by Simon Lelic
Susanna barely waits for Adam to respond. All at once she is marching toward the door. “Alina!” she yells, calling for their receptionist. She reaches for the door handle. “Alin—”
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
The look Susanna gives him is needle-sharp.
“Why? Because of a photograph?” She looks at it again and realizes from the cut of Emily’s hair that the photo is a day or two old at most. And the background: Susanna doesn’t recognize it. It looks industrial: breezeblock wall, concrete floor: nowhere her daughter would ordinarily be. But, “You could have got that anywhere,” she insists, desperately. “For all I know you found it on the Internet.”
The Internet in Susanna’s mind is somewhere foul. A swamp, somewhere sullied—a source of squalor and a reservoir for it, both. She lets Emily use it but only because she accepts she has no choice. If she could she would cut their cable connection, coat the walls of their house in lead. As for Twitter, Facebook, all the rest, Susanna can only imagine what would have been waiting for her in those places had they existed eighteen years ago. She would stop her daughter using those as well, would have denied her a mobile phone if that, in this day and age, were remotely feasible. Susanna would go as far as to say that it was because of the Web, because of (anti) social media, that she has so far shied away from telling Emily all the facts. Maybe that’s true, maybe not, but in her mind it’s as good an excuse as any.
“Because of the photograph,” Adam agrees. “Also, because of this.”
Susanna is focused once more on summoning Alina, her intent to open her office door. But when she looks Adam’s way she freezes. Her hand floats uselessly in front of her.
He has a knife. It’s a hand span in length, gun-metal gray, and dull everywhere but on its edges. There it gleams, like a smile waiting in the dark.
The knife is laid openly on Adam’s lap, as though it had been resting there all along.
“Oh my God. Oh . . . God . . . I . . .” Susanna covers her mouth with both hands. She is aware that her head, her whole body, has begun to shake. “Please . . . whatever you want . . . Whoever you are, I . . .”
“Calm down, Susanna.” Adam lets his fingertips touch the handle of the knife. “You really don’t want to make me use this. If that happens, you’ll never know what I’ve done to your daughter.”
What I’ve done to your daughter. The words cut more deeply than the knife would but before Susanna can react, her office door swings open.
Instinctively she blocks it with her foot.
From the landing there is an oof sound. Alina’s lungs venting her surprise.
“Susanna?” she demands.
“It’s fine, Alina,” Susanna responds, her voice artificially high. Her eyes all the while are on the knife. “Everything’s fine!”
The door moves against Susanna’s foot. Alina is trying to force her way in. The door hinges toward the seating area, so that Adam remains hidden from view.
“I was just wondering whether my next client was here yet,” Susanna blurts. “That’s all.”
“You shouted. For this?” The affront in Alina’s voice is plain to hear and Susanna realizes that this is probably why she has responded so quickly. Normally when Susanna calls Alina never comes, irrespective of whether she’s involved with helping Ruth. She’s here now, not to check whether Susanna needs help, rather to take issue with her means of summons.
Susanna catches Adam’s eye. He’s settled into the role of spectator, more fascinated now than threatening.
Susanna shifts her foot to allow the door to open a fraction farther. The gap is just wide enough to allow her to show Alina her smile.
“It’s fine, Alina, really,” Susanna repeats. “And I’m sorry I shouted. I wasn’t thinking. Sorry,” she says again.
Alina’s face is one she’s seen on Emily. But as a three-year-old, a toddler, after some perceived injustice that’s left her contemplating how far she’s been wronged.
Alina exhales. “You have intercom,” she states. “Please: use this.”
“I know. I will. I can never get it to work, that’s all.” This much, at least, is true. Susanna isn’t good with modern technology, perhaps because she spends so much of her time refusing to acknowledge it exists. “You should tweet, Mum,” Emily has told her. “Or get on WhatsApp at least. Everyone’s on WhatsApp these days.” Which is precisely what Susanna is afraid of.
“They are not here.”
“Pardon me?”
