by Susan Lewis
Will lifted his head. His face was ashen, his eyes wet with tears. ‘I have to do what I think is right,’ he told her, ‘not for me, for her ...’
‘Will, please ... I can’t let you stay here if you’re going to ...’
‘I’m not going to do anything,’ he broke in roughly, ‘except sit with her and read her a few stories. Tomorrow though, or as soon as we can, we have to talk to the doctor and find out exactly what he thinks her chances are.’
‘You know what keeps bothering me,’ Emma said, staring absently out at the passing landscape as Andrews drove her home, ‘is why she took her flute. She told me she was going to play for Melissa, but I went into Melissa’s house with her and she left it in the car.’ She took a breath. ‘I suppose she could have gone back for it after Polly and I left, but ... I don’t know, it’s just something that keeps bothering me.’
Unable even to attempt an explanation, Andrews replied, ‘Someone’s going to be talking to Melissa in the next day or two, so perhaps she’ll be able to throw some light on it.’
Knowing from a conversation she’d had with Polly earlier how unlikely that was, Emma sighed and closed her eyes. ‘I might need to talk to her friends myself,’ she said wearily. How was it possible to feel so tired, and yet so wired at the same time? ‘At the moment they don’t seem to be opening up,’ she went on, ‘but Polly’s convinced Melissa knows something. I think she’s more or less admitted it, she just doesn’t want to break Lauren’s confidence.’ She ached and shuddered inwardly. ‘I dread to think what it might be.’
Slowing as they reached the end of the M32 to merge round Cabot Circus, Andrews said, ‘Inspector Dennis was asking me earlier about a boyfriend. Do you know if she has one?’
Emma shook her head. ‘Not currently – at least I don’t think so, but I’m beginning to wonder now how much I really know.’ Her eyes remained closed as she tried to connect lies, deceit, secrecy with the daughter she knew and loved.
‘For what it’s worth I’m told her relationship status on Facebook is single,’ Andrews said, ‘and I’m guessing there aren’t any texts of a romantic nature on her mobile or Jackie Dennis would have mentioned it.’
‘Actually,’ Emma said, experiencing a disturbing mix of alarm and doubt, ‘an ex-boyfriend has been in touch a few times lately, wanting to see her. His name’s Parker Jenkins. I can’t imagine why she’d have driven to Glastonbury to see him, and pretended to me she was going out with Melissa, unless maybe he found some way of tricking her into going.’ Her head was thumping with the stress of so many scenarios, all of which seemed to peter into nonsense.
Easing off the accelerator as he headed into the underpass, Andrews said, ‘It’s sounding like a long shot, but it’s probably worth checking to find out if he sent the text, or has any connection to the Osmonds. Do you have a number for him, or an address?’
‘No, but I’m sure Donna does, and it’ll be in Lauren’s phone, of course, unless she’s erased it. Maybe it’ll match the one Inspector Dennis sent you.’
‘We’ll find out.’ And clicking on his earpiece as his mobile rang he listened for a few moments, then said, ‘OK, I’ll pass it on. Thanks.’ To Emma he said, ‘That was Jackie Dennis. Apparently someone with the Met has spoken to Ian Osmond and he’s saying the same as his wife, that he’s never even heard of Lauren.’
Feeling her head throbbing even harder, Emma pressed her fingers to her temples as she tried to think. ‘So why did she have their address?’
‘I’ve no idea, but Jackie Dennis is arranging to go up to London to speak to the Osmonds herself. At the moment we only have their word that they don’t know Lauren, but there’s obviously some connection and we need to find out what it is.’
‘Do you know what I’m thinking?’ Emma said, feeling dizzier than ever. ‘That maybe they run some kind of cult, and somehow or other Lauren’s got mixed up with it. Except how could I not know, I’d surely have picked up on something?’
‘You’d have thought so, but in my own experience with teenagers – I have two of my own and of course dealings with a lot more from all walks – I’ve often found that the answers, or signs, are there to be seen, but we’re looking the wrong way.’
