by Louise Stone
I saw then a cigarette butt, its embers still aglow and thought of Keira smoking. I scanned the garden and then I saw her. Keira was sitting in the corner, behind a large shrub, her trainers just visible. I drew a deep breath, got up and walked slowly towards her.
‘Keira?’
‘What do you want? Why can’t you leave me alone?’ she said. ‘Why did you come here? This is mine and Zoe’s space.’
‘I want answers.’
She still hadn’t shown her face.
‘Listen…’ she said. Then I saw smoke drift in a small wisp up above the shrub. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the abortion before. It’s just, I know how much Zoe didn’t want you to know.’
‘Okay,’ I said slowly and sat down on the grass on the other side of the shrub. The earth felt damp and cold underneath me but I didn’t care. ‘If you can believe it, I get it. I get your wanting to protect Zoe, to keep her secrets, but what I don’t get is why your mum has just handed me a copy of a page from Zoe’s diary in your handwriting.’ I paused, tried to control my voice. ‘I just want to know why you’ve been sending those notes and pretending they’re from Zoe?’
She didn’t speak for a second and then said, ‘It’s complicated.’
‘It was you who spray-painted the graffiti on the cars, too, wasn’t it?’
‘Mrs Hall, leave me alone.’
‘I’m not going anywhere until you give me an explanation for what’s going on.’ I stopped, looked briefly up at the sky. ‘Do you know where Zoe is?’
I heard Keira start to cry and, despite my frustration and anger, a part of me wanted to go to her and hug her; guilt pierced my heart when I realised it was that exact natural reaction that I should have felt with Zoe. Then she would never have felt alone.
‘Keira…’ I tried to imagine what was going through her mind, to put myself in her position. ‘I don’t know why you’re doing these things but you understand that this isn’t one of your games, don’t you? We’ve been out of our minds with worry.’ I watched another wisp of smoke disappear into the air. ‘I think you know where Zoe is, and if you don’t tell me, then the police will make you.’
Suddenly, Keira stood up, threw her cigarette down on the ground angrily and trod hard on it with her trainer.
‘I love Zoe and I just wanted to show you that you were never there for her. I wanted you to feel the pain I’ve seen her go through.’
I got to my feet unsteadily, a burning filling my lungs as I gasped for breath. ‘Don’t you think I’m suffering enough? Don’t you think I feel guilty every second of every day?’
‘Do you?’ Keira shouted at me now, her face ashen. ‘Do you, though? I saw you talking to that student again. You’re just out to please yourself, to make yourself happy. Fuck the fact your daughter’s out there alone.’
‘Keira, please. You know how much I love her.’
Keira shook her head. ‘At first, when Zoe went missing, I thought that you had learned your lesson. Then I saw you with him, and I realised you have no idea how much damage you’ve done.’
‘Fine,’ I said, my voice quivering, ‘I’m going to the police and you can tell them all this.’ I intentionally didn’t mention that the police already had two of the notes and the photographs, and that they would likely figure out who had sent them pretty quickly. And that Carter already knew about my affair with Robert.
Keira bent down, picked up her rucksack and slung it over her shoulder, then stuffed her cigarette packet in her pocket. She looked at me.
‘You tell the police, Mrs Hall, and I tell everybody about your affair. I can’t imagine your boss would be too pleased about what you’ve been up to.’
The little witch! I’d meant to glean all the information I could from Keira so I could confront Robert, but now I found myself in a tit-for-tat match with a stubborn teenager, and I was tired of it. ‘You’re too young to understand what grown-up relationships are like, Keira, how complicated they are, and what it takes to make them work. One day you will, but for now you’re going to have to take my word for it.’
‘Don’t patronise me, Mrs Hall. All you have to do is prove that you really care about Zoe.’ She jutted out her chin. ‘Stop seeing that student, Robert.’
Was that what Zoe wanted, too? Was that what this whole thing had been about? I tried a different tactic. ‘Please just tell me if you’ve spoken to Zoe, tell me that she’s okay.’
