(2012) Say You're Sorry

by Michael Robotham

She hangs up and I suddenly wonder what present I can get her. She’ll have bought something for me. She’ll have thought about it, planned ahead and whatever I do won’t match her efforts.

  We near the pharmacy. Grievous pulls over and parks, pointing across the road.

  “That’s the place. I’m going to get something to eat.” He pats his stomach. “I have the caveman gene—always hungry. My girlfriend has me on this diet until the wedding. She’s filled my fridge with healthy crap—celery, lettuce, cottage cheese… No beer. No pizzas. Right now I’d kill for a burger and a bowl of chips.”

  “Killing is a bit extreme.”

  “You’re right. I’d beat someone up very badly so they couldn’t move.”

  He pulls down the sun visor, displaying a THAMES VALLEY POLICE notice. “I’ll wait for you here,” he says, locking the car.

  Emily is unpacking boxes of shampoo and conditioner and lining them up on the shelves, labels facing outwards. A price gun rests on top of the stepladder. Something shivers in her eyes at the sight of me.

  “I’m working—I can’t talk,” she says.

  “It’s important.”

  She glances over her shoulder. Chews her bottom lip. “Maybe I can take my break.”

  We go to a café across the road. She orders a skinny hot chocolate and ponders the muffins, making her choice seem like an act of rebellion. I doubt if her father would approve of an oversized blueberry muffin.

  She’s wearing a black skirt and white blouse with a nametag on the breast pocket. Taking a seat, she hunches over her drink, as though she’s embarrassed to be seen with me.

  “I need to talk to you about that night again.”

  “What night?”

  “You were with Piper and Natasha at the Summer Festival. When was the last time you saw them?”

  “They were opposite the dodgems. There was a shoot-the-basket type game and Tash was trying to win a panda. I remember her arguing with the guy, saying the game was rigged because the balls were extra bouncy and they wouldn’t go through the hoop or kept bouncing off the rim.”

  “What time was that?”

  “Just after nine.”

  “Who were the girls with?”

  “Nobody really.”

  “Was anyone hanging around?”

  “They were talking to some boys.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know their names. They were Hayden’s friends.”

  “Was Hayden there?”

  “No.”

  “Who else?”

  “Everyone from town—kids and grown-ups—it was a big deal in Bingham.”

  I try to get names and to plot where the girls drifted to during the course of the evening. Emily talks, large-eyed, nodding faintly now and then.

  “Was there anyone who made you feel uncomfortable,” I ask. “Someone who looked odd or stood out in some way?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What about Tash’s uncle?”

  “He was running the tombola. He was quite funny—some of the things he was saying. Getting people to buy more tickets.”

  “Who else did you see?”

  “Some girls from school… the vicar and his wife… Callum Loach was there with his family. People felt sorry for him. It’s not as though he could go on the rides.”

  “Did he talk to Tash or Piper?”

  “I don’t think so. I heard his father say something about Tash.”

  “What did he say?”

  She picks at her muffin, pulling out the blueberries. “It was pretty awful. He called her a prick-tease and a slag. Everybody knows he hates her.”

  “When Piper came to your house that night, where was Tash?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did Piper say anything?”

  “I knew something was wrong. Her clothes were dirty. She had mud on the knees of her jeans and on her elbows. I thought she must have fallen over. She sat on my bed and left dirt on the bedspread.”

  “Was she hurt?”

  “No.”

  “Had she been crying?”

  “Piper never cries.” Emily runs her fingers through her hair, hooking it over her ears.

  “You left the funfair at nine o’clock. Why was that?”

  “Mum had gone to hospital.”

  “Who called you?”

  “My dad.”

  “You said your mum lives in London now.”

  “Yeah.”

  “How often do you see her?”

  “When Dad lets me.”

  “How often would you like to see her?”

  A hurt helplessness ghosts over her face. Only crumbs remain on her plate. “I have to go. I only get fifteen minutes.”

