Olive did love Coke. Like all small children, sweets and chocolates were welcome, but Olive would always take fizzy pop over food. Probably because Mum didn’t allow it in the house. I smiled sadly, the memory surprising me. I’d forgotten that. Gran was always the one who gave Olive the money to go and buy it while we stayed here – a secret from Mum, but the good kind.
I remembered one afternoon in summer a couple of years before Olive was taken. Mum had picked us up from school – a rare occurrence, and we were giddy with it. Instead of taking us straight home, she took us to the small row of shops near our house. There was a confectioner’s, a local one called Birds that I remembered vividly for their opulently iced cream buns and home-made jammie dodgers; Mum had taken us inside and treated us to cakes and fizzy drinks. She’d only regretted it when Olive got sticky fingers all over the inside of the car. I grinned at the memory.
“How are you feeling anyway?” I asked, channelling the warmth I felt at remembering that afternoon.
“Oh, you know. Bit sore. I do tell these doctors to be careful but they’re always jabbing me with things. I don’t like that.” She grabbed another chocolate from the box.
“That’s their job. That’s what they’re here to do. They’re looking after you. Anyway, you always tell me how gentle Doctor White is and I’m sure you’ll be able to see him again soon. But how is your arm? It’s broken, remember.”
Gran frowned. I tried to keep my smile warm, even as Gran’s frown deepened and something flashed in her eyes. Was that fear?
“Are you okay?” My stomach clenched and my throat constricted.
“I’m…” Gran looked around, taking in the room. “He slowed down…” she whispered. “He was aiming for me but I think he slowed down.”
I reached out to take her good arm. It was thin but wiry with a kind of strength I’d forgotten. She’d always been strong. The women in my family – that’s one thing we were all cursed with. Strength in the shape of stubbornness.
“It’s okay. You’ve been very brave. Does it hurt much?”
“No.” Gran’s eyes clouded. “Well. Yes. I suppose it does. But I guess that’s what happens when you ride on the back of motorbikes, isn’t it?”
And like that, the moment passed. I forced a laugh, trying to make the tension ease out of me. This was more like the Gran I remembered. Growing up, Gran and Grandad had been the most cheerful people I knew. They were never afraid of mess, letting Olive and me create castles out of foam in the kitchen or use glitter paint in the lounge. Our summers were spent making as much mess as possible – Gran always said if we got it out of our systems at her house, Mum would be grateful. I think they sensed that it was what we needed, after the tension at home: unbridled fun with somebody who enjoyed it as much as we did.
We had always looked forward to the summers away from home. Even when I was older and I claimed to be bored, it was the comfortable kind of boredom. In a lot of ways Gran’s house was more comfortable than our own, a place where we could be ourselves only a little more free.
In the years that followed, my sadness at losing Olive was exaggerated – perhaps selfishly – by the fact that summers were never the same after she was gone. I never again spent a whole summer in Bishop’s Green, visiting less and less as Mum and I withdrew into our own separate world of sadness and guilt. Mum working more so that we could afford the tiny house we rented after Dad left, and me doing everything I could to help her pretend she’d never had a husband and never needed one anyway. Gran and Grandad stopped asking me to come and stay with them when I explained that if I did, Mum wouldn’t eat a decent meal or have any clean clothes to wear to work.
“Motorbikes,” I said ruefully to Gran, giving her arm a gentle pat. “Well, really.”
* * *
In the car my good mood soured immediately. Bella Kaluza had been missing for a whole day and night. Twenty-four hours, my brain tolled. Twenty-four hours gone. The eclipse still burned behind my eyes when I closed them, a child-stealing spectre.
I made it to Earl’s café in Chestnut Circle just after the breakfast rush for my hastily arranged meeting with Marion’s teacher witness who had told her about the mood ring. I hoped that he was already inside; I was too caffeinated to hang around and if I got restless I might go at him harder than necessary.
