by Louise Stone
After a minute or so more, Stephen turned off the light in the kitchen, leaving me cloaked in darkness.
13
After a moment or two, I walked slowly down the length of our one-hundred-foot garden. We had placed a bench at the end under the large oak tree. I sat on the bench now, my back to the dark house. I looked up at the sky and wondered if Zoe could see the same stars I could.
‘Darling,’ I murmured, ‘if you can hear me, I love you. I love you so much, and I wish I had been able to tell you that. Please come back. Things will be different. I promise.’
My mind returned to my conversation with Stephen. I could tell he hadn’t bought my lie about the underwear. He wasn’t the only one with a terrible poker face. But, for now, he was clearly prepared to let it go. But why? Of course, I realised bitterly, he was prepared to let it go because he would store it away in his mental black book, in his list of things he could use to hurt me later.
It only occurred to me as I thought about it now, that while I was fabricating the lie about my sexy underwear, the reason he had appeared relieved was because he’d known I was lying. He would be more afraid, I realised in that moment, if he thought I might be trying to reignite our relationship. I knew with absolute certainty then that he had stayed at the conference, despite its being down the road, because he was sleeping with another woman – whether it was this Sarah person or someone else. I put my hand over my face, desperately wanting to laugh, but simultaneously all too aware of the lump in my throat. Our marriage was over, but then it had been for a long while. His infidelity made me even more resolute that keeping my whereabouts on Friday evening a secret was more necessary than ever. I would end up divorcing Stephen, but I had to play him at his own game. He was having an affair and that was where we were equals. He, however, knew about the adoption papers, and had control of all of our finances, which made it all the more important that I knew about his skeletons. There was no way I was the only one in this house with a secret.
I took my phone out of my pocket and quickly checked over my shoulder for any sign of movement in the house. Leaning forward so that my head was hidden in the shadows of the tree, I phoned Robert.
‘Frey,’ he answered. ‘You okay?’
‘No,’ I said, pushing down the fizzling anxiety at the base of my throat. ‘Someone sent Stephen photos of Zoe. Someone knows far too much about our lives.’
‘What? Oh, Freya.’ He breathed heavily into the receiver. ‘That’s awful.’
‘Yeah, she’s in her underwear at a party or something. The guys around her look university age, maybe even postgrads, but I don’t recognise anyone.’
‘Really? Why would someone send you photos like that?’ He paused. ‘Does it sound like something Zoe would even do? From what you’ve told me, she’s more sensible than that.’
‘I don’t know,’ I said miserably. ‘I really don’t know. It feels like someone wants Stephen and me to know how much we’ve failed Zoe. I thought I knew her, but maybe I don’t.’
‘Listen, I’ll start asking around. See what people know. Is that a good idea?’
I nodded, glanced quickly behind me. ‘Yes, yes. That would be wonderful.’ I was so grateful to him in that moment; someone who appeared to be talking sense and actually doing something. I knew the police were searching but they never relayed much information and it made me feel helpless and frustrated.
‘Okay, let me see you soon?’
‘Yes, yes.’ I smiled despite myself. ‘And thank you.’
‘I told you that I just want you to be happy, and I will do anything for you.’
My ears pricked at the sound of someone walking across the grass. I looked and Stephen was a few paces from where I sat.
‘Okay,’ I said hurriedly. ‘I’ll be in touch.’ Then, surprising myself, I added, ‘Love you.’
My heart thundered in my ears.
‘Freya…’ Stephen spoke quickly and I waited for him to question who had been on the phone, but he didn’t. I flushed guiltily, grateful for the enveloping darkness, and tried to slow my breathing as I turned.
‘I thought you had gone to bed.’
‘I had, then the phone went,’ he said briefly. ‘There’s been news.’
I stood abruptly, my heart beating wildly. ‘Of Zoe?’
‘No, not Zoe.’ He paused. ‘Carter’s on his way. I think you should come inside.’ He turned and started walking quickly towards the once again brightly lit living room.
