was a quick sketch, little more than a doodle.
My stomach fluttered and squeezed as I handed the card over to him.
He didn’t say a thing. He read it carefully, holding it in his gloved hand. I hadn’t taken much of a risk, really. “It’ll do,” he said, slipping it in his jacket pocket, before he left.
“We’re going to be OK, aren’t we,” I whispered in Teddy’s ear, after he’d gone. “We are, we are, we are.” For the first time in ages, I felt full of lightness.
Of course, nothing happened. No one came. But it made me feel good to know that I was doing something that he didn’t know about.
So the next time, I did it again, and the next, copying just how they were carved on the wall: the rounded, identical flowers running around the room in a row, their petals arranged in their centers, so they looked like double rosettes.
I didn’t really dare hope it would do anything. And the longer I stayed here, the harder it got to imagine that anyone was even looking for me. Who’d even recognize them? I knew no one came round here anymore, that much was obvious. I felt like someone in a fairytale, leaving a trail of breadcrumbs that the mice gobble up. But it stopped me despairing, every time he made me send one of those postcards home, lying that I was OK.
And it was more than that: I was doing something he didn’t know about. Rebelling. It was like using a little muscle, that I hadn’t tried for a long time. Practice, maybe. I’m still not sure for what.
CHAPTER 38
Kate
I’ll find a window. They can’t be that secure, it’s just wood, old now, warped by rain and heat. I’ll get a hammer if I have to. But first I try the main door to make sure I’m right.
With a trembling finger, I trace the outline of one carved flower. There they are, like I thought: roses. A whole arch of them, dozens, if not a hundred of these stylized flower motifs carved into the stone at Parklands.
Just like on her postcards home.
Sophie put her signature daisy on the first one, just like she always did. When she started changing them, I didn’t understand.
But now I see the roses clearly, understanding her message at last. They’re stamped in the brickwork of the building, too, marching round the boarded-up windows, matching the tiles under my feet; a riot of geometric blooms, everywhere, now that I know. I know they will be inside, too.
I don’t have time to stop, fear urging me on. I push against the double doors with my shoulder, hard. They’re solid, but these hinges are old, metal could rust—the right door gives, just a little. Not that much, but . . .
I reach out a hand for the door knob and twist. It wasn’t locked.
I step over the piled-up letters, leaving the door open behind me, and stop, waiting for my eyesight to adjust from the brightness of the late summer afternoon outside. The hall is big, paneled in dark wood. The air is cold, that chill that you get in houses that have been closed up too long. The envelopes under my feet spill across the floor, years of circulars, now covered in dust; the postman must have stopped visiting long ago. I smell old paper and dirt. It’s so still.
I walk further in.
Doors circle round this dim central hallway; the stairs to my right, grandly curving round and up to an open landing. I’ll start with the door on my left, standing just slightly ajar, the old-fashioned key still in the lock under the handle; I remember Lily saying they let the rooms, individually.
I push on the heavy dark wood and enter slowly.
There’s a flicker in the corner of the room: a dark shadow creeping forward.
Adrenaline shoots through me. I jerk back, recoiling, and freeze.
The movement stops.
Then I realize, suddenly releasing my hands from my throat: it’s just a mirror, propped in a corner, reflecting my own cautious entrance into the bare room.
I find the light switch now, and flick it on. The bulb flickers on, then with that electric ting, goes off again—it’s blown.
But already I can see better in the darkness. The furniture’s long gone, packed up, or sold; even the wallpaper’s been stripped. Just the plaster detail on
the high ceiling hints at the old grandeur of the house. A huge crack running across the mirror, fracturing my reflection, tells me why it wasn’t taken with the rest.
My heart’s still pounding, my body processing the shock. I can’t lie to myself: I’m scared.
I work clockwise around the ground floor: more empty rooms, bare wires poking out of the walls where telephones or lamps have been unplugged, faint oblongs on the walls where pictures once hung. The boarded windows, high on the walls, let chinks of light in round their edges, enough to see. I’ve a mad impulse to tear the boards down, to let fresh air and sunshine into the stale rooms. But it’s easy enough to get into them—the doors are just standing open, the keys still in the locks, like whoever cleared the house out didn’t bother to shut up the emptied rooms behind them.