Keira wiped her nose with the back of her hand and pushed past me. ‘Just stop seeing Robert,’ she shouted over her shoulder and angrily stormed out, leaving me alone in the walled garden, the blue door swinging in the wind.
19
As darkness fell, I picked myself up off the ground; shivering and damp, I headed to my office to gather myself. Once I was safely ensconced in my warm and familiar surroundings, I locked the door. I didn’t want to be disturbed. Sitting at my computer, a paper I had been working on flashed up on the screen: remnants of my life before Zoe went missing.
My heart stopped when I saw an email from an unknown sender flash up entitled Warning to Freya. I double-clicked quickly and realised there was no message, only a video was attached.
Just as I was pressing play I heard the doorknob jangle. I gripped the edge of the desk and waited for whoever it was to leave. Then there was a knock – a gentle but insistent knock – that made me get up and open the door slowly. Robert stood outside smiling expectantly at me. I gasped, fear clawing at me, as my eyes flitted past him to any evidence of Keira being there; of Keira seeing Robert and me together again.
‘Frey,’ he said. ‘Has there been any news from the farm?’
‘Um, no.’ I grew flustered, wishing he hadn’t come, yet also desperately wanting him to take me into his arms. ‘Nothing. Robert, I just wanted a bit of time to myself.’
Hurt fleetingly crossed his features. ‘Oh.’
‘How did you know I was here anyway?’
‘I just knew.’ He shrugged. ‘You spend most of your time at work and I figured you wanted to get away from the media circus outside your house and so on…’ His voice drifted off and he looked behind me. ‘Can’t I come in?’
I stood aside and let him in, locking the door quickly behind us. ‘Have you been to my house?’ My eyes narrowed. We had always agreed that he would never go near my home. Perhaps it wasn’t the first time. That thought had me gritting my teeth again.
‘Yes,’ he looked down. ‘I know what you’re going to say, but I just wanted to check you were okay.’
‘What were you going to do?’ I moved quickly past him, anger mounting. ‘Ring the doorbell? Introduce yourself to my husband?’
‘Frey,’ he soothed, ‘calm down. No, of course not. I was just hoping to see you. I can’t bear the thought of you going through all this alone.’
Look, Robert, I need to ask you something, and I need you to tell me the truth. My heart quickened and an uneasy feeling settled in the pit of my stomach. ‘My life is so full of lies and secrets that I don’t know who to trust any more.’ I took a deep breath, and then came out with it. ‘Have you ever met Zoe?’
He looked like he was about to cry.
‘I have.’
It was both a relief and a dagger to my heart. ‘Where? When? Why?’ I searched his face for answers.
‘She was at a party I was at. I swear, I had no idea she was your daughter.’
I could feel my heart in my throat; my head throbbed with anxiety. ‘When you say, you had no idea…’ I paused, unable to say the words. ‘What are you getting at? What did you do?’
I felt nauseous and leant up against the chair.
‘I didn’t do anything,’ he said, giving a quick shake to his head. ‘I just didn’t realise she was your daughter, that’s all.’
‘Are you sure? Did you speak to her?’ I watched him carefully.
‘No, nothing happened.’ He looked past me, out of the window. ‘Nothing happened.’
I kneaded the leather of the chair with my
fingers. ‘I didn’t ask you that. I asked you if you spoke to her.’
‘That’s what I meant,’ he said, finally meeting my eyes. ‘I mean, nothing happened because I didn’t even speak to her.’ He nodded, came towards me and kissed me tenderly, his lips lingering on mine. I didn’t move.
‘Do you remember what she was doing at this party?’
He let out a short rumble of laughter. ‘No, I don’t. It’s all a bit vague, to be honest. I might have drunk too much and, as I say, I didn’t know at the time that she was your daughter so it didn’t stick in my mind. When her picture started flashing up on the news, I thought she looked familiar. But it was only when I saw the interview you did with your husband that I realised why. I swear to you, Freya, nothing happened. I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d get upset and try to end things between us, and I couldn’t bear that.’ I pulled away from him. I couldn’t stand to have him touch me right now. Was there no one I could trust?
