After the Eclipse

by Fran Dorricott

  “What if, what?”

  “What if she’s hurt, and it’s my fault? What if I could have done more to help her?” Then, a look of true horror passed across Grace’s face and she started to cry. “What if she was taken because of me? Should I have told somebody? If I was here I could have protected her.”

  “Grace, no.” I reached out and laid a hand on her knee. “Please don’t blame yourself. For years I thought the same thing as you. I thought about it every day. I felt guilty and angry at myself. But Grace, listen to me, this didn’t happen because of you.”

  “How do you know?” Grace demanded. Her blue eyes flashed with a fierceness that surprised me. An anger that was so familiar I could have been looking at my own reflection.

  How did I explain to Grace that in another situation I might have thought Bella’s disappearance so soon after Grace’s was merely opportunistic? That I would have told Grace she wasn’t to blame but deep down I might have worried that Bella’s abduction had only happened because of chance. How did I tell her that this was different? The solar eclipse, the similarities to Olive… This was more than opportunity. It was fate.

  Somebody had intended to take Bella all along. And Grace making the news had only made it easier for them to blame somebody else.

  “It isn’t your fault,” I said firmly. “I promise.”

  * * *

  I couldn’t quite put aside the churning in my stomach, even as I drove the short distance back to Earl’s café in the Circle. I’d been unaware when I was there earlier that Jake Howden’s wife – and alibi – had been working right behind the counter, since he had neglected to mention it.

  Marion had only told me reluctantly, and not without my assurance that I wouldn’t do anything stupid, but I needed to talk to this woman. Just to put my mind at ease. The café was quiet, now, the lull between lunch and dinner leaving the whole place with an abandoned air.

  Howden’s wife was behind the counter as I arrived, cleaning the coffee steamer with a damp rag. It wasn’t hard to figure out it was her – she was the only female member of staff over eighteen. She half-turned as I entered, a polite but disinterested smile on her face.

  “Lizzie Howden?” I asked. She was short, probably only five feet tall, with a blonde pixie cut that somehow made her look older than she was – a haircut better suited to a woman in her twenties than one closer to forty. I pictured her next to Jake Howden, with his height and the well-defined muscles under his smart shirt, and I thought they made an odd couple.

  She seemed nervous. Not quite twitchy, but close enough that my hackles rose almost instantly. She was, in a lot of ways, the opposite of the smooth-talking teacher. She put down the rag and her head dipped in a nod.

  “You that reporter?” she asked.

  I turned on my professional smile and pulled out my notebook.

  “I’m Cassie Warren, yes,” I said. “I spoke to your husband earlier. I’m just looking for more of a sense of the man behind all the charity work. And it’s always important to get a feeling for the broader scope when writing a piece like this—”

  “Let me stop you there.” Lizzie held up both of her hands in what might have looked like surrender to anybody except me; I saw it for the challenge it was. “My husband didn’t hurt that kid. He was with me yesterday morning. We made love before he left for work because the eclipse meant his first class of the morning was cancelled, and you can bet we took advantage of the lie-in.”

  I felt a bubble of laughter rise up. Did people even say things like that? I watched Lizzie’s face as it morphed from suspicion into downright anger at my reaction.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Good alibis are usually a bit more watertight.”

  Lizzie snorted. “As I told the police,” she spat the word with disgust, “I have nothing to lie about and I didn’t realise he’d be needing an alibi.”

  Oh, Christ. Now I knew why Marion had given in and let me come here. The same words had come out of my own mouth. Ordinary people didn’t usually feel the need to catalogue their every move.

  “Quite,” I said. “Well, thank you anyway. I appreciate your… candour.”

  She smiled. Wives could lie, I thought again, but as much as Lizzie Howden’s openness about her sex life made me cringe, it seemed to me like she was telling the truth.

  29

  “YOU GO FIRST, CASS. You’re not going to like what I have to tell you.”

