A Gingerbread House

by Catriona McPherson

  This Martine had never turned up, or not that I could find out anyway. There was a letter to the paper from something called Family Forest, probably some nutty church. ‘We miss Martine,’ the letter said. ‘She was a welcome presence at our meetings and she had made a new friend that last night she was with us. We have set up a Facebook page – Find Marty – to share all information.’

  Find Marty hit me in the gut like a piledriver. The picture looked blurry and strange, as if Martine had been accidentally in the background of some other shot, and the solemn group all holding candles that made the header for the page were the only ones who had ever posted. Seven of them there were, two retired couples and a younger pair, along with a man in his fifties who was looking off to the side as if waiting for the photo-shoot to be over.

  I scrolled down a bit, until the repeated messages of concern and pleas for information were getting so over-familiar I couldn’t bear it any more. Some of them were cut and pasted from another page, Martine’s name showing up in a different font where it had been added in.

  ‘Regular attendee at Family Forest’

  ‘Enthusiastic Forester’

  ‘Great loss of expertise’

  Expertise? Maybe Martine was in the choir or arranged the flowers. Except the background to the seven po-faced members with the candles looked more like a pub function room. I scrolled back to the top and studied the woman’s face again. She was solemn but eager-looking, well-polished with shiny hair held back in a clip at the nape of her neck and a small gold ring in the ear I could see. She was surely sitting in that same function room, with its loud patterned curtains and tasselled lampshades on the wall sconces, and she was sitting forward in her chair as if whoever she was talking to was holding her rapt.

  Maybe that person would have more to say about Martine than that she was a regular attendee and a welcome presence. Maybe that person, holding her attention like a magician at a kid’s birthday party, would have photos of Martine that were posed with her own sweet face in the middle of the frame. Or maybe this was the last night and the interesting person was the ‘new friend’. Maybe Martine was just dead polite and pretending to be fascinated by some bore.

  Things go in threes, I told myself, clearing the search again and punching in a new one. Missing woman, Ayr, 2018. Maybe because it was the seaside, the kind of place people ran away to, with plenty cheap B&Bs empty in the off-season, there were four this time.

  One of the missing women in Ayr wasn’t a woman. She was a girl of seventeen and I felt a bitter hit of adrenaline as I read through the newspaper reports. This was different. The Record and the Herald both cared about this one. And Police Scotland categorized her differently too. Seventeen years old meant a dedicated search and a team.

  She turned up. The report was bald but, between the lines, I thought there was a man involved. I’d have put a wedge on the teacher in his forties who appeared days later in Ayr sheriff court, charged with unlawful detention of a minor.

  Two more were a pair of widows who had walked away from a pyramid scheme and made it to Spain. I half-remembered the story. ‘Gilt-edged Grans’ was the Ayr paper’s headline.

  The last of the four women was something else again. She was a professional running her own business. I read and re-read the descriptions of it but couldn’t work out what the business was exactly. There were a lot of businesses like that these days. This woman – Laura Wade – had disappeared from Ayr while I was still working there. She had gone out one Saturday in May, all dressed up for a date, and had never come home. I read the address with a strange prickling feeling up the back of my neck. Surely that was where Siobhan, one of my old patients, lived. I had probably been right there at those flats a dozen times picking her up and dropping her off. It was a horrible thought that a woman had been abducted right from that very spot.

  I kept reading. Laura Wade hadn’t been abducted from her flat, in fact. The woman’s car was missing, which at first had seemed like a sign that she’d gone somewhere voluntarily. But then it never turned up. It wasn’t illegally parked, racking up fines, and it hadn’t been clocked at a port taking her through the tunnel to France. It had been tracked up the M77 to Glasgow and on to the M8, then it had vanished along with its owner.

  I scrolled some more and found another follow-up story. The police were inclined to think Laura Wade had done a runner, because her phone and laptop were both gone. But I was beginning to lose faith in that as shorthand for all being well. Hadn’t the other two women, in Fraserburgh and Lockerbie, both taken their phones and laptops with them too?

