by Roz Watkins
‘No.’ She shoved a twenty at him. ‘Keep the change, and—’
The driver pocketed the cash and accelerated away as if he had wolves at his tail.
Bex took a deep breath, then dragged her suitcase through the rusty gate and up the overgrown path. The rain and wind were so strong it was as if she was at sea, being thrown around by waves. She banged her fist on the door, but it had a dead feel, as if nobody had opened it for years. There was no bell. She kicked the base of the door, feeling her tears hot under the freezing rain. What kind of dad would do this? Not pick her up from the station, not even be at the door to welcome her.
She hauled the suitcase back to the lane and dragged it onto a path that led to the rear of the house. The weight of it felt monstrous and she had a fleeting memory of packing it, folding summer clothes and imagining herself spending mellow, warm days with her family. She swallowed a sob.
She’d expected to see a back door that she could knock on. It hadn’t occurred to her that anyone would be outside. But there were people in the back yard, visible through the drenching, buffeting rain. Three of them, encased in huge yellow waterproofs, pulling things around. They were piling up sandbags, trying to stop the torrent of water flowing off the rocks and heading for the house.
One of the people turned towards her. Kirsty, her older sister, her face half-hidden by a huge hood. Bex opened her mouth to shout a greeting, but Kirsty turned away again and carried on shifting sandbags. Had she not seen Bex? She’d stared right at her. Bex felt a flush of humiliation. Had her sister deliberately ignored her?
Bex couldn’t make herself call out. Instead she stood in the yard, invisible, rain bouncing off her stupid city coat, her case deposited in the river which gushed towards the house, her shoes engulfed in pig-shitty water, and let the tears flow.
8
Meg – Present day
Monday
I returned from creating a salad – or rather, pouring a bag of salad into a bowl – and found Hannah in my living room watching a cop drama on TV. Hamlet was sprawled over her lap, kneading exuberantly. I handed her a glass of wine and plonked myself on the sofa. My mind kept replaying the conversation with Tony Nightingale, but I tried to put Violet from my thoughts and focus instead on my evening with Hannah.
Hannah shifted Hamlet’s paws. ‘Good job I’m low on nerve-endings around there, Hamlet. Yay for spina bifida.’
‘Oh God, shall I move him?’ I could never tell how serious Hannah was being when she said things like that.
‘He’s fine. But do you need help with the food? Thai green curry. Home-made. I’m impressed.’
‘I never said it was made in this home. I got it from the garden centre last week and stuck it in the freezer. I’ve no time to cook, not with a high-profile missing person case which I can’t afford to cock up.’
‘Oh wow, you mean that girl? The sexy sausage girl? Are you on that? I’m honoured you’re even here.’
Violet’s face flashed into my mind. A girl of contradictions. A girl who was starting to wriggle under my skin. ‘I nearly cancelled. Whatever you do, don’t let me get hammered – I have to be up super-early tomorrow.’
‘What’s happened to her? Missing from an abattoir? That’s seriously disturbing. Is it animal rights people? They hate her guts. I had a look at some of her videos. Strange girl. Why would you do that? I suppose she gets money from adverts.’ Hannah was having a conversation all on her own. I wondered if I could avoid answering.
‘So, what do you think’s happened to her?’ Hannah said.
Obviously not. ‘No idea, yet.’
‘Is it the animal rights people? The ones in the hideous meat suits? I mean, I might have said those little barbecue-dances she does are a hanging offence, but …’
I gave her a stern look.
‘Okay, I get the message.’ Hannah nodded towards the TV. ‘Have you seen this new American one? I couldn’t help noticing that the female detective is always beautifully made-up and conducts her investigations in a pencil skirt and high heels.’
‘Oh, we all do that,’ I said.
Hannah snorted. ‘If you wore shoes like those, they’d have had to surgically remove a stiletto from Craig’s head by now.’
‘We’re getting along better these days. I think it’s all a cover for deep-seated insecurity.’ Although when I pictured Craig with a shoe wedged into his smug, bull-doggy face, the image lingered enticingly.