‘Stephen, why can’t you just tell me?’ When he didn’t answer I called out, ‘What the hell is going on?’
When we entered the kitchen I noticed Stephen had a thin sheen of sweat across his forehead and he was shaking slightly.
‘Stephen?’ Anger flooded my body. ‘Just bloody tell me what’s going on.’
‘Someone’s come forward with some information about Zoe and, from her description, Keira, too. According to this woman, she thinks a girl helped Zoe…’ He took a deep breath. I tried not to push, in case he clammed up altogether, but I truly wanted to shake it out of him.
‘Helped her what?’ My head was spinning with possibilities but nothing could have prepared me for what came next.
‘In July, I think the detective said, Zoe had an abortion. Keira took her to the clinic.’ He stopped, like a train that had all of a sudden just run out of steam.
I moved backwards and sat down with a thud, nausea sweeping through me at a rate of knots. ‘And we didn’t know. We weren’t there for her.’ I shook my head in disbelief, looked up at Stephen.
‘That’s around when I thought she had got so much quieter,’ he said, barely looking at me. ‘She went through something like that without us.’
‘Stop fucking going on about how you noticed she had got quieter. If you noticed so damn much, why didn’t you do something about it?’
Stephen blinked. I don’t think he knew what to say.
‘Have they spoken to Keira?’
He pushed his hand through his greying hair. ‘Yes, they’re talking to her now.’
‘I can’t believe this.’ I stood again, my senses suddenly fully alert. ‘Keira will know who got Zoe pregnant, won’t she? Have they asked her that?’
Stephen nodded. ‘Carter said she doesn’t know, but apparently Zoe did tell her that he was an older guy who goes to the university.’
14
‘I need to speak to Keira,’ I said, pushing past Stephen and blustering towards the kitchen phone.
‘No, you don’t, Freya. The police are questioning her now, and Carter warned me not to contact them. Apparently Mrs Sullivan is talking about calling lawyers. We’re not allowed to approach her or get involved.’ He jogged to catch up with me. ‘Anyway, Carter says they are on to it. We have to trust him to do his job.’
I thought about our conversation earlier. How, one minute, Keira had been seemingly quite open with me and the next had entirely shut down. When I thought about it now, she had done a very good impression of a young girl under pressure to get a message to me: you have failed your daughter. Keira had known more than she was letting on, and now she was happy to drip feed us information by handing me the USB stick, by meeting me in the park and telling me she knew about Robert, by admitting to the police that she’d gone with Zoe to get an abortion. I had never trusted her, and I certainly didn’t trust her now.
However, Keira was the one pulling the strings. She knew in a moment she could reveal my affair. I had to be careful, as much as I wanted to push her. And I had to make sure Angela didn’t know I’d been in touch with her daughter.
Confusion and anxiety lapped at the edges of my brain, causing me to feel faint, and I rested my hands on the cold tile floor as I gathered myself.
I nodded. ‘Okay, I’ll drop it.’
Stephen went to go and answer the door. It was DI Carter and one of his officers. I looked at my phone and decided to message Keira anyway:
Call me. Please.
I needed to speak to Carter, f
ind out everything the police knew about sixteen-year-old daughter’s… I couldn’t bear to say the word, even in my head.
My phone buzzed as a text message came through. It was from Keira:
What do you want? Leave me alone or I’ll tell everyone about you and that student.
My fingers fumbled over the keys in a mad rush to delete the text message. Once I was sure the message had indeed been removed, I headed inside and tried to concentrate on my next move.
***
‘DI Carter?’
Carter turned around. ‘Hello, Freya. How you holding up?’
‘Have you questioned Keira yet?’
‘We’re on to it,’ he assured me as he answered his incessantly ringing phone and I sighed in frustration.
While Carter was on the phone, I noticed he was clutching the torn-up photos that had been hand-delivered earlier. Stephen went through to the living room, but I waited.
‘I need to speak to you,’ I whispered to Carter when he had come off the phone.
