by Sarah Wray
‘How long has she been gone?’
Daz shakes his head. He throws open the other doors in the room. A bedroom, no bed clothes on the double bed, just a mattress; clothes and CDs strewn around the floor. A tiny bathroom with a sink and toilet, lino curling up, stopping the door opening properly. Daz loses his temper with the door, kicking it hard.
He shakes his head at Ashy. ‘She ain’t here.’
‘Did you see your mate go? Oi you!’ Ashy kicks at Kat’s foot with his.
‘Didn’t see nothing,’ she says, without looking up.
Ashy runs his hands over the sides of his head. ‘Right, think. We’ve got to move. Get her downstairs now.’
Daz stands over me, thinking about how to drag me out of the chair. It’s my last chance. I bunch my fists. I read somewhere you should try scraping your shoe down someone’s shin, or aim to hit the bridge of their nose with your head if they grab you from behind. Plunge your thumb into their eye; I am flexed.
I try to send a mental signal to Kat; that we need to work together. We have to get away. But when I look over at her, she’s looking at the window. Blue lights are popping across the glass, and I become aware of the sound of sirens.
Daz goes for the door but there are already sounds of feet coming up the stairs. Kat is shaking, her head buried in her hands.
Thirty-Seven
Monday, 23 November
The rain on my hair and clothes is uncomfortable as soon as I go into the overheated home to see Mum. I feel sticky and irritable. It reminds me of mornings in London going to work on the Tube.
Mum’s sitting in her chair today in a coffee-coloured, cable-knit cardigan, Doodlebug on her lap, his body curled around. Simon told me before I came in that she’s having a ‘good day’.
I don’t know where they get these clothes from. They’re not Mum’s clothes. Probably from a charity shop or people who’ve lived here before. Died here, maybe. When I ask him, Simon says it’s because she’s been gaining weight. She eats more than she needs, if they don’t watch her. She forgets what she’s had, doesn’t know when to stop.
She’s watching Countdown, seemingly enthralled. The conundrum clock is ticking down in the background. Time is running out. She looks up when I say ‘Hi’, and gives me a big smile. I pull up the chair next to her and we hold hands. Her hands are soft and warm.
‘I’ve got something for you, Mum.’
She struggles to get out of the chair, standing up without warning so that Doodlebug falls straight down, just springing his legs out in time to land. Sheepish, he heads for the door, mewling to be let out. I go over and open the door a crack and he scampers through.
‘You don’t need to stand up, Mum. Sit down.’ I take the box out slowly. I don’t want her to be more shocked and confused than she needs to be. It’s an old-fashioned ring box; a hinge at the back and a red velvet cushion inside, the ring held in a slit in the fabric.
‘I found your ring, Mum. Here, hold out your hand.’
She claps her hand to her mouth, so I take it in mine and put the ring in her palm. It won’t go on her finger; it will have to go back into the jewellery box later.
I went to the pawnbrokers in town to get it. They keep the items for six months before selling them on, the man said. It was a traditional place. He had a shirt and tie on, a brown tabard.
‘It’s not that often people come back, love, I’ll tell you. But this is a nice one. And to be honest, there’s not all that much call for this style these days. I think it’s a bobby dazzler, though, don’t you? Such an unusual colour. I’m glad it’s going back to its rightful owner.’
I asked him, ‘Do you remember the man who brought this in?’
He pushed his glasses onto the top of his head and chewed on his pen. ‘I don’t, to be honest, pet. I get a lot of people through here every day. Between me and you, some people set off my spidey senses and I’m suspicious about the stuff so I have a closer look. I have to protect myself. I don’t want stolen goods, you know. But this, this doesn’t ring any bells. Probably a good sign that I don’t remember him.’ He gave me a warm smile but started to close his book to signal the conversation was over, that he had to get on.
Mum is looking at me, searching my face.
‘I’m sorry, Mum; I’m sorry for not listening to you properly. Your ring was lost, like you said. And Chris did take it. You were right. I’m sorry.’