‘Isn’t it always?’ Hannah said. ‘Doesn’t make it any easier to deal with.’
On the TV, the detective chased and apprehended a criminal, still in her heels. ‘I think they must give her superpowers. Maybe I do need a pair.’ I made a Wonder Woman noise. ‘Stiletto Woman! She can run really fast without separating her legs at the thigh!’
‘How much have you had to drink?’ Hannah said. ‘I thought you weren’t supposed to get hammered.’
‘Ah, you know. It doesn’t count if you drink it while cooking. Or defrosting.’
‘So, been on any hot dates recently?’
‘No, Hannah. Seriously. I don’t need this in my life. I read this dating blog the other day and you wouldn’t believe the stories. You’re lucky if the guys you meet have just the one wife and a few of their own teeth.’
‘Yeah, I’ve got to admit, numbers of wives and children does seem subject to rounding errors.’
‘The stuff in this blog was mad. Necrophiliacs, people with walls of knives. All that.’
‘Sounds like the software engineers at work,’ Hannah said. ‘Have you noticed if someone fricassees and eats their lover’s body parts, the cook is always in IT? And talking of bad dates, one guy greeted me by saying, You’re quite pretty for someone in a wheelchair.’
‘Oh Christ, really?’
‘I can’t be arsed with trying to meet someone at the moment either. I wonder if looking for men online is more fun than actually meeting them.’
‘Much like house-hunting online, as opposed to turning up and seeing the desperation in the eyes of the poor bastards who’ve spent three hours cleaning away all residue of their sticky children and moulting dogs, and then you realise within two seconds of stepping into the house that it’s not for you, but you have to go through the whole sad rigmarole of traipsing round saying, “That’s nice,” in every room.’
‘House-hunting going well then, Meg?’
‘I’ll get there.’ My eyes drifted to the damp corner of my living room. I was fond of my rented place, despite its undoubted problems. It was on a beautiful cobbled street in Belper, and I’d started to see its uneven floors and draughty windows as features rather than irritants. It had been good in the hot weather, its perpetual dampness creating a refrigeration effect, although I’d be wandering around in my extra-long scarf tripping over penguins come winter.
‘I used to wonder if this cottage was haunted,’ Hannah said.
‘Whaaat?’ She was normally so logical, and yet she thought ghosts might be stalking the property.
‘It’s cold and there are strange noises. And you always used to look up at the ceilings …’ Hannah blushed. ‘Sorry. I know why you did that.’
‘I think we can lay the blame at the door of the geriatric boiler. You know there’s that company called Victorian Plumbing, which I always thought was a weird name. Well, my boiler actually is Victorian plumbing. And as for me looking at the ceilings …’
‘I’m sorry. I know.’
‘Yes. It’s okay. I’m over it. Most of the time I can walk into a room without thinking a family member’s going to be hanging from the rafters. It’s all good.’
Hannah winced. ‘I honestly don’t know why I said that.’
‘It’s fine. And maybe the house is haunted. It’s ancient and it has its own microclimate and socks disappear all the time. Maybe there’s a poltergeist.’
‘Ha. Yeah, why can’t poltergeists ever tidy up, if they’re in the market for shifting stuff around.’ Hannah paused. ‘Seriously though, I know you’
ll battle on and work hard and get far too emotionally involved in your new case, because that’s what you’re like, but you do need time … you know, to get over your gran.’
‘Time to get over being a coward and letting her suffer needlessly, after all she’d been through?’
‘It wasn’t your fault, Meg. She said she didn’t want to go to Dignitas after all.’
‘She was just protecting us. And me and Mum knew it. We knew the kindest thing was to take her, but we let her persuade us not to.’
‘You’d been through a lot too. And you weren’t to know it would drag on so long and so … horribly.’
I felt my eyes mist over with tears. I wanted to tell Hannah how much I appreciated her, how important she was to me, even though I could be prickly. She knew what I was like, knew how I could fall into that pit. I couldn’t find the words. ‘Hannah, I’m okay. But … thanks for keeping an eye on me.’
She shook her head slightly. ‘Someone has to. And how’s your mum doing?’