“Your next client,” Alina clarifies, placing an emphasis on the final word that is almost scornful. “They are not here.”
“Right. OK. Well, let me know when they do arrive.” Susanna realizes a second later what she has said. “No! Wait! I’ll come out. In . . .” She makes like she’s checking her watch. Really she’s checking behind her. “In a while,” she settles on, reasserting her smile. “OK?”
Alina presses her over-glossed lips into a pout, then sighs and retreats along the landing. For a moment Susanna stares out after her, contemplating the route to the staircase. She could just run. Adam wouldn’t be able to stop her. But who knows what he would do in Susanna’s wake, what retribution he might exact against Ruth and Alina. And Emily. It is just a photograph. So far Adam hasn’t demonstrated he has any greater hold on Susanna’s daughter than his possession of that single image. But there’s no way Susanna is willing to take the risk.
Gently she closes the office door. She leans against it, breathing, then forces herself to face into the room.
“You’re better at this than I am,” Adam says. His tone is self-effacing, almost humble, but Susanna doesn’t trust it. She’s learned already not to trust anything about him.
“Better at what?” she finds herself asking, the response more instinct than genuine inquiry.
“At lying.”
Susanna looks up then.
“To be honest, I’m surprised I managed to keep going as long as I did,” Adam says. “I was so worried I’d give myself away. I’ve had some practice lately but on the whole I’m really not a very good actor. That’s why I stuck mainly to the truth.”
The falseness in his modesty this time is plain to hear. In fact he sounds so pleased with himself for having taken Susanna in that, as before, it fires up Susanna’s anger. You didn’t fool me, she’s thinking. You didn’t. I fooled myself, is what happened. I didn’t listen to myself.
Susanna finds herself marching toward her desk. She doesn’t care about the knife all of a sudden, nor about what Adam might do to her. All she cares about is Emily.
She picks up her mobile phone. She is aware Adam is watching her and is only moderately unsettled that he makes no moves to stop her. She scrolls to find her daughter in her contacts. She taps the number to initiate the call and, turning from Adam, holds the phone up to her ear. It’s two weeks into September and after a long summer holiday her daughter is back at school, so she expects the call to go straight to voice mail. Instead it rings, and for an instant Susanna succumbs to a surge of hope—until, as well as the ringing in her ear, she hears a ringtone going off right behind her.
She turns, the hand holding her own phone falling from her ear as she does so. Adam is fishing once again into his back pocket. He pulls out an iPhone—two models old, in a case bearing images of pressed flowers—and frowns at the screen as though puzzled at who might be calling. He acts like he’s screening, turns up his nose and slips the phone back where it came from.
The dialing stops, the ringtone too, and from close beside her Susanna hears her daughter’s voice.
“Hi, this is Emily. I’m either, a, at school, b, asleep, or, c, all of the above. Leave a message, and if you’re lucky I’ll get back to you.”
Susanna looks at the phone in her palm. Ridiculously, she has to resist the urge to speak to Emily’s voice mail, to beg her daughter to call h
er right away. This very second, young lady. I’m not kidding.
“You could, I don’t know. Try one of her friends?” Adam suggests mock-helpfully.
He has her phone. More than the knife, more than the picture, it is the fact that he has her daughter’s iPhone that convinces Susanna this is really happening. Emily would no sooner be parted from her mobile than she would be from her right arm.
Nonetheless Susanna does exactly as Adam suggests. She calls Frankie, Emily’s best friend, whom Emily was supposed to be staying over with last night. Susanna realizes she has no way of knowing whether her daughter even made it to school that morning.
Frankie answers on the second ring.
“Hey, Mrs. F.”
“Frankie. Listen. Is Emily with you?”
“Em? Nope. I haven’t seen her since Wednesday.”
“Are you sure? Are you certain?”
“Sure I’m sure. She texted me yesterday morning saying she wasn’t feeling well so wouldn’t be coming round later. Which was a real bummer because we’ve got this project at school. And Emily said she’d—”
Susanna hangs up. She can feel the shallowness of her breaths, the panic welling from her stomach. “Where is she?” she says, rounding on Adam.