Mum looks up at this, but then she goes back to admiring the ring between her fingers, tilting it from side to side to admire the sparkle.
I fix my eyes on the TV screen, concentrating on the maths problem presented on Countdown, but the numbers jumble around in my head. I feel so tired, even though I have done nothing but rest: rest and think, since the night with Kat and Paige. Mum doesn’t look away from the screen either, but she gives my hand a gentle squeeze. Hot tears soundlessly pour from my eyes. Mum looks panicked for a second. But I look at her intently to tell her I’m OK. She strokes my hand.
‘I know he’s sorry, Mum.’
I can’t get my head around the fact he was so unhappy or in such a bad situation that he couldn’t talk to me. That I didn’t realise. I don’t know if he just hid it all or I wasn’t paying attention. My view is so warped from looking back at our life through the lens of Kayleigh’s disappearance, that I can’t put things back in place now.
But I know we were happy, we had been happy. That much is true. I have that.
Mum puts her hand on my back. I don’t know if she can process what I have told her.
When I come round, the room is on its side. It takes me a moment to realise where I am, here in Mum’s room. The strains of Coronation Street play in the background. How long did I sleep for? I must have fallen asleep on Mum’s bed somehow. There’s a purple crocheted blanket over me. Mum or Simon? I take a drink from the water by Mum’s bed. It tastes stale: warm and dusty.
I lie for a few more seconds, not wanting to get up. Mum’s still watching TV. When I go over to her, she is looking glazed at the TV, twisting the ring between her fingers.
She turns to face me. ‘Is Chris coming today? Can I see your dad?’
Thirty-Eight
Monday, 23 November
Outside on the seafront, the Christmas lights have been switched on. We don’t bring in celebrities here to cut ribbons or sing in daft festive jumpers. The council just quietly turns the lights on one evening. The coloured bulbs must sit there, grey and unlit, for days or even weeks before they’re switched on.
I wander back towards the caravan, feeling dazed from the sleep and the heat. The sudden temperature change is making my eyes swell. I know that it’s happening today. And I know that I shouldn’t go. But something is drawing me, too. I am gravitating towards the park.
The park is full of people – over 200, it looks like. I stand at a safe distance. Not long after Kayleigh’s vigil was supposed to happen in this same place, they’re holding a memorial service for her. They’re holding white paper lanterns, ready to release them, flaming into the air. Standing on the edges behind a tree, I stay hidden but close enough to watch.
There’s coloured balloons too: blue, pink and yellow. Drifting across the town.
Flowers and teddy bears have been piled carefully around a tree; heads bent weeping, girls and women huddling together in twos and threes. Adam from the phone shop is there and I recognise some of the boys from the park and the school. No sign of Kat or Paige. I wonder how they are, if they’ll be OK. Where do they go from here?
Kids from the local schools are carrying candles, wearing their uniforms and singing hymns. ‘Colours of Day’. A stab of pain reminds me that we had that at our wedding. It was one of my grandma’s favourites.
Seeing Janice, Kayleigh’s mum, twists my guts. Her face is etched with pain.
There’s a ghetto blaster on the floor and one of the teenagers fiddles with it, then walks away. I strain to place the song at first, although I know I have heard it before. On the radio, I
think.
It’s a woman’s voice. Young. It’s poppy, an ethereal sweep to it. Maybe Kayleigh liked the song.
Janice falls to the floor, to her knees, choking on her sobs. People gather round her, rubbing her back uselessly, like anything could be of comfort to her. Eventually, she is helped back to her feet, distraught and uneasy, unable to manage her own balance. She looks over in my direction, seemingly distracted, holding my gaze for longer. It feels as though she is looking right at me, but I can’t be sure. And for those moments she is calmer. After a while she turns towards one of the women with her, hiding her face in their shoulder. The music is still playing, floating across the park, as I turn to leave.
The sky is darkening, a thick fog hovering above the water. The colours from the amusement arcades cut through it, twinkling in the winter light.