Emma turned to him. ‘I don’t know if I can handle oblique right now,’ she said.
Grimacing, he replied, ‘And I’m already regretting saying it, because the last thing you need is more confusion being heaped on top of what already exists. Your theory about a cult could hold up. We’ll know more after Jackie’s made her inquiries.’ Then, changing the subject, ‘Would you like to stop somewhere like a supermarket before I drop you off?’
Shaking her head she turned to gaze sightlessly ahead, trying to process this new information with its new angles and puzzles, and hardly registering the way other drivers were slowing as they clocked the police car coming up behind them. Nothing about her surroundings seemed quite real; it was as though everything had slipped out of focus and was moving in a strangely separate world. Familiar streets and buildings went by like apparitions from a distant past, hazed as though caught in a dream. She closed her eyes and opened them again and felt a swirling light-headedness coming over her.
‘Not long now,’ Andrews told her, as she buried her face in her hands, ‘another ten, fifteen minutes and we’ll be there.’
‘I’m dreading going home without her,’ she confessed shakily.
‘Of course,’ he said gently, ‘but someone’s there to meet you, so you won’t be alone.’
She nodded. ‘Both grandmothers and my brother,’ she said, as though he didn’t already know that. ‘Polly might be there too.’
Realising how crowded the small house would probably feel, and yet empty without Lauren, she started to wonder if it was where she really wanted to go, but where else was there, apart from back to Lauren? She felt a bite of panic at the thought of what Will might be saying to her. She couldn’t bear the idea that he was even considering letting her go. If God had meant her to die, He’d have taken her at the scene of the accident, so He obviously wasn’t ready for her yet. And if He’d let her live just so they could say goodbye, why allow her to survive both operations? She wasn’t meant to leave them now. She was going to get through this, no matter how long it took. Emma knew that in her heart as surely as she knew that Lauren was hers. So why didn’t Will?
Should she tell Andrews to turn round? She oughtn’t to have left Lauren alone with her father, not while he was thinking this way. ‘I need to call Will,’ she said, taking out her mobile.
Before she could find his number the phone rang, and seeing Will’s name come up her heart turned inside out with fear. ‘What is it?’ she gasped, already shaking as she clicked on. ‘Has something happened? Is she all right?’
‘Everything’s the same,’ he told her, ‘I just wanted to say sorry about the stupid things I said before you left. You’re right, she’s definitely going to make it, we’ve just got to let her do it in her own time.’
As tears scalded her eyes Emma said, ‘I don’t think it’ll be long now, I really don’t.’
‘I hope not,’ he whispered. ‘Anyway, I just wanted to say that so you wouldn’t worry. I’d best get back there now, we’re in the middle of a story.’
‘Which one?’
‘Pooh Goes Visiting and Pooh and Piglet Nearly Catch a Woozle.’
Laughing through a sob, Emma said, ‘Don’t tell me you’ve memorised it.’
‘No, I went out to buy it earlier. She always loved Pooh the most when she was little, so I thought I’d start with that and later we might move on to Brer Rabbit, if I can find him, or perhaps some Aesop’s Fables.’
Knowing he’d selected the favourites from his own childhood, which indeed he’d shared with Lauren during hers, Emma said, ‘She’s still got her own copies, somewhere. I’ll look them out if you like, and bring them in.’
‘That’d be good, thanks. I’ll see you tomorrow then.’
‘OK, send her my love
, won’t you?’
‘Of course.’
After ringing off, Emma sat holding the phone, staring down at it as though the past was captured right there, showing her younger self standing at Lauren’s bedroom door listening to Will reading her stories, and smiling proudly every time Lauren joined in with the words, or asked what something meant, or giggled at the naughtiness of one of the baddies.
Will had always been a champion reader of stories.
‘Again, again,’ Lauren would cry every time he tried to finish.
‘It’s time for you to go to sleep,’ he’d tell her.
‘But I’m not tired and Pooh really wants me to help him find some honey.’ Or, ‘Please can we have some more of What Katy Did?’ Or, ‘I promise I will go fast asleep the very minute you finish reading Gulliver’s Travels.’
