by C. J. Skuse
‘How did you get in?’
‘I have a spare key. I’m the only one who does. There’s no sign of broken entry, if that’s where this line of questioning is going.’
‘There’s a crack in the bathroom window though.’
‘That’s probably been there a while. Landlord’s not known for his punctiliousness.’
‘What the hell does it all mean?’ I ask, walking around the lounge, picking things up, putting things down. I note the names on one of the presents around the little Christmas tree – Prince Roland. Then another – Princess Tabitha, written in silver glitter. ‘They’re presents for her cats,’ says Neil.
‘What cats?’
‘They’re around here somewhere. Out catching mice, I suppose,’ he says, rubbing his eye and scuffing into the bathroom. He closes the door and I hear a distant tinkling of water. I notice there are seven presents. For seven cats.
When he comes back, he’s taken his coat off and hung it on the bathroom door. He then absentmindedly scratches his balls, before realising how rude that must seem.
‘Sorry. I’m a bit out of practice.’
‘At what? Manners?’
‘Christ, it’s freezing in here. Where’s the thermostat?’
‘Have you only just noticed?’
‘I’ve only just taken my coat off.’
‘Listen to me, Neil – there are seven presents around the tree, all named for different cats but I haven’t seen one cat.’
‘They’re not even her cats. She steals them. She went through a phase of doing a bit of amateur animal rescue, stealing cats she thought were being abused. She spends all her money on the things.’ He swigs his tea and empties the mug.
It was another upsetting puzzle piece in the Ellis tessellation – stealer of cats.
‘Yeah but my point is where are they all?’
Neil looks around the flat. Opens a cupboard. Goes out into the hall. Comes back in. ‘Where’s the boiler? We pay her heating bills, there’s got to be a separate boiler somewhere here. Aren’t you cold?’
‘I’m freezing but I have two jumpers on. Anyway, focus. The cats.’
‘Why do you keep banging on about the cats? They’re not relevant. Could never stand the things anyway. She let them roam all about the place. Unhygienic.’ He reaches across me to the cupboard above the sink. Still no sign of the boiler.
‘When did you last visit her?’
‘Few weeks ago.’
‘And were the cats here then?’
‘Yeah, I think there were a couple about. I don’t know what conclusion you’re trying to draw from this.’
‘No, neither do I actually,’ I mumble.
He leaves the kitchen and crosses the lounge into the bedroom and I hear the click of what must be the boiler coming on. In moments, something ignites and the radiator nearest the patio doors begins to gurgle into life. I stand next to it.
‘Foy?’
‘What?’
He doesn’t call again, so I rush to join him in Ellis’s bedroom. He’s bending down with the airing cupboard door open. He looks up at me and I move closer to see what he’s found. Inside the cupboard, inside a little nest of towels and bedsheets, lies a perfect fluffy white cat, purring proudly, suckling six tiny wriggling pink kittens.
20
Monday, 4th November (morning)
By the time the white RSPCA van draws up outside the next morning, I am spoiling for a fight. Powered by a twitchy night’s sleep in a freezing cold flat, three vile instant coffees, and the troubling thought that something more sinister may have happened to Ellis than Neil was ready to admit, I know that somehow Sean Lowland, the name on the card we find in Ellis’s fruit bowl, can provide the information we need.
‘She looks great,’ says Sean, carefully moving a fluffy grey kitten into the oversized cat box he’s brought for them all. He’d lined it with soft sheepskin and has put a little warm bean bag underneath it. ‘We were looking for her for ages the other day. And this is where she was all along. They seem to be feeding really well.’
‘How do you know Ellis?’ I ask him, as Neil carefully picks up the last two kittens and snuggles them in next to The Duchess in the box on the bedroom floor.
Sean hand-feeds the cat a couple of high calorie treats and closes the little door. ‘I’ve seen her before down the centre. She brought in an injured duck. That was about a month ago. And the other day she called us to report some cats. She wanted to find their real homes. I think she’d been looking after them.’ He carries the box into the lounge and places it down carefully on the coffee table.