  I shook my head, feeling muzzy, and glanced at the time in the corner of my screen. It was getting on for three o’clock now. I sank back against the headboard, wishing I hadn’t looked at any of this. Because there was no denying it now. Whether or not he would, he certainly could. Women disappeared from towns all over Scotland every month, and no one ever found them. No one even tried to.

  So I would get up in the morning and go to the police. I’d tell them everything. I’d say my dad was filthy and the only way to prove it now he’d got out and covered his tracks behind him was to put a forensic accountant into BG. Which would tank it. Egger would lose his job and his pension, and the manager and receptionist I’d scuttled past the other day. Every last one of them. And all that filthy money would pay for a great lawyer, and Garry and Lynne and Bazz would all get off. Then I would disappear anyway. If he meant it. If he would really do it. If.

  I scrolled back to the top of the page and was just about to delete everything when the picture of Laura Wade in the news story snagged my attention. It was a security cam still, taken overhead, showing the woman letting herself out of the door of a block of flats. I stared at it.

  Then I moved the mouse, watching the cursor jig around in obedience to the way my hand was shaking. ‘Images’. The news disappeared to be replaced by a chessboard, all over the screen and disappearing off it at the bottom, a Warhol print of that same overhead security camera shot, over and over again. A woman in a floating summer dress, peach coloured, with cream ruffles, letting herself out of a glass door with a bulky compression hinge. And reflected in the open door, I could see part of a bumper and half a number plate, a pair of thin legs in corduroy standing at the kerb between the carpark and the walkway.

  That was Siobhan’s husband, Kenneth, in the cords. And that bumper and number plate was my ambulance. My patient transporter. I had seen the woman. I had seen Laura Wade leaving her flat.

  Siobhan had said how nice she looked and the men had made some daft jokes about romance and love. Something like that anyway; I couldn’t remember the details. But I remembered the dress. Peaches and cream and ruffled like something for a summer wedding. I had seen Laura Wade on the last day.

  NINETEEN

  Laura managed to hide the flash of pure fury that shot through her. She was an expert at it. Not like the other two, saying exactly what they thought as soon as they thought it, letting every bubble of gas that got to the top of their brains just come blasting out of their mouths. They had no idea how hard she was working here. It had started with the socks. She had pointed out the completely obvious to Ivy – that she needed a pair of socks – and Ivy had flat-out said she’d ask for ‘three pairs of socks’, one for her that needed them and two more to keep it even. Could anyone be as clueless as the pair of them? They had tights on and shoes and she had bare legs and cardboard sandals she’d made herself.

  And they’d been happy enough for her to use her real sandals as a hammer and chisel to open up the drain. Of course she’d agreed, but she wasn’t sure they had actually ever said thank you.

  About the socks, she had said nothing and the anger passed eventually. It even helped. It tired her and she slept better. Not that saying nothing was always a good idea. She was pretty sick of their silent moods, the pair of them: Ivy staring at her red, shiny ankles, Martine with her eyes closed. But if she asked them what they were thinking about, she knew what sh
e’d hear from Ivy.

  ‘I’ve never eaten much Japanese food. Or any Japanese food. But I think a big bowl of clear chicken broth, with some lime and some chilies would be lovely. Prawns floating in it maybe. And sushi. It looks so pretty and so dainty. I think I’d like to try it. Not the raw stuff. And they make a salad with … what is it?’

  ‘Green papaya?’ said Martine. ‘But that’s Thai. And it’s very sour.’

  ‘I’d like something very sour,’ Ivy said. ‘Sour and clean on my palate. Even the apples are mushy now. They taste of nothing. And I never want to eat another piece of bread in my life. They don’t eat bread in Japan, do they?’

  ‘Of course they eat bread in Japan!’ Laura couldn’t help it sometimes; she wasn’t a saint. ‘They eat M&Ms and Kettle Chips and Burger King in Japan. We probably eat more sushi in Scotland than the Japanese now.’

  ‘Do you think they eat more haggis than us?’ Ivy said. She was too easy to wind up. There was no fun in it.

  Laura still tried though. She did all the heavy lifting when it came to jokes and games and keeping up spirits. She even asked Martine about her bloody hotel room occasionally.

