Her family. Her family. Victor was winded by the cruelty of it. Just die, just die, said another voice that whispered just on the edge of earshot, but then Sophie’s hand was in his.
She held on tight. He didn’t want to put her in danger, that was the very last thing he could allow, and so he cleared his throat. “It’s all right,” he began to say. “You must … if…” And Richard was nodding, he moved around to take her from him, he was about to claim her. But then someone had arrived, someone was talking to the nurses at their station. Her voice stopped Victor from finishing his sentence, completing his surrender. Natalie.
Chapter Twenty
Another cab would take twenty minutes, so they walked on up. The wide-pillared doorway had hidden an institutional reception area with linoleum floor; this wasn’t a private clinic. This was NHS. There was a reception desk with computer monitors and arrowed signage, pointing down a corridor, up the scuffed stairs. REHABILITATION UNIT; PSYCHIATRIC OUTPATIENTS; physio upstairs. RESIDENTIAL UNIT, MOORSOM HOUSE, pointing back out the way they’d come.
A youngish woman with a thin ponytail peered around one of the monitors. Nat and Craig stepped back in the doorway hastily. “She came every Monday? Maybe she was seeing someone,” said Craig, shrugging. “Physio.”
“In heels?” said Nat. “In the evening?”
Craig ripped at a hangnail with his teeth. “Psychiatric outpatients?”
“You think this is a joke?”
“Can I help you?” The receptionist’s voice was reedy and insistent: reluctantly they approached the desk.
It could only be, thought Nat. “A friend of mine,” she said, “used to come here every Monday evening to see someone. A relative in the residential unit.” She ignored the glance Craig gave her. “Moorsom House?”
“And?”
Nat went through it, keeping it as low-key as possible, apologizing every other word, no confrontation, no demanding. Whenever the receptionist frowned, Nat gave her a pleading look, but when she’d finished the woman just pressed a buzzer before she said anything, leaning down and muttering into a microphone, “Someone asking about Moorsom.” Nat kept her head down, and the woman sighed. “We can’t talk about patients, you know. Not without their permission.” An older woman appeared at the end of a corridor and walked toward them with an awkward, lopsided, unhurried gait, assessing them, Nat could tell, as she came.
“That’s Mrs. Walters,” said the girl with the ponytail. “She manages Moorsom.”
She had a nice, weary manner. “Dodgy hip,” she said. “On the waiting list.”
She gave Craig a long look, head on one side, and he shuffled a bit then said, “I’ll be outside.”
Mrs. Walters sighed. “So what can we do you for?” The girl ducked back behind her computer.
Nat went over it all again, and when she’d finished, Walters said, “So what’d she look like?”
Describing Beth, Nat had to clear her throat a couple of times. She knew too much, it was like when she’d talked to the police, she could have gone on, stories tried to creep in. The time Beth tried to do her own highlights and her fringe fell out, where she’d bought her favorite high heels, they were striped wedges. Turquoise toenails. It was only when she finished that she thought to show the woman the picture on her phone.
Walters just nodded. “Sure,” she said, but she had a guarded edge. “She has a brother in Moorsom. But she hasn’t been in three, four weeks.” She looked out through the door to where Craig stood. “It happens. People … lose interest.” Then she frowned. “I didn’t think she was the type—she was good about coming. It was disappointing when … well. He was disappointed, that’s the main thing.”
“Can we see him?” said Nat quickly. “What … what is his condition?”
The woman gestured toward the door and they took a few steps back into the porch. Craig was a little way down the hill now, his hands in his pockets. He was angry. Did that make him dangerous? Mrs. Walters nodded to the side, and Nat could make out a low building behind young trees where a group of people were throwing a ball to each other: she heard a shout, happy.
“I can’t talk about patients,” said the manager. “I can’t tell you his name.” She tilted on her hip and winced. “Moorsom is mostly Down’s patients who can’t live on their own, there are a few others, but—”
“Can you ask him?” said Nat. “If I can talk to him? I mean if he can … if he…”
“You’re worried about her, aren’t you?” said the woman. “I don’t … he doesn’t need to be upset.”