Adam frowns like he’s unsure who it is Susanna’s talking about. “Emily?”
Yes, Emily! Yes, my daughter! “I’ll call the police,” Susanna says. “I’ll scream and Alina will call them for me.”
Adam doesn’t answer. He knows there is no need.
“What have you done to her?” Susanna presses. “You said before you’d done something to her. If she’s hurt . . . if you’ve touched her . . .” All at once Susanna’s legs feel like they’ve been punctured and her fury is swept away by a rush of fear. “Please,” she says, gripping the desk. “Please, just tell me . . . Emily . . . Is she . . .”
She is crying, she realizes. Adam is looking back at her through a blur.
“We’ll get to Emily, I promise,” he tells her, the playfulness—the mischievousness—gone from his tone. “In point of fact, it’s mainly because of Emily that I’m here.”
“What do you mean? Look, Adam . . . whoever you are . . . if there’s something you want . . . money, or . . . or whatever, I . . . I’ll give it to you. OK? Everything I have.”
“Susanna . . .”
“My purse,” Susanna goes on. “Look, here’s my purse. I’ve got . . .” She searches for cash, finds a five-pound note and some change. “My bank cards. Take my bank cards. I won’t cancel them, I promise, I’ll just let you draw out whatever you—”
“Susanna!”
Susanna stops talking. She feels the edge of her desk press into the back of her thighs.
“Just stop,” Adam says. “OK? Stop whining,” he tells her. “Stop begging.” As they were earlier his hands are tearing at his hair but if it was an act before, there’s no sign he’s pretending anymore. And that anger Susanna has so far only seen in flashes: it’s come undone.
“We’ll get to Emily,” Adam hisses. “I told you already that we would.” His hand has closed around the knife handle. It looks instinctive, as though he isn’t fully aware of everything he’s doing. “But let’s start with the reason you ran, Susanna. Before your daughter, before we discuss how you might save her, let’s talk about what you did to your son.”
EMILY
8 AUGUST 2017
So it’s been a while. I remember when I got this diary in my stocking last Christmas, wondering what I was ever going to write in it. Which I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. It was good of Mum to buy it for me, it really was. But at the same time, there’s also a certain amount of irony. You know, that my mum buys me a diary to keep a record of all the stuff I’m doing, when Mum is also the person who basically stops me from doing anything. You know? I mean, I reread those entries I wrote after Christmas, to try to get myself into the swing of it, and it’s basically this massive bleeeeuuuurgghhh. Just, so I did this and then this happened and this was nice and isn’t everything wonderful. Not exactly Anne Frank, right? Who, by the way, is my absolute hero.
But yeah. Since Christmas I’ve had nothing to say. Since I was born, in fact, it sometimes feels like. Which, again, makes me sound like a spoiled little brat, probably—like, “Poor me, my life’s so easy and uneventful.” I wonder what Anne Frank would have made of that! All I’m trying to say I guess is that my life so far—it hasn’t exactly been some great adventure. Me and Mum, we live in this nice little house, with these two nice cats, and we do nice things together. Going shopping, going to coffee shops, going for walks. But literally that’s it. We don’t even go on holiday, because there’s no way Mum would ever leave her precious clients. Which I guess I admire, and I love my mum, I really do, more than I can imagine loving anyone. But sometimes it feels like aaaaaarrrrgghhhh!!!! You know? Like, I’m fourteen, Mum! I shouldn’t always have to be back before it gets dark. And I should at least get to choose my own friends! Which obviously I do, in the first instance, but then Mum always insists on me inviting them over. Always. And I know exactly what it is she’s doing, even though she tries to pretend she isn’t. She’s vetting them, checking them out. Making sure they’re appropriate, basically. I mean, seriously—she won’t even let me watch a fifteen-rated movie!
