Behind Closed Doors

by Susan Lewis

  Then one day she didn’t come back. She’d been gone for an entire weekend by the time Andee and her parents began ringing everyone they knew, searching the streets, the local shops, refuges and hospitals, but they’d found no sign of her. The police were alerted, neighbours’ gardens were trawled, everyone was questioned, but no one could throw any light on where she might be.

  It was impossible for Andee to think of that time, even now, without feeling the same surging panic and fear; however, over the years, she’d learned to quickly bury it and move on. She knew that Sophie’s disappearance was going to make this emotional control more difficult if she didn’t show up soon.

  Worse though, far, far worse than not knowing where Penny might be, was the letter that had turned up after she’d been gone for almost a fortnight, bearing a local postmark. Andee knew that in all her life she would never again find anything so painful to read.

  Dear Mum and Dad, I probably ought to say sorry for leaving the way I have, but maybe you already don’t mind very much that I’m not around any more, so instead I’ll say sorry for always being such a disappointment to you. I know Dad wanted a son when I was born, so I guess I’ve been a let-down to him from the start, and I don’t blame him for always loving Andee the most because she’s much nicer-looking than I am and likes sports, the same as him, and is really clever so it stands to reason that he’d be really proud of her. I know I shouldn’t say this, but sometimes I hate her for being so much better than I am at everything. No one ever seems to notice me when she’s in the room. It’s like I become invisible and I know she wishes I would go away. So that’s what I’m going to do.

  I don’t know what else to say, except sorry again. I expect you’ll all be much happier without me. Please tell Andee she can have whatever she likes of mine, although I don’t expect she’ll want anything at all.

  Your daughter, Penny

  The shock, the fear and grief that ripped through the family was only surpassed by the desperate need to find her. More police were drafted in; friends, neighbours, even strangers from far and wide came to join in the search. It was all over the news for weeks, but Penny was never found.

  Andee remembered her mother being sedated throughout that time, while Andee herself had wanted to die rather than live with the fear of what might be happening to her sister. The question she kept asking herself, that everyone was asking themselves but never spoke aloud was, had Penny committed suicide? Or was she still out there somewhere waiting, needing to be convinced she was loved?

  No body was ever found, and they never received another letter.

  The disappearance had proved the beginning of the end for her father. Not knowing what had happened to his daughter tore him to pieces, over and over, ceaselessly. That she hadn’t believed he loved her when he had, more than his own life, wasn’t possible for him to deal with. He’d never had a favourite, he swore it, but how could he tell Penny that if she didn’t come back?

  It soon became clear that he was finding it increasingly difficult to focus. The sense of despair, shame and guilt was so consuming that he could hardly relate to anyone, either at home or at work. In his heart and in reality he was still looking for her. Everywhere they went his eyes were searching faces, doorways, alleyways, desperate for a glimpse of his girl. Within a year he’d become a shell of the man they used to know. Though he went through the motions of his everyday life at work, at home it was obvious that he was struggling to carry on the pretence. Hardest of all, it seemed, was sharing any sort of closeness with Andee. It was as though he was afraid Penny might be watching, ready to accuse him again of loving his elder daughter more. So the easy banter that had always existed between them had fallen into silence. They no longer joked and bickered over issues as they came up on the news, he stopped asking how she was doing at school, and he almost never laughed.

  It was two years after the dreaded note had arrived that the cottage next to his parents in Kesterly came up for sale. After discussing it with Andee and Maureen, he put in for early retirement and moved the family to the West Country. Though Andee knew that her parents shared her fear that Penny would come back and find them gone, like them she was also glad to be out of the house that Penny would always haunt.

  However, being in Kesterly wasn’t any easier for her. In some ways it was worse, since every corner she turned, everywhere she looked, every scent that carried on the breeze seemed to hold a memory of Penny. She could see her leaping up as she found a crab in a rock pool; laughing her head off as she trotted along the sands on a donkey; coming up from the waves gulping for air as she learned to surf. It wasn’t the same for her parents; they hadn’t spent their summers here, so for them it was something of a fresh start.

  Even so Penny was always there. She was the tragic hole in their lives, the one that could never be bridged until she was found; the one they always had to step around to find one another.

  Penny, Penny, Penny. The cry rose silently, inextinguishably from their very existence.

  Though Andee completed sixth-form college in Kesterly, as soon as it was over she returned to London to begin her police training. She knew it was crazy even to think this might be a way to find Penny, but having no real closure where her sister was concerned was at the very centre of who she was back then. Not only that, she’d felt a burning need to try to restore the connection with her father that she so desperately missed. Maybe becoming a detective would go some way towards encouraging him to take an interest in life again.

  To a small degree it had worked. Certainly he’d stopped passing the phone straight to her mother whenever she rang, and during her visits he would invariably sit quietly listening as she told Maureen about street situations she became embroiled in, or serious cases she was helping to solve. The biggest breakthrough came when she was seconded to CID during her second year in uniform. Her father began asking questions, even occasionally offered advice, though before long his conscience almost always seemed to suck him back into his shell, as though he could feel Penny watching with accusing eyes.

