Then She Vanishes

by Claire Douglas

  ‘I know. It’s a long shot, but she might give me something.’

  He stands up, actually rubbing his hands. ‘Yes. Yes, she might. It’s worth a shot. You’ll be the first journalist to see her, to interview her. Great. Great. That’ll get Jared off our backs.’

  ‘Even if they say I can interview her, I don’t know if she’ll agree …’ I begin, but he’s already walking away.

  I’ve arranged to meet Margot in the entrance to Southmead Hospital and she’s already there when I arrive. She’s wearing a wool camel coat that reaches mid-calf, and a large black cashmere scarf slung around her neck. I’m struck again by how elegant she is. She’s wearing lipstick and her hair is styled, the streaks of white at the front giving her a distinguished appearance. For a moment, a millisecond, really, I feel a stab of envy for Heather that’s so sharp I gasp. My own mother never even called me back after our brief, awkward phone chat last Friday night.

  When Margot spots me, her green eyes light up and she hurries over, pulling me in for a hug. I allow myself to be engulfed by her warmth, the smell of her familiar musky perfume, before she releases me.

  ‘Thank you for coming. Heather will be so pleased to see you,’ she says, taking my arm and leading me through the atrium towards the maze of corridors while I wonder if this is true. I’ve no idea of the reaction I’ll receive from Heather and my heart races at the thought. She’d be within her rights to tell me to get lost.

  Margot’s chatting the whole way, and I wonder if she’s nervous. I can’t help the small thrill that runs through me at the thought that I’m allowed into her inner sanctum.

  But I know not to be fooled. Behind that refined politeness Margot would fight to the death for her family. I’ve been on the receiving end of her hostility, and I don’t want that to happen again. I need to tread a very fine line here between being loyal to her but also getting Ted the story he wants.

  Yet again I wonder if I’m the right person for this job. How objective can I be? I’ve already admitted to myself that I want to believe Heather is innocent and that there is a rational but not-yet-found explanation for all of this – although, as time goes on, it’s looking less likely.

  My heart starts to beat faster as we approach Heather’s room and my mouth is so dry I can only nod as Margot tells me Heather’s no longer in ICU and that the police will be formally questioning her tomorrow, now the doctors deem her well enough. She doesn’t say it but I sense her unease about what will happen when Heather is discharged. Will she be taken straight into police custody or will she be allowed home? At least she has Margot to fight for her. I’m sure she’ll get her the best lawyers, the best defence team. I imagine she has money squirrelled away. She’s never been one for material things, preferring to spend her cash on her animals.

  I can’t believe I’m about to see Heather again. How will it be between us after all these years? We’ve both changed so much. I swallow, wishing I had some water.

  A police officer is standing outside Heather’s door. A man: young and slim with closely cropped hair and a pointed chin. He doesn’t smile as we approach but he nods to Margot, standing aside to let us pass.

  I wasn’t expecting that. She’s in hospital, hardly able to go anywhere. I dart Margot a questioning look but she just shakes her head briefly.

  Heather is sitting up in bed when we enter, on top of the blankets. She’s wearing sheepskin slippers and lilac pyjamas, and her hair – which is exactly the same as I remember it – is long and shining, as though it has recently been brushed. She’s older, of course, with faint lines around her eyes, but she’s still got the amazing complexion I remember, pore-less, almost, with a hint of peach at her cheekbones. There is no sign that she’s been so ill, apart from a bandage around her head. She blushes when she sees me but her face breaks into a wide smile – she still has that dimple in her left cheek – and in that moment she’s my fourteen-year-old best friend again. My eyes fill with tears and I blink them away. I must be going soft.

  ‘Hey, you,’ she says.

  I rush towards her bed, then hesitate, wondering whether to give her a hug. But she saves me making that decision by leaning forward, her arms outstretched. I bend towards her and hold her, her silky hair brushing my nose. She smells of shampoo and hospitals.

  When we break apart she indicates the chair next to her bed. ‘Please, sit down.’ I take a seat, and pull my skirt over my patterned tights primly, suddenly feeling self-conscious. I should have brought her some flowers, or grapes, or a magazine, or something. I bet she would have if I was the one in the hospital bed. Heather was always thoughtful like that.