  ‘What’s the nicest hotel room you’ve ever been in for real?’ she said.

  ‘After a wedding at a place at Fort William,’ Martine said. ‘The telly was disguised as a mirror. A bit racy but better than that ugly big black flatscreen staring back at you. In my dream hotel, the telly would come up out of a slot when you need it and then slide away again.’

  Laura wanted to scream: will you have a crinoline lady over the toilet roll too? But instead she said: ‘How about you, Ivy? What’s your favourite hotel? Got anything to add to Martine’s wish list?’

  ‘I’ve never stayed in a hotel,’ Ivy said. ‘We always went to a caravan or a chalet when I was a wee girl. And bed and breakfasts don’t count, do they?’

  Laura caught Martine’s eye. ‘But haven’t you ever travelled on business?’ she said. ‘And stayed at a Best Western?’

  Ivy shook her head. ‘My clients were all in Fraserburgh,’ she said. ‘I went on a training course to Glasgow once, but I stayed with my cousin. Her spare bedroom had a basin in it, mind you. But no, no hotels.’

  Laura took three deep breaths in and out, feeling a hitch in her chest. That was unbearable. So selfish. She could at least have lied to them. She must have googled the Ritz and Claridge’s like everyone else.

  ‘Well, when we get out and I go to my hotel,’ Martine said, ‘you come with me and take first pick of the rooms.’

  ‘Speaking of which,’ Laura said, amazed by her own patience, not reacting to being left out of this plan, ‘I do believe I hear room service.’

  They all fell silent, listening to Kate’s voice and the key in the outer door, the grating judder of the door on the stone as Gail wrenched it open. Then Kate was edging round the inner door with her carrier bag, re-locking it behind her. She walked halfway over the floor and set the bag down, then walked backwards until she was pressed against the wall. She had one of her little cardigans on and under it, one of her little blouses. Where did anyone even buy pencil skirts with kick pleats these days? Maybe she ran it up herself on a Singer with a foot pedal. The silence stretched, all three of them staring at Kate who stared back.

  Laura broke it, doing the work again, as usual. ‘What?’ she demanded. ‘Are you waiting for one of us to look at what you’ve brought us and say thank you?’ She pulled herself to her feet, not bothering to straighten all the way and risk making her back spasm.

  ‘It won’t be you,’ Kate said.

  ‘What won’t?’ said Laura.

  ‘That she chooses. She’s almost ready, you know.’

  Laura reached and swept the bag up in one hand then opened it. ‘Sandwiches,’ she said. ‘Apples. Water. What a complete lack of surprise.’ Ivy and Martine had told her that one day before she arrived there had been a banana and a pear, as if it was almost shopping day and supplies were running low, but it had been sandwiches, apples and water every day she had been here. She could hardly blame Ivy for dreaming of sushi really.

  ‘You’re not thinking clearly,’ Kate said. ‘Upsetting me. Annoying me. After Gail chooses, I’ll be tidying up. I’ll be deciding what to do with the leftovers.’

  Laura threw the bag down again. When someone came, when they were rescued and got out of this, she would take Ivy to Martine’s hotel with the mirror tellies – it was probably Inverlochy Castle – and she would personally see to it that there was a Japanese option on the menu that night. She’d sleep with the chef if she had to.

  ‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ she said to Kate. ‘Was there anything else you needed?’

  Kate’s mouth was a white line, her cheeks two quivering pouches around it. ‘I’ll enjoy it,’ she said. ‘Clearing up after you.’

  Neither of them even said thanks, once Kate had left. Ivy had the nerve to criticize. ‘Do you think it’s maybe not a good idea to antagonize her quite so much?’

  Laura’s silent scream was long and, in her head, deafening. ‘Antagonize?’ she said, when it had finally dried up. ‘You’re planning to “tie her up”, Ivy.’

  ‘And soon too,’ said Martine. ‘If Gail’s nearly ready to choose. We need to act quickly.’

  ‘Not really,’ Ivy said. ‘I don’t care if it’s Gail or Kate who comes in.’

  ‘Gail’s got a knife,’ Martine said. ‘Remember?’