  “Just one last thing,” I say. “Was there a special place where you girls used to hang out?”

  “You mean like a clubhouse?”

  “A favorite place.”

  “You make us sound like we’re eight and still using secret passwords.”

  I laugh. “It’s just that Piper and Tash took so little with them. No clothes were missing. I thought maybe they could have hidden bags. You said you were planning this.”

  “We were.” She peers out into the street. “That summer we hung out a lot at the leisure center. The pool. We used the lockers. Tash used to hide stuff there.”

  Emily pushes her empty cup away. She’s said too much. “I have to go.”

  Without waiting, she grabs her coat and I watch her skip across the road, looking both ways. A sense of disquiet has been growing within me like the beating of a war drum, repetitive, dull, getting stronger every day.

  She stops on the far side of the road and looks over her shoulder, holding my gaze for a fraction of a second as though worried about what she’s left behind, but determined to go on without it.

  My dad once told me that people

  can sometimes do amazing things when they’re in life-and-death situations. Mothers can lift cars off their trapped babies and people have survived falls from airplanes.

  When the time comes, maybe I can do something amazing. Every time I contemplate stabbing George, my throat starts closing. It feels like a heart attack, although I don’t know how a heart attack is supposed to feel. I imagine like heartburn only a million times worse because you don’t die of heartburn.

  I know it’s a panic attack. I’ve had them before. Tash used to help me get through them. She would hold a bag over my mouth and get me to breathe slowly or she’d rub my back, telling me to picture something that made me happy, a place or a person.

  That’s what I do now. I imagine I’m lying on the grass on a beautiful sunny day in our garden beside the pond. Phoebe is next to me and I’ve made her a clover crown and a matching bracelet and necklace. Mum is in the kitchen cooking chicken Kiev, which is my favorite.

  I know it sounds corny, like a scene from a washing powder advert, but it takes my mind off my panic attack. After a few minutes I start to breathe normally again. I go to the sink and wash my face. Boiling water in a saucepan, I cook pasta and mix it with a teaspoon of oil. I can only swallow a few mouthfuls. My nerves are too bad for eating.

  I look at the trapdoor and listen. If not today, maybe he’ll be here tomorrow.

  I’ve washed out an empty can of baked beans, which I’m using as a hearing device. I hold it against the wall and put my ear to the base, hoping to hear Tash on the other side. I even imagine that she’s doing the same thing, listening for me. Our heads might almost be touching.

  On the night we finally decided to run away our heads were touching and we made promises to each other. I thought Tash was unbreakable but that night she shattered into a million little pieces and I tried so hard to pick them up again.

  Ever since Aiden Foster’s trial she had talked about running away. Getting expelled from school simply created a timetable. We had one more summer in Bingham, she said. When school went back, we’d have to leave.

  The Summer Festival was on the last weekend of the holid
ays. There were funfair rides, stalls and sideshows on Bingham Green. The local pony club put on a display and Reverend Trevor judged the dressage competition.

  The entire day was supposed to be a celebration. It began with morning tea in the gardens of The Old Vicarage—one of the traditions that Mum and Dad had to agree to when they bought the house. Apparently, according to local historians (by which I mean busybodies), the vicarage had hosted a morning tea for estate workers and townsfolk for the past a hundred and sixty-two years.

  I don’t know what an estate worker is, but most of the visitors were old biddies from the church, sitting at long tables on the lawn. There were scones, sponge cakes, trifles and summer puddings under muslin to keep the flies and sticky fingers away. Jasmine Dodds brought her new baby, whose scalp was all scaly like it was molting, but that didn’t stop everyone ooh-ing and ah-ing every time it burped. Jasmine used to babysit me when I was a kid.

  At lunchtime Mr. Swanson, the town butcher, set up a spit and roasted a pig that looked so much like a naked person it made me feel like a cannibal when my mouth watered.