  Margot clears her throat. ‘I’ll go and get us some coffee,’ she says, retreating from the room so that Heather and I are alone.

  ‘It’s so lovely to see you,’ says Heather, her eyes bright. ‘You’ve hardly changed.’

  ‘It’s so lovely to see you too,’ I gush, surprised at myself. I never gush. I’m acting like a teenager, not my usual professional self. I have to remember who she is. Why I’m here. Not just as an old friend, but as a reporter. ‘You’ve not changed a bit. But now you’re married. And a mum!’ And a murderer.

  She smiles shyly and takes the photo frame from her bedside cabinet and presses it into my hands. ‘That’s my little boy, Ethan.’ She points to the man cuddling him. ‘And that’s my husband, Adam.’

  For some reason, I don’t tell her I’ve already met them in my capacity as a journalist. Instead I say how beautiful her little boy is.

  ‘What about you?’ she asks. ‘Married? Children?’

  ‘I live with my boyfriend, Rory. We were in London but moved to Bristol last year.’

  ‘And how’s your mum?’

  I grimace. ‘She’s still the same, but since she got married and moved to Spain I hardly see her.’ My voice is imbued with a bitterness I always try to hide.

  Heather doesn’t say anything but reaches over and squeezes my hand. I realize that this is what it’s like to have an old friend, someone who knew you in childhood, someone who remembers all the hurt, the pain and the anguish you went through as well as the good times. Someone who knew you before you had the chance to put up the barriers and become a different, more cynical person. Heather is the closest thing I ever had to a sister.

  ‘I’m so sorry we fell out,’ she says now, her eyes dropping to her lap.

  ‘Me too. It’s one of my biggest regrets,’ I admit.

  ‘Same. It was so silly. I was angry about Flora. It was such a horrible time. I’ve missed you.’

  And there it is, the phantom in the room, floating between us. Flora.

  I avert my eyes, looking instead at a board on the wall with photos of Heather and her family pinned to it. ‘I pushed you away because I felt guilty,’ I explain. ‘I saw Flora the morning she disappeared. She was off to meet Dylan. They were going on a day trip to London. I never told anyone.’

  She squeezes my hand again. ‘I know. I heard you talking that morning. I pretended to be asleep.’

  I stare at her. ‘You knew?’

  ‘I was jealous, I think, that she was telling you and not me. She was angry with me because of what I did to Dylan.’

  I can’t help but laugh. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I’ve only just found out the extent of what you did to Dylan.’

  She laughs, too, but looks shamefaced. ‘It was wrong of me to attack him.’

  ‘No doubt he deserved it.’

  ‘He was a dick, wasn’t he? I never understood what Flora saw in him. Do you remember how she would play “Martha’s Harbour” over and over again because it reminded her of him? It used to drive us crazy. She was so in love.’ Her smile flickers and dies. ‘I can’t listen to that song now.’

  I’d forgotten how much Flora had loved All About Eve. ‘I saw Dylan yesterday. For the first time since … well, since ’ninety-four. He was at Clive Wilson’s house when they thought … they thought …’ I tail off, not knowing what to say. How much has Margot tol
d her?

  ‘When they thought they’d found Flora’s body?’ she finishes for me.

  I nod. ‘But it’s not her.’

  She doesn’t say anything in response and I wonder what she’s thinking. Was part of her hoping it was Flora, so that she could finally lay the ghosts of the past to rest? Or is she relieved because it means there is still hope, even after all these years?

  ‘Did Mum tell you that the police think I killed two people?’ She looks down at her hands. She’s fiddling with her rings.

  Part of me wants to laugh because it sounds so absurd. Of all the conversations we’ve ever had, I never thought we’d be having this one at our reunion. ‘Yes. She did.’

  She still doesn’t look at me. ‘Mum said you’re a journalist. Are you here for a story?’

  I place my hand over hers. ‘I’m here as your friend. All of this … it’s made me realize how much you meant to me. We were such good friends. I’ve never found that again.’ I feel a stab of guilt. How can I tell her I’m here for the story too? Although the friendship thing is true.