“I would try very hard not to do that,” said Nat simply. “I think if I don’t talk to him, it will be the police.” Not quite true, not yet, but she couldn’t wait for them to get interested. “I’ve known Beth a long time,” she added, trying to keep her voice steady. “And her disappearance is … uncharacteristic.” Whatever anyone else might say. “She’s my friend.”
Then Walters had given her a long look. Finally she had nodded.
“I’ll talk to him.” She’d looked at Craig, standing with his back to them. “Making no promises. But I’ll ask him.”
* * *
It had been a different driver on the way to the hospital: an ancient bloke with a greasy bald head who kept silence, and besides, she no longer needed to know where Beth went. Craig had asked to be dropped on the edge of town. She turned to watch him as they pulled off again. He had said he needed to get someone to fix the bike, but he just stood there, waiting for them to disappear.
Walking into the hospital ward and seeing them there, Victor so pale and still on the bed between them he was almost a part of it, for a flashing moment she saw how a dead person looked, as dead as the sheets and blankets. Only when he moved his head to her did Nat look around the bed, and work it out. Sophie holding her dad’s hand, the little boy downcast, his lower lip stuck out—and the man. The husband, with his hand resting on Sophie’s shoulder. Don’t like him, don’t like him, don’t like him, it was like an alarm going off. Nat stepped through them—between the husband and the boy—up to the bed and caught Sophie’s glance, pale with relief.
“Victor,” said Nat. “All right?” The husband cleared his throat behind her, but she didn’t turn to look until Sophie said, high and bright, “Richard, this is Natalie, she’s been so good. So good.”
The little boy—Rufus—had sidled away from his father, into the corner beside the bed. Sophie must have been old when she had him. There must have been risks: she must have really wanted him so badly. Nat thought of Beth’s brother, in Moorsom House. The supervisor’s strong hint had been that he had Down’s. She thought of Beth’s mother, hard as nails. You never knew, did you, where that hardness came from?
And of course there would be a dad, somewhere, maybe two, one for Beth, one for the boy in Moorsom House. She’d never asked Beth what had become of her dad—but then Beth never asked her where hers was, either. Fucking dead and good fucking riddance.
Nat could still remember when Mum had kicked him out. She had been eight years old, a bruise on her thigh from the last time he’d kicked her a week earlier—the last time he ever would—and a bubble of jubilation in her chest so huge it hurt her, she had to go up to her bedroom and let it out in a weird shouting laugh. Mum had come up and put her arms around her so Nat could feel her shaking, trembling, could hear her whispering something Nat as a kid hadn’t understood, about her being sorry. And when she’d let her go, there’d been just a big shaky smile on Mum’s face. He’d hung around the house some nights, shouting, cracked a window pounding on it with his fist, but when Mum had called the police on him he’d disappeared. The next they heard was five years later and he was dead in a car crash, drunk-driving. Hit a lamppost. Nat remembered feeling sorrier for the lamppost.
What had been in her head when she’d done the pregnancy test, Jim waiting outside the bathroom door? Sheer bloody blind panic.
Sophie’s husband was looking at her, and although his expression was only
a sort of smile, she could tell what was behind it. Resentment, dislike, a kind of itching hatred—for her, or all of them. He wanted his own way, and they were standing in it.
“I’m a friend of Victor’s,” she said, staring back. “It’s great he’s doing so well, isn’t it?” Richard cleared his throat again, dismissive, almost embarrassed. Not great, not doing well, not if I can help it.
She could see it right there: he wants Victor dead. He wants to be on his own with her and the kid so he can stand over them and tell them how it is and they’ll never escape. For a second the feeling was so strong she thought it was a mistake, she was confusing this man with her own dad, but it was different. He was a different kind of bastard: and he did want Victor dead. It came to her. She took a breath.
“Can I have a word with you and … Richard?” she said to Sophie, trying to make it sound earnest, serious, glancing into the corridor. “Just a quick one?” The look went around them, to Sophie, to Richard, to Victor.
“Rufus, can you stay here and look after Grandpa?” Sophie spoke quickly. The boy nodded warily, but brightening. They walked to the sunroom, Nat leading them, Sophie hurrying anxiously beside her and Richard upright, hands in pockets and impatient.