He met the intensity in my gaze and understood the need for a moment’s privacy. I checked over my shoulder once more but Stephen was nowhere to be seen. I reached into the pocket of my jeans and fingered the corners of the folded-up piece of paper.
‘This note was put through the door of…’ I cleared my throat. ‘One of my postgrad students.’
I took the note I had collected from my coat and handed it to him. He read it and raised a brow.
‘Is this person…?’
He didn’t have to say it. ‘Yes,’ I said, flushing. ‘He is.’
Carter nodded. ‘Okay, I think we need to talk, don’t you?’
I nodded but clammed up as Stephen walked into the kitchen.
‘I’m going up to Zoe’s room,’ I announced as Carter turned to his colleague. ‘I want to be with her.’
I expected Stephen to argue but he nodded. ‘Frey, listen, everything’s going to be okay. She’ll be back.’
I met his gaze and we shared something then we hadn’t shared in a long time: a mutual understanding of how empty our house felt, how much our hearts were hurting.
‘I pray to God you’re right, Stephen.’
I walked slowly up the stairs and entered her room. The forensics team had taken various items with them and there were the tell-tale signs of a police team trying to understand my daughter’s identity. I sat on the edge of her bed and realised that I was, in fact, doing the same: I, too, was having to get to know my daughter. The thought pained me, almost took my breath away. Was it possible for a mother to become so disconnected from her own child? First the half-naked photos from that party, and then the abortion. My little girl had had an abortion. When she was fifteen.
I wiped a solitary tear away and stared down at the rug: blue with white stars. Then, I remembered. Keira had said to look in Zoe’s diary.
Zoe kept her diary under one of the loose skirting boards in her bedroom. I shifted the rug and prised the board away. I had found it when I was looking for evidence of mice about a year ago. I’d known then I shouldn’t read it. I believed wholeheartedly that I should respect her privacy. But I was so adept at handling secrets in my double life that I’d ploughed on in anyway. I couldn’t believe it hadn’t occurred to me to look for clues here before; it could now hold the key to finding out what had been going through Zoe’s head in the past few months, and perhaps where she had gone. I blindly felt around for the notebook and I was surprised not to find it. Instead, my hand brushed against a piece of paper. I lifted it out and read Zoe’s curvy, girly handwriting:
WE ALL HAVE SECRETS. YOU HAVE YOURS AND I HAVE MINE
I scrunched the note up in my hand and stuffed it in my jeans pocket, Zoe’s words searing my trembling hand. Was she talking to me? How did she know I had found her diary? Maybe I had left the rug in a different position. I couldn’t think: wave after wave of crushing anxiety washed over me.
I needed air. I couldn’t wait up here for Carter any more. I made my way downstairs, intending to go outside, but the night’s previously clear sky had started to cloud over as the wind picked up. I shivered as cool air rushed at me through the open French doors. I drew them closed and turned to face the room. Stephen, I presumed, had gone to his study, but in any case, he was nowhere to be seen downstairs. A photo of Zoe taken about a month ago sat on the side and I picked it up, tracing the outline of her face with my forefinger.
‘Freya?’ DI Carter stood in the entrance to the living room. ‘We’ve just had a lead through on the farm. We’re heading up there now.’
My head shot up. A ringing started in my ears as I stepped towards Carter. ‘Really? What sort of lead?’ Just when I had accepted that Zoe had been deeply unhappy and had probably run away as part of some sort of elaborate attention-seeking behaviour, the police seemed to have finally come around to my original idea that the farmer had taken her. I couldn’t keep up, and my head was beginning to pound. As soon as I could, I would take one of my anxiety pills.
‘I can’t disclose that information but I will keep you informed.’
My hand trembled as I gripped the frame. Carter caught my eye, flashing me a look of sympathy.
‘Nice photo.’
‘Yeah, Stephen took it a month or so ago. I think they went out for the day.’
‘You didn’t go?’
I pursed my lips and shook my head. ‘No.’