I found the teacher sitting at the back of the café with a steaming latte. He’d been blessed with a full head of curly brown hair that was only now greying at the temples and what my mother would have called a beautiful pair of baby-blues. He reminded me of the teacher all my friends had had a crush on at school. He was also, I noticed, the man I’d seen on the television, and outside the school talking to Bella.
“Jake Howden,” he said. He thrust his hand at me, but I was distracted. It was the first time I’d heard his full name spoken aloud and something in the back of my brain pinged in recognition.
Shakily I returned an introduction, sat across from him and pulled out my notebook. He was, I realised, one of the teachers who had been posting on social media. I remembered his name from my list, which had been sitting untouched since Grace had turned up. He was also one of a handful of teachers I’d noted who had been in town sixteen years ago when Olive was taken.
“Thank you for seeing me, Mr Howden,” I said, clearing my throat in an attempt to dislodge the lump that was forming. “I appreciate your insight.”
“Anything to help.” He gestured amiably. When he dropped his hands to the table there was a thunking noise as his watch – a gold, heavy, expensive-looking thing – hit the Formica. He winced. “Sorry,” he said. “It’s a bit big. My wife bought it for me but I haven’t had time to get it adjusted yet.”
He said the word wife pointedly, as though he was making it as obvious as possible that he wasn’t single. I thought of Marion and pushed down the amused smirk that threatened to break my professionalism. He was a good ten years too old, for starters. And the wrong gender. But I didn’t say anything.
“The girls?” I prompted.
“Ah, yes. I know Grace – and Bella – fairly well, actually. You said on the phone that you were writing a piece about them? I think it’s quite clear by now that Bella’s disappearance isn’t connected.”
I shrugged. “It’s more about Bella than Grace. But they’re friends, so everything helps. It’ll be a bit about the town, about the girls. About the way Bishop’s Green has come out in force to protect these two children from different backgrounds. The heroes who’ve helped the authorities. That sort of thing.” I tried to keep it light, but I could see Jake Howden’s face brighten at the thought that he might be a “hero”.
“Sure, sure,” he said, nodding. “There are a lot of us trying to organise searches. What sort of thing do you want to know? I’ve been teaching both girls since September. Clever kids. Especially Bella.”
“Yet you had to confiscate something from her last week, didn’t you? Detective Adams told me you mentioned an argument the girls had.”
“It wasn’t really an argument. But I did remember it because Bella’s normally one of the more relaxed girls in the class, but she was fidgety and snappy all morning. I wondered what had set her off, because even though things are tough for her at home, she never usually brings it into the classroom.”
“Tough at home?”
“Her parents. Messy divorce. I saw it all the time when I used to volunteer for the youth group so it’s nothing new.” Howden shrugged but his expression was coy. He leaned in conspiratorially as I tried to picture him at the youth group. Did he know Darren Walker? Might he have known Olive? My skin crawled. I wanted to ask but I couldn’t get the words out.
“The mother seems to be struggling,” Howden explained. “A couple of times I’ve seen Bella in grubby shirts, a dirty blazer – like her mum hasn’t noticed. You ought to see what she gets sent in with for lunch. Junk food, all of it. I’ve given her credits for the school cafeteria a few times this year just to make sure she doesn’t eat r
ubbish.” He let this sink in and then scooted back in his chair and smiled again. “But Bella’s usually fine – you know, the right amount of chatty. Friendly. She seems all right most of the time. Resilient.”
I remembered Olive – that summer. Chatty, same as always. Yet still aching with the knowledge she carried of our own family’s crumbling foundations. I hadn’t truly seen it then, but looking back I realised that Olive was more affected than any of us recognised at the time. Perhaps Bella was the same. But Jake Howden knowing these things about Bella’s life hadn’t stopped her from being abducted or running away, or turning to somebody for solace, and the thought made me cold.
“You talk to Bella a lot outside of school hours?” I asked.
Howden, to his credit, didn’t even so much as blink. “Sometimes,” he said. “A few times recently. I only work part-time but I try to make myself available if I’m on site during lunch. We’ve chatted during breaks, or once she came by my room after school. We don’t really have much in the way of a counsellor so I guess she finds it easier to talk to teachers than her parents.” He shrugged carelessly, but I saw a glint of pride in his eyes.
