“Oh,” Adelaide said.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing? How did she get in, Addie?”
Mrs Upton got to her feet.
“I – let her in.”
“Ah,” I said, pushing my chair back. “Mr Upton. A pleasure to meet you—”
Mr Upton didn’t stop. Not when his wife laid a hand on his arm, which he shrugged off with a practised roll of his shoulder. Not even when he grabbed my jacket, pinched it tight between his hands, and frog-marched me all the way to the door.
He didn’t stop moving until he drove me right out of the front door.
5
11 August 1999
OLIVE OPENED HER EYES slowly. So slowly that the world came into focus in a golden-grey blur, and for a second she thought that she must have fallen asleep under one of the trees on Folly Hill and missed the eclipse.
Soon she realised: she was right about the eclipse. She had missed it. But this wasn’t Folly Hill.
As her eyes opened wider, there was more grey and less gold. The walls were grey concrete, plain and rough. The ceiling was quite low, but the single window above her still seemed impossibly high. Two long, thin bars separated the thick glass from the world outside. Like a prison.
She was on a bed. It wasn’t comfortable like the one at home. More like the one at Gran’s, with a spring that dug right into her back. She shimmied up, her brain taking a second to respond. But she wished she’d just stayed where she was, where it still felt like a bad dream. Where she couldn’t see four walls, and very little else.
Oh no.
She felt her throat start to itch with tears, but she wouldn’t cry. She looked around, trying to figure it out, like a puzzle. The bed was beneath the window, and on the opposite wall there was a door. Olive climbed unsteadily to her feet, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed – and noticed that something wasn’t right. Wronger, if possible, than this funny room and the funny smell of paint and damp.
These weren’t her shoes.
She wriggled her toes, momentarily stunned by the discovery that, suddenly, in place of her old white trainers, she now wore a pair of the shiniest shoes she’d ever seen. Patent leather, like her old Dr. Martens, but black and so new they weren’t even creased yet.
They were too big. Her toes fought for grip as her feet hit the floor and she swayed slightly, foreign material slithering against her bare legs as she gripped her thighs. That wasn’t right, either. A dress? Olive hadn’t worn a dress since she was nine. She hated them. Everybody knew she did. You couldn’t do things in a dress, like climb trees or dig for fossils in the mud. And this one was hideous, with a big bow on the back that dug in when she tugged at it.
Where were her shorts? Her T-shirt was gone too. She snapped her head back and forth as she stood in place, searching the empty room. The only thing left, she realised, was her jewellery. Her ring, and her stupid Mickey Mouse watch that was too young for her, that was a baby’s watch really, but it had been a present from Cassie for her eighth birthday.
She stumbled towards the only door in the room, now unable to contain her panic. Her heart was skipping about inside her, so much that she felt dizzy. She hit the opposite wall in less than fifteen steps.
The door was cold. Made from metal, not wood. She tried the handle but nothing happened. She pressed both palms against it and pushed.
Nothing.
“Hello?” she called. She waited, but all she heard was the tearing sound of her own breaths and the stamp-stamp-stamp of her heart. “Excuse me! Is anybody there?”
Still nothing.
She felt the tears stinging her eyes before she even realised she was crying. She wiped her hands over her face, feeling the grazes on her palms from earlier. Was that even earlier? Was it still today? Olive spun around and tried to look out of the window. All she could see now was a greyish patch of sky. Was it sky? It might be tarmac. She couldn’t even tell. She tried to stop crying for a minute, to listen, but it sounded all empty and hollow and nothing.
Just nothing.
Now the tears wouldn’t stop. She sat down in the middle of the room, cradling her face in her hands. She couldn’t help it. She might be a baby if she cried, but she wanted to go home. She wanted Gran and her mum – and even Cassie. What if she never saw them again? Why would the door be locked if she could just go home? She couldn’t remember anything. Except the road and the sun and the moon…
And him.
Olive looked up. Her heartbeat quickening, she looked again around the room. But there wasn’t anything she’d missed. Not another person. Although there was a fridge by the door. And a sink and a microwave. She hadn’t noticed those before.