I closed my eyes and pictured Mum rigid with grief and horror at what Gran had gone through. ‘She’s a lot better at coping than me. Throwing herself at causes like a silver-haired ninja. I’m not sure her reaction’s entirely normal.’
‘Since when has your mum been normal? For her, heading off to El Salvador on a mercy-mission is quite in character.’
A knock on the door. ‘Oh shit, Jai’s here.’ I blinked and leaped up, negotiating the hallway, which was narrowed by the presence of too many books. The front door had been sticking in the hot weather and I had to give it such a wrench, I stumbled backwards when it finally opened.
Jai looked at me with a slight frown. ‘Always so composed and dignified.’
‘Yeah, maybe Stiletto Woman isn’t my destiny super-hero.’ I grabbed the bottle of wine and six-pack of beer he was holding. ‘I can barely stay upright in flats.’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’ He caught my eye. ‘Are you okay?’
I hurriedly rubbed my face. ‘Yes, come in.’
Jai stepped in, surveying the piles of books stacked along the wall. ‘Have they been breeding? Asexual reproduction?’
‘I had to move them around to do some cleaning. They’re reeling from the shock of it, but they’ll be fine. Come and meet Hannah.’
I led Jai into the living room and made the introductions.
‘I finally get to meet him!’ Hannah cried, then turned to Jai: ‘She’s always going on about you.’
‘I am not always going on about him, Hannah. Jesus.’
I sat Jai on the chair in the damp corner. Hamlet gave him one of the slow blinks I loved so much, and settled deeper into Hannah’s knee, purring furiously. I went to check on the food.
When I returned with drinks, it was obvious they were bonding. Possibly over-bonding.
‘Does she give you that look too?’ Hannah said. ‘Like it could freeze boiling oil.’
I put wine glasses on the coffee table. ‘I am here, you know.’
‘There’s the look,’ Jai said.
I ignored him. ‘I think we’ll eat in here. It’s too cramped in the kitchen and the garden’s complicated.’
‘That’s fine,’ Hannah said. ‘Saves me having to move. Are you working on that case too, Jai? The sausage girl?’
‘She’s a real person,’ I said. ‘Just because you’ve seen her eating sausages in a bikini doesn’t mean she’s pretend.’
‘Sorry,’ Hannah said. ‘You’re right. Famous people never seem real.’
I wanted to say, She’s not what you think. She’s not just a girl in a bikini. She reads feminist books and appreciates art. But obviously I couldn’t say that.
I nipped out to check on the food and returned with three plates on a tray. I overhead Jai saying, ‘Yes, Suki wants kids of her own, but she doesn’t like mine very much. It’s as if she thinks by accepting mine, she’s giving up on having her own. But I don’t want more.’ How did Hannah get people to do this? I should have had her on the interrogation team.
I handed them plates. ‘It’s like my silver service days all over again. Guests chatting away to each other; me the irrelevant waitress.’
‘Except you haven’t chucked boiling-hot soup in my lap,’ Hannah said. She was attempting to eat her food without moving Hamlet. There’s an unwritten rule in my house about moving cats.
My mobile went. I put my plate down and fished it from my pocket, in case it was work-related. Dad. The father I hadn’t heard from in months, who hardly ever phoned me and was relatively monosyllabic when I called him. I stared at the screen, frozen. My finger hovered.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘It’s Dad. I’d better take it. He never calls. Something must be wrong.’
I touched the green button. ‘Dad, are you okay?’
His voice came over too loud, as if he was nervous. ‘Yes, fine. And you?’
I stood and mouthed, ‘Sorry,’ to Hannah and Jai. They were already deep in conversation. No doubt Hannah was telling him all my most excruciating stories.
I walked into the hallway. ‘What’s going on, Dad?’
‘Do I need a reason to phone my daughter?’
Irritation fought with that old desire to please him. ‘You never normally call.’
He separated his words, as if it was the early days of telephone communication. ‘I thought I might visit you.’
I sank onto the hall stairs. ‘Visit me? Why?’