Carter didn’t push me on it: I had already discussed my relationship with my family. I couldn’t wait any longer. I walked into the kitchen and found the blister pack of anxiety pills; I cupped my hand under the tap so I could swallow it more easily. I looked up to see Carter watching me. This time I met his gaze.
‘Freya, the note?’ he prompted.
I nodded, my eyes drifting to the floor, a self-conscious flush moving up my neck. ‘Yes, I’m having an affair. The note was delivered through his door.’ I gasped for breath, my throat dry. ‘Someone knows about our relationship.’
He nodded. ‘His name?’
‘Robert. Robert Malhoney.’
Carter pursed his lips before delivering a brief nod. ‘I’m going to submit it to forensics, okay?’
I hung my head. I had no choice. I wanted my daughter back and there was no other option. This evening’s shocking discovery had changed everything. ‘Of course,’ I conceded. ‘But you might want to take this one, too.’ I withdrew the note from Zoe from my pocket. ‘I just found this upstairs. Behind the skirting board. I remembered I had looked there months ago when I thought we had mice. I found Zoe’s diary.’ I caught his eye; I knew what he was thinking. ‘The diary’s not there now but I found this instead.’
Carter took it from me and read it. ‘You think Zoe knew you were having an affair?’
The sickening realisation that she had discovered my secret punched me in the gut and I let out a sob. ‘Yes.’
‘I’ll take this with me,’ he said, popping the note in a clear bag alongside the one I had given him earlier.
‘Are you taking the photos, too? The ones that were put through the letterbox earlier this evening? The magnitude of their impact has been rather eclipsed by the news that Zoe had an abortion, but I think it’s still worth taking a look.’ I cringed at my emotionless voice, but quite honestly, I had nothing left. Perhaps the pills had kicked in already.
Carter nodded, and after a moment or two of awkward silence, he cleared his throat.
‘Stephen tells me you’ve seen the cars.’ He paused. ‘Do you think this might be the reason why they vandalised your cars?’ He held up the see-through bags.
‘Maybe,’ I admitted. ‘Or maybe it’s a sick joke? Someone knows a lot more than they’re letting on; they’re sending notes and photos, and vandalising cars. I just don’t understand how it’s all connected. It doesn’t make sense.’ But it was starting to, and that’s what I was afraid of.
He didn’t answer, his jaw set in a determined line. Eventually, he patted the door frame with his hand and turned. �
��Anyway, I’ll be in touch as soon as I hear anything.’
I heard him leave and I returned to the living room to look once more at the photo of Zoe: my daughter was a virtual stranger to me but, more worryingly, as I thought about the crumpled notes I had just given Carter, maybe Zoe knew a lot more about me than I had ever imagined
15
Despite the pill I had taken and the fact that I had barely slept since Saturday morning, I lay awake for hours, staring at the ceiling. Stephen had locked himself in his study and slowly we were both consumed by the dread that, with every minute that passed, the Zoe we knew was moving further and further away.
Eventually, I got up and decided to have a shower, the water prickling at my skin. I hoped and prayed they would find something at the farm, but at the same time, I didn’t believe they would. I looked across at the mirror. I looked thinner, gaunt in the face. The thought of Zoe going through an abortion without me made me feel sick, and I pressed my forehead up against the tiles, my salty tears mingling with shower water.
I got out, dried myself and picked out a fresh shirt and jeans. The now-gaping hole where the mirror had once sat in the bedroom reminded me to stay focused on finding Zoe, on bringing her home, as Stephen called it, to normality. Whatever that was.
The phone rang and I glanced at the bedroom clock. 1.32 a.m. I could hear Stephen’s muted conversation and then, as he opened his study door, I realised he was using the cordless landline phone and was heading along the landing. My heart quickened. Rushing out of the bedroom, I approached Stephen who had stopped moving. His back was to me as he leant heavily on the balustrade.
‘Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I need to tell Freya.’
I rushed across to him. ‘You need to tell me what?’ I stopped. Blood roared in my ears and I gripped the bannister, my fingers crushing the wood underneath as I waited.