‘I never wanted you to have to lie to the police about us, and at first I honestly thought she would show up and the whole thing would have been a big fuss about nothing. When a couple of days had gone by and she didn’t come home, I realised it might be been more serious than that, but by then I had already lied to you and I didn’t know how to tell you the truth.’
‘Oh, come on, Robert. You lied to my face. You lied and you lied – you made me feel like I was crazy for even suspecting anything, when I was right all along.’ I felt sick. I should have trusted my gut. I’d known something was off, but everything had seemed off and the whole situation had been like a bad dream from which I would eventually wake up.
‘Freya, please.’ He came towards me again. ‘I never meant to lie to you. And after you tried to end things with me in May, I knew I had to do whatever it took to hold on to us. I love you. You know that.’
How I wanted to believe him! He was smooth and charming, and the look in his eyes was sincere. I started to cry, great shuddering sobs that were noisy and unattractive. I didn’t care any more. I didn’t care that he was seeing me in jeans with bags under my eyes and no make-up. I didn’t care that he’d lied, I only wanted him to hold me and tell me everything was going to be okay.
I could tell the moment he knew he’d won me over. He gave me a smile, took me into his arms and kissed the top of my head, stroking me until I cried myself out. I was ashamed to admit that this was the happiest I’d felt since leaving his arms on Saturday morning. It seemed like a lifetime ago.
‘I love you, Freya,’ he said again.
‘I know,’ I replied.
As I pulled away from him, I remembered the video I had been sent. Now that I had drawn a line under the question of Robert’s involvement, I wanted to get on with doing whatever it took to get my daughter home safely. He seemed to sense that it was time to go and, as he unlocked the door, turned back and smiled at me one last time.
After a moment or so, I realised my door was still wide open so I walked quickly over and locked it again. I returned to my computer and sat down. I looked at the screen saver icon whizzing about and activated it again with the mouse. There was the video and I pressed play.
It was Zoe, in the same top Carter told me had been found in the woods, and she was entering a house. I stifled a sob when I realised that I recognised it: the bungalow at Rook Farm. She was talking to Eleanor Wyre at the door and then, to my horror, she went inside.
‘I don’t understand what’s going on,’ I whispered to myself. What did Jerry Wyre have to do with Zoe running away?
There was a knock at the door and I jumped, knocking over an old mug filled with biros from various international conferences I’d attended. When the knocking continued, I wondered if it might be Robert again and I rose. Perhaps he had remembered something about the party.
I walked over to the door, unlocked it and opened the door slowly to reveal Keira.
‘Keira,’ I said stiffly. ‘What can I do for you?’ I couldn’t help the guilty flush that must have stained my face. Why did this teenager have the power to put me on the back foot every time I saw her? Was this why I had always blamed her for leading Zoe astray?
She stood in the doorway like a statue, and I walked back to my chair, determined to keep up a front of normality, despite my growing unease at her presence.
‘Come in, Keira, if you’ve got something to say.’ I looked at the screen, at the video. It then occurred to me why she was here. ‘You sent me this, didn’t you? Is this you again? Is this where she’s hiding?’
She walked in, shut the door behind her and shook her head. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘You do.’ I pointed at the screen. ‘The video.’
‘I warned you, didn’t I?’
Deny, deny, deny, screamed my brain, while my stomach knew I’d been caught red-handed.
She strode over to me and stuffed her phone in my face. ‘This.’
There was a photo of Robert standing at the door, taken moments ago.
I clenched my jaw, tried to slow my breathing. ‘Where were you?’
‘Just along the hall. I knew he was coming to see you because I saw him. I saw him outside the garden.’
‘What do you mean?’ I gave a small, sharp shake to my head. ‘What, just now? He was outside the garden where we spoke?’
‘Yes.’ She nodded. ‘I walked off and so did he but I saw him stop. He waited for you to come out and then he followed you to your office.’ She eyed me. ‘I knew you wouldn’t be able to stay away from him.’