When I get back to the caravan, Detective Fisher is sitting on the caravan steps blowing into her hands. I give her a wave. I feel awkward walking towards her, conscious of the time it’s taking me to reach her, and she keeps looking away.
‘You’ll get piles sitting there like that in this weather,’ I say as she starts to get up.
‘I’ve had worse.’
I open the caravan door and she follows me in.
‘Tea?’ I ask.
‘Nah, I’m OK, thanks. I’ve been drinking it all day. How are you?’
‘I’ve been better. But I suppose I’ve been worse as well, in a way.’
She tilts her head to the side a little, seemingly unsure of what to say.
‘Do you need more information about… about the other night at Star Pizza?’ I ask her.
‘Not right now. I mean, I am sure I will, but thanks for your cooperation there. One of my colleagues will follow up with the next steps.’
‘Oh, so has something else happened?’
‘No. Actually, I was just passing so I thought I would drop in.’
We sit in silence for a while. Until I break it.
‘He isn’t coming back, is he?’
Detective Fisher doesn’t flinch. It isn’t really fair of me, I know that. But I think she was expecting this. She reflects before she answers me. Her legs are slightly apart and she rubs her hands on her thighs.
‘Well, I have to be honest. People who are… well, people who are missing for this long, usually if they are going to be found, if they want to be found… it’s… well, it’s earlier. Usually within forty-eight hours.’
‘I think he was depressed.’
‘Well, the gambling, the work problems. It could be the case. We see it,’ Detective Fisher says.
‘The work computer. Was it just gambling?’ I hate myself for asking.
She nods.
‘Do you think he’s dead?’
She looks up at the ceiling. ‘I can’t answer that. You know that.’
‘Did you ever think he did it then? Kayleigh?’
‘Rebecca, we were doing our job. We had to investigate all the possibilities. It didn’t add up, but the fact they disappeared on the same day – you can understand why we couldn’t let it go. He wasn’t the sole focus of the investigation.’
‘Yeah, you were “exploring all lines of enquiry”… You said.’ I realise what I sound like, check myself. ‘Sorry, I don’t mean to be such a cow.’
She smiles at me. ‘Don’t worry. I get it. I have a question for you.’
‘OK, go on.’
‘I still don’t understand why you didn’t call us sooner. When he was missing. I’ve never really got that.’
The film of that morning starts playing in my mind. I was asleep when he got in the night before, my head woolly with the virus. I didn’t hear him come in. When I woke the next morning, he was about to leave. He was almost creeping out. He would usually wake me up to say goodbye.
‘Did you get me some cold and flu stuff?’ I asked him.
‘Oh shit, I forgot,’ he said. He looked sorry.
My temper snapped. ‘You’re useless, do you know that?’ came out of my mouth. I spat it. He grabbed his bag and went. It’s the last thing I ever said to him in person.
When he didn’t come back, I assumed he was upset, cooling off, that we’d sort it out. I hadn’t reacted like that before. It was just illness, tiredness, a bad patch – the combination of everything. That’s why I didn’t call straight away. I thought he’d gone home to Peterborough or back to London for the weekend. But I didn’t tell Detective Fisher or anyone else about that. Because I didn’t want that to be the way we are cast. I won’t now either, because it isn’t who we were.
‘There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.’ I read that somewhere once, a version of it anyway. Now, it keeps washing up into my mind.
Maybe I chose to ignore some of the signs with Chris, maybe they were never there. Everything is distorted through the prism of Kayleigh’s disappearance. It’s like reading a book backwards.
But now I have to decide how to think of us from here, which memories to keep and the ones to push aside.
The text he sent me later that day, saying he loved me. That’s who we are. That’s how I choose to remember us.
‘Rebecca?’ Detective Fisher prompts me. ‘So, why was it?’
‘I’ve already told you,’ I say. ‘My answer hasn’t changed.’
‘Suit yourself. What about you? Did you ever think he’d done it?’