‘Why did she want to rehome them?’ says Neil, arms folded.
‘She didn’t say. Just that they were cats she’d found and taken care of. She said most of them were half-starved when she found them.’
‘Yeah, she did the same thing in Scarborough for a time,’ Neil says with a sigh, for mine or Sean’s attention I couldn’t tell.
‘She’d looked after them all really well. I think she said one had conjunctivitis and she got treatment for it and everything. She said she wanted something to look after. I understand that. I’m a sucker for animals as well. We have that in common.’
‘But she didn’t say why she was giving them up now?’
‘No, she didn’t. I assumed she was going away. When will she be back, any idea?’
‘Later.’ Neil throws me a look I can’t read but the contrast between them is quite startling. Sean’s happy, cherubic face, brown curls and big brown eyes in stark contrast to Neil’s sour expression, steel grey stare and pallor. ‘How did she seem to you?’
‘I dunno. Maybe a bit flat? A bit depressed? I guessed it was cos she didn’t want the cats to go. I might have crossed a boundary. I sort of asked her out.’
‘Why?’ I ask.
Sean shrugs. ‘I liked her. We had a few things in common. I go down the Smuggler’s some nights and I wondered if she wanted to meet for a drink. She said okay but she didn’t come. I waited for a couple of hours, just in case. She might have thought I was being too forward, I don’t know.’
‘What did you two have in common?’
‘Well we both like animals and we’re both quite quiet. I dunno, I liked her.’
‘When was this?’ asks Neil.
‘Erm, night before last?’
‘Time?’
‘Hang on, am I missing something here? She is alright, isn’t she?’
‘She hasn’t come home,’ I tell him. ‘She’s probably staying at a friend’s house. We think. We’re a bit worried about her.’ I can tell I’ve said the wrong thing because Neil bats his steely greys at me.
Sean looks from me to Neil and back again. ‘Oh god, really?’
I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. ‘Yeah. We are quite worried.’
Suddenly the buzzer goes, a horrible resounding noise and I’m sure each of us jumps out of our skin. I race Neil to the door and yank it open. It’s a delivery man. UPS. I sign for a box with her name on it – Joanne Haynes. Neil says that’s the name she was using. I bring the box inside and tear it open with a rusty bread knife from a kitchen drawer. It contains boxes of hair dye, six in all. Black hair dye. And four boxes of coloured contact lenses. Brown. I set the whole lot down on the breakfast bar and try to calm my breathing. I really thought it was going to be her.
We all stand there in the living room. I for one have no idea what to say next. Sean clearly can’t tell us anything.
‘You’ve got me worried now,’ he says with a nervous laugh.
Neil shakes his head. ‘She’ll be fine. She’s just taking some time out I expect.’
Sean’s eyes betray him – he’s scared. ‘Will you let me know when she comes back? I expect she’ll want to know about The Duchess, won’t she?’
‘Yeah, I’ve got your card.’
‘I’ll take her and her kittens back to my place until they get old enough to rehome. Keep an eye on them, you know. I’ve got just the spot in front
of the radiator.’
I want to say I’m sorry for shouting at him but no words will come out. I don’t know if he’s naturally super-duper nice or if he’s too nice. Half of me wants to punch him, the other half wants to hug him. I keep thinking about the empty blister packs of sleeping pills in the bathroom, stacked up in the bin. How Sean said she was ‘depressed’. He used that actual word.
Neil holds the door open for him as he manoeuvres out to the hallway with the cat box. ‘Thanks for coming and getting her.’
I watch from the patio doors as Sean loads the cat box into the passenger seat of his van. Neil joins me at the window. It is raining. He’s in the van talking to the box on the passenger seat.
‘Match made in heaven, those two,’ says Neil, joining me at the window.
‘What do you think of him?’
‘Seems clean. I’ll check him out though. He’s sweet on her.’ ‘He called her Ellis,’ I say. ‘She told him her real name.’ ‘Mmm. I don’t think that’s significant.’
‘Why don’t you think anything is significant? Maybe she didn’t tell him her real name because he knew it already. He could be in the cartel.’