I swallowed hard, my head reeling with uncertainty and disbelief. ‘You must have been mistaken. Why would he do that?’ I paused, trying to slow the thoughts spinning through my mind. ‘Anyway, what was I meant to do? He’s my student, he knocked on my door. I didn’t ask him to come.’
‘You could have told him to go away.’
‘I did!’
‘No, you didn’t.’ She shook her head. ‘I heard you. You didn’t really try to get rid of him.’
I stiffened. ‘Keira, if you didn’t send this video then who did?’
‘What video?’ She came over and peered over my shoulder. ‘What is that?’
‘I’ve had just about enough of this, Keira Sullivan. Do you know where Zoe is? My next step is to tell the police everything, and I don’t think you’re going to come off too well.’
‘If Zoe’s dead, it’ll be your fault,’ she spat out, ‘and you’re going to have to live with that.’
Before I could respond, she had fled from my office. I shut the door and locked it before collapsing on the sofa and breaking down in sobs.
A kaleidoscope of memories containing Zoe began to spin through my mind.
She was thirteen. The image was so vivid, so terrifyingly present and real. She was hanging out of her window having a cigarette. She thought she had locked the door, she told me. Inevitably, I had called Stephen. He told me children would experiment but he had to agree that it was probably best she didn’t smoke.
‘Probably best!’ I remember shouting at him later. ‘Lay down the rules firmly, Stephen, or not at all. She was smoking! Our little girl was smoking!’
He had simply said, ‘Didn’t you ever experiment when you were growing up? She’s just testing you.’
In the next image she was nine, about to go into her exams. She sat in the car, her hands clasped tightly together. She told me she was sorry if she didn’t do well. I told her she couldn’t know how she would do until she had done it. But she was already apologising…
Another image spun into my head of Zoe, the Zoe I’d seen last week, but now her cold, lifeless body was lying in the woods.
***
I woke with a start and reached for my mobile phone, my body drenched in sweat despite the cold temperature of the room. It was three a.m. and there were missed calls from Stephen and Carter and Robert. Now, I was missing. I listened to the voicemails, but there was no new information on Zoe. I texted Stephen:
I’m
okay. Sleeping at office.
I lay back down, pulling my coat over me and trying to rid myself of the pictures hurtling around my head. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t stop asking myself things that had never occurred to me before. Why hadn’t Zoe locked her bedroom door that day? Had she wanted to be caught smoking? Why had she apologised for exams she hadn’t even taken?
Then reality hit me hard: my daughter had wanted my attention and I had ignored her. I had failed her.
20
I spent the rest of the night in and out of sleep and, come seven a.m, I got a taxi back to Chilcote. I asked the driver to let me out at the start of the lane that led towards Rook Farm. I paid and got out.
I followed the public footpath that ran alongside the farm. My eyes skipped over the fields and looked beyond to the wood where Zoe’s top had been found.
I climbed over a turnstile and walked purposefully up the side of the fields. The pale October morning was cool on my face, and the only sound, other than the cawing of the rooks overhead, was my feet as they hit the hard ground. The stiff, browning stalks of a harvested crop lined the field. My feet crunched on the husks as I walked. A small shrew shot out of the hedgerow and crossed my path. After a mile or so, I came across a wooded area and, as I entered, the temperature suddenly dropped. The wood was cool and damp, the sun unable to reach through the canopy of trees. The fallen branches were covered in lichen and moss, the earth soft and springy beneath my feet. Above, rooks circled the wood. I watched them momentarily, a shiver running through me. As they called to one another, I thought about how the noise resembled shrieking children. I was reminded of the many tales told of what had happened to young children in the wood, over the centuries. One girl, it was said, had been found hanging from a tree, her dismembered hands lying on the ground. I shivered and picked up my pace, sticking to the public footpath, but with the Wyres’ fields always in sight. Shadows slid across my path and I could hear my heart beating loudly.