‘We have explained to your husband that a fair percentage of teenagers do this sort of thing from time to time and they are back within a few hours. Worst case, as with your daughter, a few days. Unless you have a particular reason, exceptional circumstances, to believe that she might have run away?’
‘No, of course not.’
‘Or that she was in touch with someone, via the internet perhaps, whom you would not have approved of?’
Kurtiz closed her eyes, picturing the empty diaphragm case upstairs.
‘You mean a man she might have met online?’
‘That will almost certainly not be the case, Mrs Ross. She’s from a happy family. Your husband’s a successful high-profile face. We are simply investigating all options.’
Dear God, no. She slapped off the phone, shoved it into her jeans pocket and scaled the stairs two at a time.
She needed to keep her head, be systematic, think clearly. She entered the master bedroom, the room where for some time now she had been sleeping without Oliver, and methodically she checked everywhere, cupboards, drawers, wardrobe, pockets, scouring for a note. A secret message left for her eyes only, perhaps? Here’s why I begged you not to go, Mum …
It was easier in here. She could breathe; the room had an order to it. Even so, she found nothing.
If Lizzie had disappeared with friends, who would she have gone with? What day was it? Saturday. Who might she be with? Angela Fox? Lizzie’s best friend. She should call Angela. She tugged her phone from her jeans and stabbed at it, waking up the screen, scrolling in search of Jenny Fox, Angela’s mother. Hadn’t Lizzie mentioned that Angela’s parents had separated and were going through a divorce? It was the reason she’d given for spending a fair amount of time over at the Fox house, ‘offering moral support to Angie’. Lizzie stayed the night there more frequently than Kurtiz felt comfortable about but Oliver saw no reason to be concerned. Lizzie’s pal was going through a bad time and they ought to give Lizzie space for that, he’d said.
Kurtiz was still scrolling back and forth, searching for a number. The Fox landline or Angela’s mobile. She was sure she had both listed. Finally, she found what she was looking for. And then it was ringing.
‘Hello?’ A female voice.
‘Angie?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Angela, it’s Kurtiz Ross, Lizzie’s mum.’
‘Oh.’ The girl coughed. ‘Hi, Mrs Ross, erm, Kurtiz.’
She hesitated. ‘Angela, I’m sure someone has already been in touch with you and asked this, but … is Lizzie with you?’
‘No, she’s not.’
Pause.
‘She’s not at home …’
‘Yeah, I heard. Sorry about that.’
‘Did she mention to you any plans she might have had for this first week of the holidays?’
‘I haven’t seen her in a while. Except at school. I already told the police. Sorry.’
‘Haven’t seen her in a while? How long is “a while”?’ Pause. ‘Angela? Angie, are you still there?’
‘Not for a couple of months.’
A couple of months?
Had the girls fallen out? Lizzie hadn’t mentioned any rupture. Kurtiz was trying to recall when Lizzie had last asked for permission to spend the night with her best friend. Hadn’t it been the weekend before she had left for Jerusalem?
There had been a concert, or a club outing that had necessitated staying over at Angela’s place.
‘Aren’t you both still in the same class?’ When had Kurtiz stopped paying attention to her daughter’s schedule?
‘School broke up for the summer this week.’
‘Yes, I know, but … Angie, is there anything you can tell me that might –’
‘Sorry, Kurtiz, I’ve no idea where Lizzie’s got to. I’ve got to go now.’
They were silent in the living room, she standing, Oliver still sitting as though he no longer possessed the ability to lift himself upright. They were looking at each other, resisting blame, trying to put the difficulties, long brewing within their marriage, to one side, to focus on the reality that was staring at them. The one soul they would both have given up their lives for; the link that had bonded them for close to two decades in spite of everything. Lizzie. Little Lizzie.
Everyone starts out with a dream of how they think it will turn out. Kurtiz’s had been in this house, this home, with Lizzie and Oliver. She had sacrificed her own early ambitions for that dream. And now she was staring at rubble.
‘I just spoke to Angie … Was there a disagreement, a bust-up between her and Lizzie?’
They were looking at one another as though in the heart of the other lay the answer, the end of the puzzle. Where was Lizzie? What glimmer of hope remained that she would be found, that she was safe?