Neil looks at me. ‘Sean’s the same age as you and Ellis. I doubt he was involved in making ecstasy tablets and bars of cocaine when he was still in short trousers.’
‘He could be the son of one of them? You said there were twelve-year-olds in the supply chain.’
Neil shakes his head. ‘Doesn’t strike me as that sort. I think he’s clean.’
‘Well what then?’ I say, my anger finally spilling out. ‘She’s been missing two days. Are you still thinking she’s just buggered off, and is biding her time?’
‘No,’ he says, biting his lip and sitting down on the edge of the sofa.
‘So what are you thinking?’
‘I’m thinking I want to see some seafront CCTV from the other night, see if we can spot her. There’s a few cameras outside the arcades. Maybe start there.’
‘Start there to find out what? Which way she went? Tell me,’ I say, almost too quiet for him to hear.
‘There’s only one reason she could have for getting rid of those cats the day she disappeared. She knew she wasn’t going to be around to look after them anymore. She wouldn’t have left them otherwise.’
‘So she has run off?’
‘Maybe. We could rule it out at least.’
‘Don’t say it, don’t even suggest it.’ But we’re both looking towards the windows, towards the sea. I need him to be the rock face today. The sour-faced Scottish cliff face he was when I first walked in. But there are cracks in the cliff face now. And his eyes bear the same expression as Sean’s – fear.
21
Monday, 4th November (late afternoon)
We wait all morning and afternoon for Ellis, clinging to the last hope that she will walk back through the door at any moment. But she doesn’t. Nobody comes. We take it in turns to go out and buy coffee and snacks from a café on the seafront, though I learn that Neil is the fussiest of eaters. Can’t have a bacon sandwich if it’s been buttered, can’t have a toastie if he can taste cheap cheese or there’s dressing on the garnish, coffee’s too strong, too weak, not hot enough. Must be a nightmare to cook for.
‘You can blame my mam for that,’ he says. ‘She was the same. No, she was worse. Wouldn’t stay in hotels cos she was convinced all chefs wank in the mash.’
This is the only time I laugh all day. I laugh until there are tears in my eyes.
We’re side by side on the sofa. I feel grotty and overtired and the four walls of the flat feel as though they’re closing in, getting smaller, strangling me. I’m on the verge of another meltdown when Neil turns off the TV and makes a suggestion.
‘Why don’t you go back to your hotel and have a wash and a kip?’
‘Are you calling me dirty?’ I say, through hooded eyes.
‘Not at all. But I’m wrecked and I managed some kip last night. You didn’t.’
‘You expect me to sleep when my cousin’s body could be pulled out of that sea any minute, do you?’
‘You almost fell asleep standing up just now,’ he says. ‘Go on.’
‘Fuck off.’
Now, any normal person would vacate the space at this point. That’s what Paddy and Isaac always do when I’m gearing up for another mood tornado. They retreat to their air raid shelters until the all-clear. But Neil stays.
‘Go back to your hotel and freshen up,’ he says again, slowly. ‘You’re in no fit state to get through this day the way y’are.’
‘Don’t tell me what to do.’
‘You know I’m right.’
‘You’re not right. You’re a twat.’
‘Thank you. Anything else?’
‘Yes. She called you. She said she’d had enough and you ignored it.’ He shakes his head and stands up. ‘You’ve as good as killed her.’
‘Don’t you dare say that to me,’ he snaps, glaring down at me. ‘I’ve blamed myself for what happened to her and Dan ever since. The fact that between then and now she hasn’t said one damn word of truth is not my fault.’
I stand up too, almost to his level, and I look him in the eye. ‘She’s dead, isn’t she?’ I say. He doesn’t answer me. ‘I’ll believe it if you say it.’
He shakes his head. ‘I can’t tell you what you need to know, Foy.’ And then he unexpectedly reaches for my hand. ‘I’m sorry.’
I shout at him and call him a twat and he apologises? This is too much. I crash into him, pulling him into a hug. At first I don’t feel his arms around me. But then I do and it’s so comforting in that moment. That’s what I need right then: safety. Not shouting or angry accusations. Just to be enclosed.