  ‘I’ve got surprise and right on my side,’ said Ivy. ‘And something I don’t want to tell you.’

  ‘Hang on,’ Laura said. ‘Wait. What did you just say, Ivy? You don’t care which one of them comes in? First. And which one has to decide when to come in after her?’

  ‘Right,’ Ivy said.

  ‘I need to think this out,’ Laura said. ‘We’ve missed something.’

  ‘Don’t upset yourself,’ Martine said. And they shared a look then, the two of them. Had they been discussing her? She thought she had heard them whispering away when she was at the drain late last night but she’d assumed they were trying to cover the sounds she was making, to spare her feelings. As if she cared. The painful, watery mess that fell out of her bowels wasn’t what was worrying her. It was when she went for a pee that she could feel a little burst of panic. She knew she was getting cystitis. It was all she could do not to cry out with the pain of it when the flow started, and it was even worse when it stopped. Of course she was getting it. She had to be careful, especially on her period, not to drink too much wine and to bathe twice a day, and even then at least twice a year she asked her doctor for an antibiotic when the warm water and cranberry wouldn’t shift it. She must have been mad to try to keep her water intake down, testing to find the bottom edge of the dose and see if she could get under it. Idiot.

  ‘You OK?’ Ivy’s voice floated over. She must have whimpered.

  ‘Fine,’ Laura said. There was no point worrying them. Maybe if she drank her water ration in one go tomorrow she could flush it through, even if she ended up off her gourd. And if she saved up her baby wipes till she’d stopped bleeding she could have a proper wash, stop any more infection.

  ‘Are you in pain?’ Martine called.

  ‘No, just pissed off,’ Laura said. ‘Just … you know.’

  The next day, she chugged the bottle in one long gulp and curled up under a blanket to meditate it away. Laura was a big believer in positive imaging. She used to imagine every detail of the life she was working towards: the house, the kid, the husband, the car, the office, the wallet full of platinum credit cards, the white-gold ring with the cushion-cut diamond. Now she imagined the water falling through her, collecting germs – little cartoon germs, like you used to see on adverts for cough mixture. Maybe if she stayed curled up she’d be able to get properly warm. Maybe if she slept, she’d be able to fight it off.

  But Martine wouldn’t let up. On and on and on about her podcast and the amazing thing she knew if only she had remembered. As if it mattered what had brough
t them here.

  She was nearly grateful when Ivy started on about her training regime to get in shape for overpowering Kate. Laura had to admit there was sense in that. The inflatable chairs had given her a bad fright. They were delivered in flat packets and it had taken a whole day to blow them up, taking it in turns. Laura was shocked at how little air her lungs seemed to have in them. They were gunked up with the foul air and the damp, but she knew it was lack of exercise too. Ivy was right: they had to get moving.

  But not today. She would start tomorrow when she had thrown off this irritating little threat of infection. Nothing to worry about. Just annoying. To take her mind off it, she decided she’d pipe up too, for once. Ivy had had her say about exercise and Martine had given her podcast obsession an airing, so Laura deserved a turn.

  ‘Even without sending a sign,’ she began, then she sat up a bit to make her voice sound less wobbly, ‘someone might come at any time. Some copper’s going to notice that my car headed west to here and your car headed east to here. God, Ivy, if only you’d used a card to buy your ticket for the train.’

  ‘Some copper who’s got a corkboard covered in string and thumb tacks?’ said Martine. ‘In Brooklyn. Well, supposed to be Brooklyn but it’s filmed in Hollywood. Like that, you mean?’

  ‘OK, not the police,’ Laura said. ‘Vigilantes. People who don’t care who’s laughing, they’ll never give up. We’ve no way of knowing who’s looking for us, have we?’

  No one said anything.

  ‘My parents might be trying to get in touch. They live in Spain and we’re not all over each other on a weekly basis but you never know. I’m a bit sorry, for once, that my business is set up to tick over so smoothly. I won’t have clients on the rampage. How about you, Martine?’

  ‘What about me?’

  ‘Who’ll be heading up the search effort, fundraising, stapling posters to lampposts?’