‘Where were you, Kurtiz? Why didn’t you return my calls? I’ve been going mad.’
She glanced at the empty wine bottle on the floor by the chair leg.
‘And, yes, before you start, please don’t start, don’t fucking start, because, yes, I’ve had a drink or two.’ Oliver’s hands were now covering his face. He was weeping, his back heaving, coughing, a smoker’s hacking, spluttering, crying, like a child.
Was this what had driven Lizzie away? The sight of her father weakened by alcohol? Kurtiz stifled the rush of impatience, the frustration that threatened to explode within her. Instead, she crossed the room, dipped to her knees and laid a hand on his lifted arm, holding it firmly but not aggressively. ‘Oliver, okay, fine or not fine, you’ve had a drink. That’s over now and I am here. Listen, hush. Please, hush. What counts is finding Lizzie, getting her back with us again. We’ve got to stand together, Oliver, and find Lizzie.’
But they never did find Lizzie.
The media had a field day. TV actor’s daughter … Mother away from home, working with an all-male crew … Photos of Oliver in his heyday and now surprise-snapped as he sloped out of the house, dressed in old jeans and a pyjama top, face raddled, a devastated man. The paparazzi camped at their gate. It seemed to go on ad infinitum, until it stopped. One day they were gone. They were gone, but there was still no Lizzie.
Paris, November 2015
The wind was gaining force. Iron shutters were rattling lividly, rattling like her nerves. Kurtiz was standing in the street, a street she had never walked along before tonight, in a city she knew well and of which she had many happy memories. This was Paris, not a war zone, or it had not been until tonight. Paris, where she had hoped to find Lizzie. To heal the rift. To beg her forgiveness. To start to understand.
The woman who had been waiting for her son had disappeared. Her boy had been located. Shocked, but unhurt. The streets were emptying. The night was biting. How many bodies remained inside the concert hall? Should she hang on until the last, the very last, corpse had been retrieved and brought out? Or should she find Oliver and go to him? Whatever their differences, she should be at his side. He had done his best. But even the power of his love had not brought their Lizzie back. His gamble had been misguided. There was no Lizzie.
Then a thought struck her. Many of the victims both living and dead had checked their coats and bags into the Bataclan’s cloakroom. Their identity cards were not with them. Others had fled. leaving their belongings with passports and papers behind them. It was causing pandemonium for the identification process.
Might there be a coat, belongings, some trace of Lizzie’s presence locked in among the pyramids of winter wear, the possessions of fifteen hundred people? Kurtiz hurtled back across the street, barely avoiding a speeding motorbike, which screeched to a halt, ploughing her way through the handfuls of mourners, the weeping figures, the new arrivals who had stopped to lay flowers, to light a candle, say a prayer. She beat her fists against the Bataclan’s door. A gendarme on duty outside came to her aid.
‘Madame, I think I’ve warned you already tonight, more than once if I’m not mistaken, that the door is locked and you cannot gain entry.’
; ‘I have to get in.’
‘No, Madame.’
‘My daughter’s coat,’ she was sobbing. ‘A leather jacket quite possibly. She loves leather. In the cloakroom.’
‘The place has been cordoned off. Only forensic and security have right of access now, Madame. You must respect this.’
‘It might be a way for me to know,’ she wept. ‘If I could just go through to see …’
‘Out of bounds.’
‘How many bodies are still in there?’
He scratched at his face, uncertain, loath to reject her, to cause her more anguish. ‘You must be patient. There are others, many, in the same situation.’
‘Please.’ The many meant nothing to Kurtiz. Selfishly, it was only her one that counted.
‘Telephone the helpline. Here.’ He pulled a ragged slip of paper from one of his pockets. On it was a series of digits written large with a ballpoint pen. She glanced at them. ‘Ring them, register your search. They will help you.’
She accepted the scrap of paper.
‘Do you have someone to accompany you, access to transport? You should get some sleep.’
She shook her head.
‘Wait here,’ he soothed. ‘I‘ll be back directly.’