  I heard Marion shuffling about on the other end of the phone, followed by the soft swuffing sound of the police-station door. I glanced at my watch. It was almost 9 p.m. and Marion was still at work – probably hadn’t eaten today, either. Like me she had never been a foodie, but if she wasn’t careful she was going to make herself ill. And as much as I appreciated that this was rich coming from me, I was worried about her. I thought about telling her about my chat with Jake Howden’s wife, but decided that might just put her off her dinner even more.

  “I asked Grace about the mood ring,” I said.

  “You found it?”

  “She has it. I didn’t take it – I didn’t know if I was allowed? But I don’t think she’ll do anything with it except give it to you if you ask again. She opened up to me a bit. She said that Bella told her an adult gave it to her. A man. I think Bella was being groomed.”

  I let this sink in for a second.

  “Grace started to feel uncomfortable and that’s why she didn’t want to wear it any more. Grace… She said Bella was happy – at first – and I think she wanted some of what Bella had. I don’t think she understood why she took the ring. Or why she stopped wearing it. It’s like she started to realise something wasn’t right about the whole situation but she didn’t know what.”

  “Christ…” Marion was silent for a moment as we both considered the reality of what I was saying. That somebody had made the effort to get Bella exactly where they wanted her. “I’m glad you talked to her, Cassie,” she said then. “I often thought if somebody had talked to you – to us – properly back in ’99… things might have been different. We might have been able to talk about it with each other. You know?”

  I did know because I had had the same thoughts. I didn’t answer but the silence wasn’t uncomfortable.

  “So what news am I not going to like?” I prompted.

  Marion let out a long breath and finally said, “We pulled Darren Walker in again. When we went to pick him up, the back of his van was open. Wide open.”

  She paused.

  “And?”

  “And we found a school blazer,” she said quietly. “Just in the back. And Bella’s fingerprints on one of the rear doors. Fox is on a mission. It doesn’t look good.”

  She didn’t say it, but I could tell from her voice what she meant. Fox was afraid that Bella was dead. I knew the statistics as well as anybody. The first three or four hours were the most crucial in cases of missing children – and we had spent that time floundering. Thinking about Grace. The numbers were brutal. Within those four hours, seventy-five per cent of children taken would be dead – especially in stranger abductions.

  Within twenty-four hours that would increase to ninety-one per cent…

  I thought of Darren Walker. He was a creep, sure, but was he capable of hurting a child? I pictured the way his hands had shook when I’d spoken to him and a chill ran through me.

  Bella had been missing for over thirty-six hours. Thirty-six hours. But Bella wasn’t just a number. She was a little girl, and she was still out there.

  She had to be.

  * * *

  I didn’t want to go home. The house was empty, creaking without Gran. Every dark corner made me itch with what might have been fear. I thought of her in the hospital, alone and confused. I hoped they were looking after her but I’d already called for an update twice this afternoon.

  I couldn’t shake what she had said to me – what might have been taken for confusion had I not recognised the emotion in her eyes.

  He slowed down.

>   I turned on all of the lights in the house, unable to sleep without them, and sank into a dazed sort of rest.

  In my dream, it was another hot night. So hot that Olive and I had the windows wide open. A breeze tickled the bare skin on my legs and feet. Olive hung off the top bunk, her golden-brown hair falling around her face. Was this how it had happened in real life? I didn’t know. Couldn’t remember exactly. Olive’s arm dangled down, and I saw the bruise. Saw the distinct fingerprints our mother had left behind. Mum was gone, now, back to Derby for the summer where she could work without feeling guilty for leaving us.

  Gran and Grandad were silently asleep down the hall.

  “Does it hurt when you touch it?” I asked.

  Olive shrugged and her arm wiggled.

  “It’s okay.”

  It’s not okay, I thought. I tossed over onto my back, sheets tangling around my legs. I couldn’t breathe. The breeze was gone, and I was in darkness. When had I turned out the lights? I forced my eyes shut.