His voice is softer when he speaks. ‘Do you want to go back to your hotel and take a break from this? I’ll wait here. If she turns up, I’ll call you.’
I shake my head. ‘It’s a bloody horrible hotel. There’s mould around the bath.’
He exhales sharply as he pulls away from me and the granite expression returns to his face. ‘Have you complained?’
I shake my head. ‘No point. The landlady didn’t seem fussed either way.’
‘Well you’re not staying there.’
‘There is nowhere else. I got it last minute.’
‘You can stay at my hotel. I’ll take the chair. I don’t sleep a lot anyway.’
‘No, that’s not right.’
‘Don’t argue. Go get your stuff, check out of the fleapit and go to The Lalique.’ He pulls a key card out of his pocket inside a small cardboard wallet. ‘Room 48.’
‘Did you just order me about?’ I frown.
‘Yes. Now fuck off.’
‘What are you going to do?’
He stares through the window. ‘I’m gonna do what I said I’d do. Ask around. Watch some CCTV. And I’m going to inform the coastguard.’
By ten o’clock that night, Neil and I stand on the jetty looking out at the disappearing light of the orange rescue boat as it bobs and bounces rhythmically on the choppy waves in Spurrington Bay. They’ve been at it for ten hours and they’re coming back in now. New weather system alert. Nothing more they can do tonight.
Neil went to the Smuggler’s Arms to learn that Sean’s story checked out. The landlord said he was in there most of the evening, but not with Ellis. Another barman who had been taking out an empty barrel to the yard saw a woman matching Ellis’s description walk past in the direction of the seafront. So we went to the arcades to watch the CCTV. By the time the twelve-year-old gorm in charge finally found the right tape for the evening she vanished, I was ready to ram his head through one of the fruit machines, but the sight of Ellis on the black and white screen stopped me in my tracks.
‘There she is, that’s her! Isn’t it?’
He can’t deny it. ‘It’s her alright.’ Walking past the doughnut van on the Esplanade at 9.39 p.m. Alone. Eyes wide. Dark hair. The same girl I remember, only eighteen years older and mu
ch more scared. I watch her on the screen, stop and look out into the black night, before retreating out of shot. Stop, look over the wall, then disappear. Stop, look, go. I rewind it six times.
There’s no other movement but flying litter and sea spray rising in quick spurts above the sea wall – until 10.27 p.m. From the other side of the road, a figure in black runs to the same spot with a large black shape – maybe a bin bag – and heaves it over into the angry tide. Their face is covered by their hood. Then they disappear.
‘Who is that?’ I say, afraid of the sound of my own voice. ‘Was that her?’
‘Can’t tell,’ says Scants, rewinding the footage.
‘Is that a rubbish bag? Is it heavy?’
‘Fairly heavy. They’re dragging it there, look.’ He plays the footage from around the same time on the second machine. We still can’t tell who it is.
‘Man or woman, do you think?’
‘I don’t know, Foy.’
‘But who’s it more likely to be?’
‘It’s strange that they should stop at the exact same spot on the sea wall that Ellis did earlier to look out. But I don’t know for sure.’
That’s the only CCTV Neil can check – the two cameras further along the road nearer Ellis’s flat are out of action, as of three nights ago. Conveniently vandalised.
The gorm comes in to tell us he’s locking up soon, ergo we need to leave, but we watch both tapes once more to triple-check every angle. All we know is we don’t know anything. We don’t know who threw the bag and we don’t know what’s in it.
After Neil informs the coastguard, two officers from the local constabulary come to the flat and we tell them everything we know. About Kaden Cotterill and Ellis’s paranoia about being followed. Neil explains how he originally thought she was acting up, how she’s done this before to make him feel guilty, but never for this long. He explains about the silent calls, the coffin catalogue and the message she left him.
I hear her voice, for the first time in eighteen years.
‘Scants? It’s me, Ellis. I’ve had enough. For real this time. I don’t want to be here anymore. Not like this. I want to go. I’m sorry. Thank you for everything you’ve done.’