  She lifts her eyes. ‘Really?’

  ‘Really. I mean, I’ve got Rory, of course, and Jack who works with me on the newspaper. But no really good female friends. I … well, I miss that.’

  She smiles, and it changes her whole face, brightening her instantly. ‘Me too. My life had become a bit insular, really. Just Adam and Ethan – and Mum, of course. I hardly see Uncle Leo any more.’

  I nod, remembering our meeting the other day, reminded again of the ripple effect that Flora’s disappearance has had on the whole family.

  If I don’t come back with an interview, Ted will be furious. But I can’t ask her. Not now we’re getting on so well. If it was anybody else, I would. But not her.

  I’m angry with myself. I’m too close to this story. I should have handed it over to someone in HQ.

  She touches the bandage on her head. ‘I can’t remember that morning.’

  I’m confused. ‘Which morning?’

  ‘The morning it happened. The shootings. The last thing I remember is arguing with Adam. It was a stupid row that just escalated. I was tired, overwhelmed, felt like I was doing too much and he not enough. Ethan had been teething and not sleeping. I just felt …’ she shrugs ‘… knackered.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘We argued. He told me he’d stay at his mum’s, with Ethan. Give me some peace if that was what I wanted. I opened a bottle of wine, cried a bit. Flopped onto the sofa. I think I passed out. And then …’ she’s fiddling with her rings again ‘… and the next thing I know I’m here.’

  I can’t imagine not being able to remember something. A whole event just gone, wiped from my memory. Even when I’ve been at my drunkest, I’ve remembered everything the next morning, even if half of those memories were excruciatingly embarrassing and all jumbled up. I’m no psychiatrist but it sounds like some kind of blackout. Or maybe it’s because of the head injury.

  She wrinkles her nose and, in that moment, I see the teenage Heather in her. ‘It’s so frustrating. I hate not being able to remember.’ She looks at me, imploring. ‘I just don’t understand why I would kill anyone, particularly those two people. I’ve never met them.’

  ‘I think you met Deirdre, though. Your mum told me she rented a caravan from you earlier this year.’

  ‘Oh, yes. But I barely remember her. Only that she seemed chatty and had a really cute dog I couldn’t stop cuddling. It looked like a bear. She said she bred them. That’s all the conversation we had.’

  The outer corner of her eyelid flickers, her face impassive.

  I remember her twitchy eye. It’s hardly perceptible – you’d only notice it if you knew her well. If you’d maybe grown up with her or, like Adam, loved her and knew all her little idiosyncrasies.

  Her eyelid always flickered very slightly when she was lying.

  She’s still playing with her hands, almost like she’s nervous. I glance down. And that’s when I notice it. The rings. There’s her wedding and engagement ring on her left hand, a modest ruby among a cluster of diamonds. But also two others, one on each little finger, identical, small and gold with an oval crest on the front that looks a bit like a lion. I remember asking her about it when we were kids, because she always wore it. Then it was on her middle finger. Now there is one on each of her little fingers. She’d told me it was a family ring, handed down through the generations. She had one, so did Flora and her mother. I’d never heard of them before and was intrigued by this grown-up piece of jewellery that she was allowed to wear to school. It sounded very posh and aristocratic to me, and they weren’t like that, the Powells.

  Flora never took hers off. She had been wearing it the day she disappeared.

  So why was Heather wearing it now?

  43

  Jess

  Heather doesn’t notice me staring in horror at the rings. Two, when there should be one. Maybe I’ve got it wrong. Maybe Flora hadn’t been wearing the ring when she disappeared. Except … I was there when Margot first reported Flora missing. Heather and I were standing at Margot’s side, Heather quietly sobbing. It had been late. Gone 11 p.m. Flora was never that late. I remember Margot giving a description to the police, telling them between hot, panicked breaths what her daughter had been wearing that day, including the gold signet ring. I remember because I’d loved the way it sounded like ‘cygnet’. My fourteen-year-old self had imagined lots of fluffy baby swans.