Was this somebody’s kitchen?
But there was the bed and those bars on the window… And then she noticed the toilet, a small one like in the primary school she’d just left behind. Too small for her. It was partially hidden by a low wall that looked half-finished. A tin bath sat in the corner. A kitchen and a bedroom and a bathroom all in one?
Olive’s brain was hopping and jumping about all over the place, but at least she’d managed to stop crying. She sat on the floor for a while longer, noticing that there was a carpet. It was grey and thin, its cheap speckled appearance illuminated by the weak evening sunlight coming through the window. The floor underneath the carpet was hard and bumpy in places. There was a lamp on the floor by the bed, plugged in like when they’d moved house and got some stuff from the moving van before the big furniture. They had put the lamps on the floor in the new house too, but this didn’t feel exactly like that. The light fitting hanging from a wire over her head didn’t even have a bulb in it.
The whole room felt like somebody’s garage. Like the time she’d gone to Angela’s house after school in year three. Her dad had a garage with loads of games in it, and a little kitchen. Angela had called it his “den”. But he also had a pool table and a TV and there was nothing like that in here.
Olive climbed to her feet. Already her bum hurt from sitting, and she wandered back over to the bed. She took the shoes off, setting them carefully on the floor. Maybe whoever owned them would come back for them. She wanted to take the dress off too but she knew she would be cold without it. Then she sat down on the lumpy bed.
She thought about the man and the van. She felt an oily sickness in her stomach and wondered if she’d passed out. Maybe she’d got heatstroke like Cassie had last summer. It had been warm enough, and she hadn’t been wearing a hat… Maybe the man had brought her here to wait for Gran.
Olive pushed back the other thoughts. The ones about another reality. One where she wasn’t going home. One where she should have jumped out of the van. One where she hadn’t been tricked by the sandman in disguise, where she hadn’t been put to sleep by strange-tasting water. She pushed those thoughts so deep that her head hurt and she wanted to close her eyes.
Instead she sat on the bed and watched as the light faded from yellow to grey to nothing much at all. The eclipse she had been waiting for was long gone. Olive knew from practising that she was good at waiting. Like the time Mum had promised they could have a dog for Christmas if they stopped asking. Olive had buttoned her lips right away, counting down the days in her head so that Mum didn’t get annoyed. So they could have their puppy. In the end Cassie had ruined it by asking again. Like she always did.
A little sob bubbled up inside her. Cassie would know what to do. But she didn’t want to cry again, so Olive bit her lip and turned her eyes back to the window. To the sky or the tarmac, or whatever it was. And as the shadows grew and grew inside the room, and eventually it got too dark to see, Olive decided she would wait. Maybe if she was good she could go home before morning.
6
“GET YOUR FOOT OUT of my bloody door.”
I glanced down.
“This foot? Oh, I’m sorry. I wasn’t aware that your wife and I had finished talking.”
I tried to keep the wince hidden as Mr Upton shoved the door
again, hard. I could already feel my skin throbbing from the impact of the wood through my worn old boots.
He let out a growl.
“Get out now or I’m going to call the police. I don’t care what my wife said – she’s not ready to talk to anybody. She’s too upset.” He bared his teeth, his whole face going beet red.
I started to speak and then changed my mind as he shoved the door again. This time I couldn’t control my face as my foot twinged and I yanked it back. The slam of the door set my teeth rattling.
Well, that hadn’t gone exactly to plan. I tried to avoid swearing as I walked back to my car, fists clenched tight. Roger Upton hadn’t done anything at all to alleviate the suspicion that was bubbling away inside me, although I couldn’t deny that the adrenaline singing in my veins made a nice change from the stupor I’d been in for the last couple of months.
Even the throbbing in my foot was almost welcome. I’d forgotten what it could be like. Being alive. Working. Digging. Getting the truth – or something like that.