  “Olive? Olive?” I called her name and there she was. She smiled her small, secret smile. The one that said she knew something I didn’t. She knew a lot I didn’t.

  She watched. She listened. She cared.

  “What are you smiling at?”

  “You don’t have to worry about me, Cassie. There’re people out there who’ll look after me. Make sure my arm doesn’t get hurt again.”

  “People?” I asked. “What people?”

  “One person.” Olive smiled again. “A boy. A man.”

  I noticed the ring on her finger. The mood ring. Its stone was a dark turquoise, warmed that way by the heat of her hand. I wanted to reach out, snatch it off her. It looked wrong. The same kind of wrong that I’d seen in Grace’s face when I asked her about the mood ring. She knew, just like I had known. Something horrible was happening and we didn’t know what to do about it.

  “What man? Who gave it to you?” I asked. Suddenly desperation overwhelmed me. I wriggled, writhed in the sheets. Olive was getting further and further away, her features made fuzzy by the dream. I knew it wasn’t real, it hadn’t happened. Not like that. Olive hadn’t told me anything. So why did she always torture me in my dreams?

  “What man?”

  “Just a man…” Olive said dreamily. “He’ll protect me.”

  “Olive, that’s what I’m for. It’s my job to keep you safe.”

  She shook her head, hair dancing over the edge of the bed.

  And then, just like in every other dream I had of her, Olive was gone.

  30

  Sunday, 22 March 2015

  “HOW ARE YOU FEELING?”

  Settled in her favourite armchair with a cup of tea, Gran shrugged in answer to my question. We’d had an almost logical conversation on the way home from the hospital, although it had been about the solar system project I’d helped Olive with the summer she was eight and I was ten. Gran told me how proud she was, how real it looked.

  I didn’t remind her of the missing years between that moment and now. It made me warm to think of the days when Gran hadn’t loved Olive best – had, in fact, still loved us both the same. Distance and loss had warped it all, but today I’d clung to the joy of being told I made her proud.

  My head felt fuzzy with lack of sleep. I’d been awake early and I’d driven to Bella’s house first thing but the whole place was swarming with journalists, and Mrs Kaluza was refusing to talk to anybody. I waited outside for half an hour, even made it to the door, but nobody answered the bell when I rang.

  So I’d driven home feeling frustrated, like I could be doing more but not knowing where to start. I spent most of the rest of the morning before leaving for the hospital leafing through my Olive Diary again, going over everything. I’d combed through the notes I’d made about Dad and Cordy Jones to make me feel better about the fact that I would have to spend precious hours today taking care of my gran instead of being out there searching for Bella. And about the fact that minutes were racing by. I’d got hold of Bella’s mother’s phone number and tried her repeatedly, but she never answered.

  The words in my Olive Diary were as familiar now as my own name but still I read and reread whole pages, hoping to find something in my memories that I’d missed. I’d written about another man back then, a mystery man who only existed in my mind, the man who would turn out to be Olive’s real kidnapper. It was a fantasy I had returned to again and again; even still did, sometimes, just before drifting off to sleep at night. This kidnapper was a cross between an extravagant millionaire and a petty criminal, like something out of the musical Annie.

  I made up fantasies in the diary about how he’d taken Olive away from us because he wanted a better life for her; he wanted to give her the things she could never have had here. He would buy her toys – more toys than Mum could afford – and he would be married to a warm, loving woman who would never have to work or leave her with somebody else during the holidays. In my diary, if only there, Olive was safe, and happy, and somewhere hot. And one day she would come home and find me.

  Just reading through the pages had made me angry. If Olive were still alive, she’d be twenty-seven years old now. There would be no way she would have gone so long without contacting me. For months when she first vanished I waited eagerly for the post, just in case. For a while I became obsessed with postcards, collecting them everywhere I visited so that one day, when Olive finally wrote to me, I’d have a slew of things to send back. Sometimes, even now, the clang of the letterbox startled me and I got that familiar rush of hope followed by a swoop of disappointment.