  Mum and Dad made me work all day, serving tea and cakes, then clearing away dishes and washing up. I stacked chairs and replaced divots in the lawn. Meanwhile, I listened to squeals from the Disco Rider and saw people climbing the giant slide and heard the PA system telling parents where to pick up their missing kids.

  Finally my temper got the better of me. I said it was fucking unfair and told Mum she was being a vindictive bitch. Dad’s shoulders slumped like he was deflating. I’d disappointed him again.

  I was sent to my room. Grounded. I could hear Mum and Dad arguing about sending me away again. She was saying I was out of control and he was telling her not to overreact.

  Tash sent me an email from her phone with a photo attached. She and Emily were sitting in the pirate ship, their hair flying as it swung back and forth. I couldn’t even text them. My phone had been confiscated. What would they take away next?

  At eight-thirty I made a show of brushing my teeth and getting ready for bed. Phoebe and Ben were already asleep. As soon as I heard Mum and Dad start watching a movie in the lounge, I opened my bedroom window. From the roof I could climb onto the old stables and slide down the tree onto the woodpile. Crossing the garden, I silenced the frogs and crickets. Slipping through the side gate, I was only two minutes from the green.

  Tash and Emily were near the bungee trampoline. They’d been riding the roller and were laughing how their dresses would flip up every time the cars went upside down.

  It was only nine o’clock and the fair didn’t stop until midnight. We walked arm in arm between the sideshows. Tash was in her element, batting her eyelids and tossing her hair. Boys and grown men were looking at her, some like puppies, others like predators.

  Soon after nine Emily got a phone call about her mum being taken to hospital. It wasn’t the first time. We were getting used to Mrs. Martinez being sick. I remember wishing my mum would get carted off to hospital, which makes me feel guilty now.

  Tash slipped her hand down her pants and pulled out a small pillbox, pulling my hand until we were behind one of the tents.

  “I only have one. We’ll have to share.”

  She popped it in her mouth, slipped her arm through mine and kissed me, pressing her tongue hard against mine until the pill crumbled and dissolved like aspirin. She pulled away giggling. My cheeks were burning.

  “I think you liked that,” she said, teasing me. Already I could feel the E filling me up with chemical joy. I could taste the music, which was fizzing in my brain like lemon sherbet.

  She took my hand again.

  “Let’s go swimming.”

  “But the pool’s closed.”

  “I know how we can get in.”

  She was talking about the leisure center. Tash was pulling at my arm, dragging me with her. The idea of going swimming with her brought a flutter of happiness inside me. There were some drunken teenagers talking to the police near the park entrance. Tash steered me around them and we ran all the way to the leisure center.

  It was a hot night, full of insect sounds and the smell of honeysuckle and jasmine. Every one of my senses seemed to be heightened. I could have run faster than ever before. I could have run all the night and into next week.

  The only thing that seemed strange was my voice. I didn’t sound like me.

  “We have to get out of this place,” said Tash, with the exhausted affectation of a bored housewife. “It’s so small and mean and…”

  “Boring?”

  “If we don’t escape, we’ll go mad with boredom. We’ll be trapped. We’ll get married and pregnant and buy a house and be stuck here for fifty years like our parents.”

  She twirled onto the street with her arms outstretched, shouting, “We’re going to be free!” and spinning round and round before collapsing drunkenly onto the grass, dizzy and laughing uncontrollably.

  The leisure center has two small outdoor pools and a larger one indoors beneath a domed roof where pool lights shone blue and painted patterns on the interior walls.

  We walked around the outside, following the wire security fence. Someone had parked a builder’s skip behind the administration block, next to one of the brick pylons.

  Tash climbed onto the skip.

  “You’ll have to give me a leg-up.” She flipped the hem of her dress, showing me her thong. “No peeking.”

  I cupped my hands together and she stepped into my palms. Then she shimmied upwards onto the brick pillar where she posed like a sea captain, staring into the distance.