I slid into the driver’s seat and pulled out my phone. I was just about to make a call when a knock at the window surprised me. I wound it down quickly. Mrs Upton’s face was hovering outside.
“The list,” she said. “Of Grace’s friends. Not sure it’ll help, but there you go.”
I was stunned, just for a moment. Thankfully, my autopilot kicked in. “Thank you.” I took the paper. “Mrs Upton – Adelaide. Can I ask you something?”
She narrowed her eyes at me but didn’t back away.
“Your husband – if he’s so against you talking to me, why did he do that interview?”
Adelaide’s brows furrowed. She shifted from foot to foot.
“He’s just protective,” she said quietly. “It’s not that he doesn’t want me talking to you. It’s that… he’s worried about me. He’s not sure I can handle it. I – I suppose I can’t really. It seems like everywhere I look there’s more darkness.”
A fat tear wobbled down her cheek.
Anger threatened to rise inside me, the memory of my own father saying something similar about my mother. She had been inconsolable when Olive was taken, wild and angry and unapproachable for days; then she became silent, her fears stark in her eyes, and we were all terrified she was going to do something drastic. Like hurt herself.
But Mrs Upton wasn’t my mother.
“Protectiveness shouldn’t ever manifest as violence,” I said firmly. “No matter whether he thinks he’s helping or not.”
Adelaide shook her head, as though she was about to argue.
“But…” I added, “maybe it’s for the best that you don’t speak to anybody else. At least not yet.”
Mrs Upton looked at me for a long few seconds. Then she nodded.
Little worms of guilt started to wriggle in my chest. The word “exclusive” rattled around my skull, making me feel hot and cold at the same time.
It was better for Adelaide this way. Why submit herself to unnecessary probing, to questions that would make any mother flinch? I shook the thoughts off and watched as she walked away.
Once she was gone, I glanced back down at my phone, still in my hand. If I made this phone call, admitted to Henry that I might write something, it felt like there was no going back. I’d be invested in Grace Butler. In the job. In trying to get my life back.
Henry was right. I couldn’t just keep coasting aimlessly. And I knew that now I had started, I wouldn’t be able to stop. It was more than just an interview; for the first time since moving back to town I felt alive. For the first time since things ended with Helen and I left my job, I had a purpose. It wasn’t about the writing, it was about finding the truth.
I made the call and Henry picked up on the second ring.
“Hello, Miss Investigator. I wondered how long it’d be before you caved.” His voice was hoarse, as though he’d been on the phone all morning.
“How do you know that’s what I’m calling about?”
“Save it.” The words were warm with the smile I knew would be on his lips. At this point Henry probably knew me better than my own father did. In fact, he’d been more of a father to me over my ten years in London than my own dad had been. It was Henry who’d got me my first freelance gig, who’d shown me the ropes, who’d taught me the professional benefits of alcohol, how to mingle and ask the right questions. And since he retired he’d provided me with more support than ever.
“You were right,” I said. “I wasn’t going to. But I spoke to… I spoke to Marion.” Even as I admitted this I felt a flush in my cheeks and I swallowed to hide the thickness of my voice at the thought of Marion in her white shirt, tired and gorgeous.
“And?” Henry prompted. “Is there a story there? Do you think you’ll give it a shot?”
“The kid has been missing for three days, Heno. Of course there’s a story here. I can put something together on the mother pretty quickly. But, thing is, I think there’s more to it than a character piece. I think I could have a real crack at this.” I didn’t mention my sister. The eclipse. Not yet. “I probably need another pair of hands, though. I can do the inside stuff, but…”
“You want me to do some digging for you?”
“If you haven’t got anything better to do. You’ve always been better than me.”
It wasn’t flattery. Despite being nearly sixty Henry was better with computers than I could ever hope to be. It was his super power. I didn’t know where he found half his information. And frankly I didn’t want to know.
“Anything specific you want me to look at? I assume you’ve got the basics covered.”
“There’s just something fishy about the stepdad,” I said. “I don’t know. I don’t have any proof, just this… feeling. I was at the house and he was not happy when he came home and saw me there. He was very controlling. It’s probably nothing, but I could do with a bit of background.”