Sirens were still hee-hawing in every direction across the eastern section of the assailed capital, more distant now, most of them, as though the batteries were winding down after so many hours, so many trajectories back and forth. She closed her eyes, her forehead against the locked door she was barred from entering where a torn poster flapped, danced and scuffed her cheek. She took a backwards step from the old vaudeville hall. Yes, she should get some sleep, but where? The hotel across the city she had booked a million years ago and never checked into? She couldn’t even recall its name. Or she should find Oliver? But she had nothing with her, no purse, no identity papers, no change of clothes, no washbag. Only her Leica. She couldn’t think where she had disposed of everything. There was a hole in her memory. At the café where her evening had begun? She pressed her spine against a stone wall, unloading her weight. A wall with black and yellow graffiti drawn in bold strokes across it. There were few vehicles about now. Intermittent violet spinning beacons.
Two corpses, oversized by layers of covering, appeared in front of her. They were being wheeled out of the theatre. Four uniformed figures ran towards them, stepping backwards in hefty boots, guiding the gurneys to a pair of trucks parked across the street. The inanimate shapes were lifted for loading and slid gently into the vehicles to be driven to hospitals or overcrowded city morgues. Bodies covered with white blankets resembling horizontal ghosts. Either of those corpses might be her daughter’s.
‘Wait,’ she cried, voice hoarse. ‘Wait.’ The quartet who had stepped back from the ambulance turned.
A police officer, two, hurried towards her.
She begged frenziedly to be let through to approach the medics, to peel off the blankets, to reveal the faces, to confirm identities, but she was driven back. ‘You must remain behind the cordons. There are no exceptions. Respect for the dead, please.’
All her effort for no reward.
Earlier, she had managed to insinuate a path through a temporary, rigged-up medical camp where many wounded had lain in the street while they were injected, syringed, massaged. She had confirmed that none was her daughter. She wished she hadn’t looked at the dead faces, bruised, the hollowed-out expressions contorted with fear. Eyes closed now. Rigid and drained of animation. The images might pursue her for all time.
Pursue her for all time … Just as Lizzie’s words had echoed from the pages since the day she had found the remnants of a notebook crumpled and rolled beneath her sheets. A draft letter addressed to someone? Or random thoughts? She had no idea … If Mum had been here, none of this would ever have happened … I can’t wait to see you … Lx The sentiment had been followed by pages of wild, tormented scribbles, and the remnants of torn sheets of paper.
Kurtiz had begun the process of putting the room back together. Each day a few hours … hours spent in Lizzie’s company, her private world. On that particular day, to strip Lizzie’s bed, inhaling, stroking the cotton pillowcases in search of the girl. It was where she had found the remnants of the destroyed notebook, weeks after her daughter’s disappearance. She’d perched on Lizzie’s desk to read it, handwritten in blue ink, her fists clenched about the pages, trembling. Was it something she should give to the police, confide in Oliver? She couldn’t. She’d intended to. Every day she’d promised herself, but she was too ashamed. Eventually she’d ripped out that one page, kept it, folded it into a stamp-sized wedge and slipped into her wallet. It was still there.
Her bags were with the old lady, she recalled all of a sudden. The actress. She had left them in her car. She must retrieve them. She had no money for a taxi. There were no taxis, no public transport. She was obliged to walk the length of the boulevard Voltaire in the direction of Bastille, to make her way back to rue de Charonne. She took tentative steps, one foot in front of the other. Her back was screaming from the weight of the three bags she had been hauling about with her earlier.
She pulled out her phone, tapped the Twitter icon. Her fingers were so numb she could barely spell out the letters and figures. My daughter Lizzie Ross was at the Bataclan tonight. Possibly with her father, Oliver Ross, who has been hospitalized. If anyone has any news of their whereabouts, please DM me. Damn. She was thirty-four characters over. She divided the plea into two and tweeted both parts.
The phone responded with a notification in a white square: ‘Low battery. 10% power remaining.’
Had the message got through?
She was staggering along the street, drunk with exhaustion. The sky above her, ash grey.
Someone, a stranger, returned her tweet with a hash-tagged message.
#porteouverte. ‘Open door. Contact us if you need somewhere to sleep. We are in 11th arrond. Are you nearby?’
Another came through. #porteouverte. ‘How can we help you? Bed? Ride to hospital? We speak English.’