It wasn’t the answer I wanted and it didn’t allay any of my fears, but now wasn’t the time to go into it. Not while he was eager to answer my other questions. And not without Marion. I was on thin ice already and I didn’t want to end up in over my head for a hunch.
“This argument,” I said, then. “Between Grace and Bella. It was about a ring. A mood ring, right?”
I gripped my pen tighter, smoothing my expression into one of general interest, but my heart thudded so loudly I hardly heard Mr Howden’s response.
“Yeah. Just one of those colour-changing ones you can get everywhere. I’ve seen them often enough. Except this one was broken. Well, not so much broken as just old. The colour didn’t change any more. I assume a boy gave it to Bella, but she didn’t want it. She said something about it being gross. In the end it was Grace who came back after class and got it. She said she thought it was cool.”
“And?” I pushed, sensing he hadn’t told me everything. He rubbed at a patch of stubble on his chin that he’d missed when he shaved. I noticed it with a kind of smug satisfaction.
“She said that she thought Bella would change her mind – about not wanting it. Grace seemed… Not jealous, exactly, but…”
I swallowed hard. So Bella had been given a ring – a ring that looked an awful lot like the one Olive had been given the summer she was taken – and Grace had known about it.
“Do you remember the conversation that started it?” I asked. “Maybe what Bella said about the ring? Where she got it?”
Mr Howden shook his head. “She just said she didn’t want it. Something that sounded like, ‘It’s too weird getting presents like that. It makes me feel gross now.’”
“You said you thought a boy gave it to her…”
It must have seemed a significant gift, for Bella to be so alarmed by it – and for Grace to find it alluring. Could this really be the ring I had seen on my sister’s hand sixteen years ago? I thought of the eclipse again, that empty black circle. The timing of Bella’s disappearance. And now this mood ring, a relic given as a gift that nobody really wanted.
Even if whoever had given Bella the ring didn’t know where it had come from, everything still pointed back to Olive. I felt sick.
“I don’t know who gave it to her,” Jake Howden said when he saw the look on my face. “I genuinely don’t. It’s certainly nothing to do with me – I try not to pry too much into my students’ personal lives, and I’m sure a lot of people have stuff like it lying around at home, trinkets and the like. I only told the police about it because Bella was so freaked out. Everybody in the class witnessed it. I mean, it’s just a ring, right?”
“Right,” I said faintly.
“And… Well, girls get themselves into these sorts of things all the time, don’t they? Receiving gifts they don’t want or being afraid to upset admirers. Boys are very irresistible.”
I tried to keep the annoyance from my face as this charmer stared right at me and smiled. I wrinkled my nose – as much disgust as I would allow to show.
“Not usually when you’re eleven,” I said firmly.
26
“I DON’T LIKE IT.” I was in my car, avoiding putting the key in the ignition. I’d picked up a new mobile after my meeting with Jake Howden, partly so I could check up on Gran easier, and partly so I could bug Marion for an update. It was nice to hear her voice, although I wouldn’t have admitted that to anyone.
“I bet those were the first words out of your bloody mouth as a child,” Marion said. “I don’t like it.”
“Actually, I think they were I want that.” I waited for Marion’s laughter to subside, glad of the distraction from the twisting in my stomach. “I don’t like that teacher though, Marion. He’s really smarmy. And he seemed to know a lot about Bella even though he only teaches her a few times a week. And he mentioned the youth group.”
“He’s one of those charitable types,” Marion said, the smile leaving her voice. “It’s not that uncommon. And just about everybody in town and their dad has volunteered with the youth group or the Scouts or run a raffle or a charity competition. You know what Bishop’s Green is like. Anyway, he came to talk to us, not the other way around. He seems a bit invested but he’s probably just one of those teachers who thinks he’s God’s gift.”
“He might be trying to throw us off the scent by mentioning the mood ring,” I said. “If he knew you’d find out about it anyway, perhaps he was just pre-empting you?”