  “I see water.”

  “What about me?”

  “Follow the fence. I’ll let you through the gate.”

  It was dark and I cracked my shin against a bike rack, cursing and hopping on one foot, rubbing the other. I called out to Tash. She didn’t answer.

  I peered through the fence, wondering where she’d gone. Then I spied her near the gate, her short dress hanging loosely from her shoulders, her hair askew. Through the drugs and dark, she looked like a mermaid who had shed her tail and learned to walk.

  She was looking over her shoulder and then she began to run, kicking up her feet like a newborn foal. At first I thought she was running away from me, but then I realized that she was running in my direction. She didn’t slow down. She smacked into the wire fence headlong and fell backwards. Up again, she tried to climb, but couldn’t get traction. Not strong enough.

  “Run, Piper,” she said. “Run!”

  36

  Drury gazes from his office window at the gray winter day, the eve of Christmas Eve. A wind has sprung up but the clouds seem too solid to move. Concrete. Summer might never come again.

  “It’s not Victor McBain,” I say.

  The DCI doesn’t seem to be listening. After a long pause, he turns to me and gives himself a heave as though shifting a heavy load from one shoulder to the other.

  “What changed your mind?”

  “On the night of the blizzard he was with a woman at a hotel. He doesn’t want to implicate her.”

  “We need a name.”

  “Will it be made public?”

  “Not unless it’s relevant.”

  “Sarah Hadley.”

  “He told you that?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you believe him?”

  “I do.”

  Drury’s eyes move around the office, focusing on his desk, the back of his chair, the windowsill, but his mind is elsewhere. Perhaps he’s contemplating his own infidelity or trying to remember a time when people didn’t disappoint him.

  “I don’t know how many people I’ll have left by tomorrow,” he says. “People want to get home for Christmas. My budget is blown and I can’t pay them overtime.”

  “What about the search?”

  “We’re going over old ground. I’m scaling it down.”

  Voices interrupt him, the sound of a commotion. He turns back to the window. A crowd has gath
ered on the footpath outside. TV cameras, reporters and photographers: encircling Hayden McBain. He’s wearing a blue blazer and has combed his hair.

  “My sister is dead and they have the nerve to arrest me,” he yells, pointing at the station. “They locked me up. They threatened me. They told me to shut up. Well, I won’t stay quiet. I’m going to sue these bastards for wrongful arrest, personal injury and emotional suffering. I’m going to sue them for destroying my good name.”

  Drury rests his forehead against the glass, leaving an oily mark.

  “Look at that toe-rag,” he mutters. “He’s got himself an agent, some Max Clifford type who’s flogging his story to the highest bidder. He should have been charged.”

  “It would have made things worse.”

  “He’s profiteering. There should be laws.”

  Another interruption. Dave Casey this time.

  “You’re going to want to see this, boss. Sky News just posted new pictures of Natasha McBain on their website. They’re saying they were taken on the night before she disappeared.”

  Casey types the webpage address on the desktop computer. The page loads with photographs beneath a headline: “Natasha’s Last Dance.”

  The images are poor quality, taken on a mobile phone, but the subject is instantly recognizable. Natasha McBain is wearing a short summer frock and appears to be dancing. Spinning. The movement causes the dress to lift from her hips.

  She has an audience of men, although I can’t see their faces. They’re sitting on benches or standing around her, watching her dance.

  These are the last images ever taken of tragic teenager Natasha McBain, who disappeared three years ago with her best friend Piper Hadley. The photographs were taken only hours before Natasha went missing from a summer festival in Bingham, Oxfordshire, on August 30, 2008.

  Natasha’s body was discovered last week in a frozen lake half a mile away from her home.

  “I want the originals,” orders Drury. “I want to know who took them.”

  Fifteen minutes later a call is patched through to the deputy director of news at the cable channel. Nathan Porter has a Brummie accent full of chummy bonhomie. He’s on speakerphone.