The phone was buzzing now with responses, dozens of offers of assistance. Paris to the rescue. She flopped down at the pavement’s edge to scan the kindnesses. Might there even be a tweet from Lizzie? Should she accept one of these invitations before the power on her phone blanked out or should she continue on to rue de Charonne?
And then to her astonishment a message flashed up from Alex. Her heart skipped a beat, a catch in her breath, as though she were inhaling through a rusty pipe, but before she could open the text, the screen on her iPhone went dark. The phone was dead; her charger was in her luggage. She slapped at the screen, bullying it. Nothing. That decided her. Back to rue de Charonne. This was the destination she would make for with a shot of renewed energy.
A few steps further, she stumbled, tripped over a loose paving stone, lost her footing and found herself back on the ground. Her first instinct was for her camera bag. Its strap had twisted and the camera was balancing on her back but not damaged. She remained slumped there in an eerie pre-dawn light, hands and arms grazed, head thumping from the blow she’d suffered when someone had hurled her against a wall. She was not seriously hurt, no ankles twisted, no bones broken; she was simply dead beat and within her was a pain, a dread that was gathering in momentum as though someone had struck a match to a fuse and the flame was slowly, ineluctably burning its way to the bomb.
Would Oliver survive? There had been a time, those joyous early years, when she had loved him so. Oliver, with his film-star good looks and his hazel-eyed charm. She had never stopped caring for him, had she? All the way through, even during the rough patches. She’d been there for him. Whatever Lizzie had believed, she had loved them both.
Kurtiz, London, June 1994
It was nearing the end of Kurtiz Fellows’s first year at drama school. London was sweltering. She was looking forward to some time out in the Kent countryside at her parents’ home. But, before the term ended, three weeks of showcases
had been scheduled for the final-year students’ graduation. The task of the first-year students, including Kurtiz, was to assist in the backstage maintenance of the shows. Three plays: each to be performed in front of an invited audience for four nights. This gave those who were soon to be seeking work as young actors the opportunity to display their talents to directors and agencies, both theatrical and casting.
Oliver Ross had been awarded the leading role of Stanley in A Streetcar Named Desire. From the moment Kurtiz had first set eyes on him, she had been smitten, dreaming up romantic encounters, which she knew would never come to pass. He was tall, Byronically handsome, while she was new to London and green as a cabbage.
The drama school was situated in a rundown Victorian church in north London. Kurtiz cycled there from her room in Gospel Oak. On several mornings that summer she spotted Oliver sitting under an oak tree in the front yard, speaking lines of dialogue from his script with an American accent while gesticulating nobly.
Kurtiz never doubted that he would make a magnificent, charismatic Stanley. As she watched, padlocking her bike to the school fence, he appeared to her so marvellous and self-assured.
A handwritten list went up, pinned to the cork noticeboard in the lobby. Kurtiz stared at it. She had been allocated the task of ‘dresser to Mr Ross and Mr Dennis’. Terry Dennis, another third year, had been cast as Mitch, the secondary male role in Streetcar.
‘Lucky you,’ squealed several of her classmates.
‘I’d rather be undressing Mr Ross,’ sniggered another.
Kurtiz was not sure what dressing Mr Ross and Mr Dennis involved but, whatever it was, butterflies were taking flight in her stomach and they refused to settle. She dared not let her imagination run away with her.
Several days later, she spotted Oliver in one of the rehearsal rooms, his chocolaty voice bouncing off the empty spaces. She was about to creep in and introduce herself as his dresser when she saw, standing close to him, the petite student who was to play Blanche DuBois, his leading lady. Kurtiz held back, ogling them through the door’s gap, her lips pressed tight against the wooden frame. They were working through the text, as though it were a choreographed ballet. Pausing, going back over certain lines, scribbling notes in their well-thumbed copies of the play. Kurtiz, green with envy, observed how the confident Sally Treaves glided her hands over Oliver’s body – was she acting or flirting? How he turned about her, stalking, taunting her: a bullfighter in the ring. ‘One day he’ll be a star,’ Kurtiz muttered to herself. ‘No woman will be able to resist him.’
The Lost Girl Page 14