‘To see you. I know your grandmother died recently. I wanted to make sure you were all right.’
I felt tears welling up. He hadn’t visited me for years. ‘Have you spoken to Mum?’
‘She doesn’t like talking to me.’
‘But Dad, she tried calling you about Gran and you didn’t get back to her.’
‘I never got those messages. So is it okay if I visit?’
‘Of course it is. My house isn’t big though. You know that? Or tidy.’
‘I heard. Your mother said you were thinking of buying somewhere.’
‘So you did speak to her?’
‘Briefly.’ No surplus information there. Dad had a tendency to miss out the bits that other people added to conversations without being asked. The bits that kept things flowing and meant you didn’t spend the whole time feeling off-kilter. I couldn’t remember the last time Mum and Dad had spoken. Dad and Gran had never liked one another, and he hadn’t come to her funeral. I felt out of my depth – the kid who didn’t understand her parents’ conversations.
‘You know what my work’s like.’ The very thought of managing both Dad and the new case threw me into a panic. ‘We’re swamped. And I’ve just taken on a case that could be big. You’ll barely see me if you come soon. When were you thinking?’
There was a moment of silence. I’d learned with Dad not to fill these gaps. You got more out of him if you waited.
‘I thought maybe tomorrow,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t matter if you’re busy, I can amuse myself.’
‘Tomorrow? As in the day after today?’ I pictured my spare room, the bed piled high with books, the floor covered in old paperwork, the spiders lurking in the corners with long-term tenancy rights.
‘Is tomorrow all right with you?’
I couldn’t very well say no, but this didn’t feel normal. ‘It’s fine. Just don’t expect to see a lot of me. I can’t take time off work at such short notice. If you arrive before me, you’ll have to let yourself in and make yourself at home. The key’s in the key-safe on the left side of the front door, and it’s the first four digits of root 3.’
I cursed his unwillingness to tell me what the hell was going on. Because clearly something was. There was no way this was a social call.
9
Meg – Present day
Tuesday
I woke early and flicked on the bedside light, trying to remember how much wine I’d had the night before. At least I was calculating glasses rather than bottles, which was promising. I’d stayed up late talking to Hannah about G
ran. Not a sensible move in the circumstances.
Violet was still missing. With each hour, the chances of finding her alive notched down. I crawled out of bed, pulled on my dressing gown, headed downstairs and stuck the kettle on. Hamlet emerged from a cardboard box by the door and stretched a front leg at me. He gave a supportive and rousing commentary while I sorted him out a breakfast of fine fillets of horribly slaughtered animal.
While Hamlet tucked in with enviable guilt-free gusto, I plonked myself down at the table and opened my laptop. Dawn was shining through my grubby kitchen window and suffusing the room with golden pink light, the summer continuing to hold a hot, dry finger up to climate change deniers.
If Violet’s birth mother was this woman Bex Smith, who turned out to be alive after all, could Violet be with her? But why not contact her family or friends? It seemed inconceivable that someone so connected wouldn’t get in touch with anyone.
I wanted to get a feel for Violet. Who she’d been before she became a case. A few years ago, missing people were like shadows. All the information about them came from others. Hearsay. We didn’t see them talking and, unless they wrote diaries, we never heard from them directly. This had all changed. The murdered and the missing were amongst us still, with their blogs and vlogs and social media presence. Violet had taken this to a new level. There was so much online, you could practically resurrect a virtual version of her, like an episode of Black Mirror. And since everyone interacted online anyway, it would be almost as if she’d never gone, although she might not be making any new bikini videos.
I went to the Great Meat Debate website and clicked through to one of Violet’s YouTube videos. She was cooking chops, wearing the trademark skimpy swimwear and the pelican brooch on a slim silver chain around her neck. Flat stomach, cellulite-free thighs. The evening sunshine cast a rose glow on her lightly tanned skin. I wondered what it would feel like to look like that. She probably took it for granted, like I did my uncanny ability to pass exams. I prayed to the imaginary friend I kept in my head for these purposes – please let her still be smooth-skinned and beautiful, not seething with maggots in a vat of pig guts.