  After shoving the diary away again, I’d found the photograph that had been on Grandad’s noticeboard. Unlike my photos, which were still smooth and carefully tucked in the front cover of the diary, this one was faded and creased down the middle where somebody had looked at it often.

  I wondered if that had been Grandad before he’d died. I imagined him running his fingers over it just as I’d done when I found it, imagined it tucked inside his wallet so it was always with him. I pulled it out again now, from its place in the back pocket of my jeans, holding it in a shaking hand.

  “Gran, I was wondering if I could show you… something that might be a bit upsetting, but if you could have a look at it – I’d be really grateful. And if you don’t remember anything, that’s okay.”

  Gran smiled at me, her attention drawn away from the TV, a round of canned laughter breaking the quiet in the lounge.

  “Of course love, whatever you like. I don’t know what help I’ll be though, I’m afraid my memory isn’t what it used to be.” Her eyes crinkled.

  I held out the photograph, and Gran took it in one of her gnarled hands.

  Over the years since it happened, Gran and I had never talked about Olive. It had been too raw. Too painful. And then, by the time I was ready to talk about her, Gran had forgotten. But now she stared at the photo. Rubbed at it tenderly, her fingers tracing the exact places where the paper was worn.

  This wasn’t Grandad’s photograph, I realised. It was hers.

  “I miss her,” she said quietly. “Where is she?”

  I had prepared an answer for this question, but at the sight of Gran’s face I suddenly didn’t know what to say. I shrugged, my throat closing up, and then I swallowed hard to try to loosen it.

  “She’s… I don’t know.”

  Gran looked at the photograph for another moment, and then she said, “Why?”

  I couldn’t answer that, either.

  “Gran, do you remember – can you see that ring on her finger? The silver one?”

  “Of course. It was her favourite for a short while. I remember when she got it.”

  My heart leapt. “You do? Can you tell me about it?”

  “She was ever so secretive. Blushed when I asked her if a boy gave it to her. Said, ‘Of course not.’ You two could never lie, though. Neither of you.” Gran smiled sadly. “She said somebody gave it to her back in Derby – but I thought somebody here
did because I hadn’t seen it before. Maybe one of those youth group lads she spent some time with.

  “They sell them everywhere, you know. Hippie town. Earl’s, the corner shop, even the bingo place and the doctors have ’em. They cost less than a can of Coke.” She paused, holding the photo tightly. Her eyes were shiny and small.

  “I’m thirsty,” she said, then. “Can I have a Coke? There’s nothing better on a hot day, that’s what I always tell her. Very sweet. Pocket money and that. ‘You run along and get a Coke. And mind your sister.’ That’s it, Kathy – I’ll watch them.”

  As quickly as that, the moment had passed and she was confused again, the words and phrases of my childhood slipping out of her like smoke.

  I didn’t want to pressure her, although I was dying to ask her more. Questions about Olive, about that summer, about the weeks that followed – all things I should have known years ago but I’d been afraid to hear. And now it was too late.

  It was the same ring. I wasn’t imagining it. I wasn’t dreaming. The ring in this photograph, right down to its bent mermaid’s tail, was the same one I had seen in Grace’s den.

  * * *

  “How is she?”

  Marion’s voice on the other end of the phone calmed me just as much as it frustrated me that I couldn’t talk to her in person today.

  “She’s okay,” I said. “Very tired. Banged up. Glad to be home though, I think.” I watched as Gran flicked between channels on the TV and settled on some old detective show.

  “And how are you?”

  “I’m fine.” I took the house phone into the kitchen and leaned against the counter. It was hard to explain how I felt. I was glad Gran was home – of course I was – but I couldn’t shake the feeling that every second was one step closer to losing Bella. “I’d be better if I didn’t feel like I had no idea what was going on.”