“Sure, sure.” I heard a faint tapping sound, and knew that Henry was knocking his pen against his teeth as he often did when he was thinking. Then he coughed. “So… the situation with Marion—”
“Shut up, Heno,” I said. “Don’t get cocky. We just talked about work. Christ, you’re worse than most teenagers I’ve met.”
Henry let out a bark of laughter. “Well I have to do something to pass the time, Cass. It’ll be good for you to have a distraction. You’ve seemed a bit down lately. Unsurprising with the ecli—”
“Heno, I’m fine.” A spark of anger flared in me but I smothered it quickly. “I know you’re worried, but I’m okay. Just because it’s the first proper eclipse since Olive was – since she was taken – doesn’t mean I’m not okay. Please can we just drop it?”
“I was just saying.” Henry cleared his throat and I could tell that I’d upset him. The anger died in me. I knew he was only trying to help. “I know how you get sometimes, that’s all. I don’t want you to feel like you haven’t got anybody to talk to.”
“I’m trying not to think about it,” I said. “But you’re right. If I focus on this then I’ll be fine. Just find me some dirt on Roger Upton.”
I heard the smile in Henry’s voice. “You got it, darling.”
* * *
The walk to Grace’s school was almost pleasant. I had time to kill before the kids were let out so I parked near the Circle, which was busier than I’d seen it in a while, and then walked up the long, gently sloping hill. I shaded my eyes with my hand, taking in the green and brown patchwork fields that rolled in the distance as Bishop’s Green began to spread out behind me. From up here, if I turned around I could make out the smudge of the Triplet Stones on the northern hillside, their shadows cast long and rangy across the emerald grass. I breathed deep, sucking in the clean air. The sun was warm on my back but I couldn’t suppress a shudder at the sight of them.
They stood like sentries keeping watch over the town. Or, rather, like goddesses, gazing from a distance and not doing a damn thing to help us. Each of the three stones was over
fifteen feet tall, carved with swirling patterns and inlaid with creeping moss. Old stories said that the Triplets were the remains of three ancient beings who had made a home for themselves here, enchanted as they were by the lush, green landscape. Some said they were guardians, watchtowers, blessing the area with fertile farmland and plentiful crops.
Others said they were a warning. A reminder that whatever energy you put into the earth you received back threefold, whether that was positive energy, or negative. And the world had a lot of negative energy to give.
Perhaps they were right, those people who went searching for luck or fertility. Perhaps it all came down to what you asked of the stones.
I came to a stop just opposite the gates of Arboretum Secondary. The school sat nestled in the hillside like a fat hen, feathers fluffed, amidst playing fields and, further out, the houses of the wealthiest people in town. I pulled out my phone, leaving it dark but giving myself the look of a bored nanny waiting for her charge. My plan was to just watch, see what kind of mood the children were in.
In other words, I didn’t have a plan.
I didn’t have to wait long before I saw children I recognised. A gaggle of younger kids came out of the gates. A redhead, at least, I was sure I’d seen in Mrs Upton’s photograph. One of the girls hung back a moment, deep in conversation with a curly-haired teacher. He put his hand on her shoulder and then gave her a gentle nudge towards her friends.
“Hi,” I said to the kids closest to me. “Hi, Tiffany? Sarah?” I rattled off the names from Mrs Upton’s list at random. “Bella? Hannah?”
They all spun en masse as the last girl reached her friends, five girls and a boy looking at me with open faces.
“Sarah’s not here,” one of them said. “She didn’t come to school today.”
“Who are you?” asked the boy. He stepped forward, scowling enough that the girls didn’t bother to. They just stood behind him and waited for something to happen.
“Sorry,” I apologised. “My name’s Cassie. I’m helping Grace’s family figure out where she’s gone. We’re trying to work out who she’s with, you know, that she might not realise how worried they are. Mrs Upton said you guys are Grace’s friends…?”
After the Eclipse Page 5