Marion made a sound in her throat that sounded like a dismissal.
“Maybe,” she said.
I knew Marion was probably right, but something about the man didn’t sit well with me. He was too interested. Too involved. And then there was the matter of all of his posts on Facebook and Twitter… I’d learned the hard way about ignoring my gut instinct.
“Did you alibi him?”
I virtually heard Marion roll her eyes on the other end of the phone. “Cassie, come on.”
“Well, did you?”
Marion let out a sigh. “Yes, Cassie. We did. He was with his wife when Bella was taken, getting ready for work. And he was there, at school, teaching his first class of the day at eleven. He doesn’t have a form this year – part-time, writing a book or something the rest of the time – but he claims to have been on site from nine thirty. We’re trying to confirm this now but with the eclipse everything’s a mess.”
I didn’t say anything, but it didn’t make me feel any better. Wives and lovers lie, I thought. Carol lied for my father during their affair. Helen had lied for me the first time I was accused of being rude to a deserving interviewee. I’d lied to protect Marion from the text messages. And Bella could have been taken any time from when she left her house until the register was held at the end of the eclipse – it was a two-hour window and a lot could happen in that time.
“How is your gran?” Marion asked when I didn’t respond.
“She’s… She’s okay. Do you think somebody hurt her on purpose?”
“I don’t know. Whoever was driving wasn’t going very fast,” Marion said thoughtfully, sadness tingeing her words. “It could have been worse, though.”
That was what haunted me. Was this a promise of more violence to come? I didn’t want to think about it.
“The mood ring,” I said, instead. “Did you get it from Grace? Did you find… anything? Fingerprints?”
“Grace said she lost it.”
I felt my stomach heave at the thought but I knew it wasn’t true. Grace wouldn’t have lost it. I realised Marion was still speaking.
“It could have loads of prints on it anyway, Cass, not just whoever gave it to your sister. Especially if it’s been around a bit. The girls, their parents, kids at school, teachers… It could have been given to Bella by anybody… Grace said she’s not sure where it came from.”
&nbs
p; “It’s Olive’s ring, Marion.” The words lurched out of me. “It’s Olive’s.”
“Cassie…” I heard the warning in Marion’s voice but I couldn’t stop.
“I know it’s hers. It’s old. Black. Mood rings go that colour – but not for a while. They’re… Oh Christ.” I blinked back the hot tears in my eyes. “It’s her ring.” I said again. “And I want to find out where it came from.”
“Cassie, stop. You’re still on thin ice with Fox…” Marion paused, presumably realising that his name wasn’t going to get me to listen. She huffed a breath that might have been annoyance, could have been resignation. “Are you sure?” she asked.
“I need to see it. But… I’m sure.”
Another pause. Then a sigh.
“Do you think you can get more out of Grace than we have? I can’t authorise you barging in there, Cass. If anybody asks I’ll deny all knowledge. And if you get into any trouble, I’m hauling you back down here whether you like it or not.”
I fought a small smile, relief fluttering in my chest. “Is that a promise, Detective Inspector?”
“You got it.” Marion snorted, paused. When she spoke next her voice was warm. “I want that…” she muttered. “Yeah, that just about sums you up.”
* * *
The Upton home looked different today. There were fewer people camping outside; they were all at the Kaluza house, pawing at the poor single mother there whose broken English was no doubt all the more endearing to them.
There were two cars on the Upton drive, one of them was Roger Upton’s white Audi. I parked down the street and walked the last few hundred yards.
Adelaide Upton looked much better than the last time I’d seen her but the experience of it all had aged her. Her hair was tied up in a loose bun and she was wearing a string of pearls around her neck, but she was dressed in plain, dark clothes.
“Oh, hello,” she said. “I was afraid you were the press.” The irony of this comment didn’t go unnoticed but I didn’t say anything about myself or the job. I didn’t want to think about it. At this rate, there’d be no story, and no money, and I’d be back where I started: stuck in Bishop’s Green with no job and no future.
After the Eclipse Page 17