  Why had Heather been crying? Could she have known then that Flora would never come home? As far as we were all aware at the time, she was just a few hours late. It was concerning, yes, given Flora’s history of always being punctual. But to cry? Had I thought it odd? I can’t remember. Because I had my own guilty secret: I knew Flora had gone off somewhere for the day with Dylan. I thought perhaps she’d decided to stay the night with him. But I wasn’t worried that she’d run away: the backpack she’d been wearing that morning was too small, not large enough to hold even one set of clothing, never mind more.

  Heather had left me alone at her house earlier that evening, at around 7.30 p.m. I hadn’t remembered that until now. When she’d returned she had been wet and covered with mud. She said she’d slipped and fallen after getting her pony in from the field. She’d been wearing a skirt, not her usual riding gear. It had rained that night and I’d thought nothing of it. I’d waited for her in her room, happily doodling and listening to music until she came back. What time had she returned? It must have been nine-ish. Definitely before the curfew anyway, because I remember her looking at her watch and becoming agitated when it got to nine thirty and Flora wasn’t yet home, muttering something about Dylan.

  I haven’t thought about that in years. Even after Flora went missing I didn’t think it was strange.

  Until now.

  Heather had killed her father, whether by accident or not, and now Clive and Deirdre Wilson. She was seen exiting their house on the morning of the murders. And she was caught on CCTV near Clive’s Bristol property earlier that same morning. Does she really not remember or is it just some convenient excuse? And as I watch my one-time best friend, sitting on the hospital bed, twisting the wedding ring on her finger and staring wistfully into nothing, I realize I hardly know her at all. We were friends for just over two years. Two years is such a short time in the grand scheme of things. It might have been an important moment in my life, but it’s a tiny slice out of our thirty-two years. Heather is a killer. There is no disputing that, however much I’ve been trying to convince myself. She’s killed not just once but three times. And now she’s wearing Flora’s ring. What does that mean?

  I suppress a shiver despite the stuffy room.

  She’s a fucking psychopath. I’m sitting here having a cosy chat with someone who is evidently dangerous. Maybe even criminally insane. I stand up so suddenly I almost knock over Heather’s water and save it just in time.

  Heather looks up. ‘Are you okay?’

 
‘I’m … just hot,’ I say, replacing the plastic cup.

  ‘Not surprised. You’ve still got your coat on.’

  I can’t speak. My mind is racing. Was she responsible for the photographs on my car? No, it couldn’t have been her. She’s been in hospital, under police guard. Then who? Adam? I thought I saw him that time, following me. Are they working together? Did he put the photographs on my car to warn me off? But what about the bus ticket? What did it all mean?

  Why have you got Flora’s ring?

  Just then Margot bustles into the room, armed with two takeaway cups. She’s all smiles. ‘Lovely to see you both catching up,’ she says, and her face falls as she notices I’m on my feet. ‘Are you leaving, Jess?’

  ‘I … um …’ I want to run back to the safety of my flat, jump into bed and stuff a pillow over my head to stop these relentless thoughts. I’ve always been the same: I ran from Heather as a teenager because I couldn’t face up to the part I’d played in Flora’s disappearance; I’ve distanced myself from my mother because she neglected me as a kid, then remarried and started a new life without me. And now I’m doing the same to Rory. But this. I can’t hide from this. I need to face it, head on.

  And the journalist in me needs this. If Heather really did hurt Flora all those years ago, I owe her nothing now. I’d happily write a story about her. The irony doesn’t escape me that I would forgive Heather for murdering Clive and Deirdre Wilson because they mean nothing to me, but I’d throw her to the wolves over Flora. ‘I’m just taking this off,’ I say, folding my coat over the back of the chair. ‘It’s hot in here.’

  Margot looks pointedly at it. ‘I’d say so in that thing.’ Then she seems to remember her manners, and blusters, ‘Not that it isn’t a nice coat …’

  I’m not offended. I know my clothes aren’t to everyone’s taste. That’s why I like them.

  Margot hands me one of the takeaway cups, which I accept with thanks. She gives the other to Heather. ‘I’ve got you herbal tea,’ she says to her daughter, smiling indulgently.