  In spite of his inner torment he’d seemed proud when Andee had taken the detective’s course at Hendon and officially made it into CID. ‘Just don’t go getting yourself promoted out of policing into politicking,’ he’d cautioned. ‘It was what happened to me, and I always regretted it.’

  ‘Everyone says you were one of the best DCSs,’ she told him, truthfully.

  Though he’d cocked a dubious eyebrow, he’d seemed pleased by the compliment, and as she settled into her new role as a DC she could tell that he was gradually bringing himself to enjoy a second career through her. And he continued to do so all through her twenties and into her thirties, approving or disapproving all the new techniques and procedures, or chuckling at the gossip about old colleagues, or puzzling over the complications of ongoing cases. It wasn’t that he was always on the phone, or urging her to come to Kesterly, he simply waited for her to contact him and when she did it was as though he had new air in his lungs, new blood running through his tired veins.

  She never troubled him with the mispers. She handled them alone and always hoped, prayed, that one of them would somehow lead her to Penny.

  They never had.

  Her father’s greatest joy, her mother’s too, was without question her children when they came along. She’d given birth to Luke, her eldest, during her time on the beat, and Alayna, the darling of everyone’s heart, two years later. Her parents quite simply adored them and were never happier than when they came to stay for the summer, just as she, Penny and Frank used to stay with their grandparents when they were young.

  It was at her father’s suggestion that Andee had taken her sergeant’s exam, a little over two years ago. Though she’d passed the board (he’d decided, jokingly, to take all the credit), there had been no positions available to apply for at the time unless she’d wanted to move out of London, which she hadn’t, then, so she’d had no choice but to continue as a DC.

  She’
d still been a DC eight months later when Martin, the father of her children and her partner of almost twenty years, since sixth-form college in fact, had decided he’d had enough and left.

  Three months later her father suffered a massive coronary and didn’t survive.

  He’d died without ever knowing what had happened to Penny.

  This was a truth Andee had never been able to bear.

  More than a year after his passing, Andee was still, in a very private sense, suffering terribly. It was hard to say who she missed most, him or Martin, though she guessed it had to be Martin, considering what a major role he’d always played in her and the children’s lives. In truth, he still did, at least in the children’s, since they saw him often, and during major family events it was as though they were all still a family. Whether he’d ever realised how painful she found those occasions she had no idea since she’d never told him, and he’d never asked. They simply went through the motions, as though they were friends used to being around one another, and when it came time to say goodbye they’d hug and promise to call soon. They always did, of course, since there was always something to discuss about the children, but that was as far as it went. She didn’t want to hear him repeat his reasons for leaving – she’d heard them at the time and didn’t need to have it rubbed in. Over the years, while running the home and taking care of the children, he’d built up a highly successful Internet security company, and when the US government had got in touch to offer him a contract in Baghdad he’d taken it. Just like that. It was his time, he’d said, so he wasn’t going to turn it down. He’d only be gone for three months, four at the most, and perhaps they should use the time apart as a trial separation. That had come as an even bigger shock than the job offer. She hadn’t understood why they needed a trial separation when as far as she was concerned they were happy together.

  He’d always sworn there was no one else, but she was never sure she believed him. She only knew that without her cousin Frank and his wife, Jane, she’d never have been able to cope with the children and her job during the months that Martin was away. After his return it had become easier, though he hadn’t moved back into the house, he’d rented a flat in the next street so he was always on hand for the children.

  A part of her had longed for him to come home, at times had nearly begged him to, but her pride had never allowed it. After all, if it was what he wanted he’d ask, and the reason he didn’t ask was because he was clearly perfectly happy with the way things were. He didn’t even object when she applied for the detective sergeant’s job in Kesterly, having decided she couldn’t carry on leaving her mother to cope on her own.

  So now, here she was, living in her grandparents’ cottage that had become part of the bigger property her parents had created by knocking the two places into one after her grandparents had passed. Luke was a student at the same sixth-form college she and Martin had attended, while Alayna was at Kesterly High. Since Martin’s parents were in Westleigh, on the south side of town, and his sister, brother-in-law and their daughter were in Mulgrove, one of the outlying villages, they had plenty of family around, and it hadn’t taken either Luke or Alayna much time at all to make a whole host of new friends. They were exactly like their father in that respect, warm, open, gregarious and invariably the life and soul.

  How blessed she was in them both, but how hard it could be when they reminded her of him the most.

  She was over it now though, thank God. She’d finally moved on and how much better she felt for it.

  From the seafront it took no more than twenty minutes to drive up on to the northerly headland, where the hamlet of Bourne Hollow formed an irregular bowl of craggy rocks and green pastures with just two dozen dwellings, a pub, and a small convenience store-cum-café at its heart. It was such a picturesque little spot that it was often overrun by tourists and hikers, many of whom her mother got chatting to while out tending to the flowering pots around the green. On a clear day, such as today, it was possible to climb up to Seaman’s Spit, a monument at the top of the hollow, and see as far as South Wales in one direction, and Exmoor in another.