“Look—” he began, when they’d barely gotten through the door. The room was empty, and hot.
“I bumped into the consultant,” improvised Nat and saw Richard put a hand up to knead the back of his neck, working it angrily. She went on. “I don’t know what she’s told you, but—”
“She’s so eager for Daddy to be back in his own home,” said Sophie, rushing in clumsily. “The consultant is. But Richard says—”
Nat nodded, soberly. “Yes, I expect … well, she was probably being as positive as possible, in front of Victor, but…” She hesitated, thinking, Liar, liar, then superstition rising against it, but fuck it, saying it won’t make it true. “Look, he could only have a matter of days.”
Sophie gave a sort of choking gasp and Nat made herself not look because if she did, she would have to recant, to reassure her. She looked at Richard instead, and saw a flicker of satisfaction that pushed her on. “Sophie can stay at the caravan or at the cottage with me, but … I do think he needs her here. I do. I mean”—she stared down at her feet so as not to see him, and in case he saw what she was up to—“it’s really not going to be long.”
“But the consultant said—” Sophie said brokenly, and Nat put an arm around her, squeezing hard, harder, so she would understand. Richard stared at them both, and Nat saw anger competing with the prospect of Victor gone, dealt with.
Then abruptly he expelled a breath. “I’ll take Rufus back with me,” he said. “That caravan’s no place for him.” Then, viciously, “It’s squalid.” Looking at Sophie, a look that made Nat want to punch him, on Victor’s behalf too, squalid? But she felt Sophie only go still.
It was obvious, what he was doing. It was revenge, and more. Rufus was his hostage. But to Nat’s surprise Sophie spoke calmly.
“I know, darling, it’s hardly ideal.” She was sweet, she was submissive, she was reasonable. She had learned to be like this. And all the time Nat could see the trembling fear underneath, she knew that scenario. “But there’s your work. You’ll hardly get anything done with Rufus, you know how demanding he can be.” Richard was quite still, watching her. Nat could see a pinched look at his nostrils.
Sophie kept going, bravely. “I would like him to see his grandfather just for these last … if…” And then she did stop. Nat could see her staring hard at Richard’s chest, his stupid button-down shirt, to stop herself crying. Why shouldn’t she cry? Nat wanted to run at Richard and slap him and scratch his face, but she knew she had really, really better not.
And then Sophie took a breath and went on. “And I’ll bring him back at the weekend.”
Not a crack, not a tremble. Was that what she had to do? thought Nat. She had to be obedient, he wanted to see her in pain, but she couldn’t break down, she couldn’t show it. In that moment Nat had the strongest feeling that if Sophie did cry, Richard would burst out laughing.
“I’ll bring him back, whatever happens,” she said. If Victor lives or dies, was what she meant.
He took half a step toward Sophie and stopped. Nat could see how angry he was, he didn’t have to do anything, it was in the stiffness of his movements, in the light eyes, the flush at his neck; it was even in his receding hairline, where a vein throbbed.
“I will come back for you,” he said, enunciating distinctly. He would punish Sophie, somehow. But they had won.
And now Sophie was tripping over herself, breathless, telling him she’d brought enough clothes to last them, saying she’d apologize personally to the partners and their wives for the dinner.
“She can stay with me in my cottage,” said Nat, just wanting to stop Sophie, but when Richard turned to look at her she felt a deep, horrible unease. “I mean, if she needs to?” You have to pretend, she realized. That you don’t know he hates you. She smiled.
“I’ll go and say goodbye to Rufus” was all he said.
They watched him leave the hospital from the window in the corridor outside the ward.
Rufus had stood with his head lowered as Richard spoke to him intently, out of earshot of any of them. Richard didn’t speak to Sophie or to Victor again, he just walked straight-backed out of the ward.
They saw him walk across the car park below them and climb into a big expensive car. When the car door closed on him Sophie backed away until she reached the wall and crumpled to the floor, where she crouched, her face in her hands. Awkward in her hurry, Nat ran to get to her, to tell her, and then both of them were on the linoleum floor, and fuck the lot of them, nurses, doctors, fuck what anyone might think.