What was the kitchen is at the back of the house, down some steps: it’s gutted already, the units gone, bare pipes spilling out of the wall. And there’s a little hall, with more doors off it. I keep going, quicker now, exploring the rooms in this part of the house—servants’ quarters once, perhaps; small and plain and mean. There’s nothing to suggest people have been here in years, not even trespassers.
I head back to the main hall and take a breath, steadying myself on the paneling. It takes me a second to realize: I feel them under my hand, first, then I look. Little wooden flowers. The floral motifs are repeated here too, running around in a band at waist-height, repeating up the side of the stairs.
Slowly, with the inevitability of a dream, I take the first step.
CHAPTER 39
Sophie
Everything’s changing. For so long, I’ve been desperate for something to happen, but now it is and it’s too fast. And it’s all because of the phone call, I’m sure of it.
He told me maybe a week or two ago: we wouldn’t be doing a postcard this time. I’d make a phone call instead. My heart leapt. It’s working, he’s trusting me. I’d been trying so hard....
And then he said we’d practice first. He was going to coach me in what to say.
“What?” he said. He must have seen the disappointment I tried to hide. “You think I’m going to let you slip a message out, to tell them whatever you like?” It was so near the truth that I froze.
But he stayed calm, almost reasonable. “Sophie. If you were ever to do anything stupid or dangerous”—I realized I was holding my breath—“you know, it wouldn’t take me more than a moment. Before anyone got here, police or otherwise.” He wasn’t even looking at me. “You understand that I’d have to, for my own safety. I couldn’t let someone jeopardize all I’ve worked for.” He managed to sound almost sad. “Even you.”
And then he told me what he needed me to say.
Finally, one night, he decided it was the moment. He went out briefly and when he came back he got out a clunky mobile phone. He made me wait for a bit: made a call, then hung up.
“Come here,” he said at last, and I went to the sofa next to him. “Now, are you going to be sensible?”
I nodded.
“Whatever happens?”
I couldn’t think what he meant. “Whatever happens.”
He dialed in a number, and put the phone between us, clicking it onto loudspeaker.
“Hello,” the voice said. “Message in a Bottle.”
I parroted what I had to say. The reception was terrible: it kept cutting out, it must have been the thick walls. The woman was older, friendly-sounding. And I was so relieved, just to hear a grown-up’s voice other than his, after so long.
“I’ve got to be quick,” I told her. “I need you to tell them not to worry anymore about their daughter—that she . . . that I’m fine, really I am. . . .”
The line started skipping, yet again, then her voice cut through: “What? Who? Who do you want me to tell?”
“They’re not to worry if they don’t hear from me after this, it only hurts us all.” I hated that. “I’m Sophie Harlow,” I said, at his nod. “My parents are Kate and Mark Harlow. Hello? Hello?”
“Sophie,” the woman said, almost thoughtfully. Then calmly, really: “Sophie, is that you?”
There was that moment of confusion, just before you realize something, like a cartoon character windmilling in the air before he falls off the cliff.
This wasn’t in the plan—I looked at him: there was not a trace of surprise in his face. He nodded.
My stomach dropped.
Of course. Of course it’s her. He planned it, all along. Letting me talk to her, so she’ll think I’m fine....
“Are you still there, Sophie?” Tears filled my eyes. Stick to the script. I couldn’t risk veering from it. “Are you still there?”
It was then the fear hit me in full. This is it. He’s covering his tracks.
“Yes, yes, I’m here.” And as I said it, I realized: that was my cue—my only option. Trust her. I gave the phrase every bit of meaning I could, like I was stamping on the words.
Slowly, deliberately, I said: “I’m still here.” I didn’t dare look at him.
But she just replied: “Love you, So.” She sounded so sad. Defeated. Not like Mum.
The line went dead.