But I’m getting sidetracked. What I wanted to say—the reason I’m writing in this diary after all, after thinking I never would again—is that at last in my life something has happened.
* * *
• • •
So I met a boy.
Which, ha-ha, is like the definition of bleeeeuuuurgghhh, right?
But the thing is it’s nothing like that. He’s older, for starters. Which I can imagine what Frankie would say if I told her, but that’s because she’d assume it was about sex. And it’s not. It’s definitely not. OK? (Mum? OK?? If for some reason you’re reading this—which I hope—I know—you would never do—but if you are, I want to make that clear. I am not having sex with a seventeen-year-old. In fact, for the record, I’m not having sex with anyone. God. I can just imagine what you’d say if you thought I was.)
But that’s another reason I’m writing this, because I know if I even told Frankie (who’s been my best friend since forever) there’s a chance even she wouldn’t understand. So that’s why I’m keeping this private. Not counting Adam, of course. Obviously Adam knows too, otherwise there wouldn’t be anything to write about.
That’s his name. Adam.
He’s tall. He’s got this hair that falls across his eyes, which I like because it makes him look shy. You can always see them, though, just peeking out. They’re brown, kind of like mine. They look better on him, though. Way better, actually, because to be honest I hate my eyes. I mean, brown’s boring, right? Except not on Adam. On Adam they look kind of intense. Which probably makes him sound like some sort of psychopath or something, but all I mean is he’s deep. A grown-up. And what’s nice is that he treats me like a grown-up too. And if you think about it, the age thing, don’t they say girls mature faster than boys? So really, mentally, me and Adam are about the same age. Right?
That’s the way I’m looking at it, anyway.
* * *
• • •
But how I met him. What I can’t believe was that it was only eight and a half hours ago. Because it feels like a lifetime.
We were in Starbucks. The one in the shopping center. It’s where everyone’s been hanging out in the summer holidays. The people who aren’t in Spain or visiting relatives or whatever. Which obviously me and Mum never do because, a, the whole client thing, and b, we haven’t got any relatives, none that I’ve ever met anyway.
But that’s the routine. Breakfast with Mum, mooch until about midday, then head down to the shopping center. Sit in Starbucks for maybe an hour or two, then kill time looking at clothes and whatever in the shops. Which is wh
at I mean about my life being uneventful. And it’s not just Mum, to be fair. It’s also the fact that, where we live, there isn’t much else to do anyway, not for kids my age. Although, thinking about it, it’s that whole chicken and egg thing, isn’t it? Like, maybe that’s why we’re living here: precisely because there’s nothing for me to do. No way for me to get myself in trouble.
Anyway. The summer holidays have been pretty tedious, is my point, and today was shaping out to be even more boring than normal. Until:
“Is this seat taken?”
Frankie, she’d texted me at the last minute to say her mum was making her go with her to visit her Aunt Laura. And when I say last minute, I mean the exact second we were supposed to meet. It’s like, she must have known before then. If she was going to meet me at one, then she would have had to leave her house by twelve thirty at the latest, and if she’d texted me then, maybe I would have had a chance to turn round, to save on the bus fare at least. Because I’m not going to sit in Starbucks on my own, am I, not when I know no one’s coming. It would be social suicide, what with Amy Jones there with all the others.
“Is this seat taken?”
I’m looking at my phone when he says it, trying to decide how to reply to Frankie (I’m torn between bummer with a little sad face—you know, to try to make her feel bad—or like, wtf?!?, which is basically more how I feel) and also trying to figure out if Jess or Rosie or any of the others would be free to meet up if I called, and it’s only when I glance up that I see him standing over me.
And to begin with I don’t notice how hot he is, this boy who’s asking me if this seat’s taken. But I see Amy and the others all staring and at first what I figure is they’re staring at me. You know, poor old Emily-no-mates. But they’re not just staring, I realize, they’re ogling. And when I look at him I realize why.
“Er, sure. I mean, no. You can take it. If you want. It’s, um. All yours.”