“It’s all right,” she said urgently, trying to pry Sophie’s hands away from her face. “He’s not going to die, it’s all right. Victor’s not. I just had to say that.” Sophie’s face appeared, her cheeks red and streaked with crying. “They’re pleased with him, really. They are. I had to say that so that he would let you stay.” She was tempted to go further, to interrogate Sophie, but she knew she couldn’t. One step at a time. “Right? That’s how we make sure Victor gets better. It’s how we get him out of the hospital. You know that. It’s why you did your bit too.” She had both Sophie’s wrists in her hands now. “You were brilliant, Sophie. You were fucking brilliant.”
Sophie pulled a wrist away to rub at her eye. “I—I don’t know,” she said, sounding frightened now. Nat persisted, helping her to her feet.
“And I meant it about the cottage.”
“The cottage.” Sophie pulled her clothing awkwardly back into place, sheepish.
Nat hesitated, thinking. The new locks: did that make it safe? In her head she saw the dark garden, out through the tiny kitchen window. Safer in numbers, though, her and Sophie and Rufus. Whoever it was wouldn’t be expecting that. An instant family around the table. She shoved her misgivings to one side.
“I’ve got to work this evening,” she said earnestly. “I’ve been off all day. But come over to the pub with Rufus. You can sit in the garden, and when I’m done I’ll make dinner.”
“Really?” Sophie’s face, pale and crumpled with relief.
Dinner, Christ knew how that would go. Nat hadn’t cooked dinner in months, not since … Not since. And Janine would probably kill her too.
And then Sophie was smiling, smiling, looking just like Victor. “Yes. Oh, that would be … can we just, let’s go and tell them? Tell Rufus and my father.”
“Let’s, yes,” said Nat, and she saw in Sophie’s face that for the moment, it was all right. Richard had gone.
She took the bus to the supermarket from the hospital and when she walked out, with a bag of the stupidest stuff—sausages, chocolate mousse, chips, lettuce, anything and everything a three-year-old might conceivably eat for dinner—held in two arms because one of the handles had busted, there was Jim.
He was standin
g beside his van, looking brown and thin and serious. In two days she seemed to have forgotten how tall he was, or was that just because he was thinner? It seemed to her that he had been waiting for her, or for someone.
“You want a lift?” He stepped up to her and reached to take the bag out of her arms.
For a second she resisted, hung on to it, but suddenly she was just so tired, with the whole weight of the long horrible day in every limb and a shift to do and she let him take it.
Her hands fell to her sides. “Sure,” she said.
Chapter Twenty-One
It was busy in the pub; of course it was. As she walked back from the hot gloom of the bar into the humid kitchen with another loaded tray and smelled the steam from the dishwasher and the drains and the bins beyond the side door, it seemed to Nat that this summer was never going to end. She turned and walked back into the bar, wiping her hands on her apron.
There was a group of middle-aged men in Victor’s corner this time, on a fishing trip, she had gathered from their several trips to the bar; they were on their fourth round of drinks, or it might be fifth. They were talking about women and had been since round two (two bottled Mexican lagers, a gin and tonic and four pints). Nat had been trying not to listen.
There was no sign of Bill the cameraman. Already Nat had an outline of him, stocky, dependable, certain: she would know it if he appeared in the low doorway, without seeing his face. She hadn’t answered the text he’d sent yet. He’d given her that option, at least. She felt an uneasy stirring in her gut, that she’d given him encouragement just by liking him. Things were complicated enough as they were.
Paddy was in the corner opposite the fishermen, an empty seat beside him that he seemed to be defending against all comers, which wasn’t like him. His lean face thoughtful, soft. And taking his time over his pint.
Jim had dropped her at the pub, both of them silent by then. She’d heard him out as he drove her back, more carefully than she’d ever seen him drive, eyes flicking between mirrors, long pauses at junctions, headlights on as the sun dipped, brushing the trees on the horizon. On the edge of town he had expelled a long breath.
The Day She Disappeared Page 19