How Emma had laughed to herself at that, the cunning little minx.
‘But that’ll take me all night,’ Will had protested.
‘I know,’ she’d grinned and then yelped with laughter as Will tickled her and reached for another book.
He’d never been able to say no to her; the discipline had been left to Emma, not that Lauren had ever needed much, but there had been times when she’d had to be reminded of her manners, or sent to bed early for being cheeky, or grounded for clobbering another girl with her recorder, aged nine. There had been plenty of instances over the years when Emma had had to take a firm hand, but never once had it been for lying. In fact, she couldn’t think of a single occasion when she’d doubted Lauren’s honesty, which had to be why learning of Saturday night’s deception was proving so hard to take.
Who on earth were the Osmonds, who were claiming no knowledge of Lauren? How did she know them? What kind of role were they playing in her life?
‘Here we are,’ Andrews announced, pulling up outside the house and turning off the engine.
Emma couldn’t move, could barely even catch her breath as she sat staring at all the flowers, cards, soft toys, attached to the railings either side of her gate. She hadn’t been prepared for this, it hadn’t even occurred to her that it might happen and she could feel herself starting to panic. This was a scene from TV or the newspapers, something that happened to other people, not to them. They’d become the targets of publicity, curiosity, pity, victims of a crime, a family in the grip of a tragedy. She thought fleetingly of how much worse it must be for the parents whose children had been stolen or murdered, but Lauren was so close to death that at any moment she could become one of them.
It wasn’t going to happen. She simply wouldn’t let it.
Getting out of the car, Andrews came round to open the passenger door and gave her a hand to step out.
‘Is it awful to wish someone would take it all away?’ Emma whispered.
‘No, of course not.’
‘It would hurt people’s feelings though, and Lauren would never want that.’
‘Emma,’ Harry said, coming out of the door to greet her.
Seeing her brother heightened her emotions, but she was glad he was there. The strength of his arms enfolding her and the love she knew he had for Lauren were what she needed right now. What she needed most of all, however, was a call from Will telling her that Lauren had come round. That wasn’t going to happen, though, while they still had her sedated.
The next big fear would be when they withdrew the sedation. Would she wake up, or would she ...?’
She couldn’t think about it now.
‘Thanks for bringing her,’ Harry was saying to Andrews. ‘Will you come in?’
‘No, it’s OK,’ Andrews replied. ‘I just need to remind you,’ he said to Emma, ‘to drop into the station on the way to the hospital tomorrow so they can take a sample of your DNA.’
Emma nodded. ‘Which station?’ she asked.
‘I’ll write it down. Actually, better still, I’ll pick you up at nine and take you there myself.’
As he returned to his car, Emma told Harry, ‘He’s being so kind. I don’t know what we’d do without him, but at the same time I wish we’d never met him.’
‘Come on, my sweetheart,’ Berry said, appearing at the door. ‘We’ve been waiting for you. Mum’s putting the kettle on and it’s nice and warm inside.’
Emma had been home for almost an hour now, drinking tea, trying to make conversation, but her mind couldn’t settle on what anyone was saying, or even on what she was thinking. Everything was feeling wrong about being here, from the affection and attentiveness of her family, who might as well have been strangers, to what seemed a curious, cold-hearted lack of change in the fabric of the place. Yet what did she expect, that the windows would be smashed, the furniture ripped and doors torn off? A physical manifestation of the grief and dread it was now harbouring in its shell? How could it, or anyone, or anything remain impervious to what was happening? What kind of world just carried on turning as though it had done nothing to shatter dreams or lives, to break hearts and devastate the brilliance of a young girl’s future?
That wouldn’t happen. Somehow Lauren would get back on track and everything would be the same again. They just needed to have faith.
Time had lost all meaning. Her efforts to try and stay positive had begun faltering the moment she’d come through the door; now they seemed to have vanished altogether. She knew that fatigue was blackening her thoughts and stealing her strength, but knowing it did nothing to fight it. A week, a month, even a year could have passed since Clive Andrews had first come here; now nothing would go back together the way it should, and probably never would again.