‘Gut feeling was always no, of course,’ I tell her. ‘But I let myself be swayed. By coincidences. By being exhausted and desperate. By I don’t know what. But I don’t know if I can forgive myself for that.’
‘Well, you should forgive yourself. You have to. No one would know how to react in your circumstances.’
I look out onto the caravan park.
‘And for what it’s worth,’ Fisher says, ‘my gut feeling was that he didn’t do it. But, well, I can’t do my job on gut feeling alone.’
‘I thought I saw him again the other day. Chris. Someone on the beach. Just for a moment and then he was gone. You think you’re making progress, you know, you have to find a way to deal with it and then in that second, it just brings it all back again.’
‘So what’s the plan, then? Will you go back to the house? Or back down to London?’
‘Nah, I’m just going to stay here for now. I kind of like it.’
‘What, even in the winter? It’s brass monkeys!’
‘Yeah, but I’ll have to think about what I’m going to do in the summer. I think the place will lose its charm when it’s full of screeching kids.’
‘I’d say so.’
‘The house is on the market. The agent said it’s a good time to sell because they’re building a school on the estate. But I’ll still be in Shawmouth, rent for a while, see what happens. I need to stay close to Mum anyway and I’ve made some good friends here. Jeannie’s always been there for me, and Simon and Julie have both done loads to help me out through all this.’
‘Well, you need them after everything, that’s for sure.’ Her voice is warm.
‘How are Kat and Paige?’
A flicker of something I can’t read goes across her face at this, and she tightens. ‘They’re doing as well as they can be. They are being supported.’
‘Will anything happen to them? I mean about Kayleigh and the drugs and everything?’
I keep thinking about whether they’ll be charged with manslaughter or perverting the course of justice or something. There’s that word again, ‘pervert’. I’m still getting the mental flashes now. Less often, though. I don’t like to put my head underwater at the pool anymore. My chest seizes up thinking about Kayleigh panicking in the water, what it must have been like.
‘The investigation is ongoing. We are supporting them as best we can and they are getting professional help. They have both had a traumatic experience and… this is going to take time. I don’t have easy answers for you, I’m afraid.’
‘They’re so yo
ung. They can’t be blamed for Kayleigh; for what they did. They were so scared of Ashy and Daz. They’d been threatened.’
‘As I said, Rebecca, I can’t say any more at the moment. But Kat and Paige are not our targets here. This is part of a much bigger investigation. We’re talking about a significant drugs operation.’
The story broke in the paper yesterday that a fourteen- and a fifteen-year-old girl are ‘helping the police with their enquiries’ about Kayleigh’s death. Those anonymous sources again. Three men have been arrested ‘in connection with a related enquiry’. It said the girls couldn’t be named for legal reasons, but when I looked on Twitter, I saw Paige’s and Kat’s names, photos too. And the names of other girls who have been wrongly connected with what happened to Kayleigh. The rumours whirring again.
The article in the paper says that Chris has been ‘eliminated’ from the investigation. But online there are still comments about him, fewer than before, but a steady trickle. Garish memes, his face photoshopped onto a picture of the Child Catcher.
‘And Chris?’ I ask Detective Fisher. ‘What now?’
‘The investigation has been scaled back, Rebecca. I’m sorry. Given the circumstances and how long he has been missing. But it will remain open… should there be any new evidence, of course, we will… I’m sorry, I know this is hard for you.’
‘So that’s it then.’
‘For now.’ She gets up to leave. ‘Before I go, Rebecca, there is one more thing.’
Thirty-Nine
Tuesday, 24 November
I’m nervous approaching the bungalow, double-checking the scrawl on the envelope that I have the right one.
The lane where the Archibalds live is on a slope, and their garden is on a vertical slope too, creating a curiously skewed balance. It’s filled with gnomes, over twenty – fishing, sleeping, golfing. Some just standing, all grinning. There are windmills too, the colourful paper ones that you used to get as a child. A small, home-made pond edged with seashells sits in the middle.