  As Andee pulled up outside Briar Lodge, the name her parents had given to their extended home, she was about to get out of the car when Leo came through on her Airwave.

  ‘CAIT have no record of Sophie Monroe,’ he told her, ‘and I’ve just heard back from social services. Apparently she hasn’t crossed their paths either.’

  ‘OK,’ Andee replied, taking a moment to process it. On the one hand it suggested the girl had come to no harm in the home or at school; however, way too much abuse went undetected for initial inquiries to be conclusive. ‘Check that backgrounds are being run on both parents,’ she instructed, ‘and on the caravan site, in case something’s gone on there in the past that might be relevant.’

  ‘Already happening.’

  ‘Good. I take it you’re still at the office.’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Has Gould left yet?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘OK, best try to keep him happy, so see if you can dig up something about these robberies. Better still, I’ll get a couple of the other DCs to go over to Wermers Road in the morning to take statements. I want you free to come with me.’

  ‘Oh, yippee! And we would be going where?’

  ‘Probably back to Blue Ocean with Barry and the uniforms.’

  ‘Sounds like a sixties pop band.’

  Smiling, she said, ‘Run those checks, then haul yourself out of there and get a life.’

  ‘But what would I do with it if I found one?’

  ‘Your problem,’ and ending the connection she got out of the car in time to wave to a young couple who’d recently moved into one of the cottages next to the shop, as they strolled across the green towards the Smugglers.

  ‘Hey everyone, I’m home,’ she called out as she stepped in through the rose-covered front porch.

  Receiving no reply she crossed the hall with its wood-panelled walls and colourful paintings of Kesterly Bay, mostly done by her father, and pushed open the kitchen door to find her mother standing behind the table looking so troubled that panic hit Andee like a blow.

  ‘What is it?’ she demanded. ‘Where are the children?’

  ‘They’re upstairs,’ Maureen Lawrence hastily replied, her attractive features showing more concern for her daughter now than for whatever had upset her. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. It’s . . .’

  ‘Is it Martin?’ Andee cut in, feeling suddenly sick.

  ‘No, no, it’s his father.’

  ‘Dougie?’ Andee could already feel herself backing away from it.

  Her mother nodded. ‘Carol just rang. He had a stroke this morning . . .’

  Andee became very still. ‘Please don’t tell me,’ she murmured, her eyes searching her mother’s – and finding the answer she didn’t want to hear she put a hand to her head. ‘He didn’t make it, did he?’ she whispered, realising she had to have it spelled out.

  Maureen took Andee by the shoulders and drew her into an embrace, but she was the one shaking.

  ‘Ssh, it’ll be all right,’ Andee whispered softly, though why she would say that when obviously it wouldn’t she had no idea. ‘Have you told the children?’

  ‘Yes. They’re very upset. I said I’d take them over to see Carol when you got home.’

  ‘Of course.’ Andee glanced along the hall at the sound of both children coming down the stairs.

  ‘Oh Mum,’ Alayna wailed, pushing past her brother to get to Andee. ‘I can’t bear it, it’s so awful. Poor Grandma Carol, she’s going to miss him so much.’

  Clasping her tightly, Andee held out her other arm for Luke. He was taller than her now, with a typical sportman’s physique, and was becoming so like his father in looks and mannerisms that it could sometimes take her breath away. The only way he resembled her was with his thick dark curly hair.

  ‘Are you OK?’ she asked softly, as he wrapped his arms around her a
nd Alayna.

  He nodded, but she could tell he’d been crying.

  ‘Dad’s on his way,’ Alayna said, looking up. She was her own version of Martin, with the same stunning blue eyes, long dark lashes and captivating smile. She even had his tousled blonde hair, though hers tumbled halfway down her back while his only infrequently got below his collar.

  ‘Have you spoken to him?’ Andee asked.

  ‘Not yet,’ Luke replied, going to hug his grandma, typically making sure she didn’t feel left out. ‘I expect he’ll call when he gets to Heathrow.’

  ‘Where’s he coming from, do you know?’

  ‘Cyprus, I think. It’s where he was yesterday, on his way to Beirut.’

  Of course, Beirut, or Damascus, or Cairo, anywhere his clients sent him to help set up the security system he’d devised.

  ‘I’ll make some tea,’ Maureen said, going to the kettle. ‘You’ve probably had a difficult enough day . . .’

  ‘It’s been fine,’ Andee interrupted, taking Alayna’s new bra out of her bag and handing it over. Never in a million years would she tell her mother about Sophie Monroe now. With any luck Sophie would turn up before anything went public, so Maureen wouldn’t have to live through the reminders of what it had been like when her own daughter had disappeared all those years ago.

  The daughter she knew her mother still wondered about every day, saw on buses, crossing the street, playing with children in the park, because she did too. The daughter they both secretly prayed might miraculously walk in the door one day and complete them again.

  ‘Have you rung the Melvilles?’ Andee asked.

  Maureen nodded. ‘Yes, they were very sweet. They knew Dougie, of course.’