“Love you, Mo,” I whispered. I always have to finish, it’s what we do.
I lifted my head, slowly. His hand kept pressing down the button on the phone for another beat, just to be sure, and then he picked it up and took out the battery, his movements deft.
He didn’t explain why he’d arranged that—and I know better than to ask. But if he’s trying to convince her that I’m OK, even though she won’t be hearing from me again . . . what’s he planning to do next?
The diary shook me, when he showed it to me. I’d brought it here when I left, and never wrote in it again. I couldn’t write what I really felt about him. But he must have found it, and taken it away.
It wasn’t like I’d been telling it everything anyway. Took the dog for the walk, things like that, just little reminders that only I’d understand, if anyone looked, because I couldn’t write the truth—Took the dog out and he picked me up in his car at the end of the road. And I was right to, because Mum did find it. I was so angry—scared I’d slipped up. But I’d been careful enough.
This time he had it written down in advance what he wanted me to say, and I had to copy it, him watching over my shoulder. And I realized, as I wrote. This stuff he was making me say, this load of lies, about me and Danny, him scaring me after I did the test . . . Someone had worked out I’d got pregnant.
But these cruel things I was writing, would people believe them? They’d hide me even further away, like piling branches on top of a body in the woods. I don’t know why I had to think of a nasty thing like that.
So I went as slowly as I could, trying to think of what I could do. Finally I was done, flicking back through the diary before I handed it back—and then I saw the title page.
“But it doesn’t have my name in it,” I said.
“What do you suggest, that I post it to the police with a covering letter?”
“No, of course not,” I say. “It’s just—like you always say. People have forgotten about me.”
He couldn’t admit I was right. But he leafed through it, irritated, and then handed it back to me. “Fill in your details then. Don’t make a mistake.”
That’s when I did it—I wrote down my email address, only it was the wrong one.
You see, I’ve had a lot of time to think in here—about what I might do, if I ever get the chance.
He’d told me to delete our last email conversation, and I had. But just before that, I’d pressed “forward,” saving it to my drafts. I don’t know why, really. He was so thorough. Maybe the finality of it all scared me a bit.
I wasn’t going to do anything with it. But I couldn’t sleep that last night. I stayed up, quiet in my room, just messing around. Not thinking about what I had to do. Everything was ready. Almost everything, I remembered, and I got up and went to the computer.
Even th
en I was going to delete the draft. But I didn’t, not properly. Instead, I found myself setting up another email account, to hide it in. It wasn’t a plan, really, so much as a . . . souvenir. I think I just wanted to leave a trace, even if it was only for me. Proof that all this had really happened.
Of course, it asked me security questions. Well, he knew all my answers. So I set them up as if it were my mum answering. I told myself it was kind of a dig. I was still annoyed about the diary. But maybe part of me knew: you can trust your mum.
Even as I handed the diary back to him the other day, I could feel the grayness coming over me again. Who am I kidding? Who’s even going to see that? Not for the first time, I wanted to go back in time and shake myself, scream in my own face.
I am so desperately, totally over my head. But maybe . . . just maybe . . .
If anyone can find me, she can.
CHAPTER 40
Kate
The stairs are a broad sweep toward the landing, passing under tall leaded windows, more boards blocking out their light. This must have been expensive carpet once, too, but now the thick weave is dirty and worn bare in places. Here upstairs, someone’s covered the wood paneling in shiny white gloss in the bedrooms, in some misguided attempt to lighten the place. But it’s the bathrooms more than anything else that show their age against the classic bones of the house: there’s one very eighties avocado suite, rust stains under the taps.
From the main landing, overlooking the entrance hall, short twisting corridors lead to more rooms, shabbier, strewn with the detritus of their former inhabitants: a flimsy folding table; an old sun lounger that can’t have been intended for inside; piled-up magazines, National Geographics. I pick up one and open it, and see the small insect body. I put it down quickly. Silverfish.
I start edging around the half-open doors after that, unwilling to touch anything else. I don’t know why empty houses get so dirty—heavy gray clumps of dust fill the corners.