Everyone – Berry, her mother, Harry – was talking in whispers and moving carefully around her, as though the normal tone of a voice or unexpected touch of an arm might startle her and make her take flight. She was torn between resentment and gratitude, wanting them here, but wishing they would go, as if their absence could somehow undo what had been done. She could feel her mother’s eyes watching her, and Berry’s kindness softening the tension between them that might not even be there. Harry was mostly silent, unable to express his feelings, but showing them in the shadows around his eyes and taut paleness of his skin. These three people, whom she loved in different, and – in her mother’s case – problematic, ways, were the core of her family. They were who she’d have left if Lauren didn’t come home.
Getting abruptly up from her chair, she said, ‘I’m going to take a shower.’
‘Let me run it for you,’ Berry said, getting up too.
‘No, really there’s no need.’
‘You should try to eat something,’ her mother said, turning from the window where she’d been staring out at the night, watching planes going over, or perhaps sending silent messages to Lauren via the stars.
Emma didn’t bother to say she wasn’t hungry, her mother would know without being told.
‘Is there anything I can do?’ Harry offered.
‘It’s OK, I can manage,’ she replied.
They were treating her like an invalid and she didn’t blame them, because she felt like one, but she didn’t want it to become about her when the only one who mattered was Lauren.
Understanding that taking care of her was the only way they had of taking care of Lauren, she told herself to accept their concern, and allow them to help her, just not tonight. She needed to be alone now to try to lose herself in the oblivion of sleep, with a phone next to her pillow in case Will rang.
Half an hour later, after showering and washing her hair, she was standing in the doorway of Lauren’s room staring at all the things that made it Lauren’s: the guitar in its case; the electronic keyboard, piles of sheet music, jeans and belt abandoned across the back of a chair; trainers askew and unlaced in the middle of a rug; the muddle of make-up, hair clips and brushes on the dressing table; the wardrobe with clothes hanging from the doors; the boxes of books and posters yet to be unpacked; the bag she’d brought home with her on Saturday when she’d seemed so full of excitement and ready to conquer the world.
What had she been hiding in her mind then? What kind of secrets had made her eyes glow so brightly and her laughter bubble up as pure as a spring? How did she know the Osmonds? What promises or temptations had they put her way to make her so joyous and dress the way she had to go out?
Why were they saying they didn’t know her when they surely must?
Why had she taken her flute?
Hearing someone coming up the stairs, she dragged her hands through her wet hair and sat down heavily on the edge of the bed.
‘I wasn’t sure whether to tidy it up or leave it as it is,’ her mother said, coming into the room.
Staring absently at the small desk where Lauren’s laptop and schoolbooks were piled, Emma replied, ‘You made the right decision.’ This way it was ready for Lauren to step back into, just as she would have on Saturday had the Osmonds not tempted her to Glastonbury, and the Lomax boy hadn’t got drunk and with the arrogance of young men of his age and background thought he could get away with driving his car.
Will was right, Oliver Lomax had to pay for what he’d done.
‘There’s obviously not enough room for us all to stay here tonight,’ her mother said, ‘so Harry has booked a couple of rooms at the pub. We thought you should decide who you wanted to stay with you.’
Feeling a wave of resentment creeping over her, Emma buried her face in her hands. Why should she have to choose between them, decide whose feelings she was going to hurt, when they were perfectly capable of sorting it out themselves?
‘I’ll understand if you want it to be Berry or Harry,’ her mother said.
Emma’s head came up. ‘Just as long as it’s not you? Is that what you’re saying?’
Phyllis’s face paled.
‘It would be far too awkward for you to deal with me on your own while I’m in an emotional state, wouldn’t it?’ Emma accused, getting to her feet. ‘Well, don’t worry, I’m not asking you to.’
‘Emma, you misunderstood,’ Phyllis began as Emma brushed past her.